Sun on Fire (17 page)

As he talked, Fabían soaked slices of bread in the hot fat. “When Mom couldn’t live on her own anymore, I was sent to a farm to be looked after by a couple who fostered boys in welfare. It was a small place, isolated in the far corner of the fjord, mostly sheep, but also seven cows. It wasn’t altogether bad, but there was no love at all. There were five of us little guys, all different ages, scared to death of the husband, who ruled with terror and tongue-lashing. I don’t actually remember him beating us, but somehow that was always the hidden threat. I was unusually small for my age and kind of puny. My mother’s death had been a great shock to me, and no one helped me deal with that. My poor little soul was in a bad way.”

Fabían took his tray of fat-soaked bread and put it in the refrigerator. “We’ll let this harden a moment before we take it outside.” He sat down at the table. “Can I offer you anything?”

Birkir shook his head. “Go on with your story,” he said.

“One fall, I got very sick and was sent away to the district hospital. It was partly an infection and partly malnutrition because of the poor appetite I’d always had. I was also psychologically blocked—I never initiated conversation, and personal hygiene was a problem. The folks at the hospital decided that I had some kind of developmental disability, and when the farmer refused to have me back after my hospitalization, I was placed in a home for mentally handicapped people. I was not unhappy there and, since I wasn’t as challenging to deal with as most of the others, I was left in peace. They didn’t do much to develop our abilities. Every day
was more or less the same, and I spent most of my time sitting by the window, looking out at the yard. Somebody had the idea to give me paper and pencil, and I began to draw what I could see outside. It was crude stuff to start with, but gradually I developed a pretty good freehand technique. I always destroyed my drawings as soon as I’d finished them, though, because I didn’t want to attract undue attention to myself. I was comfortable being left to my own devices, and I stayed there for the next few years.”

Fabían stood up and took out two plastic containers, which he filled with grains from two sacks in the adjoining pantry. “This one is a mixture of wheat and grits for the snow buntings,” he said, placing the containers on the table in front of Birkir, “and this one is sunflower seeds for the redpolls.”

“How did you meet Jón the Sun Poet?” Birkir asked.

“That’s a story in itself. One spring, a young poetry-writing hippie from Reykjavík took a summer job at the home where I was kept. This was Jón Sváfnisson, who later became known as the Sun Poet. His behavior was sometimes a bit over the top, but he was sensitive to his surroundings and to other people. One time, he caught me reading a magazine when I thought I was unobserved. The other inmates were all illiterate, so this was out of the ordinary, but he didn’t tell the staff, he just started chatting to me about this and that, and didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t respond. Also working there that same summer was Sunna, a girl from a nearby village. Nicknamed “Sun,” she was a kitchen assistant and cleaner, and whenever she had a free moment she sang and played the guitar. I was entranced by the beautiful sounds she made, and one day I abandoned my safe place by the window, moved closer, and started drawing her as she played. The finished sketch was really good, I thought, and I couldn’t bear to destroy it like the others, so I slipped it into her guitar case when
no one was looking. There was pandemonium when they discovered it. Nobody figured out that it was the idiot by the window who’d produced this masterpiece—except of course for Jón, but he didn’t say a word. Sunna loved the poems Jón had written, and set some of them to music. She and Jón ended up as an item and went together to Reykjavík at the end of the summer.”

Fabían fetched the bread pieces from the refrigerator, picked up the board with the apple rings, and signaled for Birkir to pick up the grain and seed containers. “All this needs to go out,” he said. Then, stopping only to put on a thick parka in the hallway, he led the way into the yard.

Despite the overhanging trees, there was a fair amount of light out there, cast by the streetlamps and spilling out from the living room windows. There was a full moon, too, shining down from a northern sky. The only sound they could hear in the stillness was the trickle of a tiny brook that flowed between two small ornamental ponds.

Birkir stared at the water in surprise.

“There’s a neat little device that pumps the water through a pipe back up to the upper pond,” Fabían said. “And some of the outflow from the mains hot water gets added to it, that’s why it’s not frozen. There’s always fresh water for the birds.”

