Vedran entered the compartment and found his wife taking off her gloves. Their divorce was scheduled for the following month. They had lived apart for three years, speaking only about their shared house and bills. "What a coincidence," Dunja said, moving her bag from the seat opposite.
They were traveling toward the coast. Vedran was visiting his sister, while Dunja said she had a business conference. Once, her carefully arranged traveling clothes would have seemed cold to him. Now he noticed the tiredness around her eyes and began wondering whether they had both agreed too quickly to the distance that had felt like a relief at the time.
They talked for almost two hours. Dunja asked about his mother and remembered the anniversary of his father's birth. He thought perhaps they could finally speak without their old contest over who had given more. When the attendant brought coffee, he paid for both cups. She gave that familiar, brief smile.
As they approached the station, she took out a small mirror and adjusted her hair. Her phone lit up with a message: "The photographer is on the platform. Stay together." Vedran did not ask to see the screen. He simply read what lay on the table between them and felt the conversation he had just valued changing behind his back.
Dunja ran a relationship counseling practice. Since a public argument with her business partner, rumors had circulated about her marriage. She said she needed one calm photograph of them together, nothing more. She knew which train he was taking because he had told his sister his arrival time. She had bought a seat in the same compartment.
"I didn't lie about anything we discussed," she said. Vedran looked at the two empty cups. He believed at least part of their conversation had been sincere. That was precisely why it hurt. He explained that he would not provide a picture of a reconciliation that had not happened, nor deny her the right to preserve her dignity.
They stepped onto the platform separately. Dunja told the photographer the shoot was canceled. The next day, she sent her colleagues a brief notice that her private divorce proceedings were ongoing and that she would not use her marriage as proof of professional expertise. She lost several clients but stopped answering every rumor with another performance.
Later, she sent Vedran a message without a travel plan or photograph. She apologized for the way she had put him in that situation. When they met at the notary's office, they discussed selling the house and a tree she wanted to transplant. He helped her carry out the sapling. They did not reconcile. At last, they could do something kind without proving anything to anyone.