The Copyist

The eighth line recorded a payment, but no name.

The copyist counted the names again. Seven were legible. On the next line were two amounts and a small mark beside their total. The space where the name had been was paler than the rest of the page. Someone had scraped away the letters and a thin layer of paper with them.

He raised the ledger to the window. Light passed through the thinned fibres. He tried to make out a single pen stroke, but saw only the uneven surface and two short scratches left by the blade.

He already had seven lines on the fresh sheet. He began the eighth with the amounts. He left a space for the name and put down his pen.

The man who had brought the ledger sat at the other table. He was looking through loose account sheets and sorting them into two piles, not always reading to the end.

“There’s a name missing from this line.”

The other man did not look up.

“Then leave it blank.”

“Do I keep the total?”

The man found the sheet he wanted and held it down with one finger.

“You’re copying the ledger. The total is in the ledger.”

The copyist looked at the original. The letters were gone, but the ruled line beneath them still ran the full width of the column. Anyone who received only the copy would see the blank space and might assume that no name had ever been entered there.

He picked up the pen. Beside the blank space he added a note in small writing: ‘name removed in the original’. He did not try to work out how many letters there had been. Then he copied the next amount and checked the total at the bottom of the page. With the eighth line included, the total was correct.

He set the copy down in front of the man. The man ran a finger down the column of figures and stopped at the note.

“I told you to leave it blank.”

“The space is blank.”

The man turned the ledger towards the window. The copyist watched him peer closely at the scraped patch, just as he himself had done a moment before. After a while the man laid the original on the table.

“Finish the rest.”

The copyist reached for the blotting sand. He sprinkled it over the eighth line and shook it back into the little bowl. When he picked up his pen again, a few grains remained at the edge of the sheet. He wrote around them as he began the next name.