Harbour Lights – Part 1: The Last Ferry

The café on the Landungsbrücken stayed open until the last ferry had left the quay, and Elin always locked the door at 11:40 with a sigh of relief. Tonight the rain had turned the harbour into a silver sheet, and the lights of the cranes on the far side blurred into smears of gold.

She had already turned off the espresso machine when someone knocked on the glass.

A man stood on the wet step, soaked to the skin, a canvas bag over one shoulder and an expression of mild despair. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark blond hair plastered to his forehead and the patient look of someone who had been waiting for a boat for a very long time.

"The ferry," he said, through the glass. "I missed it."

"Everyone misses it," said Elin. She opened the door a crack. "The next one is at six."

"Is there coffee?"

"There's always coffee," she said, against her better judgement. "Come in before you drown on my step."

He came in, dripping on the tiles. She handed him a towel from behind the counter and set a cup of coffee on the nearest table, black, strong, the way the regular fishermen liked it.

"Thank you," said the stranger, wiping his face. "I'm Jonas. I'm a surveyor. I came to measure a bridge on the Elbe, and the bridge was fine, and the weather was not."

"Elin," she said. "I own this place. I'm also very bad at closing on time."

"Clearly," said Jonas, and smiled, a slow, tired, lopsided smile that made her forget, for a moment, the last receipt she had to file.

She sat across from him, because it was raining and the café was empty and because she had been alone at the counter for six months, and was tired of the sound of her own thoughts.

"Do you come here often?" asked Jonas, in careful, slightly formal English.

"Every day," said Elin. "I opened it three years ago, after my father died. He used to sell tea from a cart on this quay. I wanted a room that felt like his cart, only warmer."

"It's warm," said Jonas. "It's very warm."

She looked at him. He was looking back at her, quietly, with a kind of attention she hadn't felt from anyone in a long time.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes."

"Why did you really miss the ferry?"

He turned his cup slowly in his hands. "Because I didn't want to get on it," he said. "The bridge job is finished, and I was supposed to go home to Stuttgart, to a flat with nothing in it except a bed and a lot of drawings. I stood on the quay and realised I didn't want to go back to that. So I let the boat leave without me."

Elin's chest tightened. "That sounds lonely."

"It was," said Jonas, honestly. "And now I'm sitting in a warm café with a stranger who's giving me free coffee, and I think I'd like to stay for the next ferry too."

She laughed, softly. "You can't stay until six. I have to sleep sometime."

"Then I'll sit on your step," said Jonas, grinning, "and watch the lights until you let me in again."

"Can I ask you something else?" said Elin.

"Yes."

"Would you like to stay here, with me, for an hour? Not because of the ferry. Because you want to talk to someone who isn't a bridge?"

Jonas's face softened into something gentle and surprised.

"Yes," he said. "Very much."

They sat across the table for an hour, then two, watching the rain on the window and the lights of the harbour swaying on the black water. He told her about the bridges he had surveyed, the rivers he had crossed, the nights he had spent in strange hotels with a bottle of wine and a notebook full of numbers. She told him about her father's cart, the smell of Assam and cardamom, the first winter she had nearly closed the café for good.

When the clock behind the counter reached two, Jonas leaned forward, his hands clasped on the table.

"Elin," he said. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Would you let me kiss you, before the next ferry leaves without me? Or before I fall asleep on your step?"

Her heart pounded. "Yes," she said. "And if I say stop, you'll get your coffee and go find a bed."

"Agreed," said Jonas, and leaned across the table, slowly, careful not to knock the cups.

His kiss was warm and gentle, tasting of coffee and rain. Her hand found his, and he held it, steady, as if he had been waiting for the chance for hours.

"Green?" he murmured.

"Green," said Elin. "Very green. But you're not sleeping on my step."

"I'll sleep on your sofa, then," said Jonas, grinning. "If you insist."

"I insist," said Elin, and laughed, and turned out the last of the lights.