When the Ferries Rest

For eight months, Mira sold Jonas the same sandwich at the ferry terminal. He collected it at nine forty, between tying up the final boat and cycling home. She always wrapped it in yesterday’s timetable.

One Thursday he unfolded the paper and found a correction in blue ink. The Sunday crossing had been cancelled.

“Engine work?” he asked.

“My sister’s wedding,” Mira said. “I copied the wrong schedule.”

He had not known she had a sister. She had not known he could play the accordion until he offered to find someone for the reception, then admitted that the someone was himself.

The wedding took place in a village hall. Jonas played too quickly when nervous. Mira’s uncle danced too slowly even when sober. Somehow they reached an agreement. Afterwards, Mira and Jonas stacked chairs together and talked until the caretaker turned off half the lights.

The next week Jonas bought his sandwich as usual. Neither mentioned the evening. A date seemed a much larger invitation than a wedding to which everybody had been invited.

Then the winter timetable arrived. The final ferry would leave an hour earlier. Mira’s kiosk would close before Jonas finished work.

“Very sensible,” she said, examining the notice.

“Better for the engine,” he said.

On the last late evening, the ferry was delayed by a broken loading gate. Mira waited with the lights on. At ten fifteen, the harbour supervisor came to tell her that the boat would remain across the water overnight.

She locked the kiosk, carrying two sandwiches because she had made one for herself.

The passenger boat had stopped, but the small maintenance launch still crossed when needed. Mira asked the supervisor for a lift. Halfway across she began to feel foolish. Jonas might have eaten. He might prefer being left alone. He might be asleep.

He was standing on the opposite quay holding a paper bag.

“The supervisor said you were waiting,” he explained. “I borrowed a bicycle. I thought I could take the bridge.”

The bridge was eleven kilometres upstream.

They looked at the two sandwiches and the two cups of soup in his bag. The launch driver asked whether either of them actually wanted to go anywhere.

“No,” Mira said.

They ate in the empty waiting room while the harbour settled around them. Jonas asked if she would have supper with him on Sunday, without a timetable involved.

Mira turned over the sandwich wrapper and wrote down the time.