Heaven and Hell (15 page)

Helga’s dress rustled when she left the parlor, she left behind a scent as well as the warmth that remained on the boy’s cheeks after she stroked them quickly with four fingers. Old Kolbeinn stood up, murmured something softly and unintelligibly, used his cane to feel his way forward but carelessly, knew the way and crossed the room quickly, followed Helga, her fragrance and the rustling, and then the two of them were left sitting there, he and this woman with eyes as black as a January night. They looked straight at the boy as he held the pen, her inner life streamed from her eyes and was perhaps infected by their color. We all liked Bárður very much, she said slowly, or, rather, softly and carefully, and will continue to miss him, each in our own way, which goes for Kolbeinn as well even though it looks like he’s feeling almost anything other than regret. But you can easily count on one hand the people to whom Kolbeinn loans books, not to mention this book.

They heard Helga’s footsteps approaching, quickly, calmly, some walk in such a way that it seems nothing can knock them off balance, as if they had no difficulty with any path, then there are others who are nothing but hesitation. So you see that footsteps can say much about a person: walk over to me, then perhaps I will know whether I love you.

It’s Brynjólfur, said Helga in the doorway, and the boy thought he could see the faint smile on Geirþrúður’s face, thirsty for beer, she added. You aren’t happy about that, said Geirþrúður, still with her faint smile. Helga shook her head, he should already have started getting the ship ready, simple as that, she said. Nothing is simple, said Geirþrúður, but perhaps better that he’s drinking here than with Marta and Ágúst. Geirþrúður acted as if she didn’t hear Helga’s snort, turned to the boy and said straight out, without warning, as if they had already agreed on something previously, this will be your first job in the house. To serve one captain beer and see to it that another captain has enough coffee, and then you should buy yourself some proper clothing, some things are suited to the sea, others the land. Helga will go with you this afternoon and see to it that you buy yourself something decent, at my expense, since I assume you’re going to be living here, she added, perhaps because of the look on the boy’s face, a look of someone who doesn’t know whether he’s relieved, whether he’s embarrassed about something, or whether he’s just pleased.

I only came to return a book, he could finally say, after he’d been silent for a good long time and endured the gaze of two women.

Geirþrúður pressed a long, slender finger against her lips for a moment and said, we don’t always know entirely what we want, or choose to suppress it; where were you thinking of going otherwise? I find it difficult to imagine that you would return to the sea, you’re not really a fisherman and it would be a waste to make you work salting fish. I might best believe that you have no idea of what you can do, or who you are, but Helga and I have our suspicions about that and we’re not so stupid when we make an effort. For that reason let us decide for you, at least at first. Naturally, you need to work for your housing, food and clothing, and you can start by looking after those two poor sea captains.

But I don’t know how to do anything, blurted out the boy.

This is so strange.

Words are inclined to jump like that out of him and therefore he often says things that are complete nonsense and get him into trouble or attract unnecessary attention to himself, which is almost the same as getting oneself into trouble. Sometimes he tries to make up for the nonsense by saying something immediately afterward, but frequently only makes bad worse, and here he added, I’d actually got work in Leó’s Shop this summer. Bárður and I made a deal with Jón, or, rather, Bárður did, it was he who got us the job, I got the job because of him and now he’s dead and I don’t know what’s going to happen, he concluded this short, confused explanation, what the hell was I saying, he thought, and cursed himself. Geirþrúður did not let this bother her and simply said, he who doesn’t know how to do anything has nothing to do in Leó’s Shop, Tove would have you cut into bait after the first week and you’d hardly want that? But we here, the trinity, and now she clearly smiled, know better than Tove how to measure people like you. You know how to read and it’s my understanding that you have good handwriting, isn’t that right? The boy thought it enough to nod his head, didn’t dare open his mouth and let some sort of nonsense slip out. Well, the little you know how to do is fine with us, there are precious few who know how to read in this town, because it’s one thing to be able to read and another to know how to read, there’s a huge gap between the two. I expect you’ll be staying here with us, two weeks or twenty years, it’s your choice, you can leave whenever you wish. You’ll have the room you slept in and can try to make a deal with Kolbeinn about using his books, but wait a bit with that, let him get used to you, you’ll read to him in the evenings and he’ll soften up little by little. Otherwise there are several books here in the outer parlor, take the ones you want. There’s just one other thing: you can expect to be sullied if you decide to live here with us; it’s my fault, but you have to be able to take it.

I’ve always liked ravens, said the boy, again without thinking, the words simply rush out of him. Who sits down there and controls the words?

