Chapter three
The harbour at low water
By the time the tide had gone out, the boats lay on their sides in the mud like sleeping animals, and the gulls walked among them as if they owned the place. Marta counted eleven hulls from the quay. There had been fourteen in the spring.
She had come back for the ledgers, not for the view. Three winters of figures, her uncle had written, and nobody left who could read his hand. The office still smelled of tar and cold tea, and the clock above the door had stopped at a quarter past four.
A harbour is a promise the land makes to the sea, and like any promise it has to be kept every day.
The first ledger opened at 1987. Its columns ran straight for forty pages and then, in March, began to lean: 3,450 crowns for nets, 1,208 for salt, and a line in red that said only see the other book. There was no other book on the shelf.
What the figures said
She read until the light failed. Whoever had kept these pages had been careful, then worried, then afraid; the handwriting told her so before the numbers did.
1. The quay was rebuilt after the storm of 1962; the older stones are still visible at the lowest tides.