Brod pristaje

Jutarnji brod prošao je pokraj niskog rta i privezao se u Stromnessu, gdje kuće stoje leđima okrenute vodi, a zabatima prema vjetru. Polly je stupila na mokre kamene ploče i odmah shvatila vjetar. Nije to bio nalet. Bilo je to stanje. Na kraju mola sjedio je škotski ovčar i promatrao užad. Polly mu je prišla. „Možete li mi pokazati put?”

The morning boat came in past a low headland and tied up at Stromness, where the houses stand with their backs to the water and their gable ends turned into the wind. Polly stepped onto wet flagstones and understood the wind at once. It was not a gust. It was a condition. A collie sat at the end of the pier watching the ropes. Polly went over to him. "Can you show me the way?"

Pitao ju je kamo želi ići, a ona je priznala da još ne zna. Ovdje je to razuman odgovor. Otoka ima blizu sedamdeset, na dvadesetak njih se živi, i nijedan nije daleko od obale. Nema šume, nema vjetrobranog pojasa, ničega višeg od dimnjaka na seoskoj kući. „Možete li mi reći gdje mogu uhvatiti autobus?” pitala je, a on je nagnuo glavu prema nadstrešnici na vrhu uzbrdice.

He asked where she wanted to go, and she admitted she did not know yet. That is a reasonable answer here. The islands number close to seventy, about twenty of them lived on, and none sits far from the shore. There is no forest, no shelter belt, nothing taller than a farmhouse chimney. "Could you tell me where I can catch a bus?" she asked, and he tipped his head toward a shelter at the top of the slope.

Zatim je napravila pogrešku ptice koja je ljeto provela po gradovima. „Koliko treba pješke do centra grada?” Ovčar je pogledao niz jedinu popločanu ulicu koja se proteže cijelom dužinom mjesta, mjestimice tako usku da automobil mora sklopiti retrovizore. Jedanaest minuta, rekao je, ako zastaneš gledati izloge.

Then she made the mistake of a bird who has spent a summer in cities. "How long does it take to walk to the city center?" The collie looked along the single flagstone street that runs the length of the town, narrow enough in places for a car to fold in its mirrors. Eleven minutes, he said, if you stop to look in the windows.

„Možete li mi reći ima li danas kakvih zanimljivih događanja?” Shvatio je pitanje ozbiljno. Red plovidbe trajekta ovdje su lokalne vijesti, rekao je, a sve ostalo stiže zajedno s njim. Kasnije tijekom tjedna plovio je brod do hridi s tuljanima. Postojala je kapelica koju su sagradili zarobljenici. Postojalo je selo koje je četiri tisuće godina ležalo pod pješčanom dinom, sve dok oluja nije odnijela dinu.

"Can you tell me if there are any interesting events today?" He took the question seriously. The ferry timetable is the local news, he said, and everything else arrives with it. There was a boat to the seal skerries later in the week. There was a chapel built by prisoners. There was a village that lay under a sand dune for four thousand years until a storm took the dune away.