Far Afield (25 page)

What a world. Jonathan was a veteran of many such fervent self-promotion campaigns (usually involving the mirror), but he’d never before questioned the justice of meritocracy. He’d never had to, he saw, because he’d thought he was at the top of the heap or bound to get there eventually. And it is the losers in any system who are the grumblers, the visionaries. Jonathan bereft of his perfect phantom and cut off from a place at the top was not so keen on survival of the smartest as he’d been even three hours earlier, when he’d smugly noted Wooley’s unsophisticated speech patterns.

But if King Brain were deposed, what would the world be like? Jonathan couldn’t imagine. Though, he supposed, he was at the moment living in such a world. The Faroese didn’t use their brains as weapons (this seemed the most accurate description of the Cambridge usage); the Faroese seemed to take people as they came—maybe. He couldn’t tell, really, if they did. They seemed to take him as he came, but perhaps he wasn’t a conclusive example. And even if they did, wouldn’t that mean he’d have to stay here forever to avoid a confrontation with the second-rateness that awaited him at home?

Jonathan pulled the eiderdown over his head and sighed into the warm darkness. It was a lot to lose, the promise of greatness. And was his next task to learn the rankings on some diminished scale of ambitions? Adequate,
well done, rather interesting—such terms had seemed the very equivalent of failure; they might now encompass his shrunken future.

Sobered, exhausted, and still quantifying, he fell asleep completely covered, like a corpse.

Wooley had brought terrible weather with him. It was raining hard the afternoon he arrived, and by the next morning the wind had risen to a near gale, blowing the rain in bands across the horizon and stirring the sea to a black-and-white fury. From the kitchen window Jonathan could see great towers of foam and spray shooting up from the jetty where the waves broke. He stood at the sink looking at these formations of water—they were as transient and suggestive as clouds—and drinking his coffee, while Wooley sat at the table drinking his.

Ten-thirty, coffee finished, and Jonathan felt a knot of tension: What were they going to do today? Telepathic Wooley suddenly said, “How about a walk?”

“In this weather?”

“Yeah. Let’s go out to the cliffs and watch the storm.”

It sounded better than festering in the kitchen. “Okay,” said Jonathan. He wished he had a long slicker like Wooley’s. Then when Wooley was all suited up, he was glad he didn’t; he might get wet, but he wouldn’t look like a male model.

Their progress through town drew many a face to many a rain-streaked window. Sigurd made the unprecedented move of leaving his spot behind the counter and putting his head out the door to say good morning.

“Terrible weather,” he called.

“I reckon so,” said Jonathan.

“My name is Jim Wooley,” said Wooley, moving on Sigurd with his hand out.

“Well, good day to you,” Sigurd said. He looked astonished.

“We’re going for a walk,” Wooley continued. His accent was atrocious.

“Eh?” Sigurd looked at Jonathan.

“A walk,” Jonathan translated, “out to the cliffs.”

“Don’t get blown over,” Sigurd said. Then he laughed. “Even a man as big as you”—he tipped his head toward Wooley—“can get blown over.”

“So, so, so,” said Wooley. He had that part down all right, Jonathan noted. “Where’s the best spot to see the spray?”

“Eh?” said Sigurd. He squinted.

“The
spray
,” said Wooley, louder than before.

“Oh. The spray.” Sigurd nodded.

“We want to see the big sprays,” Wooley said.

Sigurd understood this time and launched into a detailed description of where to see big sprays, which Jonathan had trouble following. The gist of it seemed to be that there was a big rock out west near the “troll house,” where there was good spray when the storm came from the north, as this one did. The troll house was a new landmark, though. Jonathan didn’t think he’d recognize it.

“The troll house—” he started.

“I know it,” Wooley interrupted, in English.

“How can you know it?” Jonathan protested. “You’ve never been here before.”

“It’s a kind of rock. I’ll show you.”

Sigurd was watching this exchange closely. “Jo-Na-Than,” he said. “You bring this American for a
temun
tonight. Okay? We’ll have a nice after-dinner
temun
.” He winked, so Jonathan would know just what he meant.

“Thanks,” Jonathan said. He remembered Sigurd’s assertion that Wooley had a flask of something. Maybe he could get Wooley to bring it out before dinner and spend the entire evening soaked in aquavit.

A troll house, Wooley explained as they left town, heads down against the wind, was any large boulder sitting
alone on land in the
bøur
—near the village. “They think that’s where trolls live,” he added.

