Stol ob ognju

Gostišče je stalo nad pristaniščem, z vrati na zavetrni strani, ki je na teh otokih edina stran, kamor se vrata sploh vgradijo. Vodila ga je ovca pasme North Ronaldsay, ena tistih obalnih ovc, ki se na severnem koncu otočja hranijo z morskimi algami. Polly je stala v veži, dež je kar tekel z nje."Imate na voljo kakšno prosto sobo?"

The guesthouse stood above the harbour with its door on the sheltered side, which on these islands is the side you build a door on. It was kept by a North Ronaldsay ewe, one of the shore sheep that live off seaweed at the north end of the archipelago. Polly stood in the hall with rain running off her. "Do you have any available rooms?"

Sobe so bile. Septembra jih navadno je. Polly je rekla:"Prosila bi mirno sobo."Ovca je pomolčala ravno toliko, da je ostala vljudna. Sobe zadaj gledajo na dvorišče, sobe spredaj na vodo, veter pa najde ene in druge. Nikjer tukaj ni tiho v pomenu, kakršnega ima v mislih obiskovalec. Otoki ponujajo nekaj drugega: veter, ki je tako stanoviten, da ga po dveh nočeh ne slišiš več.

There were rooms. There usually are in September. Polly said, "I would like a quiet room, please." The ewe paused long enough to be polite about it. The rooms at the back face the yard, the rooms at the front face the water, and the wind finds both. Nowhere here is quiet in the way a visitor means it. What the islands offer instead is a wind so constant that after two nights you stop hearing it.

"Mi lahko, prosim, pomagate s prtljago?"Ovca je torbo odnesla gor kar sama in jo postavila k stolu ob ognju, in prav ta stol je bil razlog, da je Polly utihnila. Ogrodje je bilo iz naplavljenega lesa, ker tu ne raste nobeno drevo in je vsaka deska v starih hišah prišla z morjem. Naslonjalo je bilo iz ovsene slame, zvite in sešite v kapuco, ki se čez ramena zaokroži naprej. Mizar iz Kirkwalla, David Kirkness, je to kmečko navado sredi devetnajstega stoletja spremenil v uveljavljeno obliko.

"Could you assist me with my luggage, please?" The ewe carried the bag up herself and set it beside a chair by the fire, and the chair was the reason Polly stopped talking. Its frame was driftwood, because no tree grows here and every plank in the old houses came in on the tide. Its back was oat straw, coiled and stitched into a hood that curves forward over the shoulders. A joiner in Kirkwall named David Kirkness turned that farmhouse habit into a standard design in the middle of the eighteen hundreds.

"Kdaj je treba oddati sobo?"je vprašala Polly, kajti tukaj o vsem odloča trajekt. Potem je sedla v stol. Slamnata kapuca je prestregla prepih od vrat, ogenj je delal to, kar ognji pač delajo, in prvič po prihodu z ladje je slišala lastno dihanje.

"What time is check-out?" Polly asked, because the ferry decides everything here. Then she sat down in the chair. The straw hood cut the draught off the door, the fire went on doing what fires do, and for the first time since the boat she could hear herself breathing.