The Night Ferry

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Dara had an audition in Helsinki at nine the next morning, and nothing in the world was going to keep her from it. She boarded the night ferry from Stockholm at ten o'clock, carrying her viola in a black case that she never let out of her sight. Halfway up the gangway, a crew member's trolley tipped over, and suitcases spilled everywhere. In the chaos, she grabbed a black case, which she took to be her own, and ran for her cabin.

She could not sleep. Not until half past midnight did she go up to the lounge, with the case on her knees, to watch the dark water. A tall man in a navy jacket came through the door, stopped, and stared at the case. "Hey!" he shouted. "That's mine! Stop!" Then he ran straight at her.

Dara did not wait to ask questions. Jumping up, she ran, the case pressed against her chest. She went past the closed duty-free shop, down a corridor where a cleaner was pushing a cart, and up a narrow staircase marked with a red sign. The man was right behind her, shouting words she could not hear over the engines.

The door at the top of the stairs led to the open deck, which had been closed to passengers after dark. The wind hit her like a wall, and the ferry lurched on a wave. She ran along the railing, and only when she reached the end of the deck did she realize there was nowhere left to go. She turned around. The man stopped three meters away, gasping, with one hand on his chest.

"Please," he said. "The case. Open it." "Stay away from me!" she shouted, lifting it like a weapon. He did not come closer. His face was gray, and sweat shone on his forehead in the light. "Please, there's a pocket on the lid. I need what's inside. It's not a violin problem." The clasp was already loose. When she pulled at it, the lid fell open, and Dara stared at what lay inside: a violin she had never seen before.

She had never opened the case on the ship, because the instrument needed time to rest before playing. Now, with shaking fingers, she checked the lid pocket. It held a small pouch with pens and a label: insulin. The truth arrived all at once. It was not her case that he had wanted to steal; it was his own medicine that he had been desperate to recover. The two cases had been swapped in the chaos at the gangway, he had been looking for her for an hour, and her viola was in his cabin.

She gave him the pouch. He sat on a bench, pulled up his sleeve, and used a pen in seconds. Slowly, the color came back to his face. Had she refused to open the case, he admitted later, things could have turned serious. "Thank you," he said. "I'm Jonas. I'm sorry I scared you. Your viola is in cabin 6041, and it's perfectly safe." They exchanged cases under the corridor lights a few minutes later.

The next morning, before her audition, Dara tied a red ribbon around the handle of her case. On the ferry's way out of the harbor, a man with a yellow ribbon on an identical case waved to her from the pier.