A person of Neshiyah
Samuel Hadar, instrument maker
Instrument maker
Samuel Hadar
Instrument maker, about 85 years old. Born in Neshiyah, like everyone.
Samuel Hadar’s hands, knotted and pale as chalk, moved over brass and cedar with a patience that surprised anyone who’d seen him argue at the grain market. He built barometers and astrolabes in a shop that smelled of shellac and cold metal, though the fog made both instruments useless past the wall. His habit was to tap a finished piece three times with his fingernail before declaring it true—a small ritual, almost a prayer, that he performed even for a simple wooden peg. He wanted a working clock that would keep time through the mist, and he believed, with real heat, that the fog was the edge of the world, because the miller’s wife had once told him so. The town saw him as a loud, generous man who could sit absolutely still for hours when a gear refused to turn, and who, in his last days, slept like a child, though no one could say when he’d last truly rested.
Temperament
Curious to a fault; quick to believe what they are told; hot-tempered; always in company; able to sit still when it matters.
What people say
Samuel Hadar 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 31 Samuel Hadar, the instrument maker, died at 85, of old age. In their last days people said they were asleep.
- day 28 Tamar the younger and Samuel talked a long while at the mill.
Samuel Hadar died on day 31.