The Ledger

My grandfather kept two ledgers. The one he kept for the colonial inspectors was bound in blue cloth. The one he kept for himself was bound in brown paper, and he hid it inside the blue one — slipping the brown ledger between the boards of the bigger book, like a child hidden in the skirts of its mother.

In the blue ledger every figure balanced. In the brown ledger almost nothing balanced, because the brown ledger recorded the small private debts of a community to itself.