The Whispering Muse

SJÓN

Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

TELEGRAM

ON THE CELESTIAL CHARTS
of the scientific treatise
Almagest
, written in the mid second century by the cosmologist Claudius Ptolemy, there was a vast constellation called
Argo Navis
(the ship Argo), named for Jason son of Aeson’s galley of many nails. This assembly of stars could not be seen until one reached Alexandria by night, but from there the Argo was clearly visible traversing the southern skies with all oars out and bellying sail, voyaging into the unknown in search of the Golden Fleece – while around her floated the lesser constellations,
Centaurus
(the centaur) and
Hydra
(the sea monster).

Sixteen centuries later, the Earth was no longer at the centre of the universe and men set about drawing themselves a new heaven. It was then that the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille decided that the
Argo Navis
was far too large and unwieldy, so he dismantled the ship, retaining some parts and jettisoning others, and created, in the process, three new constellations:

Carina
(the keel),
Puppis
(the poop) and
Vela
(the sail).

But we old-timers say:

   – She sails there still!

—
from
‘Seven Ships
’
by Capt. Hans Caron Alfredson

background to the voyage

I, VALDIMAR HARALDSSON
, was in my twenty-seventh year when I embarked on the publication of a small journal devoted to my chief preoccupation, the link between fish consumption and the superiority of the Nordic race. It was written in Danish, under the title
Fisk og Kultur
, and came out in seventeen volumes over the space of twenty years. During the First World War, publication was suspended for two years – and the sixth and seventh volumes were only half complete, i.e. only two issues each, as fate decreed that following the death of my first wife I was confined to my bed for eight months, from late August 1910 until spring 1911. Then the extent of the readers’ loyalty to the periodical was revealed, as I see from my records that the only parties who cancelled their subscription were the University of Krakow and the Kjós Parish Reading Society. I won’t go further into the reasons here but will refer anyone who may be interested to my book
Memoirs of a Herring Inspector
(pub. Fisk og Kultur, Copenhagen, 1933).

The content of the journal was written primarily in foreign tongues, as I knew that the majority of my ideas would be far too newfangled for my countrymen, indeed would pass way over their heads. For they hadn’t even heard of the recent scientific advances on which I based my theory, which was reiterated on the title page of every issue:

It is our belief that the Nordic race, which has fished off the maritime coast for countless generations and thus enjoyed a staple diet of seafood, owes its physical and intellectual prowess above all to this type of nutrition, and that the Nordic race is for this reason superior in vigour and attainments to other races that have not enjoyed such ease of access to the riches of the ocean.

The final issue of each volume included a summary of the year’s best articles and essays, translated into Hungarian by my brother-in-law, the psychiatrist Dr György Pázmány. Every issue also included bits and bobs to fill up the pages, chiefly droll stories and occasional verses from my childhood home in the county of Kjós, all in Icelandic which I left untranslated.

As one might expect, I was for a long time the sole author of the scientific articles in
Fisk og Kultur
, but as the journal gained a wider circulation I received ever greater numbers of letters and contributions from foreign enthusiasts on these topics. While most were interested in fish consumption, there were also quite a few devotees of Nordic racial history. However, it was a rare man who perceived – as I, the editor, did – how inextricably these two factors were linked.
Primus inter pares
among the latter group was the Danish ship-broker Hermann Jung-Olsen, then hardly out of his teenage years yet already showing an unusual brilliance of mind. He was one of those individuals who inspire benevolence and sympathy from the very first encounter, deepening on more intimate acquaintance into respect and trust. For Hermann Jung-Olsen was a fine figure of a man, a firebrand with an insatiable appetite for work. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, yet although his childhood home was one of the most elegant in Copenhagen, there was fish on the table at least four times a week, not only on weekdays but on high days and holidays too. This was mainly because his father Magnus Jung-Olsen was of the old school when it came to money – a strict man who never rushed into anything or did a precipitate deed in his life, a great man indeed.

