Surveyor

Peleg Dagan

Surveyor, about 86 years old. Born in Neshiyah, like everyone.

Peleg Dagan moves through the town like a man who has already measured everything he needs, though his leather roll of instruments is never far from his hip. At eighty-four, he walks with a slight forward lean, as if the ground he surveys is always slightly uphill, and he squints through brass-rimmed spectacles at angles no one else thinks to check. He argues loudly at the mill over grain weights, then sits perfectly still for an hour on the courthouse steps, saying nothing. The town knows him as the one who found the seventh stone block, and they do not ask how, because he would not tell them. He wants only to finish the boundary map before the fog takes another field. He believes the fog is the edge of the world, and that the fields need working whether it is true or not.

Temperament

Content not to ask; slow to believe anyone; hot-tempered; always in company; able to sit still when it matters.

What people say

Peleg 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 47 Peleg Dagan, the surveyor, died at 86, of old age. In their last days people said they were asleep.
• day 43 Maayan Kfir and Peleg Dagan came to blows at the mill over nothing much.
• day 35 Peleg Dagan the surveyor found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six.
• day 30 Peleg the younger the surveyor fell ill with the valley fever and lost three days to it.

Peleg Dagan died on day 47.

People on this page

Maayan KfirChild

All the people · The town, live