The Night Bakery – Part 1: Dough at Midnight

The bakery on Gumpendorfer Strasse opened its ovens at midnight and its doors at six. Greta had been hired on Friday, started on Monday, and by Monday at half past twelve she had flour in her hair and a growing suspicion that the head baker hated her.

"Fold," said Matthias, without looking up.

"I am folding."

"Gently."

"I am being gentle."

He glanced at her dough, and then, for the first time, at her. He was thirty, broad-shouldered, with forearms dusted white and a flat cap pulled low. "It is a sleeping animal," he said. "You do not shout at it."

"I did not shout."

"You glared."

She had. She met his eye. "Then show me."

Silence. Then he came around the bench and stood behind her, and set his hands over hers in the cool soft dough. They were warm and enormous and precise. He folded the dough once, twice, three times, like turning the page of a very old book.

"There," said Matthias, quietly.

Her breath caught. She could smell him, yeast and coffee and a trace of cedar soap. "Thank you," she said.

"It is nothing."

"It was something."

By four o'clock the first trays were out, golden and crackling, and the whole street smelled of butter. Greta ate a warm roll standing at the back door, watching the sky turn from black to blue.

"Can I ask you something?" she said, as Matthias joined her.

"Yes."

"Do you always talk this little?"

He thought about it. "No," he said. "Only to people I like."

She laughed so suddenly she dropped her roll, and Matthias, to her delighted astonishment, laughed too.

"Green?" she said, before she could stop herself.

"Green," said Matthias. "Very green. Come back tomorrow."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The First Loaf.