by Sofie Cramer
First Clara checks her voice mail. The calls are from Sven, who apparently tried to call her from his landline. But he didn’t leave a message, Clara registers with disappointment. Nervously she goes to check her inbox.
But what’s this? Clara can’t believe what she finds there. It feels like her heart is going to burst with excitement.
She has a text from Ben . . .
sven
Whew! That felt good, Sven sighs quietly to himself. He’s just getting back home after going for a long run along the waterfront.
Even though he’d slowed down to an easy jog for the last few yards, his heart-rate monitor suddenly starts beeping loudly as he’s climbing the stairs. Really he should be in good enough shape by now that climbing a few stairs shouldn’t be enough to make his pulse rise above 140 beats per minute, no matter how quickly he runs up them.
But now he’s got objective proof of how much power Clara has over him and his heart. He’s felt nothing but listless since she took off last night, and it was a struggle to get himself to work out this morning. But in order to at least get a little distance from the emotional turmoil he’s been going through, he made a point of not bringing his iPhone with him. And now with every step he grows more and more excited—could Clara have gotten in touch? At the same time, though, Sven is frustrated that exercising clearly hasn’t helped one bit.
But still, if nothing else his conscience is finally clear. After calling Clara three times on both her cell and her landline and getting no answer each time, he finally sent a text from his cell. He’d spent hours tinkering with it, weighing every word several times over. The draft that he’d saved weeks earlier had served as the starting point. But the text was also supposed to express how much he regretted not having sent it sooner. The fear of never really getting to know either Clara or Lilime is too much for him to bear.
But now there’s nothing Sven can do but wait and see if and how she might respond. At the same time, deep down, he already has to start pulling back and slowly clearing away the rubble so that he doesn’t continue suffering any longer than he has to. He can’t let his heart bleed out completely this time.
When he finally makes it upstairs, after what feels like an eternity, it seems like he’s moving in slow motion. Slowly and ponderously he drags himself to the kitchen counter, reaches for his phone and looks at the display.
Sven can hardly believe it. Suddenly he feels like his heart might finally give out. He’s got a text!
He’s got a text from Clara!
A weight the size of a giant cement block falls from his shoulders. If nothing else, she’s written back. She’s speaking to him. He can’t really fathom it, but there’s a big smile on his face and his shining eyes start to read:
Dear confidante, thank you for your courage, your openness, and your patience. What do you think about setting up another interview? Clara
Sven counts the letters and spaces. There are 139 characters. No doubt Clara had thought long and hard about every single word. He immediately hits Reply and types:
How about a long walk on the Elbe—long enough that at the end of it there are no painful questions left, only liberating answers? Sven
Not a minute goes by before an answer arrives.
Sounds wonderful. I’ll be waiting for you by the harbor tomorrow, 3 p.m. (sharp!) at the Kehrwiederspitze.
clara
As Clara is crossing the bridges over the Elbe she can’t help thinking of the little paper boat that, theoretically at least, must have found its way through Hamburg and out into the North Sea.
Of all things, Sven had proposed a walk along the Elbe! It feels almost as magical as the fact that it was really Ben who had led her to Sven—and thus helped her come back to life.
Though she’d mentioned the texts to Katja and Dorothea in the beginning, Clara hasn’t told anyone about them since, and she’s almost afraid that no one would believe her if she did. But that’s not important now. The only thing that’s important now is what she believes.
But what she believes at this moment is that, in a very real earthly sense, she is going to be late. This isn’t a ploy to get a little payback on Sven; on the contrary, in a sense she’s making things up to him, in that being late it puts her at a strategic disadvantage. She would much prefer being able to wait casually on a bench somewhere near the St. Pauli piers, that way she could watch Sven as he arrived and started looking around, trying to find her. Oh, how she’d like to watch him from a safe distance. To look on as he locked up his bike, this bike that he’s talked about so much you’d think it was his best friend. Or maybe to watch him running his fingers through his tousled hair. Only too much would Clara like to watch from a distance to see what kind of figure he cuts when he walks. She can’t really remember anymore. Ever since the first time they met at the train station they had always walked side by side and on the way to her apartment even arm and arm.
