The Right to Leave the Shore

On the island of Sere, a person who wished to leave had to build a door.

This was the first custom I recorded, and for two years I misunderstood it.

I had come as a harbor engineer. The mainland government proposed a deepwater quay, a fuel depot, and a regular ferry. In its reports, Sere appeared as a poor island whose isolation prevented development. The islanders described themselves as people who lacked certain things and possessed others.

Neither description told me how to build the quay.

My interpreter, Anet, lived with three elderly relatives and a boy who was not related to any of them. When I asked whose son he was, she said, “His own, mostly.” I assumed this was a joke. Later I discovered it was also a legal answer.

The first door I saw belonged to the boy, Tavi.

He had built it from driftwood, crookedly. It stood upright in the village square, supported by stones. There was no wall around it.

“He wants to attend the mainland school,” Anet explained.

“Will they let him?”

“Who?”

“The village.”

She looked at me with an expression I had begun to recognize. It meant my question contained a houseful of furniture she could not use.

That evening people gathered at the door. Tavi stood on one side. His household stood on the other.

An old woman spoke first.

“I will lose the person who carries water when my knee swells.”

A fisherman said, “I will lose a partner for the autumn nets.”

The small children said they would lose stories.

Tavi answered each person. He had arranged for water deliveries. He had taught another child to mend the nets. He had written down seven stories, although the children objected that reading was not the same.

Then his grandmother said, “I will be lonely.”

He began to cry. There was no arrangement he could offer her.

She stepped through the door and embraced him.

He left on the supply boat three days later.

I praised the ceremony in my notebook as a humane method of granting permission. When Anet read the sentence, she crossed out the last two words.

“No one grants it.”

“Then why must he do all that?”

“So that leaving will not be confused with disappearing.”

The quay divided the island. Some wanted reliable medicine and cheaper flour. Some feared the depot would foul the spawning beds. Most wanted both the advantages and the absence of harm, which my employers called indecision.

To finish the surveys we needed the southern shore. Twelve households used it for drying weed and repairing boats. Our compensation schedule valued the buildings but not the use of the beach, which belonged to everyone and therefore, in the schedule, to no one.

I explained that the law could not compensate an owner who did not exist.

“Your law seems easily confused,” Anet said.

The ministry instructed me to proceed. There would be work for islanders at the depot. The larger benefit justified the displacement.

That night I dreamed of Tavi standing before the old woman, offering her a school certificate instead of an answer.

In the morning I began to build a door.

I was a poor carpenter. Anet helped me fit the hinges but asked no questions. We erected it above the southern beach.

At the gathering I described what the project would take. I used our measurements. I named the households. I described the government’s promises and the things it had not promised.

A boatbuilder asked where he would work during the winter storms.

I had no answer.

A woman asked who would feed her family before the promised jobs began.

I had no answer to that either.

“You may still build it,” someone said.

I knew this was true. The survey vessel carried the necessary warrants.

Instead I sent my report. It included the unanswered questions. Construction stopped that season. My contract was not renewed.

I cannot claim that the island was saved. Five years later it obtained a smaller quay, built on the northern rocks at greater expense. There is a ferry now. There are also arguments about tourists, wages, and who must repair the road.

I live on the mainland and design ordinary harbors.

Sometimes students ask whether the islanders taught me to reject progress. I tell them about the door. Usually they say they understand: freedom requires responsibility.

That is close enough to be dangerous.

Tavi was free before he lifted his hammer. The door did not purchase his departure. It made visible the place he would leave behind.