Heaven and Hell (11 page)

X

Þorunn’s a good person, and she’s invaluable company for
Geirþrúður and me, Helga says as they walk from the shop, she with one bag, he with loads, grateful for the weight, he who bears a burden can forget himself in the exertion, rest his mind, and uncertainty doesn’t tear him to shreds in the meantime. Uncertainty about life, about what is to come, about himself and now also Ragnheiður, this girl with the stone-gray eyes, the tip of her tongue, her breasts, incomprehensibly enchanting in her haughtiness and coldness, cold as pack ice, why did I have to fall for an iceberg? A good person and valuable company, says Helga about Þorunn and appears about to add something, perhaps tell the boy something about this Þorunn, and the boy is astonished at how open, almost talkative, Helga has become, but then they hear heavy footsteps approaching, it’s good to carry something heavy, says a dusky, sonorous voice, and Brynjólfur strides past the boy, slaps him heavily on the shoulder. The captain has three bottles of beer in his pockets, and therefore life is pretty good. Four or five bottles would naturally have been even better, but Gunnar was so damned grumpy and curt that it would have been a bad idea to ask for more. Brynjólfur greets Helga cheerfully and is going to stride past her but she stops the giant by putting out her hand, he seems to grow agitated, reaches instinctively into his pocket for a beer, opens the bottle and takes a gulp. Weren’t you supposed to be on board your ship a long time ago, preparing it to sail, Helga says more than asks, the other captains are well into their preparations, but your ship is still lying there on the beach while you loaf in the shops and drink beer, that’s not very considerate to Snorri. Brynjólfur raises one of his arms, heavy with striking power, enormous strength, but he can also raise it gently, and then his open palm is like an apologetic smile. Helga snorts and Brynjólfur says, somewhat enthusiastically, I’m starting today, my dear, I’m starting today! I’d like for you to stick to your word, she says simply and walks away with the boy behind her. Brynjólfur winks at him, takes another swig of beer, goes first in the opposite direction from them but then turns down another street, the boy and Helga continue in the direction of Geirþrúður’s house, he thankful for getting to carry such weight, trying not to think more about Ragnheiður, about the breasts that stretched toward him when she leaned forward, about the tip of her tongue glistening with moisture, about the stone-gray eyes, cold and repellent but at the same time so enchanting. She is a huge iceberg, he thinks, a huge iceberg with polar bears that tear me into pieces and eat me. But when he finally manages to push her out of his thoughts, the questions about life come at him, about whether he should live, and then why, and whether he deserves to.

Oh, uncertainty is a bird shrieking above his head.

Now we shall simply leave him alone, just for a moment, and maybe for a moment more. Just allow him to be at one with his burden, leave him in peace and instead follow this captain, Brynjólfur, as he saunters in the direction of Snorri’s Shop, taking his sweet time.

A person carrying three beers doesn’t have much need to hurry in this world.

XI

If you take the shortest path to Snorri’s Shop from Central
Square and don’t dawdle, it should take you around five minutes. But that is of course an unnecessarily short amount of time now, because it’s so good to drink beer, absolutely unbelievably good, what was a short time ago heavy and unconquerable becomes a breeze. Now I’ll start preparing the ship, says Brynjólfur to himself, says it out loud, informs the world of this decision of his, punches himself in the chest, a mighty blow, does it both to beat his chest and to encourage himself. First he’ll go to Snorri, arrange things with him, they’ll make plans, enjoy the moment together, perhaps toast each other over a strong drink, then he’ll walk with a lantern down to the ship, wake it from its heavy winter sleep, have his moments with it and wake the crew in the morning. Yes! Brynjólfur punches himself in the chest again, happily, victoriously, the one captain who hasn’t started to prepare his ship for the fishing season, the others far ahead and soon to sail, but the ship of Brynjólfur and the merchant Snorri still sleeps at the edge of the beach, lies there clumsily, like a flightless bird. Brynjólfur hasn’t even looked once in its direction, despite Snorri having twice urged him, in his hesitant, apologetic way, completely useless at coaxing people, which is no good because his shop stands on shaky feet, its outstanding debts outnumbering its assets. Those who owe are mostly common laborers living in the old neighborhood, fishermen, renters, a farmer or two. Some have difficulties paying, while others perhaps don’t put much effort into work, and consciously or unconsciously take advantage of Snorri’s irresolution and kindness, which he frequently tries to suppress but with little success, kindness in one person can evoke rottenness in others. Snorri has his best moments at an old, tired organ, and he also feels fine when he sings in church on New Year’s Eve, Easter Sunday, at midsummer, when he sings in praise of light, as Reverend Þorvaldur calls it, and those who owe money to Snorri, some with debts of many years, feel a bit ashamed, yet that’s an ache that everyday life erases. It is the ship’s catch on which Snorri relies, Brynjólfur knows that very well, and perhaps that is why he punches himself on the chest for the third time as he turns down School Street, knows he already should have come a long way in preparing his ship, it is called
The Hope
, a beautiful and bright name, a fifteen-year-old ship Snorri bought new from Norway. It was first named
Jón Sigur
ð
sson
after the staid hero of Icelandic independence, but then Snorri had it hauled up to the edge of the beach and got Bjarni the painter to paint
The Hope
in red on the bow. A few days earlier Snorri’s wife had gone aboard the
Thyra
south to Reykjavík, so advanced in her illness that she needed to be carried on board. Of course Snorri went with her, but had to return here to the west on the next boat to keep the company operating smoothly.

