Maja wanted to remove the last two rows. The seats creaked, their upholstery was burned by cigarettes, and rain had once entered through the ceiling above them. The Traka cinema was due to reopen after eleven years. Her job was to find a program and an audience. Adis's job was to repair the projector, but he behaved as though every chair were a relative.
"People fell in love there," he said. Maja replied that people had probably fallen in love in the toilet queue too, but the toilet still needed fixing. The other volunteers laughed. Adis did not. He was fifty and had spent almost his entire working life there before it closed. Eight years younger, Maja mainly remembered canceled screenings and unsuccessful student dates.
One Saturday she found him carrying out the last row of seats alone. He was not throwing them away but dismantling them and marking the parts. He said he had found an upholsterer who would recover six for the cost of materials. Maja acknowledged the budget could cover them if they were safe. She sat on one and listened as Adis described the first time he projected a film without an older operator's supervision.
While cleaning the booth they found a cardboard box of unanswered letters from viewers. One was Maja's. At nineteen she had asked them to screen a film her mother loved. Her mother was ill then and unable to travel. No answer had ever arrived. Adis read the date and quietly said he had worked that week. The box had ended up behind a shelf before he opened it.
She was not asking him to apologize for her whole youth. Still, his belief that everyone had enjoyed a happy cinema hurt. Adis sat on the floor beside the box and stopped talking about golden days for the first time. He asked the film's title. Maja told him, then added that he should not program it for the opening out of pity. She wanted them to choose together for people coming now.
They opened with a documentary about river towns. The auditorium was not full, but the last six seats were occupied. Afterward Maja found Adis outside the box office with two tickets for the following week. The film from her letter was available through a small distributor. He had obtained it under a normal contract and asked whether she would watch it with him after the public screening.
She came. They did not sit at the back but near the middle, where the sound was best. Adis did not explain when she should feel sad. At the end she stayed until the lights came fully up, holding his hand on the shared armrest. The cinema was not yet earning enough for winter. The next morning they discussed that over coffee, as a problem they now had together.