To his amazement and incredible relief they both smiled. He saw all of Geirþrúður’s teeth, so white, two sharp canines but the front teeth in her lower gum were crooked, which is good, what is white and perfectly straight becomes wearisome after a time. Without sin there is no life.

XIV

And now he sits here. Over two sea captains and a dip pen.
Which one should he write,
my dear Andrea
or
dearest Andrea
? Kolbeinn and Brynjólfur are sitting to his right at the corner of the table, Helga taught him what to do, to serve beer, coffee, how to record it, you call me if you can’t handle it, then she was gone and he alone with the old men. Brynjólfur stares at him every now and then, his hair and beard ruffled, bring me a beer, you damned kitten, he calls in a thunderous voice although the first bottle is completely empty, he’s like a calf with diarrhea, explains Brynjólfur to Kolbeinn. But the boy couldn’t care less about being called a damned kitten, a shitting calf, they’re just words and are quite powerless if one doesn’t pay them any heed, they just pass through and touch nothing. Besides, Brynjólfur has a greater and more intimate interest in beer than in him, and his temper grows softer the more he drinks. Two beers and the world is no longer wicked and full of all kinds of rubbish that irritates an honest man. Because we are honest men, you and I, he says to Kolbeinn, who says in his hoarse, almost grating voice that honesty is a luxury for spiritless angels, I don’t understand you, says Brynjólfur, so deep-voiced that the fishes down in the sea tremble when he stands on deck and speaks loudly. I didn’t think you would, rasps the other. Then explain it and may the Devil eat that puppy there, I think he’s a spiritless wretch. Then the Devil isn’t interested in him, says Kolbeinn, the spiritless grow angels’ wings. You’re strange, the giant rumbles, and that’s why I’ve always liked you so much. Then the old seadogs start talking about fish and the sea and the boy stops listening, except with one ear and barely that, or just enough to notice when they ask for beer or coffee, it’s safer for him to react promptly and efficiently, but when Brynjólfur has beer he can be alone with his thoughts, the other slurps coffee that is as black as the darkness surrounding him. They are of similar age but Kolbeinn’s face appears to be older, by a difference of around a hundred years. They talk about the sea and about debauchery, they talk passionately about fish, cod swim in their veins, sharks dive deep down into their livers, there are storms and severe frosts and deathly dark seas, Brynjólfur sways and holds on tightly to the table so as not to be cast overboard, Kolbeinn’s thick tongue licks the salt from his lips. The boy has brought eight beers to Brynjólfur, has poured coffee just as often into the mug of the English poet, the poet is thirsty, says Kolbeinn, and lifts the mug, the boy brings coffee at the same time, at first knows nothing about this Wordsworth and that he had owned the mug, flabbergasted that Kolbeinn should call himself a poet and becomes even more confused about him, what damned poet? asks Brynjólfur finally when Kolbeinn calls for coffee for the fourth time, and looks around as if he wants to hit something, the boy hardly dares to breathe. You’re a fool, rasps Kolbeinn, it was an English poet who owned this mug here, then he smirks derisively, his face becomes savage and his useless eyes stare at Brynjólfur, who suddenly feels great sorrow, his joy in his beer disappears and he hangs his deeply etched head, why do you have to be so cruel, he mutters, but Kolbeinn doesn’t reply, and what was he supposed to reply, and for a while nothing is heard but the blind man’s slurping, Brynjólfur stares at the bottle and tries to find his joy again. The boy writes,
my dear Andrea,
and longs so deeply to underline the word
dear
many times, because his affection for Andrea suddenly spreads through him. Now she is alone in the fishing hut, Guðrún alone in the other one, why don’t I think more about Guðrún, his heart doesn’t jump even once when he thinks of her name, and where is Bárður now, his body, this dead and useless sheath he left behind when he departed, where is it stored until someone comes for it? And was it wrong of me to leave so suddenly, was it escape, wasn’t it betrayal? And why in the hell do I absolutely need to recall this Ragnheiður now, why was she showing me the goddamned tip of her tongue? He stares down at the page and doesn’t immediately hear Brynjólfur, who then has excellent reason to raise his voice and scold the rubbish this boy is, but there is no heaviness in his words any longer, Brynjólfur is happy again, has discovered that Kolbeinn is a decent fellow, you’re just blind, he adds, as if it needed to be pointed out specifically, you’re a sharp observer, says Kolbeinn simply, and then they start talking about the sea again, they’re immediately far out at sea, are in danger, the past frees them for a time from the present, from the depression, the anxiety, the darkness. The boy holds his pen but looks out of the corner of his eye at Kolbeinn, tries to figure him out but naturally can’t do so, feels respect, a kind of fear, is apprehensive about having to read to him, to have to be near him, hopefully the women will listen as well, it would be better, will I read to him tonight? The seawolf, he then thinks, meaning the fish, is the seawolf always in a bad mood or is that just how it looks? He shakes his head, there’s so little that he understands. He has written,
my dear Andrea,
and now adds,
I am alive, I made it all the way,
but then puts the pen down. Why in the hell should I live? I’m not interested in anything, least of all in this Ragnheiður, she’s so cold it contracts my heart. I don’t want anything and I don’t desire anything. He stares confusedly at the pen. Absolutely doesn’t want to die. The will to live sits in his bones, it runs in his blood, what are you, life? he asks silently but is so incredibly far from answering, which isn’t strange, we don’t have ready answers, yet have lived and also died, crossed the borders that no one sees but are still the only one that matters. What are you, life? Perhaps the answer is found in the question, the wonder that is implicit in it. Does the light of life dwindle and turn to darkness as soon as we stop wondering, stop questioning, and take life like every other commonplace thing?

