The Journey Home: A Novel (14 page)

I take a taxi to Hotel Borg where I intend to stay while I’m in Iceland.

“Asdis Jonsdottir,” says the girl at reception. “Six nights.”

When I open the door to my room I feel an indescribable emptiness.

13

Later I couldn’t remember whether it was the bowl of apples I noticed first or the shaft of sunlight falling on them between the thick curtains. I hadn’t seen such beautiful apples since leaving England, red and shiny like precious gems. I yearned to touch them and moved closer to the table where the bowl stood on a round, yellow cloth but stopped at the last moment and made do with reaching out my hand and grasping at the sunbeam. A shadow fell on the apples in the dim drawing room and I instantly whipped back my hand in order to see them shine anew.

It was then that a voice spoke behind me: “They’ll rot too, if they’re forgotten.”

I wasn’t startled because the voice was gentle and amiable. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief, inspecting them absentmindedly, then instead of putting them back on, twisted them between his fingers, clockwise and counterclockwise in turn.

“It’s getting dark,” he said eventually and switched on the lamp beside the bowl. “These long, dark winter nights.”

I was about to point out that it would still be light if he were to draw back the heavy curtains, but thought better of it.

“I woke to the snow buntings this morning,” he continued. “They had found some treat in the garden after last night’s rain. I enjoy watching them, so I went out on to the balcony in the dawn breeze to get a better view. Poor things,” he said finally, then fell silent, putting an end to these ramblings. He invited me to sit down but remained standing himself, rubbing his glasses with the handkerchief while pacing up and down, obviously out of habit.

“The winter has a bad effect on my wife. Apart from the Advent season, of course, when she always takes part in the Christmas preparations. Rushes round the house, making sure all the rooms are decorated, and lighting candles from dawn to dusk. She does her bit when it comes to baking and making leaf-bread too and the house is filled with the smell day after day. With a smile on her lips, my dear, a smile on her lips.”

He fell silent before adding: “But now Christmas is over. And some people find the winter months slow to pass.”

He was stocky without being precisely fat, jollier than in the photographs in the newspapers. His eyes were shrewd but at the same time distant, his hair gray at the temples and his hands more delicate than his build would suggest.

“You had better know straightaway that my wife rarely leaves her room in the winter. On bad days she stays in bed but when she’s feeling better she sits by the doors to the balcony, which has a view over the bay. She’s from the west of the country. She likes to watch the sea. You should know all about that,” he added with a smile, “a girl from Kopasker.”

I nodded and muttered something about understanding what he meant.

“We have to make sure that she eats, as generally she doesn’t have much appetite. The maid does what she can but she only knows the absolute basics. I’m hoping that better food will help restore her health. In fact, I’m sure it will.”

He fell silent and inspected the reflection in his glasses; it was as if he didn’t quite know how to finish his description of life in the household. Just as it looked as if he was about to continue, a voice called down from upstairs.

“Bolli! Come here! Oh, Bolli . . .” The voice lifted on the final syllable.

He started, then without seeming unduly agitated asked me to excuse him and went out. I heard his slow, even tread going up the stairs to the first floor where he knocked lightly on a door before opening it and saying, “My dear . . .”

I glanced round at the heavy furniture, a sofa covered with red velvet and two chairs belonging to the same set, a mahogany table and vase of flowers, a stuffed eagle and a painting of a woman holding a book. She was delicate and pretty but I sensed the sadness in her eyes. Just as I was walking over to the picture, a girl entered the room. Small, brisk, no more than about twenty.

“That’s the mistress,” she said, adding in explanation, “in the picture. When she was young.”

Then she introduced herself as Maria, the family maid.

“My name’s Asdis. How do you do?”

She inspected me for a moment, then darted to the mahogany table and seized a half-empty glass of sherry which had been left on top of a magazine.

“He’ll never finish this,” she said as if to herself. “It’s been here since yesterday evening.”

She wiped the dust off the table with the corner of her apron, then said good-bye, wishing me luck.

Outside, the sun went behind a cloud and a shadow settled on the bowl of apples, despite the lamp on the table beside it. It was as if the glow was absorbed by the bowl without illuminating it. The gleam disappeared from the apples and I almost took the fact to heart. Then the clouds parted again and the late afternoon sun darted between the curtains, bathing the apples and my mood with light.

“It doesn’t take much either way,” I said to myself.

Shortly afterward Dr. Bolli came downstairs. This time he made sure that the drawing room door closed properly behind him.

“Once I had a meeting with some men who were complete strangers to me,” he began. “But when I sat down at my desk opposite them, I felt as if I had met them all before. I felt as if I had sat opposite them at the same desk, in the same chair, at the same time of day to discuss the same things. I even imagined I had heard them utter the same words and seen them make the same movements. Suddenly, I had a premonition that one of them had a gold front tooth. He had sat in silence until then and I became impatient to see him open his mouth. I remembered a joke I had recently read in
Icelandic
Humor
and decided to repeat it, though I don’t usually make jokes while I’m working. He smiled at first without revealing his teeth, then roared with laughter along with the others and the gold glittered in his mouth. I thought I was going mad and spent the rest of the meeting in a state. Later I remembered what my dear old grandmother used to say when I was a boy: The mind of man is a great labyrinth. Oh yes, so it is. And it is easier to judge others than to know oneself.”

There was a sound of voices outside the room. He listened but remained where he was. After a moment, there was a knock at the door and Maria popped in her head without waiting for an answer.

“The Minister’s here,” she announced. “He’s waiting in the study.”

“Take him some coffee, would you? I’ll be along in a moment.”

“Well, Asdis.”

“Is there anything you’d like to know about me, sir? You haven’t asked me anything.”

He smiled.