“I got that,” said Jonathan.

Sarcasm rolled off Wooley as easily as rain off his fancy slicker. He began to whistle. He had a true and melodious whistle, and he was doing an old favorite of Jonathan’s, “Loch Lomond.” Bear long ago had sung Jonathan to sleep with it. “I’ll be in Scotland before you,” whistled Wooley.

“But me and my true love,” Jonathan joined in, singing.

“We’ll never meet again,” Wooley whistled.

“On the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond,” they ended together. And it sounded so nicely mournful, singing and whistling this sad song in the rain, that they went through the verses again, Wooley weaving a pattern of trill and quaver with his really quite marvelous whistle.

“Here’s the troll house.” Wooley broke off the music. “The big rock should be right down there.” They peered carefully over the cliff, which at this point on the island rose more than three hundred feet straight up from the sea.

There were several big rocks, one of those strange strings of stone droppings that occasionally decorated these shores. Tides had carved out a cave in one, and into this hole the sea poured and swirled, roaring. Huge white sheets of water rose from the impact of ocean on the other rocks, and a pale salt mist rose even higher than the waves, spreading up and across the cliffs to add its moisture to their already wet faces.

“Great, hunh?” Wooley yelled.

Jonathan could only see his mouth moving, the noise of the water was so deafening. But he nodded.

“Louder than Niagara,” Wooley yelled. “God,” he spread his wet arms wide, “what a great country!”

Jonathan found Wooley’s enthusiasm embarrassing. He busied himself with leaning forward so that some of the
rain collected in the folds of his slicker would run onto the turf instead of onto his jeans.

“Wet.” Wooley offered this comment at high volume. Jonathan nodded. “Go?” asked Wooley, moving inland ten feet.

The wind was at their backs as they walked home, shortening the journey considerably and soaking the parts of them that had managed to stay dry on the way out.

“Let’s stop at the dock and get some fish,” Jonathan said. “That way we won’t have to go out again.”

“We need milk too,” said Wooley.

Jonathan was struck by that
we need
; he had never shared a household, and in his fantasies of doing so, it was always a woman’s voice saying
we need
. Still, he liked hearing it, even though Wooley was speaking. Something about the phrase was comforting and conjured images of coziness in a warm, well-supplied home.

But the reality of supply, that day in Skopun, did not meet demand. The milk bucket at Sigurd’s was down to the dregs already, though usually the whole milk lasted until after lunch. “Everybody’s coming in for milk because tomorrow maybe it won’t arrive,” Sigurd explained.

“Why?” Jonathan asked.

“Weather,” said Sigurd, terse.

“Where does it come from?”

“From Sandur.” Sigurd gestured south, toward that other country ten miles across the island. “Milk from Sandur.”

“Why couldn’t it arrive? Doesn’t it come on a truck?”

Sigurd didn’t answer this. “Cheese?” he suggested.

Jonathan bought half a liter of watery milk, some cheese, and a few potatoes. Wooley didn’t offer to pay. As Jonathan was digging coins out of his wet pocket, Sigurd added a box of eggs to the pile.

“Get these,” he ordered.

“Why?”

Sigurd ducked this question too. “See you tonight,” he said, with his theatrical wink.

The dock was nearly deserted. All the boats were fastened down and empty, and they banged against each other with dull, water-muffled thuds. Two young men were sheltering beneath the overhang of the fish factory’s loading platform. Jonathan was glad to see that Heðin was one of them.

“Eh,” said Heðin, through his wet cigarette. He waved Jonathan over.

Jonathan was nervous about introducing Wooley, but Heðin took the situation in hand. “My friend Jonathan,” he announced, “and his friend from America.”

“Wooley,” said Wooley.

The other young man nodded shyly. Then nobody knew what to say.

“So, so, so,” said Heðin. “Terrible weather.”

“I reckon so,” said Jonathan.

“So, so, so,” said Wooley.

This was getting nowhere. “I want some fish,” said Jonathan.

“No fish,” said Heðin.

“Because of the weather?”

“Yah.”

“I reckon so,” said Wooley. That wasn’t his cue; both Jonathan and Heðin looked at him. He smiled.

Heðin became loquacious. “No fish, Jonathan, no fish today, no fish tomorrow, maybe no fish for a week!” He shook his head. “Winter,” he said, as if this explained it.

