World Light (60 page)

“I’m the one who is knocking at the door,” said the man. “My name is Jason Gottfreðsson, farmer and lighthouse keeper from Taungar, and tonight I was deputized by the sheriff to guard a prisoner while he was having his meal. It’s now almost morning and the sheriff has been eating all night, and I refuse to hang around here any longer and I demand to know what is to be done with the man.”

“The sheriff certainly won’t want to attend to any official business now,” said the woman. “He’s a private citizen tonight.”

“I insist on talking to the sheriff, or else I shall renounce all responsibility for the prisoner,” said Jason the lighthouse keeper.

The woman went back into the house and shut the door, but after a short while someone came to the door again. This time it was the groom; he was extremely drunk.

“I demand to speak to the sheriff!” said Jason.

“You’ve got a nerve, being cheeky to the authorities!” said the groom.

“As the guard of this prisoner, I demand to speak to the sheriff!” repeated Jason.

“The sheriff says the guard can go to Hell!” said the groom, made a grab at the door-handle as he staggered, and slammed the door as he reeled backwards.

The man on the outside shook his fist at the windows with appropriate curses, and said that without any doubt those who were quickest to condemn others deserved the gallows most of all; he said he spat on all justice in Iceland, and stamped off in a rage. Such was his abrupt parting with his prisoner. Ólafur Kárason gazed after his guard for a while, but soon lost sight of him in the darkness and drifting snow. But when he showed no sign of returning, the prisoner became uneasy and set off into the village to look for him. “Jason!” he called out. “Jason Gottfreðsson, where are you?” But it was all to no avail. Perhaps the man was already on his way home? What was Ólafur Kárason to do? There were no lights in any windows, and he had no friends here he could expect to give him shelter for the night—least of all the way things were with him now. He was left standing there alone in the depths of the night, a prisoner without a guard, and the drifting snow swirled around him mournfully in the blue moonlight.

9

When the sheriff woke up next morning, he was somewhat bad-tempered and not feeling too well in the head. He drank a few raw eggs and turned his face to the wall again; but then the clerk arrived, who was feeling even more fragile, and said that the prisoner had escaped during the night and had probably killed his guard and hidden the body.

“Hidden the body?” said the sheriff, and sat up again.

One thing was certain; neither hide nor hair of the two men was to be found. No one had seen them since late the previous evening when a few girls had taken a stroll down to the yard to have a look at the criminal. The sheriff now forced himself to crawl out of bed and ordered a posse to be raised in the village to hunt for the prisoner. People were sent out to the surrounding districts, and a search was also made along the shore for the guard’s body.

But luckily it quickly came to light that all this alarm was just a mild attack of delirium tremens in the sheriff’s immediate entourage. At breakfast time the prisoner was found sleeping in a little cottage half an hour’s walk from Kaldsvík. He had woken up the people there in the early hours of the morning, more dead than alive from cold, and begged for help. When the authorities’ searchers arrived, he was sound asleep and dreaming dreams. But it was not long before he was disturbed from this congenial occupation, dragged out of bed, and handed over to the sheriff again. The sheriff and his clerk, as well as the groom, were still in a state of feeling afraid of their own criminals, and were therefore convinced that a man like Ólafur Kárason would stop at nothing. The sheriff ordered the prisoner to be tied to the tail of a horse to ensure that he did not run away, and since most of those involved turned out to be unfamiliar with this technique, he supervised the work himself and gave instructions as to how it was to be done. First the man’s hands were tied behind his back, then a rope was passed under his armpits and round his chest and shoulders, and then securely fastened to a horse’s tail.

At a certain point a man ceases to care, and in its place there comes another capacity which is at once a more effective weapon and a stronger shield: the capacity to endure. The fish wriggles on the hook, it is said that the sheep is begging for mercy if it bleats in the slaughterhouse, the cat shows its claws in the snare and spits in its murderer’s face; but no one can deny a man his last shred of dignity and personal liberty with impunity. There comes a point when no act of violence can hurt a vanquished poet’s pride any more. Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík had an invisible friend whom no one had ever succeeded in naming. Not only did he dull the feelings the more, the sharper the weapons that were used, but he also laid life’s healing balm on every wound. He lent the face of the humiliated a majesty which was beyond life’s fortitude, so that even the most powerful enemy appeared trivial.

Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík was not angry with anyone. Nothing was personal any more. He no longer saw individuals, but only the whole world; even less did he impute evil motives to anyone for any single action. He was face to face with justice, not people, least of all individuals. And this was the first time in his life since he was kicked on the head by a horse that he was not afraid of anything any more, perhaps the first time in his life he had felt well, the first time he had felt like a truly happy man, a man whom no misfortune could befall any more.

When the expedition had set off at last and the village spectators had had their fill of entertainment for the time being and had gone home, and the sheriff had whipped up his horse and ridden on ahead with his clerk and groom, Ólafur Kárason’s physical senses began to come to life again; he began to distinguish individual features in his surroundings, to see people, horses, earth, even clouds.

