Bruno wanted to bring tram 4 back to the depot on time, before the snow made the rails slow and the night crew had to wait for him. It was Friday in December, and his late shift ran from Altstetten to Tiefenbrunnen and back through the centre of Zürich. At nine twenty, he expected one passenger at the stop near the Kunsthaus: a woman in a grey wool coat with a canvas bag on her arm.
She always sat behind his cabin and knitted until her stop at Bellevue. Each Friday, when she stepped off the tram, she gave him a small nod. “Good night, Bruno,” she said. “Good night, Nora,” he answered, watching for her in the mirror before he closed the doors.
That evening, Nora got off at Bellevue as usual, but a group of students came in at the same moment. Bruno rang the bell, closed the doors, and guided the tram into the dark street. At the next red light, he saw her canvas bag under the seat behind him.
He pulled it forward with his foot and looked inside after the last passenger had left at Stadelhofen. There were two blue knitting needles, a ball of dark green wool, and a scarf still attached to the needles. The scarf was long enough to cover both hands and half a neck.
Bruno took the bag to the lost-property shelf at the depot, but he did not leave it there. He wrote “Nora, Friday tram 4” on a piece of paper and put the paper inside. For the next week, he kept the bag in his locker beside his spare gloves and his thermos.
On Monday, he checked that the wool was still dry. On Wednesday, he held the green scarf against his black driver’s jacket for a moment, then put it back quickly. By Friday evening, he had cleaned the front window twice and arrived at the Kunsthaus stop three minutes early.
Nora stepped onto the tram with empty hands. She looked at the seats behind his cabin, then at the floor. When the doors closed, she came to the cabin window and said, “Bruno, I have lost something.”
He reached below his seat and lifted the canvas bag. Nora put both hands over her mouth, then laughed softly. “You kept it,” she said. “I thought you might need it,” Bruno said.
At Bellevue, she did not leave at once. She took the scarf from the bag and held it up against his cabin window. “I made this for you,” she said. Bruno looked at the dark green wool, then at her. “For me?” he asked. “You are always cold when you open the doors,” Nora said.
Bruno finished his route and returned the tram to the depot. Outside, Nora waited near the staff entrance with two paper cups of hot apple punch. Bruno put on the unfinished scarf, and they walked together toward the Christmas market at Münsterhof.