Back Where It Belongs

At two o’clock Farah turned the key. The first visitor had already peered through the window twice. He had come to return a book and hadn’t known about the exhibition.

‘Can I still do that?’ he asked.

‘Please do,’ Farah said. ‘Books are still allowed in.’

Noor stood beside the blue board. Sami had put his chair where he could see the door. Bente was holding a folded piece of kitchen paper nobody needed any more. She tucked it in her pocket as a woman came to the table.

‘I remember that ferry,’ the woman said.

She pointed to the photograph on the noticeboard, hardly looking at the model at first. Wim came to stand beside her. She told him how she used to wait for the ferry with her bicycle, even when she thought she was late already.

‘It didn’t go any faster if you glared at the other bank,’ Wim said.

The woman laughed. They looked at the bicycle in the photograph together. Bente moved closer to the picture of her model being built.

A boy came along the table with his mum. He was shorter than Noor and had to stand on tiptoe to see through the model’s windows. His mum pulled up a chair, but he didn’t want to sit on it.

‘There’s someone in there,’ he said.

‘That’s the passenger,’ Bente said. ‘He’s just been put back in his seat.’

Noor saw her smile. The boy went round the table to see if he could find him from the other side too. Sami moved a leaflet that was hiding the window.

‘Why are the windows so tiny?’ the boy asked.

‘Otherwise it’d be a real boat,’ Sami said.

Bente pointed at the photograph. ‘They were like that on the ferry too. The cabin was mostly for the ferryman.’

The boy looked at Wim, then back at the little cabin. His mum said Wim certainly wouldn’t fit in there now. Wim pulled in his stomach. It didn’t make much difference.

More people arrived. Some leaned close to read the labels. Others lingered by the old photographs. Farah kept having to go back to the counter. She helped someone find a book, with only two clues: it was red, and there was a dog in it.

Noor picked up her receipt to slip it under the blue board. It was too near a mug, and one corner kept curling up.

‘Could we put that on display too?’ Farah asked, coming back. ‘In its own spot beside the map? Then people can see what you drew.’

Noor looked at the crumpled paper. Beside the circle, the line and the red scribble were a crooked windmill sail and a tiny arrow. Where she’d written Friday, her pencil had nearly gone through the paper.

‘Yes. But don’t stick tape on it. It’ll tear.’

Farah fetched a clear sleeve. Noor slipped the receipt inside. There was room at the top to take it out again.

Then Farah asked Bente if she could put the model photograph a little higher, next to the picture of the full-sized ferry.

‘The one with my hand beside the boat,’ Bente said. ‘Not the close-up.’

‘That stays in your folder,’ Farah said.

Bente nodded and helped straighten the label with her name on it. The model’s little captain wore a hat slightly bigger than his head. Noor hadn’t noticed it before.

When someone asked who had painted the windows, she pointed to Bente. Bente showed them how she had made the thin blue edges. She pointed out one window where the paint had gone over the line.

‘It’s at the back,’ she said. ‘But you can see it.’

Noor went round to look. The mark was tiny. She didn’t need to tell Bente it didn’t matter. Bente was simply explaining, then picking up the photograph to show how the windows compared with the real ones.

At the map, a man held his finger over the narrow channel. ‘So you knew exactly where it was?’

Noor opened her mouth. She looked at the dotted line.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t see properly here yesterday. The landing stage was closed. This morning we heard the roof tapping against the beam.’

Sami tapped the table gently with his nail. It sounded louder than it had under the boards. He didn’t do it again.

‘Then we saw the boots,’ Bente said.

The man bent over the model, searching the roof.

‘They’re indoors now,’ she said. ‘Beside the captain.’

He peered through the window. ‘Two left boots?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think I’d have taken those straight off again.’

Bente laughed and turned the model photograph towards him, showing where they had first stood on the roof.

Later Noor grew thirsty. She asked Sami to stay by the map and went behind the counter for water. Daan stood by the window, his hands round an empty mug. Was she still enjoying it?

‘Yes. But people ask a lot of questions.’

‘You don’t have to know everything.’

‘Wim can’t remember who owned that bicycle either.’ She pointed at the old photograph. ‘He says everyone can decide for themselves if it’s theirs.’

Daan looked at the picture and said his bicycle had never been that clean. Noor finished her water. When she went back, Bente had moved her chair over a little. There was room for Noor beside her.

It rained for a while. Dark footprints spread across the entrance mat. Farah put out a bin for wet umbrellas and moved the returned books further from the edge.

The boat sat quietly on its blue river. Its roof wasn’t tapping against anything. The passenger sat upright and the string was coiled at the front. The little bag of old string had stayed in Bente’s bag. She had decided it didn’t need to be on display today.

A man left his wet umbrella in the bin and came to the table. He read the title, looked at the boat, then bent over the clear sleeve beside the map.

His finger hovered above the yellow circle.

‘Is that an egg on toast?’

Sami looked at Noor. Bente looked from the piece of paper to him. Noor took the receipt out of its sleeve and asked Farah for a red pencil.

She put the point beside the little red scribble, holding the crease flat with her other hand. Next to the yellow circle, she drew two tiny boots on the white line.

Bente pushed the box of pencils closer. Noor carefully drew both toes pointing the same way. Then she put the receipt back in its sleeve and laid it beside the boat, leaving room for anyone who wanted to look.