“Well, well, my lad, I knew we were bound to have another journey together sometime!” said his escort cheerfully.

“Why, hallo, if it isn’t Reimar the poet!” said Ólafur Kárason. “How very nice to see you again! Where have you been all this time?”

Reimar Vagnsson, major poet, had been living in a number of different fjords, because a man, and particularly a poet, is not a plant but a creature of mobility; he was traveling a lot, often as a postman, always ready to cross a mountain or two if the government had need of a reliable man.

“I’m ashamed of myself for not recognizing you at once,” said Ólafur Kárason. “Yet I have every reason for remembering our first journey, and the joy that reigned in the world then.”

“Yes, there were no cares in the world then, my lad,” said Reimar the poet.

“Yes, it was fine weather then, all right,” said Ólafur Kárason. “Why won’t the Lord create the same day more than once, one day of happiness like that one, and then repeat it forever from then onwards? Do you remember how I was raised from the dead?”

“Oh, our Reimar can never go past Kambar now without shedding a tear,” said Reimar the poet. “Those girls there really knew how to give contact! They gave contact on both a natural and a supernatural plane; contact with heaven and earth; in a word—contact; what a current, what trembling, my God! Yes, they were glorious creatures!”

“To me they gave contact on a supernatural plane,” said Ólafur Kárason. “But I was never quite clear what they gave you. But don’t think for a moment that I’m going to start asking you about matters of conscience after ten years, my dear friend.”

“Look,” said Reimar the poet, and grew serious as people inevitably do when they start talking about their own subject. “The Kambar girls were obviously no exception to other women in that they needed time and opportunity. Women aren’t machines that can be set in motion by pressing a button; women are first and foremost human beings. I had had my eye on
órunn, because she was the most peculiar of them, and it has always been my fate to fancy peculiar girls more than pretty girls. But I’ll confess to you now, because ten years have passed, that despite honest efforts all night long, both with her and with the middle sister, I had to make do with the fallen one in the morning when the sun was high in the sky. So it was little wonder that I was sleepy and bad-tempered next day, for which I ask your pardon, my lad, however belatedly; but this was in the days when one still thought oneself cheated with a fallen woman—as if they wouldn’t all fall some day! And besides, they’ve all fallen a long time ago now.”

And thus they trudged out of the village: Ólafur Kárason the poet tied to the tail of a black jade, with Reimar in front leading the horse, walking practically backwards all the time in order to carry on this fascinating conversation about their overnight stay at Kambar; the sheriff went farther and farther ahead. When they had more or less exhausted the subject of the former glory of the Kambar girls, and there was a pause in the conversation, Ólafur Kárason said: “Well, since we’ve started reminiscing about the old days, Reimar, it’s little wonder that I call to mind Sviðinsvík-undir-Óþveginsenni where we were both poets together once. You who travel widely and hear many things: what news can you tell me of Sviðinsvík-undir-Óþveginsenni?”

“Oh, it’s the same old story of unrest at Sviðinsvík-undir-Óþveginsenni,” said Reimar the poet. “Things aren’t any better for our friend Pétur
ríhross.”

“No, he never had a very easy time, poor chap,” said Ólafur Kárason. “If I remember rightly, the Danes and the Russians were his enemies, quite apart from poets. Yes, that was quite a struggle.”

“Yes, it’s terrible the emotional upsets he used to suffer in those days, our friend Pétur
ríhross,” said Reimar the poet. “Örn Úlfar has now vanished with the hoyden to some distant land whose name I can hardly remember. And the war with the poets is over, with the result that the poor old fellow is writing plays himself for the Society of True Icelanders.”

“Yes, poor chap, he always had such a strong desire to be an intellectual,” said Ólafur Kárason. “And seldom has anyone been more opposed to materialism than he. He never thought poets were intellectual enough; they were never sufficiently indifferent to what was happening on earth. The last winter I was in Sviðinsvík he had become so tired of me that he even had our shack pulled down around our ears.”

“Yes, he has certainly provided plenty for his epitaph,” said Reimar the poet. “By the way, you’ve no doubt heard that old Jón the snuffmaker on the French site is dead? Yes, at long last he went to the devil. And naturally he left all his money to Pétur
ríhross except for the miserable two thousand krónur he bequeathed to the pastor for the new church. Now, I don’t know if you remember a celebrated spot up in the pass behind Óþveginsenni where criminals used to be executed in the olden days? Pétur
ríhross once had a revelation that he was to dig up some murderers who had been buried there in olden times, and transfer them to consecrated ground in Sviðinsvík. When old Jón the snuffmaker died, Pétur
ríhross had another divine revelation, this time suggesting that this old place of execution for criminals should be declared a sacred precinct, and that the great men of Sviðinsvík were to be buried there. He had Jón the snuffmaker’s corpse transported up to the mountain and had God’s Word bellowed over it for three days on end. Then he got the pastor an author’s grant from the state to write up Jón the snuffmaker’s life story in two volumes. And now he himself has started to have an elaborate sepulcher built for himself on the site where he once dug up the bones of Satan and Mósa.”