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?"

Ranná loď obišla nízky výbežok pevniny a zakotvila v Stromnesse, kde domy stoja chrbtom k vode a štítmi otočenými do vetra. Polly vystúpila na mokré kamenné dlaždice a vietor pochopila okamžite. Nebol to náraz. Bol to stav. Na konci móla sedel ovčiarsky pes a sledoval laná. Polly k nemu prišla. "Môžete mi ukázať cestu?"

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.

Spýtal sa jej, kam chce ísť, a ona priznala, že to ešte nevie. Tu je to rozumná odpoveď. Ostrovov je takmer sedemdesiat, asi na dvadsiatich z nich sa žije a žiadny neleží ďaleko od brehu. Niet tu lesa, niet vetrolamu, nič nie je vyššie ako komín na gazdovstve. "Mohli by ste mi povedať, kde môžem chytiť autobus?" spýtala sa a on naklonil hlavu smerom k prístrešku hore na svahu.

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.

Potom urobila chybu vtáka, ktorý strávil leto v mestách. "Ako dlho trvá cesta pešo do centra mesta?" Pes sa zahľadel do jedinej dláždenej ulice, ktorá vedie celým mestečkom a miestami je taká úzka, že auto si v nej musí sklopiť zrkadlá. Jedenásť minút, povedal, ak sa budete zastavovať pri výkladoch.

"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.

"Viete mi povedať, či sa dnes konajú nejaké zaujímavé podujatia?" Otázku bral vážne. Cestovný poriadok trajektov sú tunajšie správy, povedal, a všetko ostatné prichádza spolu s ním. Neskôr v týždni mala vyplávať loď k tulením skalám. Bola tu kaplnka, ktorú postavili zajatci. Bola tu dedina, ktorá štyritisíc rokov ležala pod pieskovou dunou, kým jej tú dunu neodniesla búrka.