Across the Balcony
By Shelley Banks
The balconies faced each other across a narrow slice of Lake Como, close enough that voices could travel if the night was still. During the day, boats drew white lines across the water and tourists leaned over railings with cameras. But at night, the pace changed and a sense of serenity floated across the water.
Mara discovered the voice by accident.
She had stepped onto her balcony after midnight, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar rented apartment. The lake below was dark glass. She exhaled, and somewhere across the water, she heard someone speaking.
‘Sorry,’ the voice said, when it realised that Mara was there. ‘Didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘You didn’t,’ Mara replied. ‘I was already awake.’
A pause. Then: ‘Me too. Jet lag?’
“Something like that.’
That was how it began. No names. No faces. Just voices floating between wrought-iron railings and the slow breath of the lake.
They talked about small things at first. The echo of the church bells. The way the mountains rose up, secluding this section of the lake from the outside world. How the water changed colour every hour of the day. Sometimes there were long silences, comfortable ones, broken only by the lap of waves against stone.
Mara learned he came every summer. He learned this was her first visit. A bucket list destination.
‘It’s time I go inside and try and sleep,’ she said.
‘I should do that too,’ he replied.
The next night, Mara found herself back on the balcony. And across the way, so did Jake.
Again, they talked for hours, but neither mentioned meeting.
It became a rule without being said. For the next two nights, they stayed in the dark, voices only. Mara imagined him leaning on his balcony rail and wondered what he looked like. Did he wonder the same thing?
On the fourth night, rain fell suddenly, drumming on the lake. For reasons she couldn’t explain, Mara wanted to feel the rain on her skin.
‘You’ll get soaked,’ his voice called out.
‘So will you.’
By the edge of the lake, they talked about their lives, their jobs, families and friends, hobbies, childhoods. About dreams and plans.
‘I leave in two days,’ he said quietly.
Mara sighed. ‘Me too.’
Silence stretched, heavier than before.
‘We could meet tomorrow,’ he said at last. ‘Just once. In daylight.’
But Mara didn’t want to. She liked things just the way they were. It felt like something that would never happen again.
The next evening was their last. Both knowing they were about to go back to their real lives and whatever this had been, would no longer exist except in their memories.
When the lights went out across the water, they said goodbye.
Mara left early the next morning. As the ferry pulled away, she looked back at the line of balconies, all identical now in the sun, pinpointing the one that had been his.
At home, weeks later, she found herself standing on her own balcony late at night, listening to traffic instead of water. Life had started again, busy, loud, ordinary.
Then one evening, her phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
I found a balcony that reminds me of the lake, it read.
Mara stared at her phone. Some connections, she realised, didn’t need to be seen to be real.
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