Birkir took a closer look. The ponds’ edges had been painstakingly constructed with flat stones, and mosses had rooted themselves at water level.

Fabían nodded toward a folding stepladder lying beneath the trees. “Would you mind putting that up for me? I want to hang up the apples in the rowan.” He pointed at the trees, which had lost most of their leaves in the previous week’s wind. “The thrushes have been eating the rowanberries, and there aren’t many left, so it makes sense to give them apples and fat now. Then they’ll
remember where they can find food in the winter when there are no more berries and frosts are harder. I’m convinced that the same birds come here year after year.”

Birkir set up the stepladder where Fabían pointed. “Can you support it while I climb up, please?” Fabían asked. “And can you hold the board for me? We have to put the food as high as possible, because of all the neighborhood cats. We keep shooing them away, but they always come sneaking back.”

With Birkir holding on to the stepladder, Fabían climbed unsteadily up. Then he held out his hand for the apple pieces. “We’ve cut back some of the smaller branches here to make hooks to hang the food from,” he said as he threaded the apple rings one by one onto the protruding stumps. He repeated the process with the bread slices.

“Now it’s ready for them when they come out of their sleeping places in the morning,” Fabían said as he stepped carefully back down to earth. “The thrushes and the starlings will fight over it. Sometimes the odd blackbird, too.”

He stood awhile, collecting himself. “I just need a moment,” he said. “Climbing makes me dizzy.”

Birkir waited for him to recover before asking, “What happened to you after Jón finished working in the home?”

“I got sick again and spent most of that winter in the hospital. They had a lot of interesting books there, and I stopped bothering to hide the fact that I could read. A teacher regularly came to the hospital to tutor a girl who was chronically sick. He took an interest in me and had me join in the classes. I learned a lot in a very short time, and people realized I was maybe not so retarded after all. Still, when I’d gotten better, they sent me back to the previous place while they considered other solutions. In the spring, Jón and Sun came to visit in an old Russian jeep. When they
heard about the problems finding somewhere for me to live, they offered me the chance to come and do farm work for them, as they were about to move out into the country down south. I was worried about having to do heavy work, as I was physically very feeble, but Jón promised that wouldn’t happen. He stood by his word—I never had to overexert myself while living with them.”

He turned away from Birkir and moved over to the tallest aspens. He pointed to where horizontal wooden boards were firmly attached to the branches three meters above them.

“Would you mind scattering the grain for the snow buntings up there for me, please?” he said. “I’ll support the ladder.”

Birkir repositioned the stepladder and clambered up.

“The buntings arrived unusually early this fall,” Fabían said. “They came straight after that cold spell at the beginning of the month.”

Birkir sprinkled the contents of the plastic container onto the boards and climbed back down.

“This should be enough for our morning visitors,” Fabían said. “Úlfheidur will feed them again at noon tomorrow. It’s easier to do this in daylight.”

“So you moved south—how was that?” Birkir asked.

Fabían coughed. “Yes, I left with Jón and Sun, and we went to Fljótshlíd in the Southeast, where they set up a small commune with another couple, Helgi Kárason and Rakel Árnadóttir. Helgi was with Jón and me in Berlin, as you know, and you’ve met Rakel here.”

“What was the farm?” Birkir asked.

“Jón’s father had inherited a small plot of land with an old house on it, far up the river valley. A remote place, called Sandgil. Jón was one of those typical anarchist hippies rebelling against their wealthy parents, and he and his friends decided to squat
on the land. His father avoided confrontation by pretending he didn’t know Jón had taken over the farm. For me, things were better than they’d ever been since I’d lost my mother and my home. My housemates were extremely kind to me, and we had a great life. Other good people came and lived with us from time to time, but only the five of us lived there permanently the whole time.”

Fabían walked around the corner of the house and pointed to a shelf attached to a sheltered corner on the west side of the house.

“That’s where we put the food for the redpolls. Would you mind?”

Birkir set up the stepladder where he could reach the shelf, and climbed up. He scattered the seeds around and climbed back down.

“What did you live off of out there in the country?” he asked.

