A person of Neshiyah
Noam Elon, bookkeeper
Bookkeeper
Noam Elon
Bookkeeper, about 90 years old. Born in Neshiyah, like everyone.
Noam Elon keeps the town’s ledgers with the same steady hands that once worked the soil, his fingers moving over columns of figures like a man stroking a familiar tool. At eighty-three, he is wiry and bent, but never still; he taps his foot while he writes, as if the numbers themselves have a rhythm. He is happiest alone in his small office, where the daylight falls clean on the page. When something new appears before him—a survey post, a stranger’s question—he meets it with a quiet, reasonable trust, turning it over until it yields its truth. The town sees him as harmless, a little odd, a man who talks too long at the square and once brawled with Yael over nothing. What he wants is simple: one consistent answer, and the fields worked well, fog or no fog.
Temperament
Curious when something is in front of them; trusting, within reason; even-tempered; happiest alone; never still.
What people say
Noam Elon 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 47 Levi Erez and Noam Elon came to blows at the mill over nothing much.
- day 44 Noam Elon the bookkeeper measured the distance from the north survey post to the fog with a rangefinder and got two different answers, 212 meters going out and 196 coming back.
- day 38 Noam Elon and Gideon Zohar talked a long while at the square.
- day 25 Yael the younger and Noam came to blows at the square over nothing much.
- day 23 A guard at the end of the north road turned Noam back at the fog line with a reminder that the Council prefers people to stay at their work.