The Boat Comes In

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?"

Jutranja ladja je priplula mimo nizkega rtiča in pristala v Stromnessu, kjer hiše stojijo s hrbtom proti vodi in z zatrepi, obrnjenimi v veter. Polly je stopila na mokre kamnite plošče in veter je razumela takoj. Ni šlo za sunek. Šlo je za stanje. Na koncu pomola je sedel ovčar in gledal vrvi. Polly je stopila k njemu."Mi lahko pokažete pot?"

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.

Vprašal jo je, kam želi iti, in priznala je, da tega še ne ve. Tukaj je to razumen odgovor. Otokov je blizu sedemdeset, na kakih dvajsetih ljudje res živijo, in noben ne leži daleč od obale. Ni gozda, ni vetrobranskega pasu, ni ničesar višjega od kmečkega dimnika."Mi lahko poveste, kje dobim avtobus?"je vprašala, on pa je nagnil glavo proti nadstrešnici na vrhu klanca.

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.

Potem je naredila napako ptice, ki je poletje preživela po mestih."Koliko časa traja peš do centra mesta?"Ovčar je pogledal po edini tlakovani ulici, ki teče čez vso dolžino mesta in je ponekod tako ozka, da mora avto zložiti ogledali. Enajst minut, je rekel, če se ustavite pri izložbah.

"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.

"Mi lahko poveste, ali je danes kakšen zanimiv dogodek?"Vprašanje je vzel resno. Vozni red trajekta je tukaj lokalna novica, je rekel, vse drugo pa prispe skupaj z njim. Kasneje v tednu je bila napovedana vožnja do čeri, kjer se zbirajo tjulnji. Bila je kapela, ki so jo zgradili ujetniki. Bila je vas, ki je štiri tisoč let ležala pod sipino, dokler ni nevihta sipine odnesla.