It was raining again. A slow, steady stream of water fell from a light-grey sky outside his window, a hot spring rain with no wind blowing, a soft staccato rhythm against the cobblestones. The rain drops formed a pattern on his window, small trickles running together and apart again, like the rivers in a map. Below, on street level, pedestrians were hurrying home from work, most of them without an umbrella, their heads lowered while holding their collars closed in one hand and a newspaper over their heads in the other.
Kristian liked the rain.
It reminded him of his youth, the many times his family had gone sailing down the Swedish east coast. He had been in the small cabin below deck with his sisters, looking out the low windows at the waves outside, while his parents had been standing on deck, navigating. It was a pleasant memory.
He grabbed his long coat and brought out an umbrella from the closet. Rain or not, he needed to go outside to clear his thoughts. His work for the day was nowhere near ready to be sent away, but it had to wait until the evening or the next day; right now he wanted to feel the cool air against his face, his mind on nothing in particular. It was a ritual he followed almost every day, to wander down to the ports of central Stockholm and across one of the bridges. He needed it. His umbrella over one shoulder he opened the door and went out, humming a song about seas and Sunday mornings.
He went down the street looking at the trees and the old buildings, safe under his umbrella. Down by the harbor he walked along the rows of ships moving up and down with the waves, and watched a lonely, white sailing boat in the distance as it floated away toward the Stockholm archipelago. His mind was calm, and he felt at peace. There were always new tasks that needed to be done, new problems to solve, but as long as there were seas and ships and circling seagulls in the air, the world had a foundation to stand on. He sighed and smiled. "Perhaps I should have become a fisherman," he thought to himself, not for the first time.
On his way back home he stopped by a small store to pick up a newspaper, then stood in line at the counter, successfully avoiding the temptation to buy something sugary. Before him stood a young girl, carefully putting coins on the counter while the storekeeper was waiting.
"Fifteen and fifty, sixteen," she whispered in a low voice, then fell silent. A roll of French bread with ham rested on the counter next to the coins, and Kristian quickly calculated that the girl's money would not be enough. She bit her lip and looked down at the counter.
"Here," Kristian said, bringing out enough money for both his newspaper and the bread and giving it to the shopkeeper. "I'll pay for her too." The girl looked up at him, gratefully and embarrassed, and then pulled away her long, wet hair from her eyes.
"Thank you" she said, nodding, a reminder of an impulse to curtsy as a child.
"You're welcome," Kristian smiled. He got his change and went outside; the girl took her bread and left the store ahead of him. She positioned herself close to the outside wall to protect herself from the rain; her clothes were soaked through, and she clutched the bread tightly. Kristian took a few steps away from her, then stopped, and turned around. A voice in his mind told him that something wasn't right.
"Are you on your way home?" he asked. She nodded, then changed her mind:
"I am getting picked up."
He nodded, but thought to himself: No, you won't be. You are going to stand here until the rain stops, because you are cold, and then you will go home, because you cannot afford the bus. He wondered what he should do; offer her money for her ride home, perhaps? He already knew what he wanted to ask, but wondered if he really should.
"I live nearby," he heard himself saying, which settled the matter. "If you would like to you could keep out of the rain there while you're waiting."
She looked at him, once again pulling away the strands of hair that kept falling over her eyes. She wondered if she could trust him, and he could tell that she wanted to. So young, he thought. So innocent. He would be a gentleman, of course.
"Okay," she said. "Just for a short while." She stepped away from the brick wall and went over to him, and he gave her his umbrella.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Jenny. What is yours?"
"Kristian." He held his hand against her arm, protective, when they were about to cross the street and waited for a car to pass by. Her arm was thin under a wet jacket a few sizes too big for her. They hurried the short distance to his apartment, at the top of a beautiful red-tile building from the twenties. Kristian opened the door, and his home was warm and inviting as they stepped inside. Like many times before he was grateful for his habit of always keeping his apartment tidy, ready for unexpected visitors. "Welcome," he said. "I was going to have something to eat, so I hope you're hungry. And maybe you'd like to borrow a sweater and let your clothes dry for a while."
"Okay," she said. "Thanks." He showed her his bedroom and left her so she could change; in the meantime he made tea in the kitchen and heated up a piece of pie that he had only finished a third of earlier. He set milk, tea and pie on the kitchen table, which was made of light wood, and turned around just in time to see Jenny emerging from the bedroom. She hadn't put on the thick sweater he had laid out on the bed, instead opting for a thin blouse that a girlfriend had left at his place a month ago.
"I chose this one instead," she said. The blouse hang loosely down over a pair of woollen pants that he hadn't used in a long time; her feet were warmed by his slippers. "Does it belong to your girlfriend?"
He looked at her, and briefly compared her to the owner of the blouse. She looks so innocent, he thought. I wonder what my ex would say if she could see us now. "My former girlfriend," he replied while she sat down by the table. "She moved out of the country a while ago ... we broke up over the phone. So I still have some of her things lying around here."
She sat down. "Okay. So you're single?"
"Yes, for the time being." It didn't escape him that this seemed to be of interest to her.
They ate, and Jenny hungrily devoured most of the pie. While they ate he found out that she lived far away in the outskirts of the city, and that she had travelled here to see a friend. Jenny's boyfriend had recently broken up with her, and she needed someone to comfort her; she and her friend had gone out to a disco the night before, stayed out too long, and spent too much money. She was planning to walk home now, since she couldn't afford the subway. Kristian noted that the story didn't include being picked up by a friend, like she had claimed outside the store, but he didn't think about it. Of course she had been wary when talking to a stranger.
As it turned out, Jenny liked hot cocoa more than tea, and so they sat down together in a couch in the livingroom after their meal, sipping hot cocoa from oversized mugs while chitchatting and listening to ballads by Sophie Zelmani. The rain was tapping against the windows, creating a pleasing background noise; it was cold outside, but they were warm and dry together in Kristian's comfortable apartment. Evening came before either of them looked at the time.
"Maybe I should be leaving soon," Jenny said, turning her mug around between her fingers. "Thank you for letting me come up here."
"You're welcome. I can drive you home if you want me to."
"Thank you. You have been so nice to me...." She bit her lower lip, and took the step. "Isn't there anything I can do for you...?" She looked down at her hands and then up again, and they both knew what she meant.