It’s now five to three, meaning it’s now impossible for Clara to get to the place where they’d agreed to meet in time. And even though she opts for the route that takes her through the Freihafen and HafenCity to avoid as many red lights as possible, it’s already ten past three before she’s even close to the Kehrwiederspitze. She has to maneuver her car into a tiny parking space, and it takes her several attempts to straighten out. The last thing she wants is to embarrass herself in front of Sven if he walks her to her car afterward, even less so if he gets in with her.
Walking quickly now Clara draws closer to the glittering water. The sun is shining, and clearly they’re not the only ones who had the idea of taking a walk by the harbor today. That must be him over there, waiting on a bench and enjoying the home field advantage. Or maybe not? Try as she might to pick him out of the crowd, Clara just can’t find him.
Nervous, she looks herself over again and runs her tongue over her teeth to make sure there are no lipstick stains spoiling her smile. She’d really like to run back to her car and use some of the breath freshener spray that she always keeps in the glove compartment.
When, after ten minutes, Clara still can’t find Sven anywhere, she checks her cell just to be sure. He might have texted to let her know he’d be late. But just as she’s about to open her flip phone, “Call From: Sven” pops up on the display.
Clara is now very happy that after hesitating at first she had dared to take the next step and replace Ben’s name with Sven’s in her Contacts.
“Where are you?” asks Clara and looks around searchingly.
“That’s a nice blouse you’ve got on.” Sven’s voice sounds confident and triumphant.
“Oh, you sneaky . . . where are you hiding?”
“Good thing you’re not wearing the same shoes you had on two days ago. They were definitely sexy, no doubt about that, but with those heels we wouldn’t have gotten more than a half mile . . .”
“Oh, come on, where are you?” Clara’s desperate longing grows ever more intense.
“Hey, I was on time!”
“And I wasn’t. Sorry. But you can cut it out with the payback routine now and show yourself already.”
“Turn around three hundred sixty degrees to the right and then a hundred eighty degrees to the left.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.”
“Just testing you. I mean, it’s not like you can park . . .”
“Oooh, you creep! I guess you like spying on young women, is that it?”
“Oh, sure. Especially when they’re as pretty as you!”
Finally their eyes meet. Clara sighs and waves at Sven, who she now sees is over across the street. He’s standing right across from her parking space, which suddenly looks gigantic from where she’s standing.
Sven walks toward her and they both put their phones away. Now their hands are free for a long, firm embrace. And when she feels Sven’s touch Clara can’t help it
, she has to fight back a few tears, even though, or maybe because, her heart is flooded with warmth.
* * *
• • •
When, after many steps and as many words, they reach a spot on the Elbe where they only encounter the occasional jogger or person out for a stroll, Sven suggests they start making their way back.
“You seem to have something else planned for me today,” Clara says and finally manages to smile again.
“Absolutely,” Sven replies softly and gently runs a finger down her face.
“But there’s one thing I still don’t understand. Are cell phone numbers really reassigned so quickly these days?”
“You know, I did look into that.”
“I see. Investigative journalism, right?”
“Exactly. But I still never found out the whole truth . . .”
Clara looks at Sven expectantly.
“I mean,” he says, “it is a bit strange. Because actually old numbers are only reassigned after a waiting period of six months from when the contract was terminated. So I guess it was just a technical glitch that brought us together.”
“Well, it was definitely a lucky coincidence, wasn’t it?” Clara replies softly and looks thoughtfully out over the water. She breathes in deeply. And because today with Sven she was able to unburden herself of so many thoughts, thoughts that she had kept deep within her and that she had to struggle to bring to the surface—because she has gotten so much off her chest already today, she now dares to say these next words aloud, smiling contentedly as she speaks: “And who knows? Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
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