In the beginning, when he first arrived in Belgium, Fidalgo lived alone, like most of the other contractors. The company packed them like sardines into tiny apartments near the airport, in Diegem, and put others in Zaventem, and a few also in the center of Brussels. One studio apartment was already small and could barely fit one person. Not to mention the fact that the walls were made of cardboard and he often heard his neighbor, from watching football and cursing to doing his very personal things.

After two years, however, he decided to ask to be transferred to some new apartments that the company had. Some of the engineers, the Bulgarians who were very good at the cabin works, the company had them living there. Not many people knew about it. The apartments were not studios, but rather more spacious apartments with one bedroom. It was something that suited him and he had talked to his girlfriend about it several times. And so, after a lot of effort and sweat, they decided to do him the favor and move him there.

The apartment was on the third floor of a building that, if someone saw it from the outside, they would think it was uninhabited, that it was about to be torn down, or that ghosts and couples would party there before some big company demolished it. But when you went inside, you noticed that the building was still standing well, even though its dark blue painted walls smelled of mold and there was no elevator.

Fidalgo's room was on the third floor, as you went up the stairs, on the left. Each floor had two rooms and he knew that the Bulgarians lived on the fifth and sixth floors. They were good guys, but they didn't talk much.

As soon as one entered the room, through the painted dark green wooden door that creaked as if a dying man was emerging from his coffin, one would see the living room with the kitchen to the left. To the right of the entrance there was a wooden coat rack and a tiny white shoe rack that could barely hold three pairs of shoes. The beige three-seater sofa was facing a large wooden piece of furniture with three cabinets and a large television on top. A round armchair sitting on iron legs, one of those modern ones as Fidalgo called it, was to the right of the sofa. In front of the sofa directly, there was a small glass table with an iron grid underneath that had magazines from the 2010s.

To the left of the living room there was a small white kitchen counter and a kitchen. The kitchen was nothing more than two hot plates that plugged into a socket under a hood and a ‘smart’ microwave oven, which also worked well as an oven. Not that José cooked in the oven. But once he tried to throw some chicken nuggets in, and almost got food poisoning. The only big thing in the kitchen was a huge metal fridge with a freezer, which was enough for a whole family. The owner was proud of this fridge, because when he had gone to show the apartment to Fidalgo, he praised it, and at the same time was cursing the previous tenant who had broken the twenty-five-year-old fridge he had before. It was ‘a beast’, he said.

Apart from the wooden cabinets, in the kitchen there was a white table and only two white chairs with four white legs each. But nothing else special.

An imaginary corridor crossed and separated the kitchen from the living room and as it narrowed, it led to a room on the left, next to the kitchen. There, a double bed was squeezed in with a double-leaf wooden wardrobe, inside four blue walls. José had often wondered if the owner really liked blue.

The apartment didn't have an office, not that he needed one, just as he didn't need the imaginary corridor, since that was where he usually had his clothes thrown away when he was too tired to go wash them. The facilities didn't have any washing machines, and he had to go to Km Super Wash to do laundry.

Across from the room, and a little further, was the bathroom. The bathroom had a shower, not a bathtub, with curtains. The owner told him that he would put doors to the shower instead of curtains, but after a year, he had never bothered with such a thing.

The hallway ended in a dark dead end.

Apart from him and the three Bulgarians, no one else lived in these apartments. Not at least anyone that Fidalgo had seen or intracted with.

“This apartment, no matter how many times I see it, I like it very much.”

Fidalgo left the dark blue bag of the blonde-brown-haired woman in front of him, on the floor and closed the door.

“As much as you like it Anna, please take off your shoes. I just cleaned.”

The woman turned and smiled. “Hmm,” she said. “Since when is my boyfriend so clean?”

Fidalgo sighed and took off his shoes, before stepping further into the house. “Since always? How long have you known me?” he put his shoes aside.

Anna smiled and bent down to take off her own shoes. "That's true," she replied. "Sometimes I feel like we've known each other for ages. In theory, in a way, it's true," she stood up and went further into the house.

Fidalgo hugged her from behind. "Mm" he said.

Anna turned and looked at him. "Do you want me to cook you something tonight? Anything I can do on this kitchen."

Fidalgo closed his eyes. Then he opened them and raised his eyebrows. A habit he did often. His lines showed on his forehead. "That would be really wonderful. Thank you Anna" he kissed her on the cheek.

The woman took his hands off her waist and walked towards the kitchen. "I hope you have something in the fridge" she went and opened the large metal refrigerator in the kitchen. "Also" she turned and looked at her boyfriend.

Fidalgo raised his eyebrows again and urged her to continue.

"You need to trim yourself. You've grown a beard."

Fidalgo laughed.