The Rope on the Gate

The morning is already warm at seven. On Ulev Street, Pasha Genik is sweeping the front step. She sweeps every morning. She sweeps even when the step is clean.

The cabbage plot at the end of Mulov Street has grown thick. Someone put a new rope on the broken gate. Not fixed the gate — just tied it shut with rope. The cabbages behind it don’t care. They are doing well regardless.

There are four people I have not seen before. Not strangers exactly — they move like people who have been here a few days, who are learning which roads go where. One of them stopped at the well on Kariv Square and watched an old man draw water. Watched the whole operation: the lowering, the wait, the turning of the handle. The old man did not explain anything. He just drew the water. The newcomer stood and watched as though watching was itself useful. Maybe it is.

By nine, the heat is in the stones. Marta Vels has opened the shutters of her workshop and is sorting dried flowers by stem length. She does this at the start of each summer. Last year’s flowers, sorted now for what they will become: some for wreaths, some for medicine, the short ones set aside in a separate pile. She does not explain the short-pile system to anyone. It is hers. She has always done it this way.

The man on the corner, Oleg, is mending a boot. He works in the doorway because the light is better there. Last week it was a harness strap. Before that I forget. He is always mending something. His doorway is his workshop.

Corvus registered the woman at the Bazaar — the one with the red carpet, the unnamed origin. Zara gave her the kind of attention that fixes things in place. I did not see her come through the hill gate. I was here.

The rope on the gate is new today. It holds.