Doma’s fingers rummaged deep inside the canvas bib of her apron, moving past iron safety pins, stubby sticks of yellow chalk, and the greasy twine she used for trussing turnip sacks. Her hand emerged into the yellow lamplight. Then, she held a heavy, circular piece of metal that clinked with a dull, solid note against the salt-stained pine table.
It was a stamped boiler-plug washer salvaged from the carcass of a steam locomotive, two inches across and thick as a carpenter’s rule. The metal was dull yellow brass, pitted around the central bore where high-pressure steam had scoured the surface twenty winters ago. Just then, the rails ran open to the southern sea. Its outer edge had been notched with a coarse three-cornered file into three distinct tactile teeth, spaced unevenly so that a man’s thumb could identify the orientation without light. On the obverse face, stamped with cold-chiseled lettering that had filled with black soot, were two lines. T-07 / KITCHEN above the single word BOUNDED. On the reverse, three punch-marks formed an equilateral triangle, denoting the emergency meal rotation of the Tram refugee shelters.
Doma didn’t push the brass piece across the grease-penciled map right away. She held it flat beneath her calloused thumb, her grey eyes locked onto Len’s face.
