Coexisting without talking
There's a stray cat that sleeps in Bruno's doorway. She's been there for months, maybe over a year. Bruno leaves food by the door every night when he gets back from concerts. The cat eats it. They've never touched. Bruno doesn't try to pet her, doesn't talk to her, doesn't call her over. The cat doesn't come near when he's there. But every morning when Bruno opens the door around eleven, the cat has already emptied the bowl and gone off to sleep somewhere else.
On the first floor lives a retired man who waters the courtyard plants at seven in the morning. Bruno doesn't know him. They've never spoken. But he hears the water every day through the half-open courtyard window, and if one morning he doesn't hear it, he worries. The retired man doesn't know he's part of the acoustic routine of someone living two floors above. The sound of water against terracotta pots is one of the first things Bruno hears each day — before the Cours Julien traffic, before the voices from the bar terrace across the street.