And months passed.

Jens, then newly appointed as overland postman, delivered letters from her, but they grew shorter and shorter as the summer passed, the handwriting weaker and less legible. Snorri peered at the crooked and distorted words, the shaky handwriting witnessing his wife’s dwindling vitality.
Oh, it’s become a bit difficult now,
she wrote in a letter at the start of August, the first words of complaint to come from her,
I sometimes awake with cold hands inside me. They are colder than ice, and move closer to my heart every day. Dear Snorri, if worse comes to worst, if God calls me to him, then you must be strong. You must not break. Think of our boys. I trust that you will get them into school, as we have always planned . . . but now I cannot write more . . . my beloved husband.
Or he thought he saw those words there at the end,
my beloved husband
, although to be sure it was incredibly unlike her to express herself so openly, display her affection with such naked words. Snorri locked himself in his office so he could weep without running the risk of anyone discovering him. It was two weeks until the coastal boat would stop here on its way south and Snorri couldn’t wait that long, life wasn’t so long, good men loaned him two horses and he galloped off, rode straight into the fjord and up the Tungudalur Valley, the horses spirited, strong, but he like a cry of desperation on the back of one of them.

If God calls me to him.

Snorri returned a month later. It was September. He got caught in winter weather on the heaths but came down into the valley in happy sunshine and birdsong, perfect calm and 15 degrees Celsius, returned the horses, thanked the creatures by putting his arms around their necks, and the horses rubbed their large heads against the merchant, then he went home to see to raising the boys and running the shop. For a long time no one dared speak to him about anything but common matters and what the language could deal with easily, about fish, the shop, the weather. It was mainly those who were interested in music and who could connect with Snorri by means of those ties who could come anywhere near him, yet that wasn’t much. Jens clearly knew something but felt it useless to spread it around and folk saw quickly that it could be dangerous to press him on the matter, his face would grow dark and his large fists would clench and folk would hurry to change the topic. We’re thus unsure of certain small details; all we know is that God certainly called her to himself. Some clearly have ears for his voice, while we, who ramble here, dead yet still alive, listen and listen but never hear anything. But God spoke to her. And then laid his hand over her abdomen, where the pain was worst and the hands coldest, and when Snorri came to Reykjavík, exhausted and sleep-deprived on worn-out horses, his wife Aldís received him in full health, the pain gone and a peculiar light shining from her. Snorri was actually half wary of her, something unconquerable had risen between them and nothing was like it had been before. Snorri tried everything he could to bring her home, but what is a man’s word when God has spoken? Three weeks later he rode home, but Aldís sailed to Copenhagen and started to do the work proscribed to her by God.

Jens delivers two letters a year from Aldís. They don’t go through the hands of Dr. Sigurður because Jens gives them to Snorri in person, and these dispassionately written letters are full of godly light that illuminates the face of the merchant and the beard that has grizzled greatly. But all light casts shadows, that’s just how it is, and it’s in the shadow of the light of God that Snorri lives, because in place of being happy and celebrating, he misses Aldís and is bitter toward God for having taken her from him. He expects that his ingratitude is great and sinful, I will burn in Hell for this, he sometimes thinks with remorse. Snorri plays the organ almost every day, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, but also some meandering melodies sprung from regret and guilt. Music is unlike everything else. It is the rain that falls in the desert, the sunshine that illuminates hearts, and it is the night that comforts. Music ties people together, so Snorri is not always alone when he pumps the organ, strokes the bow over the strings of an old fiddle, its highest note so thin and sharp that it can sunder hearts. Benedikt is sometimes with him, you remember, the skipper who blows the signal to depart, the Custodian waits at the seashore with three hundred fishermen all around. And there are more who come to Snorri for the music, women and men, but a person can sit surrounded by many and still be alone; it is first and foremost for his boys that Snorri lives. They are the hope that keeps him afloat, both in the Learned School, one about to finish and determined to become a priest, the other wishes to go further, to Copenhagen, to study veterinary science, they live with their father during the summers and then he rediscovers happiness, and it’s because of them that he toils away at the shop, fights an exhausting fight to keep it going, it’s expensive to educate the boys, girls are cheaper to manage and have few opportunities for education, have little opportunity in general and lose their freedom simply by marrying.

