Polja bele vode

Polly je ob prvem svitu zapustila mesto in letela ob obali proti jugu, mimo širokega zaliva in marine, dokler se hribi niso umaknili in je kopno obležalo ravno ob ustju majhne reke. Tedaj jih je zagledala. Na stotine plitvih pravokotnih bazenov je ležalo drug ob drugem vse do roba morja in vsak je kakor ogledalo držal jutranje nebo. To so Sečoveljske soline in sol tu pridelujejo že več kot sedemsto let.

Polly left the town at first light and followed the coast south, past a wide bay and a marina, until the hills stepped back and the land lay flat at the mouth of a small river. Then she saw them. Hundreds of shallow rectangular pools lay side by side to the edge of the sea, each one holding the morning sky like a mirror. These are the salt pans of Sečovlje, and salt has been made here for more than seven hundred years.

Postopek je absurdno preprost in neskončno potrpežljiv. Morsko vodo spuščajo po kanalih in jo čez poletje pretakajo iz bazena v bazen, vsak je plitvejši in toplejši od prejšnjega, sonce pa vodo dviguje v zrak in za seboj pušča sol. Polly je zabredla do gležnjev. Slanica je bila topla kot kopel in tako gosta od soli, da so se ji noge v njej zdele lažje.

The method is absurdly simple and impossibly patient. Sea water is let in through channels and moved from pool to pool over the summer, each one shallower and warmer than the last, while the sun lifts the water away and leaves the salt behind. Polly waded in ankle deep. The brine was warm as a bath and so heavy with salt that her feet felt lighter in it.

V zadnjih bazenih so bili solinarji že na delu in so z dolgimi lesenimi grabljami počasi potiskali po vodi, da so se mokri beli kristali zbirali v majhne stožce. Nobenih strojev, le les, rame in isti počasni zamah, ki ga soline poznajo že od srednjega veka. Polly se je peljala na koncu ročaja grabelj in opazovala, kako stožec raste, zrno za zrnom.

In the last pools the salt workers were already at it, pushing long wooden rakes slowly through the water so that the wet white crystals gathered into small cones. No machines, just wood and shoulders and the same slow stroke the pans have known since the Middle Ages. Polly rode the end of a rake handle and watched a cone grow, grain by grain.

Eden od solinarjev je počepnil in ji pokazal dno bazena. To ni bilo blato. Bila je temna, gladka, živa koža iz drobnih alg in mineralov, ki jo solinarji gojijo kakor vrt in zanjo skrbijo že od štirinajstega stoletja. Blato drži spodaj, sol pa zgoraj, zato je tukajšnja sol čista in bela. Polly je dojela, da stoji na prastari kmetiji.

One worker crouched and showed her the floor of the pool. It was not mud. It was a dark, smooth, living skin of tiny algae and minerals that the workers cultivate like a garden and have tended since the thirteen hundreds. It keeps the mud below and the salt above, which is why the salt here comes out clean and white. Polly understood she was standing in a very old kind of farm.