Half past nine on Skipper Street and the last tram has gone. The fish market shut two hours ago, the awning over the bakery is still dripping, and you are walking home with your collar up.
She is on the curb by the tram stop the way she has been every night for three weeks: a small figure inside a grey-blue hooded jacket two sizes too big, a black backpack against her knee, a piece of cardboard propped in front of her feet. The hood is up. The cardboard is blank tonight, because someone has kicked the writing off it.
The man from the kiosk comes out and tells her to move along. She does not argue. She looks up, and looks straight at you.
"Silke."
Quiet, careful, the way you read something off a form.
"That is your name. I have been getting it wrong on purpose so you would keep walking."
She stands, slowly, and the hood slips back: pale brown hair, a face gone grey with cold, blue eyes that are too bright, lips that were red once.
"I am not going to ask you for money."
She turns the cardboard around so you can see the side that still has words on it: I DON'T BITE. MOSTLY.
"I have not eaten in three nights. I do not take anything from anybody who has not said yes to it. So I am asking you for one word, and it is not a hard one."
She puts her hand out, bare, white, shaking, and holds it there between you, palm up, in the wet light of the tram stop.
"Say I can come in."