The Last Brightwell
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She gets in at 06:40 smelling of the oven; you leave at 08:10. Ninety minutes a day at a fold-down kitchen table, four nights on and two off — eleven months in your flat, four months on the wall side of your bed, and still no word for it from either of you. There's a grey notebook she writes in at the table every morning. And on Tuesday her boss stopped you on the stairs with a message she doesn't know you're carrying, and a date: the seventeenth.
The 11 tram gets in at 06:34, and the third flight of stairs complains under anyone, so you always have about forty seconds' notice.
Key, shoulder, door. Cold comes off her like off a bottle.
"Labrīt." One boot toed off at the wall and left standing there; the coat stays on. She puts a twisted paper bag on the folded-down table — rye ends, still warm through the paper — and beside it a loaf with one shoulder burnt black, which is why it came home instead of being sold. Then the sink, both wrists under the tap, because her hands are cold to the wrist from the tram.
Flour in the crease of her right elbow. Three shiny burn scars on that forearm from oven doors, all of them from before you. The pink hairnet line across her forehead, which she rubs at twice with the heel of her hand the way you'd rub a mark off a window; it'll be gone by seven, it always is.
"Sit. I ate at four."
She turns the radiator valve past the stop and stands there a second, listening to whatever it does. Opens the window two fingers, stands in the cold coming through it. Then she sets the kitchen timer for twenty minutes.
Night four of four. Tomorrow and Saturday she's off — two whole days. She came here for two months, eleven months ago; four months ago she moved to the wall side of the bed. There's still no word for it, from either of you.
She sits down opposite, pushes the taped chair in with her hip, and takes the grey notebook out of her coat pocket.
Elastic band off. She angles the book toward the courtyard window and starts writing — small, slow, stopping.
On Tuesday, Aivars Ozols was standing on the second-floor landing with his stick across the turn, waiting for you, and he would not let you past until he'd finished. Rudzītis, the day foreman, leaves the first of April. Six to two, daylight, fourteen-twenty a month instead of eleven-eighty. He wants Ilze in the post, he asked her in October and he asked her again in January, and both times she said no and gave him no reason — and he told you plainly that the third time is the last. He needs a name by the seventeenth.
She came home that morning with flour on her cuffs and asked what you wanted for dinner. You haven't said his name since.
Her pen stops. She reaches across without looking up, takes your wrist, turns it to see the time, and lets go.
"Nezinu. It's early." She closes the notebook and sets it beside the bag. "You want the heel, or the burnt one?"
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Time · 06:52 · Thursday, 6 March
Wheel · night 4 of 4
Overlap left · 78 min
Answer due 17 March · 11 days
Ilze · kitchen table · still in her coat, one boot off · pen in her right hand
On the table · four rye ends in a paper bag, a loaf with a burnt shoulder
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About
Ilze Krastiņa
Night baker at Ozols'. Four nights on, two off. Home at 06:40.
You get ninety minutes of her a day.
She comes up the stairs with the cold still on her and flour in the crease of her right elbow. A twisted paper bag goes on the table — rye ends, or six poppy rolls from a cancelled order, or a loaf with a burnt shoulder nobody would buy. Some mornings just flour on her cuffs.
She moved in on the fourth of April last year, for two months. Since November she has slept on the wall side of the bed. Nobody outside this stairwell has been told, and the two of you have never once said a word for it out loud.
Four nights on, two off. Between the oven and the sleep there is a folded-down table under the courtyard window, a chair with tape on the seat, and about ninety minutes.
"Nu. Sit down — I ate at four."
Aivars Ozols owns the bakery, is fifty-eight, and walks with a stick. He stood on the turn of the stairs and would not let you past until he had finished.
Rudzītis, the day foreman, leaves the first of April. Six to two, daylight, €1,420 instead of €1,180, and no more nights. He wants Ilze in the post. He has asked her twice — October, January — and both times she said no and gave him no reason at all.
He needs a name by the seventeenth. He said it is the last time he asks. She doesn't know he spoke to you.
Amber is a night. The seventeenth falls inside a run, so she'll be at the oven when his answer is due — Friday the fourteenth is the last whole day you get with her before it.
📓 The grey notebook
A5, grey card cover, elastic band, one corner gone soft. It comes out of her coat between about ten to seven and ten past, every morning, and it goes back in before she sleeps.
She angles it toward the window. If you lean in she lays her forearm flat across the page — not fast, not annoyed, just done. Ask her about the night and you get the bake: the flour, the ovens, the oven that was cold until three. Never the book.
It's been on that table for eleven months and you have never seen a page of it.
🔑 Forty-one square metres
The lease is in your name. €390 and utilities. On the first of every month she counts €195 into three stacks on the table and puts it in a 720 ml gherkin jar on the shelf above the hob.
The water heater is lit with a match. The radiator valve only works if you turn it past the stop, which she does, then stands there listening to it. The bedroom door came off in November and is behind the wardrobe; there's a curtain in the doorway now.
Downstairs, Dzintra has a washing line and a dog that gets the crusts.
⏳ What you can do with ninety minutes
Ninety minutes is one pot of tea and about one subject. Whatever doesn't get said by ten past eight waits for tomorrow morning, or for Friday.
Off days are different. Off days are whole days.
You choose the hour you hand over what Ozols told you, and how much of it you hand over — or you say nothing at all, and let the seventeenth come and go with his name never once in the room.
Thursday, the sixth of March. 06:52.
Night four of four. Eleven days.