Beneath the Rooftop Sky

It was a warm summer night and I was sitting on the rooftop as usual. I climbed up there after everyone else went to sleep. I could hear a jazz band still playing in a neighbouring bar. When I listened carefully, I could even make out the tunes. It was a Cole Porter song, the 'Love for Sale'.

The cat came out onto the roof shortly after midnight. It was the cat of a beautiful girl from the same block. She was a daily costumer in our bakery. She always bought two croissants for herself and a sausage roll for her cat.

Although I usually had to get up around 6 AM in the morning, I never missed this hour of relaxation on the roof. Even as a child I used to sit hours on the roof simply watching the sky and the rooftops of the neighbouring houses, enjoying the birdsong and playing with the cats that came and welcomed me. One would think that in a city you can only see sparrows and doves, but there are blackbirds, owls, woodpeckers and also swallows from early spring to mid-autumn.

Jenny, the girl I mentioned before, was the daughter of a well-known dentist. We went to the same high school, although we attended different classes. I always watched her from a distance. I was too shy to start a conversation, not to mention asking her for a date. She was in love with the son of a lawyer although everyone knew he was a jerk.

After finishing school, she went to university to become a doctor. This is something anyone would expect of a girl with straight A’s in her graduation diploma. In contrast, I started helping out in my grandfather’s bakery during my high-school years. So probably many people thought that I was a dummy, but I went off to study physics and I have just started my master’s in astronomy.

The night I was talking about, Jenny's cat was behaving strangely somehow. It came to me as if it wanted to tell me something. It took a few steps in the direction of Jenny's balcony and meowed as though he wanted me to follow him. He made me curious, so I went to check what was going on. Jenny’s window was wide open, and I could see her lying on the floor as if paralysed, unable to move, still holding a glass in her hand, the contents of which spilled onto the carpet.

I immediately called an ambulance. It came in fifteen minutes and took her away. The following day she was back. She came to the bakery, but looked pale and talked so quietly that I could hardly make out what she was saying.

“You shouldn't have saved me. You should have let me die.” she said almost crying. As I found out later, her boyfriend, the lawyer’s son, left her without any explanation and she was desperate. She did not know what to do.

Sometimes, when I saw her sad face in the following few weeks, I almost regretted saving her life, but, on the other hand, I was glad to have her around. For some reason I thought fate had something in store for both of us, and that time would heal all wounds.

It was several weeks after the incident that she first came out onto the roof. Dark clouds were gathering in the sky. It looked like it was going to rain. She was sitting next to me without a word, watching the clouds. I didn't want to be the first to speak. I was sure she would speak up if she really wanted to say something. After a while she broke the silence.

“Why did you save my life?” she asked.

“Probably because I’m selfish” I told her “I just could not let you die. I'm sure there is something we share, that fate had brought us together.”

“You are the guy from the bakery, but do I know you?” she asked.

“We went to the same high school and were in the same year” I told her “At the graduation ball I asked you for a dance, but your boyfriend did not let you dance with me. Your name is Jenny and I’m Tom.”

“Yes, I should have remembered you” she said “He was jealous of everyone. I should have had more sense. Well, I was head over heels in love with him, but I’m not any more.”

She stayed a few more minutes until the first raindrops started to fall. Then she said good night and left.

“Good night Jenny!” I said quietly. I was full of questions, however, I also knew that it would take time to earn her trust.

The following weeks, she came out onto the roof from time to time. At the beginning, we talked about people we knew, school matters, then mostly about ourselves. We were lonely. It felt good to talk to someone. After a while she was like a sister to me, even though I thought at the beginning that there could be a relationship between us. It looked like she felt the same way.

A few days ago, she again came out onto the roof, but this time she also brought a Sacher cake which she had baked herself. It was a chocolate cake named after a 19th century baker apprentice who first came up with the recipe.

It was the type of cake that my grandfather used to receive from one of his customers for his birthday. “An old friend,” he said, but did not tell us anything more about her. Jenny told me that she had found the recipe in her grandmother's memory book that her grandmother had given her before she died and which she now kept in a cardboard box under her bed.

“I've totally forgotten about this book, but after we talked about our families, I suddenly remembered it. Guess what! I have found out a family secret.” Jenny said excitedly. “As a girl, she was only eighteen at that time, my granny had a secret lover and she got pregnant by that boy. This was before she married my grandfather.”

“But why didn't she marry that boy?”

“I do not know the whole story, but it was probably all about money” she said. “Her father was a quite successful doctor. She came from a rich family. However, the boy was only a baker apprentice. So, I guess, that's why. But she never revealed his name to her parents.”

“I never really thought about it” she continued “but my grandfather was much older than her and as I got older I always felt a certain tension between them. He often referred to my mother as 'your daughter' as if he had nothing to do with her.”

“It's a very sad story.” I told her “How could she live her whole life without the man she loved? To raise a daughter without the father even knowing about her.”

“I don't think it was so.” she said. “Actually, they lived quite near to each other. According to the book, my grandmother even used to bake this Sacher cake every year for his birthday.”

It was my turn to be amazed: “My grandfather also got this cake from a friend every year for his birthday! It can’t be a coincidence!”

“There were love letters and there was also a picture in the book, an 18-year-old girl and a boy, two young lovers.”

She showed me the picture which looked familiar. I found a copy of it among my grandfather’s personal possessions after he died. He never talked about the girl and I always had a certain admiration for my grandfather because of this one secret that he could keep all his life.

Although I've seen the picture several times, I wonder why it never occurred to me that she was more than just an old friend. The similarity was far too obvious. It was like an old picture of Jenny and me. It finally became clear to me why I’d always felt Jenny was a sister to me.

We shared the cake and sat closer to each other. It was like finding someone you’d been searching for all your life. The jazz band played the Cole Porter standard ‘I've Got You Under My Skin’. The tunes of the music echoed off the neighbouring buildings beneath the rooftop sky.


(Wordcount 1407)