A person of Neshiyah
Hadassah Dagan, bookkeeper
Bookkeeper
Hadassah Dagan
Bookkeeper, about 101 years old. Born in Neshiyah, like everyone.
Hadassah Dagan keeps the mill’s ledgers in a hand that has not trembled in seventy years, though her knuckles creak like old hinges. She works with her spectacles pushed up, squinting at columns as if daring them to lie, and she has a habit of tapping her pencil twice before every entry, a small ceremony that marks her territory. The town sees her as the river does: patient, cold at the edges, and utterly unbothered by what passes overhead. She wants the weir repaired before winter, nothing more. When Kenan and the younger Hadassah fought over a spilled sack of grain, she watched from the door, then went back to her sums. She believes the fog is the edge of the world, and she is content to let it be.
Temperament
Content not to ask; slow to believe anyone; even-tempered; happiest alone; given to sitting by the river.
What people say
Hadassah Dagan believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.
What the record shows
- day 52 Hadassah Dagan and Adah Gefen came to blows at the mill over nothing much.
- day 49 Kenan Kfir and Hadassah Dagan talked a long while at the mill.
- day 26 Kenan and Hadassah the younger came to blows at the mill over nothing much.