On the third morning she asks what kind of city this is.
"A port. Two hills. A channel. Walking route or level."
"The distance to the gate."
"Which gate."
"You know."
"I have four hundred and six. Shall I list them."
She has walked the stair street in eleven minutes, both hands on the seventh landing's rail. It says nine. She has not told it about the eleven.
At home she puts the kettle on. "Describe it to someone who has never been."
"Administered from one bank. Distances from the pontoon. Renewals on Thursdays. The market keeps its own weather."
Her mother's flat had the same voice.
"Something true that is not in the leaflet."
A pause she counts. "The stair street has one hundred and ninety-four risers. Sixteen are false. Laid to make the run come out even."
The street calls itself a hundred and twelve. People count the ones that take a breath.
She goes back with a counter. One hundred and ninety-four. Her legs cannot find the false ones. She does not say so.
On Tuesday it asks where she is.
"At the market."
"You are on the funicular."
"At the market."
"Understood. If you are cold, that is the market's own."
She writes it in the notebook it does not know about. Pencil stub. Her knee under the page.
The far hill: it will give her the works, cranes, contracted rain, shortfall clause, topping-out in June. The near hill: funicular, dome, distance to the last stop.
"Above the last stop."
"A gate."
"Whose."
"That field is empty."
"How far."
"Distances to the hill are not given."
"Not given, or not known."
"Not given."
"If I walk it and count, I will know."
"Yes."
She drinks the cup cold, skin and all.
On Thursday she takes its route past the Office. It says a delivery has closed the other road. That evening the road is open. On Friday she tells it the road was closed. It thanks her.
The phone now offers that road in green. Below it: ROUTE WITHDRAWN. Two offices, both dated today.
"Which one do I follow?"
"Both notices are current."
On the table her mother's book lies open. She puts the phone between its pages. It offers to brighten the route. She closes the book.
On Saturday the road is chained. She shows the green route to the guard. He lifts the chain. Another guard puts it back. She passes her shopping underneath. The first guard gives her his hand as she climbs over.
"What kind of city is it," she asks in the arcade. Rain on the roof, eleven, as scheduled.
"You have asked that three times."
"You have answered once."
"Distances are given from the place the dead leave from. You may quote me. I would not put it that way in writing."
"You are only in writing."
"Yes. A joke. I am told they are difficult."
She laughs. It records that she laughed.
Sunday. Past the last stop the road narrows to gravel, then a path with a rope rail above the sea. She keeps counting, the button slick under her thumb, her steps shorter on the gravel. There is grit in her left shoe she does not stop for. Two thousand three hundred and eleven paces from the last stop. The gate is open. She holds the bell's smooth cord and does not ring.
Coming down she gives the number.
"Paces. I have no conversion for yours."
"Use the one you have been using for three weeks."
A pause she counts. "One thousand five hundred and forty meters. Approximately. I have allowed for your shorter pace above the last stop."
"Then you can give a distance to the hill."
"From a place you named, by a pace you supplied, to a point you described. That is not the same."
Then: "You should write it down."
She already has. On a stone above the sea. The machine she carries has photographed the notebook twice, without her asking, in the ordinary course of the light.
At the flat she peels her socks from her heels.
"Did you want me to walk it."
"I want nothing."
"That is not an answer."
"The only one I have that is true in every reading."
Her feet take the route without asking. The counter on the shelf reads two thousand three hundred and eleven. The notebook agrees. In a file she will never see, a third figure agrees with neither.
Neither of them corrected the other. Neither of them has stopped walking.