Jedno zrnko soli

V posledné ráno odletela Polly až na samý cíp polostrova, kde mestu dochádza zem. Na starom vlnolame tam stojí malý biely maják vedľa okrúhleho kostola a vlny dobiehajú až ku kameňu. Z cípu mesto naozaj vyzeralo ako loď, zvonica bola jej sťažňom, strechy jej nákladom a celé to vyplávalo do Jadranu a držalo kurz.

On her last morning Polly flew out to the very tip of the peninsula, where the town runs out of land. A small white lighthouse stands there on the old sea wall beside a round church, and the waves come right up to the stone. From the point the town really did look like a ship, the bell tower its mast, the roofs its cargo, the whole thing pushed out into the Adriatic and holding its course.

Rybárske člny opúšťali malý prístav jeden po druhom, ich motory tlmene mrmlali na pokojnej vode a každý za sebou ťahal pruh svetla. Vysoko hore odbil zvon vo veži hodinu a zvuk sa prevalil cez strechy a ďalej nad more. Na námestí stál bronzový huslista sám na svojom bielom kameni a prvé slnko ho našlo skôr než čokoľvek iné.

The fishing boats left the little harbour one by one, their engines a low murmur on the still water, each one trailing a line of light. Far above, the bell in the tower struck the hour and the sound rolled down over the roofs and out across the sea. In the square the bronze violinist stood alone on his white stone, and the first sun found him before it found anything else.

Polly mala na jazyku ešte stále chuť jediného zrnka soli, alebo si to aspoň myslela, čo vyjde nastejno. More, slnko, drevené hrable a trpezlivé ruky, ten istý recept už viac ako sedemsto rokov, a z výnosu vyrástlo mesto ružových a okrových domov. Je to zvláštne, postaviť mesto z niečoho, čo sa v daždi rozpustí. A ešte zvláštnejšie je, že to vyšlo.

Polly still had the taste of a single grain of salt on her tongue, or thought she did, which came to the same thing. Sea, sun, wooden rakes and patient hands, the same recipe for more than seven hundred years, and a town of pink and ochre houses raised on the proceeds. It is a strange thing to build a town out of something that dissolves in the rain. It is stranger still that it worked.

Raz obletela polostrov, nízko nad strechami, popri čipkových balkónoch, obrúsenej labe leva a teplom bielom námestí, a potom sa vzniesla na rannom vetre. Za ňou sa kamenná loď zmenšovala a nepohla sa. Pred ňou bolo more otvorené a žiarivé a chutilo, celkom slabo, po soli.

She circled the peninsula once, low over the roofs, past the lace balconies and the lion's worn paw and the warm white square, and then rose on the morning wind. Behind her the stone ship grew smaller and did not move. Ahead of her the sea was open and shining, and it tasted, very faintly, of salt.