Story 1
The Tide Ledger
The harbourmaster’s office kept two clocks, and the night clerk was expected to trust the wrong one. The electric clock above the door told the time of the city: buses, payrolls, dentists. The brass clock on the desk, which had to be wound with a key kept in a tin of rubber bands, told the time of the water, which is to say it told the tide. At five minutes past midnight the electric clock said a new day had started. The brass clock said the tide had three more hours to fall and nobody should get excited.
Nadia binti Omar had held the night desk for two years, ever since Encik Musa retired with a cough and a garland of plastic flowers from the stevedores. On her first night he had shown her the ledger. It was the size of a prayer mat and smelled of carbon paper. Vessel name, time in, time out, berth, cargo. And then a last column, wider than all the others, headed in copperplate from some earlier decade: Remarks.
“Official use,” Musa said, “is for weather and damage.” He looked at her over his glasses. “Actual use is different. Write kindly in that column, and write true. The tide reads it on the way out.”
She had laughed, because it was midnight and he was old and the kettle was boiling. But she had watched him make his last entries, and none of them were about weather. Sri Mutiara, in 2340, berth 4, fish. Remarks: Engine sounds tired. So does Hamid. Let both rest easy tonight. Naga Emas, out 2215, sand. Remarks: First run for the new boy. May the channel be patient with him.