The boy has started to think about the captain’s library he has been imagining ever since Bárður told him about it, four hundred books, one probably needs nothing else in life, except of course sight, he thinks, even snidely, but is startled when the blind man brushes against him and goes into the house, shuts the door firmly behind him. Another beer, you wimp, says Brynjólfur loudly, and the boy brings him his ninth beer. The beer disappears into the giant, his body receives it endlessly, I’m so big, explains the giant to the boy, sit down here by me, dammit, or else I’ll hit you, it’s so difficult to sit alone, a man feels so lonely when he’s by himself, you see, be good now and don’t leave an old man.

The boy is good. He doesn’t leave the table, can’t get away for that matter, Brynjólfur has latched his large fist around his right arm. The boy sits next to the giant, who drinks beer, does so with gusto, then starts to tell about an old shipmate, Ole the Norwegian, they sailed together for a whole fifteen years, made it alive through wretched, ferocious storms and heaving seas, then Ole drowned in utter calm, his ship at the pier. Ole was piss-drunk and tumbled over onto his bald head, broke the mirror that was the Lagoon, and disappeared, didn’t even get to finish the bottle he’d bought from Tryggvi, French cognac that Ole had saved up a long time to buy. The body was dredged up and the bottle turned out to be half full and neatly tied to his waistband. Dammit, says Brynjólfur in the middle of his story about the Norwegian, closes his eyes halfway, holds his fingers in front of them, I can’t see clearly anymore! he half shouts in fear: I’m losing my sight, that goddamn bastard has infected me! I’m going blind! Brynjólfur closes his eyes but opens them again when the boy explains that after nine beers most people stop seeing clearly. The captain is so appreciative that he releases his grip on the boy, who rubs his sore arm under the table.

It is past noon and the sun would no doubt be shining through the Café’s windows if it could make it to Earth through the clouds, yet it wouldn’t have lifted itself high enough to shine on the Spit and the main part of the settlement surrounding Central Square, the Eyrarfjall peak rises into the sky and buries the houses in its shadow. But if there were a sun in the sky it would soon shine through the parlor windows of a house not far from the old neighborhood, wherein sits a woman staring at nothing, she has big eyes, recalling a horse that has stood all of its life outside in heavy rain. She sits completely motionless, as only one does whom the joy of life has abandoned. Once, it was a long time ago, she laughed quite often and then her eyes were suns above life, the icicles that hung cold and hard from the houses turned into refreshing drops of water, where now is the joy in these eyes? The woman sits motionless, stares, a bit as if she were waiting for someone who has gone so far away that he might possibly not have enough time to make it back in this life. She sits bent over, her shoulders a bit hunched, she’ll sit like this the whole day, and when it grows dark and everything becomes hazier, she’ll resemble a mound more than a person. Where now is the justice in this existence, this wretched existence? You live with the most beautiful eyes in the world, they’re as beautiful as the sea, then thirty years go by and they’re no longer beautiful, they’re just far too big and follow you around reproachfully and you see nothing but exhaustion and disappointment when you look into them.

Bloody hell, one looks into them and thinks of a rain-drenched horse, that’s not to say a jade, are you nuts, boy, I would never call my wife by such a name and whoever says something like that will get to meet my fists! Brynjólfur hammers on the table, the boy jumps and the empty beer bottles Brynjólfur has lined up carefully in front of him clink loudly, eight, no, nine empty beer bottles. The captain grabs the boy’s arm once more and unfortunately in precisely the same place, holds it tightly, there will be an ugly bruise there but the boy doesn’t dare move. If only you’d seen my wife laugh before, huh, boy, and seen her eyes, oh, what has happened, where did the joy go and why did she need to change like that, where does this darkness and grayness come from? Do you know, boy, we played together with Kristján as children, we three were always together, no one takes good, bright memories from a man, but bad memories don’t disappear either, they grow more insistent over the years if anything, damn it all. Kristján drowned, did you know that, the sea took him, and that’s of course the way we fishermen should go but I really miss him, I have so few people to talk to, you know that Bryndís is his daughter, Bryndís, that’s a beautiful name, I’d imagine that God invented it so we’d feel a bit better. But, dear friend, I wish you’d seen her eyes before, not Bryndís but rather . . . rather . . . dammit, dammit to hottest Hell, I don’t remember her name!

