At the corner shop you can borrow an umbrella. It is not a big thing, but in a city it is a big thing, because nobody ever carries an umbrella when they need one.
The owner was an elderly woman who wrote in a notebook which one each person had taken. She asked for no money. She only asked that you bring it back.
In September I took a green one, and the next day I brought it back.
“That isn’t mine,” said the woman. “That’s number eight.”
“Sorry?”
“My umbrellas are numbered. That’s number eight. You took number twelve.”
I looked at the umbrella. I really did not remember. In the morning I had taken one from the stand and had not looked at which.
“So what happens now?”
“Nothing. The other one will bring it back, and then we’ll swap.”
This went on for a week. Then it turned out that a woman had taken number eight, who had also not looked at which one, and was now walking around with mine.
The owner said this happened every week and that I should not worry.
A week later there was a note on the handle.
“Sorry, I think this is yours. I don’t know how to give it back, because we didn’t meet in the shop. If you’d like, I’ll be there on Friday at six. — 8.”
On Friday at six she was there.
She was nothing special. That is the most important thing I have to say about all this: there was nothing cinematic about it. A woman stood in front of the shop with a green umbrella in her hand, and when she saw me she said:
“This is yours.”
“Thank you.”
“And this is mine?”
“I think so.”
We swapped. Then we stayed there, because we were both heading the same way, and because a person does not walk off immediately once they have come.
“Do you always forget your umbrella?” she asked.
“Always.”
“I have for ten years.”
We laughed at that.
The first evening was only ten minutes. The second Friday, twenty. On the third we went into the café, because it was raining and there was no point standing in the street.
It turned out we lived in the same district, twenty minutes apart. It turned out we had both been using the same shop for months. It turned out we had already seen each other — in front of the stand, when we were both choosing umbrellas and neither of us looked up.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she said.
“What?”
“Not looking up.”
In November the owner said she was closing the shop, because she was retiring.
“And what will happen to the umbrellas?” I asked.
“I’m giving them away. Which one would you like?”
I said number eight. She said number twelve.
At home it turned out that number eight and number twelve are the same green, and that the numbers are only inside, on the handle.
Since then they stand in a rack in the hall. Sometimes we mix them up, but that no longer matters.
In fact, I think that is the best part of it.