Brynjólfur winces slightly. Not, however, because of the girls, their limited opportunities, but because of the responsibility that rests upon him, and his remorse, two birds sitting on his shoulders and shoving their claws deep into his flesh. But now everything’s getting better, absolutely! After three or four hours he’ll have come with his lantern down to
The Hope
, will have started to talk to the ship, started to make preparations. Tomorrow he’ll wake the impatient crew and after that there’ll be no slacking! Brynjólfur is glad, has started on his second beer and feels the third beer bottle in his right pocket, soon I’ll drink it, he thinks with a smile, and walks past the school that the brothers Jón the joiner and Nikulás the carpenter, called Núlli, built in their time, a tall, rather narrow building, with three large windows on the front of the upper story, so large it’s as if the building eternally opens its eyes wide with wonder. The school was meant to be only one story but we’re no good at sticking to agreements, besides Núlli and Jón found it immensely enjoyable to build the school, they both dreamed of going to school in their youth and often told each other, now we’re building for the children, now we’re building for the future, their world should be better than ours, and because of this they added another story. It is slightly narrower and it’s a bit as if the building has not only opened its eyes wide but has also taken a deep breath. The town council would not agree to their ideas unconditionally and used lack of money as an excuse, but the brothers still had all the money they received for building the Tower House of Elías the Norwegian, a huge building located on Central Square, it was the first time they’d been paid cash and they kept the money at home, and neither had the heart to spend it or found a decent enough reason to do so. They then started constructing the school, and there they finally found a worthy project. Besides, we also had a lucky break: a ship carrying choice Norwegian timber was stranded not far from here, on its way to Akureyri. It had sought shelter from a storm, took its chance on the fjords, those tremendous jaws that gape open toward the Polar Sea, and never made it out again. Two crewmen drowned, their bodies were never found and thus they were added to the large group of fishermen who ramble about the seafloor, jabbering to each other about the jog trot of time, waiting for the final call that someone had promised them in days of old, waiting for God to pull them up, fish them up with his net of stars, dry them off with his warm breath, permit them to walk with dry feet in Heaven, where one never eats fish, say the drowned, always just as optimistic, busy themselves with looking up at the boats, expressing amazement at the new fishing gear, cursing the rubbish that people leave behind in the sea, but sometimes weeping with regret for life, weeping as drowned folk weep, and that is why the sea is salty.

It was of course very bad that these men drowned, but the timber from the ship was a windfall that could likely be put to use for the upper story of the elementary school.

Núlli died at the precise moment when he drove the final nail in,
boomp!
was heard as he struck the nail,
boomp!
was heard in his heart and then nothing more was ever heard from Núlli. He sank slowly forward, his forehead touched the side of the building next to the nail that stood halfway out and still does, in memory of a good carpenter, a noble fellow, so high up that we can’t hang anything on it except raindrops and spiders’ webs. It’s not possible to say much about Núlli’s life, it passed without any grand events, there weren’t many stories about him and it wouldn’t be entirely easy to write his obituary, yet we felt the emptiness long after he was gone. His brother Jón was naturally brokenhearted, they were unmarried, got on extremely well, and had lived together, just the two of them, since their parents died. We sometimes found Jón crying out in the open or with his hammer in his hand over some project. This was heartrending and we were completely at a loss. We just watched how he pined away, nearly turned into a wretch from sorrow and regret and loneliness. It isn’t an overstatement to say that he was well on the way to indigence when Gunnhildur, who had had a child by Reverend Þorvaldur, you recall their night together when he didn’t take his cassock off, visited Jón in the rubbish bin that the brothers’ apartment had become.

Well, dear Jón, she said, we two certainly are orphans in this world, I toil away over a little child whom the cassock-wretch refuses to have anything to do with, have no one to support me, and no one at all to talk to in the evenings, let alone anything else. And here you are alone, with your good heart. You can be such a tremendously hard worker but it’s awful to see you now. I think you’re wasting away from loneliness and regret. There’s no shame in it, but it’s also perfectly unnecessary. Look here, we could certainly continue to toil away on our own, I’ll survive, not elegantly but I’ll manage, and won’t make my child feel ashamed, still it won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty. On the other hand, you, dear Jón, you can’t manage on your own for long, you’re just that way. You’re a hard worker and a gem of a man but far too sensitive. God gave you a good and beautiful heart but completely forgot to harden it. You’re losing everything, soon you’ll lose the house, soon you’ll lose your independence, finally you’ll lose life itself. Why should we let that happen, what, I wonder, would be the purpose of that? What do you say, dear Jón, about my moving in here . . . Gunnhildur looked around, Jón sat on a tattered chair and couldn’t take his eyes off her face, her enormous number of freckles . . . into this hole of yours, and together we make it into a good home? As far as love is concerned, naturally there’s nothing to say, since we barely know one another, but I’m absolutely certain that in the future we’ll grow fond of each other, and that, you see, is no small thing. I feel so strongly that I could easily grow very fond of you, you’re a marvelous man, and to see the blueness in your eyes, I could completely forget myself looking at it! On the other hand I’m not nearly as good as you, I’m actually a damned trove of faults, yet not entirely bad, and I’m a terrifically hard worker and brutally honest. What do you say to that, dear Jón? I could be the hardening around your heart. My boy is unchristened, Reverend Tatterfrock isn’t after me about it, imagine that, but suddenly I got the idea that Nikulás would be a stand-out name for the boy, and then Jónsson, if you’re interested. By the way, don’t you have any coffee for us, I’ll brew it, you know how good it can be to think with a good cup of coffee in one’s hands, I’m not used to speaking so much, by the way, I expect I’m a little bit nervous, yes, I see the coffee, there it is.