The Great Weaver From Kashmir (22 page)

Why had she thrown the book onto the mantel and stood up – instead of sitting across from him and sinking herself into her reading? She was a terrible actress! At the end of her pilgrimage around the room she finally sat down again, took her book from off the shelf, and started to read.

For a while neither of them looked up. From outside came the creaking of hard snow under people's feet; in here the firewood burned, the flames scrambled about the dry wood, filling the room with an Italian summertime heat. But just when she fixed her thought on her reading he slipped his notebooks down to the side, onto the seat, sat with clasped hands, and looked at her. And it wasn't until he started to speak that she noticed he'd stopped reading. He might have been looking at her for two or three minutes before she realized it.

“Sorry for interrupting you, Diljá,” he said, and both his smile
and his voice were less secure than usual. It was as if he intended to explain his opinions on something that he really did not understand.

“What?” she asked, as she looked up from her book, because this time she had determined not to stop reading no matter what might happen.

“It's almost a month since I returned from abroad,” he said, “and in all that time I've been mulling over one particular thing.”

“What's that?”

“You know that I spoke to Steinn Elliði. Why is it that you've never asked me anything more about him?”

“Me?” she said, and now she looked straight into Örnólfur's eyes. “Why should I have asked about him?”

“Have no fear,” he said, “that it would ever cross my mind to ask you a personal question. On the other hand I hope that you won't be offended if I see no reason to try to conceal the fact that this has caused me some concern.”

“I don't understand you,” she said, and she looked back down at her book.

“You can't understand that it seems strange to me to see that you two, who used to be like – siblings, seem to have forgotten each other?”

She neither looked up nor replied.

“I'd convinced myself that you two, who seemed made to understand each other, would hold on to your friendship in spite of distance. But instead you seem to have blotted each other out: he avoids mentioning you, you avoid mentioning him.”

Then she looked up and answered in a calm, measured voice,
as was usual for her when she remembered to give herself time to think:

“It's a complete misunderstanding that Steinn and I have ended our friendship – if such a thing was even part of the picture. We parted like friends three years ago, or, to put it better, like children. And we must always think the warmest thoughts about each other like good children, if we think about each other at all.”

He stared at her again for a moment, but to no avail; perhaps it was useless for anyone other than a psychoanalyst or some other expert in human nature to try to understand her. And after he had lost all hope of being able to read something more in her expression than he was able to glean from her words, this indiscreet conjecture flew as if involuntarily from his lips:

“And I even thought that your friendship had been sealed with vows!”

“Our friendship sealed with vows!” she repeated, feigning indignation. “Absolutely ridiculous! Vows! Did I hear you correctly?! And I think that you are quite mistaken when you say that we were made to understand each other; he was much more of an idealist than that! I can hardly think of two children less alike than Steinn and I.”

“Then how would you respond to Steinn if he were to come home one day?” asked Örnólfur.

“Is he coming, then?” she asked sharply, this time completely spontaneously, and added: “I seem to remember you saying quite clearly the other day that he would never come home.”

“Certainly. He didn't mention coming home, and avoided mentioning his plans in plain language. On the other hand it wouldn't surprise me if he were to appear here when we least expect it. Who
can figure out a boy of his sort? What's more, it wouldn't surprise me even if I were to hear that one day he had become the editor-in-chief of the Socialists' newspaper here, or something along those lines. How would that strike you?”

“That would be disgraceful,” she said, and added, “but that won't happen; Steinn would never join a group of cads.”

“He has joined a group of cads, Diljá. Their opinions are his. He hails the same solutions to social questions as they do, and would certainly be no more discreet about the means used to bring them about. And what really counts is that he is much more talented than they are. He could be a more dangerous opponent than all of them put together.”

“I would hate him,” she said. “But I wouldn't believe that Steinn had joined a party until I saw it with my own eyes. He's much too fickle to embrace any view for longer than a few days at a time. His views were never anything other than poetic prattle.”

“Poets are the most dangerous,” answered Örnólfur. “It's useless to try to meet them on the same grounds as other members of society; they stand outside society and never have anything to lose. No weapons can bite them. They have only one goal, and that's to confuse the people – if not in this way, then in another. And they have the remarkable ability beyond other men of never listening to reason. That's why I have never tired of exhorting my party brothers concerning how necessary it is for us not to lose these buffoons to the Communists. But Steinn has a private fortune and can do what he pleases without saying like the others:
‘Wes' Brot ich eß, des' Lied ich sing.'”
⁴⁹

It was clear that the danger presented by Steinn Elliði had occupied
Örnólfur's mind for a long time. And although this was the first time that he found himself compelled to explain a serious matter to Diljá, it did not affect Diljá so deeply that it prevented her from turning back to her reading.

She hunched over her book, and he looked at the soft curls in her hair and seemed, despite his manifold experience, not to have any clue as to how women want to be treated. She read on, completely unscrupulously; yes, verily fluttered through the pages. Finally he grabbed his notebooks again and started paging through them. Once again crunching footsteps could be heard out in the snow, and immediately afterward the ludicrous thing on the wall struck six times without having the faintest idea that in this house time stood still.

Finally it was the girl who could no longer stand it.
Jean-Christophe
flew up onto the mantel once more. She leaned back again in her chair, clasped her hands under her knees, and broke the silence by saying:

“I want to go abroad.”

He put the notebooks down slowly and carefully in the same place as before, clasped his hands in his lap, looked at her, and smiled.

“Well then,” he said.

“I'll die here!” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don't know.”

Now there was a long silence; she stared out into space, full of feminine pertinacity and whimsicality, but he tried to remain cheerful in the face of adversity and continued to smile.

