The Ferry Bakery – Part 2: The Oven

The oven room was dark and hot and fragrant with yeast.

Eleni handed Nikos an apron and a bowl of dough. "Knead," she said. "Push, fold, turn. Don't strangle it."

He pushed, folded, turned. Flour flew. A smear appeared on his nose. She laughed so hard she had to sit on a flour sack. He kept going, grim and delighted, like a surgeon at a difficult operation.

"Is it alive?" he asked.

"It's alive."

"It feels alive."

"It's yeast."

"It's a miracle."

By noon, they had shaped twelve loaves. The old oven roared. When she slid them in on the long wooden peel, the room filled with the smell of warm bread and woodsmoke. Outside, the cicadas thrummed in the pines. The sea glittered through the open door, blue and gold.

They sat on the doorstep with two cups of coffee, waiting. The sun lay heavy on the whitewashed walls. A cat wandered over and settled in Nikos's lap.

"Can I ask you something?" said Eleni.

"Yes."

"Why do you write on the bags?"

"Because I couldn't think how else to say it," said Nikos. "I'd have written a book."

"What would it say?"

"That a doctor on a lonely island ate a loaf of bread, and it tasted like someone cared."

Her throat tightened. "That's lovely."

"May I kiss you?" he said.

"Yes," said Eleni. "And if you say stop, you must knead the whole next batch."

"Is that a punishment?"

"At four in the morning, yes."

He kissed her, floury and sweet, one hand rising to her warm cheek. She kissed him back, laughing, her fingers curling in his dusty collar. The oven ticked behind them. The smell of baking bread drifted out into the sun.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Eleni. "Very green."

The ferry now carries two paper bags every morning. One goes out with bread. The other comes back with a note, and sometimes a doctor.

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