Fabían replied, “Housekeeping was actually a bit of a struggle because we had very little income. The idea was to earn money selling handicrafts, ceramics, candles, and my drawings. Jón would sell pamphlets of his verse, and Sun would sing her songs. But none of this brought in enough money, so Jón expanded our cottage industry into growing cannabis in the attic. There was a perfect space up there, once they’d brought in lights. Jón and Helgi had learned how to do this on their travels in Europe. I became just as good at horticulture as I was at drawing. For nearly a year, this all worked quite well, but then the authorities got suspicious and busted Jón, Helgi, and Rakel on a sales trip near Reykjavík.”

“What happened to you?”

Fabían coughed several times, and his voice cracked as he continued, “The same evening my friends were arrested, our house burned down, and Sun died in the fire. I managed to escape. I was found the next morning, wandering aimlessly. I’d
suffered some kind of mental breakdown, and they sent me to a psychiatric institution.”

Fabían coughed again more violently, and he suddenly vomited. He continued gagging for a while, and when he looked up, Birkir saw that he had a nosebleed.

“I’m sorry,” Fabían mumbled. “I’m having a relapse.”

“Let me help you in,” Birkir said, helping Fabían upright and supporting him as they made their way back through the yard. As they approached the steps to the house, Fabían fell to his knees. Birkir bent down and gathered him up. It surprised him how light his load was.

“Can you carry him inside?” Rakel had appeared on the porch and was holding the front door open.

“Yes,” Birkir said, and walked up the steps carrying Fabían in his arms.

“And up to his room?”

“Yes.” Inside, he continued up the stairs and carried the patient into the room on the second floor, laying him down on the bed.

“Thank you,” Rakel said, “I’ll take over now.”

“Do you mind if I stay awhile to see how he’s doing?” Birkir asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give him an injection and he’ll fall asleep. You can come back tomorrow.”

22:30

After a generous evening meal at home with his mother, María, followed by a half-hour nap, Gunnar decided to round off the day with a visit to his regular bar on Smidjustígur, in the hope that a couple shots of bitters would alleviate the misery of his head cold. The bar was walking distance away, but, although he could move around reasonably well with the aid of his crutches, his back hurt like hell. He called a cab.

As he entered the bar, Gunnar signaled to the bartender, then paused to scan the room for a seat. He didn’t think he could cope with standing or sitting at the counter. There were no free tables, but he saw an empty chair by a table for two, at which sat a familiar figure—a slim, sharp-nosed man with grayish, wavy hair parted in the center, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was writing something on a piece of paper, but looked up through his thick spectacles as Gunnar sat down next to him.

“Emil Edilon. Good to see you, Maestro,” Gunnar said.

“By all that is holy! If it isn’t the Germanic Giant, back from the dead,” Emil said, eyeing the crutches Gunnar had leaned against the table. “Are you trying for a disability pension? I know a doctor who’s good at forging certificates.”

Gunnar pretended he hadn’t heard this and asked, “How’s the writing going?”

Emil sadly looked at the paper in front of him. “I think too much. One shouldn’t think. One should just write gibberish. That’s what readers like best. But you wouldn’t understand—you
have no more feeling for literature than for any other nonedible pleasures.”

A waiter came to the table and set before Gunnar a Holsten beer and a small square bottle of Jägermeister bitters.

“Where on earth did you learn to drink that stuff?” Emil asked.

“From my mom. She likes bitters.”

The bar owner stocked these brands specially for Gunnar, who was the only customer who ordered them.

“OK,” Emil said. “Now go and bother someone else. I’m working.”

Gunnar looked around but couldn’t see any free seats. “Hey,” he said, “do you know Jón the Sun Poet?”

Emil looked at him suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

“I bumped into him in Germany.”

“What were you doing in Germany?”

“Never mind that. Do you know the Sun Poet?”

“Yeah, I used to buy pot from him back in the days when I still enjoyed the stuff. He grew a good strain and knew how to process it.”

“What about now?”

“I stopped smoking cannabis a long time ago. It’s bad for people who need to use their brains—but you don’t have to worry about that sort of thing.”