“I feel like a nobody here!” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

All the same she added after a short silence: “I'm not living. This isn't life! I'd rather land in misfortune a thousand times! I'd rather be lost a thousand times. I hate the instrument in there; it's out of tune. I hate these tattered old books that I'm reading; they're lies. I can't stand this any longer. I lie awake all night. I'll go crazy in this deadly lifelessness. I'm going.”

“Where do you want to go then, Diljá?” he asked cheerfully.

“I don't know!” she answered, and she turned around in her seat, leaned over the back of the chair, and hid her face in her naked arms. She had said it all, torn down all the walls; her desires had found their voices, all at once, and she was so ashamed that she didn't dare let the man see her face any longer. He thought that she'd started crying, and was clueless about what to do next. He wasn't used to a weapon so destructive as a woman's weakness – he stood up and touched her arm in some bewilderment, but burned himself.

“Diljá, my child!” he stammered. “I'm sorry!”

It was impossible for him to put his thoughts into words. He touched her again, involuntarily; this time placed his hand on her bright, bobbed hair. But she jolted her head out from under his hand and did not look up. Suddenly she sprang to her feet without taking her hands from her face, ran out of the room in silent horror, and left the door open behind her.

For the next two days she was ill and did not emerge from her room.

On the third day she sat down at the table without looking up, smiled at no one, ran her slender fingers through her hair. She looked glorious after her two-day stay in her room, a jewel newly unwrapped from its linen cloth, and yet more precious than all other treasures: a woman in the flower of maidenhood, a materialization of grace. Bewitchments dripped from her fingers; she magnetized everything she touched; her femininity surged through her body with every breath, glittered in the algal gloss of her eyes, quivered about her mouth; her body and soul were one. It was as if she knew all of this herself, because she did not dare to look up any more than a Persian noblewoman who has lost her veil. Her mouth was shaped like Cupid's bow.

Örnólfur looked at her three or four times, but she did not return his glance. He asked about her health, and she said that she was quite well. He poured wine into her glass and passed her the strawberry jam, but she was as appreciative as a discourteous child. Lunch was hardly finished before he was gone.

She did not come to dinner, nor did Madam Valgerður.

“Where's the madam?” he asked.

She was at a club meeting.

“Where's the missus?” he then asked in a hugely carefree tone, as if it didn't matter to him at all, and sat down.

“The missus has been out with her girlfriend since noon and won't
be home until late; they're going to the theater.” He sat alone at the table and regarded the steam from the dishes, emptied his bowl of preserves, smoked a cigarette, and drank a glass of wine.

“Perhaps the Director doesn't like the steak?” said the maid.

“The steak is heavenly,” said the Director, and he stood up and left.

He did not sit down at his desk as usual. Instead he paced the floor in his office, back and forth, lit one cigarette after another and threw them all aside half-smoked, looked at the watch on his wrist, forgot just as quickly as he looked what time it was and looked at the watch again. The bell rang in the foyer and he had a servant say that he wasn't at home. The phone rang and he didn't answer.

Finally he put on his overcoat and went out. The street was slippery as glass, with a blustery wind from the north. He headed downtown and stuck to a course along the least traveled streets so as to draw as little attention as possible to the director of the Ylfingur Company. The clock in the theater foyer struck nine thirty; the last act had begun. He goes up to the balcony without taking off his overcoat, sits down in a half-empty box, and looks around. But he does not see Diljá or her girlfriends anywhere. He stands up and peers about even more carefully in the half-darkness, examines box after box. No one noticed him; everyone was waiting eagerly for the climax onstage. Diljá was not to be seen anywhere. He sat down for the conclusion of the play and listened distractedly to the gab on stage, then slunk out of the balcony before the curtain fell and waited in the foyer until the audience exited. But she was not among those who exited the hall. He waited again for a little while by the outer doors, in case he had overlooked her, looked carefully at everyone,
but she wasn't in the theater. He couldn't understand what was going on, drank a cup of coffee in the next café, and headed home.

It wasn't until half an hour after midnight that the rustling of her clothing was heard on the stairs, and then her footsteps in the hall. She walked carefree, contentedly, opened the door of her room briskly, and stood there in her unbuttoned coat, hot, winded, her eyes dusky from the nighttime and the luxury, perhaps still intoxicated by the flattery of the boy who had walked her home. But in the doorway she stopped in surprise, because she did not expect a light to be on in her room, and was even less prepared for a man to be sitting there with his hand on his cheek.

Her eyes widened and she gasped for breath. “Örnólfur!” she said. “You here!”

“I'm sorry,” he said as he stood up. “Forgive me for waiting up for you; for sitting here in ambush like a highwayman–”

“I'd been planning to be home a lot earlier,” she said, as if she felt some need to apologize. “But I was at the theater,” she added. “And afterward we went to a café. Time flew by.”

“How is it that I didn't see you at the theater? Where were you sitting?”

“Were you at the theater?” she asked, and she blushed to the roots of her hair.

“I dropped in.”

“Yes, that is to say, we decided not to go at the last minute,” she hastened to correct herself, pale and disconcerted. “But we were going to go. We even booked seats. If I had known that you were going too, then–”

“I went down there just to find you,” he said. “It's so slippery and
windy. I wanted to walk you home. And besides that – I can't put it off any longer–”

“Put what off?”

“I've got to talk to you, Diljá.”

He stood in the center of the room and stared at her with dilated pupils, rigid breaths, as if something perilous were about to happen, his arms hanging down at his sides.

“Almighty!” she said in alarm. “Are you mad at me? I'll tell you exactly how it was: I was at home with Sigga P. all evening. There were guests. We danced a little, actually only a tiny bit. Don't be angry with me.”