“No fish all winter?” Jonathan asked.

“Can’t fish in a storm like this,” said Heðin’s friend.

“And does it storm like this all winter?” Jonathan was fearful of the answer.

The village boys laughed. “Most of the time,” said the friend.

“But not all the time,” Heðin added. “And you get good fat cod after a storm like this. They get fat from eating so much during the storm.”

“So, so, so,” said Heðin’s friend.

The conversation was over, that meant. “I reckon so,” said Jonathan. They could have omelets; he was glad Sigurd had insisted on the eggs. But that left lunch up in the air, and he was hungry. “Let’s go back to the store and get something for lunch,” Jonathan said to Wooley in English.

“Lunch, dinner, breakfast,” said Heðin, also in English. “Morning, nighting—”

“Night,” said Jonathan.

“Okay,” said Wooley.

Sigurd wasn’t surprised to see them. “No fish, hah?” He grinned. “Here.” Jonathan was touched to see that he had made a pile of things they might want: cabbage in a can, a wizened hard salami, a package of crackers, some dehydrated vegetable soup, and some more potatoes. Jonathan bought them all.

“See you tonight,” said Sigurd.

“One last stop,” Jonathan said as they set off again, gripping their paper bags tightly because the rain was turning them to pulp. But at the post office, where all the old men had gathered for their morning meeting, usually held on the dock, the slow, careful postmaster said, “No mail today.”

“No boat?” Jonathan asked. He knew the answer already.

“No boat tomorrow, either,” snapped Jón Hendrik. “You two are going to have a nice long visit.”

“How long?” Jonathan ventured.

“This storm?” Jón Hendrik sniffed the air.

“Three days,” said one of the other old men.

“No. Four days,” said Jón Hendrik. “Four days.” He nodded sagely.

“But the boat—the boat will come, won’t it?”

“How can it?” Jón Hendrik asked.

Indeed, as they walked back out into the storm, Jonathan did not see how the boat could come. The harbor was a mass of yellow-flecked, roiling foam, and the sea beyond had gone black. “Hmm,” he said, looking at this hopeless scene.

“Happens all the time on Fugloy,” Wooley said. “Sometimes the boat doesn’t come for a week.”

“I reckon so,” said Jonathan. It seemed to be the most appropriate response.

A full bottle of Aalborg aquavit, its seal unbroken, was standing on Sigurd’s kitchen table when they arrived. Jón Hendrik had a glass of something else, probably his bad brandy. A newer version of the terrible cake Jonathan remembered from the summer sat on a plate, already impaled by a knife.

Jonathan got drunk quickly. He was used to eating more than he had eaten that day, and the liquor went right to his head. More than that, he wanted to get drunk, had been wanting to get drunk for several days. It was compensation for everything—the weather, the lack of fish, Wooley snoring in the guest room, Daniela’s damned silence, his long night’s brooding. He put back two stiff shots and skidded into the now-familiar condition of blur.

Blurred, Wooley was no longer his responsibility. As they’d walked through town in the windy night, Jonathan had worried that Wooley would galumph over Sigurd’s delicate sensibilities or not give Jón Hendrik the proper amount of respect, and that he would have to trail Wooley all evening, mending the fences he broke. This now seemed ridiculous. Wooley was a phenomenon; Sigurd and Jón Hendrik would have to contend with him—just as Jonathan had been doing for the last twenty-four hours.

Wooley and Sigurd were trading names of people on Fugloy.

“Jørgen? Jørgen
hjá
Jákup, who married Anna, the one with the sister who moved to Iceland?”

“Yes. Now he’s got a big boat, goes out to Spitzbergen.”

“So, so, so. I was at his wedding.”

“Now he’s got a little grandson, born this winter.”

“So, so, so.” Sigurd chewed this over and began on another cud of information. “How about that old Johannes, whose father came from Nolsoy?”

“He’s still alive, but he’s too old to walk now.”

Jonathan was bored by this, so turned his foggy attention to Jón Hendrik.

“So. Jón Hendrik,” he said.

“Is this your kinsman?” Jón Hendrik asked.

“No. He’s just another American.”

“He’s a strong man,” said Jón Hendrik. He looked at Jonathan, then back at Wooley. He leaned close to Jonathan and, breathing liquor-laced tobacco on his cheek, said, “He doesn’t speak very good Faroese. You should teach him.”