"The annual salary is doubled, room and board are included, and you will be promoted to sous chef after one year of work." When I rushed into the "Naples Hotel" holding this recruitment notice, I thought I had grasped a life-saving straw.
Until the chef handed me a crumpled stack of "Employee Code of Conduct":
"You must return to the dormitory after 22:00, and you are not allowed to open the door after 23:00."
"Wear the wrong uniform and don't talk to anyone."
"Calls coming in the early morning of Friday the 13th must not be answered."
I thought this was a strange rule of the hotel, until I heard sticky footsteps in the corridor crawling in through the crack of the door at midnight, saw the child in room 2003 smiling at the jointed doll, and found the code written in dark red ink on the back: "Don't trust yourself in the mirror, it's imitating your breathing."
When the clock struck midnight and the black hair in the crack of the door wrapped around my ankles, I could clearly see the torn-out last line of the manual -
"The ones who can escape are never the ones who follow the rules."
