The Chair by the Fire

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?"

Nyumba ya wageni ilisimama juu ya bandari na mlango wake upande usio na upepo, ambao katika visiwa hivi ndio upande unaostahili mlango. Iliendeshwa na kondoo jike wa North Ronaldsay, mmoja wa kondoo wa ufuoni wanaoishi kwa mwani kaskazini mwa visiwa hivi. Polly alisimama ukumbini huku mvua ikimtiririka. "Je, mna vyumba vinavyopatikana?"

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.

Vyumba vilikuwepo. Kwa kawaida huwepo mwezi wa Septemba. Polly akasema, "Ningependa chumba chenye utulivu, tafadhali." Yule kondoo akanyamaza kwa muda wa kutosha kuwa na adabu kuhusu jambo hilo. Vyumba vya nyuma vinaelekea uani, vya mbele vinaelekea majini, na upepo huvipata vyote viwili. Hakuna mahali hapa penye utulivu kwa maana anayoikusudia mgeni. Badala yake, visiwa hivi hutoa upepo wa kudumu kiasi kwamba baada ya usiku mbili unaacha kuusikia.

"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.

"Je, waweza kunisaidia na mizigo yangu, tafadhali?" Kondoo alibeba mfuko mwenyewe hadi juu na kuuweka kando ya kiti kilicho karibu na moto, nacho kiti kile ndicho kilichomfanya Polly anyamaze. Kiunzi chake kilikuwa cha mbao zilizoletwa na mawimbi, kwa sababu hakuna mti unaokua hapa na kila ubao katika nyumba za kale ulifika kwa maji. Mgongo wake ulikuwa wa majani makavu ya oti, yaliyosokotwa na kushonwa hadi kuwa kofia inayojipinda mbele juu ya mabega. Seremala mmoja wa Kirkwall aitwaye David Kirkness aligeuza desturi ile ya mashambani kuwa muundo wa kawaida katikati ya karne ya kumi na tisa.

"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.

"Muda wa kuondoka chumbani ni saa ngapi?" Polly akauliza, kwa sababu kivuko ndicho huamua kila kitu hapa. Kisha akaketi kwenye kile kiti. Kofia ya majani ilizuia upepo uliokuwa ukiingia mlangoni, moto ukaendelea kufanya yale ambayo moto hufanya, na kwa mara ya kwanza tangu alipoteremka melini akaweza kujisikia akipumua.