In the first week, Selma photographed snow through the window. In the second, she stopped sending pictures to her friends on the coast. In the third, she learned which part of the sidewalk she could use without fearing a fall. In Luka's city, everything worked: buses, heating, queues. Only her days seemed to stand still, without the smell of salt or visits that needed no advance arrangement.
Luka had found her a job at his friend's company. He had furnished the apartment before she arrived. For summer, he had already paid for a mountain house with his friends. When Selma suggested a few weeks on the coast, he reminded her she had lived there for thirty years. "It's time for something new too," he said gently, entirely convinced he was speaking for both of them.
At the winter festival, his company rented a hall made of ice. The tables glowed blue. Selma received an oversized protective coat and a glass she could not hold while wearing gloves. Luka's colleagues discussed her move as a happily completed task. One said she would adjust as soon as she stopped comparing everything with the sea.
Luka went to greet the director. Selma headed toward the exit, but the passage led to an exhibition area, then a hallway behind a curtain. Her phone shut down in the cold. For several minutes, she did not know where the main hall was. She was not in serious danger, yet stood completely lost among walls through which other people's lights were visible.
A worker collecting glasses found her. She took Selma to the cloakroom and brought tea. Selma cried with relief, then anger that ordinary warmth had required so much explanation. When Luka arrived, he said he had looked for her at their table. She replied that for months he had been looking for her only in places he had chosen.
They did not break up that evening. The next day, Selma went to the coast and stayed ten days, working remotely. Luka came for the final weekend. For the first time, he brought no sightseeing plan. He sat with her outside a bakery, listening to the people she greeted and realizing how much life she had left behind by moving.
They made a new agreement. They would spend part of the summer there, and Selma would choose a job independently of his friends. She bought her own return ticket. In their apartment, they moved the table to the window and cleared a shelf for her books. Snow was still falling. This time, Luka asked whether she wanted a walk or to stay home. That small question warmed her more than the carefully chosen coat.