The ferry that waits for no one

1The first ferry leaves at twenty to seven, and it leaves at twenty to seven. I put it that way because people here say it that way, with the same emphasis on the second half, the way you might say of a friend that she is honest and she is honest. The ramp goes up at 6:39 and fifty seconds. If you are running down the quay at that moment, the deckhand will look at you with sympathy and not move.

2I have been that person twice. The first time I was furious. The second time I understood that the deckhand’s sympathy was real, and that it was the point.

A boat as a clock

3A ferry that keeps perfect time is not a convenience. It is an instrument. People on the far shore set their mornings by its horn, which carries across the water a minute before departure; the bakery opens its shutters when it hears it, and the old men who swim from the rocks in every season use it to decide when they are cold enough to come out.¹1There are four of them, all over seventy. They have an argument about the water temperature every morning and they settle it by the horn: whoever is still in when it sounds has won. Nobody planned this. The boat was punctual for long enough that the town arranged itself around the punctuality, the way a garden arranges itself around a wall.

4If the ferry started waiting for latecomers, it would not become kinder. It would become vague. Every person on the quay would be negotiating with every other: a minute for the woman with the pram, a minute for the boy who is always late, a minute for me. The horn would sound at 6:41, then 6:43, and the swimmers would stay in the water too long.

The kindness of not waiting

5What the deckhand is protecting, when he does not lower the ramp, is everyone else’s morning. His sympathy is for me; his loyalty is to the timetable, which is to say to the forty people who were on time. I find this more moving the older I get. Most institutions bend for whoever is in front of them and call it service. The ferry bends for no one and calls it nothing at all.

6There is a second boat at 7:20. Everybody knows that too.²2The 7:20 is not nearly as punctual. Nobody minds. It is the second ferry; its job is to forgive. Missing the first ferry has never stranded anyone; it has only made them late, and lateness, here, is something you own. You cannot blame the boat. The boat left at twenty to seven.

Notes

1. There are four of them, all over seventy. They have an argument about the water temperature every morning and they settle it by the horn: whoever is still in when it sounds has won. ↩

2. The 7:20 is not nearly as punctual. Nobody minds. It is the second ferry; its job is to forgive. ↩