On Christmas Eve, Flavio was the only tenant in the Student House. The absence of his roommate had allowed him for a couple of days to isolate himself from the festivities that had taken over everyone outside. Between studying and daydreaming about his vacation with Claudia, Flavio tried to keep his despair at bay, which, like a ruthless beast, still clung to him, slowly but relentlessly sucking his vital energies. A cheap cell phone lay on the desk, while its owner eagerly awaited at least a message from the girl he was in love with.

Outside those walls, on the other hand, cell phones were naturally much more active than usual, used and abused by people in the grip of shopping attacks and endless as well as frivolous conversations of festive greetings. The mania of the futile pre-greeting had already broken out as a general rehearsal of the real greeting, the usefulness of which could be a topic of discussion that, valid or not, would not have affected the gratitude of the telephone companies.

Of all the calls that afternoon on Christmas Eve, there were some, few, that were not dedicated to courtesy. One of these was about to take place between two university departments. The reason why that call was about to take place was that the two future interlocutors were still in their respective offices of their respective departments, and the reason why they were still in office was constituted by the deadlines recently imposed by a project they were working on. That project had been wanted by Defense, involved four faculties of Sapienza and lately had put everyone under the whip to speed up the times.

Valerio Boccaccio stared at the windows of the spreadsheet open on the computer screen. He had worked on it for more than an hour, trying to extract meaningful information from a file of epidemiological data passed to him by his colleague from San Giovanni Addolorata.

He began to tell himself that at that time of that day he had to be at home with his wife Francesca, that doing statistical analysis of demographic data was not his job and that the pressures coming from the project leaders had caused him a lot of annoyance in the previous days. Those were annoyances of the kind that expose your nerves, the kind that bother you. Yes, he thought they made him feel decidedly annoyed. Annoyed and bothered.

He thought he hadn't felt so annoyed since... since he had caught the rain and skipped lunch to get that file. He thought back to the words that the boy from the rotisserie had said to him then: "You face the world as if it were a beast to tame", "you tend to assume an attitude of contrast with everything that you think might escape your control", "if you constantly expect something bad to happen, you increase the chances that something bad will actually happen".

That boy was smart. He was right on the money. Damn if he was right. Maybe he would never have admitted it in front of him, but he had gotten it all exactly the way it was. He had also been the first, in years of lessons, to understand his game with the parasite that does not infect human beings. That boy was very smart, he thought.

He was a statistics student, if he had had him on his hands at that moment, he could have put him to work on those demographic data. He deluded himself of working on the project and had also said that he liked medicine. Boccaccio even went so far as to think that he could offer him a doctorate in his own chair.

If it hadn't been for that idiot Nasoni, he thought even louder, they could have had assistants and collaborators to take care of those hassles. No one would have had to rack their brains on Christmas Eve. But Nasoni was an idiot, so no collaborators.

The boy from the rotisserie, on the other hand, was smart: if he had had a decent academic performance he could have been an excellent collaborator. Boccaccio decided that, in that case, he couldn't let a smart boy slip away because of an idiot...

«Yes, hello...» Nasoni answered phlegmatically.

«Enrico, I have something to ask you.»

«Who is it?»

«Don't you look at the screen of the receiver? Who do you think it is?»

«Oh, hi Valerio... for all you know, the screen of my phone might not even be working.»

«For all I know, you should recognize my voice even with laryngitis and, for all you know, today I'm the only one left to call you at work.»

«That's not true, my wife could also call me.»

Boccaccio snickered silently, Nasoni was such an idiot.

«Listen, I wanted to ask you about a student of your faculty: Flavio Mancini, do you know him?»

«Yes, of course, he took two courses with me this year. I don't know how, he found out about the project and he got the illusion that I could take him as a collaborator. Did he also come to you?»

«Not exactly, but I talked to him outside the university. Just out of curiosity... how is his academic curriculum?»

«Excellent, he passed both my courses with honors and he is practically a year ahead with exams.»

Boccaccio felt physically hit by all the swear words and insults that clogged his brain and gasped, remaining silent long enough to stop the curses that he had on the tip of his tongue.

«And you refused admission to the project to someone like that?» he raised his voice almost to a yell.

«Excuse me, it's not exactly news, we can't make exceptions. We can't afford it, Valerio: if something leaks out because of us, we lose practically all the grants, we would have to work for free...»

«With these rhythms we are already working for free! It is no longer sustainable to go on like this. They imposed discretion on us, but they gave us carte blanche on how to manage the staff involved. That you don't trust anyone is another matter!»

«Look, don't start again. I already have Captain Leanza who as usual does nothing but give us problems.»

«Don't tell me!» Boccaccio commented sarcastically. «And you as usual must have let yourself be cornered by a little girl...»

«A little girl my foot! She's worse than a dictator. I'd like to see you deal with that harpy!»

«Harpy, you say? She has always been very cordial and of a delightful character with me. You are the one who needs to learn to cooperate with people. Start by giving a chance at least to that boy!»

«No exceptions» Nasoni intoned monotonously. «We have already agreed on this with the other two faculties, we have to manage. After this period of overload...»

«...after this period of overload they will dump more manure on us to shovel!» Boccaccio interrupted eagerly. «Listen, you have to take that boy on board, I have a lot of work for him here.»

«It can't be done, period. As long as I remain the coordinator of the project here at the university, I will not accept any civilian student.»

«Enrico, I've had enough. Either you take him on board, or I quit.»

«Go ahead, how you will work then will be your business, I don't think the Ministry will have any problems replacing you. It's none of my concern.»

«And I instead make it your concern, because as a first thing I pass some research data of the project to any student and tell them to post it on a forum...»

«You would ruin yourself, like that» Nasoni warned him, «I don't think you would do it.»

«You don't? Watch me, I'd rather change countries than continuing this way. My wife would be happy to retire to the tropics with me.»

«You can't be such a bastard as to compromise us all...» Nasoni said suddenly tense.

«Maybe instead I can be... what do you say, do you want to take this risk or do we solve everything by taking Mancini?»

Nasoni snorted, chewed the air with frustration and then, with a superhuman effort of will, forced himself to recompose.

«All right, let's take Mancini» he gave in angrily «but I'm telling you right away that in my next report to General Leanza, I'll point out how we integrated Mancini behind your threat of violating the secrecy of the research.»

«These are matters of competence of the project coordinator. The military put you there and fill you with money for this very reason, right? How did you tell me? It's none of my concern. Merry Christmas, Enrico...»