Brynjólfur sits there staring, perplexed, and doesn’t remember the name that is ingrained in his life. The name of the girl he played with when youth shone over the three of them and they built ice-castles in the winter, played at being farmers together in the summer, and sometimes she stuck buttercups in her hair and walked around just like the Sun, she was the fairy tale itself. Brynjólfur wrinkles his brow, tries with all his might to remember her name and then automatically releases his grip on the boy’s arm, and the boy sighs in relief but silently. Finally a gleam comes to his drunken and bloodshot eyes, like a glimmer before a clear thought, like a light deep within dim fog: I drink too much. He says this firmly and clearly, then nods his head in agreement with his own words and adds, yes, and then I betray everyone. Brynjólfur looks gloomily at the boy but seems to be having trouble seeing him clearly, leans his head back slightly, squints and repeats, everyone! I betray her, you know, my wife, and her eyes, I betray them every day. I betray Snorri and it hurts. I betray my darling boys, Björn and Bjarni, and I also betray Torfhildur. How is it possible to betray someone like Torfhildur, what sort of villainy is that? Think about it, this morning I wished she would die and do you know why? Because she is so good to me! She trusts me and speaks beautiful words to me but instead of being grateful I try to avoid her because she makes me remember the betrayal, imagine if she were to die today, or maybe tomorrow, wouldn’t I just kill myself then? Still, I’m not evil, it’s just this heaviness within me, here inside, he says, and strikes himself a mighty blow on the chest, there are some little black beings inside there and they’ve dug themselves into my heart. Sometimes I’m not aware of them, yes, months can go by and I’ll start to believe that something has killed them and I’m a free man, but then they reappear and start going at it, stronger and more vicious than ever before. I’ve tried to drown them, drown the bastards in beer and whiskey, but they must be strong swimmers and take bloody revenge on me when I sober up. You can never imagine how their revenge is, you’re so young, oh, if she’d just laugh again, then her eyes would be so beautiful and everything would be good, and if I could just remember her name, I’d take the straightest path home, would take her in my arms and beg her tearfully for forgiveness, I’m man enough to weep, you can believe it. What was her name again?

Brynjólfur stops. He tries to hold his head steady, gropes for the boy’s arm, the boy moves away and that is also all right, the captain just gropes into empty air without being aware of it. I guess I can stay here a week, thinks the boy to himself, it would hardly do any damage and then Andrea wouldn’t need to worry about me at all. Even two weeks. I can surely read two novels in two weeks, and a few poems as well, besides what I have to read to Kolbeinn. It’s hardly betrayal to live two weeks longer, he thinks optimistically, even happily, but then it quickly grows cold inside the Café, the cold slips through their clothes and covers their skin. He looks up and meets the cold eyes of Bárður, who stands behind Brynjólfur. Bárður moves his lips, blue with frost and death: how long am I to wait for you, then, his voice asks inside the boy’s head. How long is your mother to wait, how long is your father to wait, and your sister, who is only three years old? Why should you live and not us? I don’t know, mutters the boy, shivering with cold, then he straightens up in his seat, looks at Bárður and half shouts in his desperation, I don’t know! Hush! Not a word! Brynjólfur thunders suddenly and grabs the boy’s arm tightly, wait! Don’t go! There’s something happening, hush, not a word, it’s coming! Brynjólfur leans forward, as if to listen, to catch a distant message, catch a name that his life depends on his remembering, leans forward, shuts his eyes, his large head sinks slowly and he is asleep before his forehead reaches the tabletop. Then it’s just the two of them, the boy and Bárður, he who lived and he who died. The boy pulls back his arm, does not look away from Bárður, who moves his cold-blue lips and says, I’m lonely here. I am too, the boy mutters, half apologetically, then he raises his voice and says, don’t go, without knowing whether he means it. Bárður says nothing, just smiles bitterly. It has started snowing. The snow falls silently outside the windows, large, hovering snowflakes shaped like angels’ wings. The boy sits motionless, angels’ wings hover outside, he watches Bárður dissipate slowly and turn into chilling air.