“No need for titles. We’re not so formal in this household. I know all I need to know. Vilhjalmur told you about the wages and conditions, didn’t he?”

I nodded.

“If you’d like the job . . .”

“I’d be very grateful.”

“. . . then Maria will show you your room and all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen. Your room catches the sun in the mornings and so does the kitchen. Even in the autumn. You can start on Monday . . . unless it would suit you better to begin earlier. Superstition, you see . . . But it’s up to you.”

“It would suit me to start on Monday,” I replied.

He held out his hand to me and I stood up to shake it. Then he was gone.

When I emerged on to the street it had begun to snow. The wind had also blown up and whirled the snow around my legs. A little way from the house I looked back over my shoulder. In a window on the top floor I glimpsed a face watching me. It was as white as the snow and vanished as soon as my eye fell on it.

The snow covered my tracks on the pavement.

I didn’t see the mistress of the house for the first three weeks. Maria arrived in the mornings and left in the evenings, sometimes late if Dr. Bolli had guests. She also had a little attic room for her use if she chose to stay over, but this rarely happened as the room was inadequately heated. She delivered messages to me from the mistress, usually verbally but occasionally in little notes. The mistress had elegant handwriting. The messages were mostly about cooking. She asked me, for example, to get in touch with two ship’s captains who she knew could get hold of goods unavailable in the shops, and a Dane who lived in Hafnarfjordur and provided the Danish embassy with various luxuries. I noticed that her appetite grew from day to day; sometimes her plates would come back empty on good days, usually when the sun was out. Then she would also put records on the gramophone in her room, generally Mozart or Verdi. “La Forza del Destino” was a particular favorite. Maria said that she had praised the food and was looking forward to meeting me but wasn’t quite ready yet. I didn’t ask any questions.

The little blue mirror by the cooker became my friend right away, though sometimes I saw things reflected in it which I didn’t want to see. There were times when I thought I saw myself through someone else’s eyes when I looked into it, someone who was fond of me and was thinking of me. Then I would also sense the nearness of the pond in the woods where Jakob and I used to splash around, see our faces reflected in the rainwater that had collected during the night in the old wheel-ruts leading to our cottage. Sometimes steam rose from the earth early in the morning as if it were breathing. Sometimes the earth spoke to us.

Perhaps it was the handpainted flowers on the frame which had this effect on me, at least they always reminded me of things I found beautiful and kind. Sometimes I’ve thought of asking some handy carpenter to make me the same kind of frame and paint it according to my instructions, but I haven’t yet dared.

One Saturday, shortly after midday, the mistress finally sent for me.

“She’s waiting,” said Maria, “so you’d better hurry.”

I’d known something was up, as Maria had been running around her all morning, from the moment she woke at ten. This was unusually early; in fact, often she didn’t stir till noon. I suspect sleeping pills played their part in this. I glanced in the mirror, brushed a lock of hair from my forehead, then took off my apron and hurried upstairs.

The mistress sat in a chair by the balcony doors, looking out. She wore a red silk dress, a pearl necklace and a bracelet on her left arm as if she were going to a party. Maria had combed and arranged her hair, which was brown with chestnut lights in it. A faint scent of grass lingered in the room. She invited me to sit down beside her, indicating with her head toward the window.

“The sea looks beautiful today,” she said.

Then she reached out to the gramophone beside her and put on a record.

“Listen,” she said.

“Pace, pace,”
sang Leonora,
“mio Dio, pace, mio Dio.”

We sat still, gazing out of the window. A flock of thrushes flew by. Clouds appeared on the horizon. We looked out of the window in silence.

“Pace, pace . . .”

She shifted in her chair, closed her eyes and took my hand. We sat like this until the needle lifted from the record and silence enfolded us. I didn’t find it at all uncomfortable; warmth and sincerity emanated from her hand. And fear.

She drew back her hand and rose slowly to her feet. When I took hold of the door handle on my way out, she said, “Our son is in Germany. I know how you feel.”

I took a long time descending the stairs.

I had neither written to my mother nor spoken to her on the phone since I came home. Nor had I received a letter from her. Father and Jorunn did what they could to bring about a reconciliation, Father in his quiet way, Jorunn more insistently whenever we were alone together. But I couldn’t forgive Mother, however hard I tried, and asked Jorunn to change the subject, reminding her that Mother hadn’t even offered me a helping hand when Jakob was put in the prison camp. Hadn’t bothered to come to Reykjavik to meet me. Hadn’t picked up the phone to comfort me. Hadn’t even put pen to paper. She had behaved as if I weren’t her concern, as I said to Jorunn, and I wasn’t about to please her by seeking her good opinion. An error in the bookkeeping, I told Jorunn. That’s all I am to her.

Yet as the spring wore on, I found myself compelled to sit at the desk in my room at 56 Fjolugata and try to put down on paper my thoughts about our relationship. I had half a mind to send them to her in a letter if I was satisfied with the result but for a long time it didn’t look as if I would ever manage to come to a conclusion. Yet somehow the letter grew line by line until early one Saturday I faced the fact that I was ready to finish it. Although a long time has passed and I haven’t taken the letter out of my desk for many years, it sticks in my memory how fair and just I tried to be in those pages which ran to five sheets by the time I had finished. For some reason I thought it was sensible not to sign the letter until the following day, letting it wait overnight in case it occurred to me to change something or cross something else out. I put the sheets in my desk drawer along with the envelope which I hadn’t yet addressed, put on my coat and went out. Jorunn had been ill and we hadn’t met for a week or so, but she had never left my thoughts while I was writing to Mother. I decided to wander over to see her and her husband, but first I wanted to feed the ducks on the pond with a few stale breadcrumbs from the kitchen.