The reason for my bringing up the publishing history of
Fisk og Kultur
here is that a whole eight years after the appearance of the final issue I received a letter from the great ship operator, the aforementioned Magnus Jung-Olsen, father of my late young friend Hermann, in which he invited me on a cruise with the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen, a merchant vessel of the Kronos line, the Jung-Olsen family firm. Recently launched, she was due to embark on her maiden voyage, conveying raw paper from Norway to
zmit in Turkey and continuing from there to Poti in Soviet Georgia to pick up a cargo of tea that the locals cultivate on the Kolkheti coastal plain and prepare for export in the exemplary tea factories provided for them by Stalin.

Mr Jung-Olsen says in his letter that his son long dreamt of doing me some sort of favour – as he had mentioned more than once – and that the old shipping magnate had been reminded of this fact when he received my telegram of condolence on the anniversary of Hermann’s death, nearly four years after his untimely end (he was murdered on the day peace was declared, in a
Bierkeller
brawl in Vienna).

The letter reached me at the end of March, at a time when I had long been in low spirits (my second wife having passed away that very month the previous year), but now my heart was filled with unfeigned joy: joy at being invited on such an adventure; joy that one could still meet with such charity from one man to another; joy that the buds looked promising on the boughs of the apple trees in the tiny patch of garden that belonged to my foolish neighbour Widow Lauritzen, although the poor neglected creatures had suffered cruelly in the February storms. Yes, such was my joy when I read Mr Magnus Jung-Olsen’s letter.

And I read it often.

In 1908 I published a witty anecdote in the spring issue of
Fisk og Kultur
. For some reason it popped into my mind as I stood there at the kitchen window in Copenhagen, the letter still clutched in my hand:

Once there were two gentlemen who met in a park while out walking their dogs. The younger instantly doffed his hat to the elder, who nodded in acknowledgement. Then, as chance would have it, the younger man’s dog tore itself loose and raced off after a squirrel. The young man was embarrassed and started apologising to the elder, saying that his dog had never done this sort of thing before; he had no business frightening squirrels; this was a one-off; it wouldn’t happen again, he could promise that.

The elder gentleman listened patiently to his apologies, then putting his head on one side, said with a twinkle in his eye:

‘Young man, is it possible that you are confusing me with little Mr Esquirol?’

Dr Pázmány and I were so tickled by this story that we added it to the Hungarian summary that year.

But I doubt my countrymen would have made head or tail of it.

life on the ocean wave

AT ELEVEN O
’
CLOCK
on the morning of 10 April 1949 the merchant ship MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen departed the free port of Copenhagen en route to Norway, bound for Mold Bay in the county of Vest-Agder. My quarters on board consisted of two spacious cabins amidships on the port side below the bridge, the outer room entered from the saloon. This cabin contained every conceivable comfort: a berth and chairs, desk, cupboards and book-shelves, all as neatly made as one could wish for. The inner cabin consisted of a bathroom with a china wash-basin, a mirror as long as the space permitted and a deep bathtub on bronze feet shaped like the claws of a dragon or lion (one can’t always tell them apart). Opening off the bathroom was a roomy closet containing a modern WC. I couldn’t help thinking that it would be interesting to see the captain’s quarters, given the comfort of the accommodation afforded to the ‘supernumeraries’, as they call those who are over and above the crew.

Well, I was now extremely glad that I had dropped by at my benefactor’s headquarters on my way to the ship that morning to deliver a letter of thanks. I had worked on its composition far into the night, making three drafts before the final clean copy, for in addition to conveying my gratitude, I wished heartily to congratulate Mr Magnus Jung-Olsen on the success of his remarkable company.

I sat down by the porthole and looked out over the sound. The sky was overcast, a stiff northerly breeze sending a considerable swell head on to the ship. The whistle blew from time to time, at lengthy intervals. Ahead nothing could be seen but the crests of the waves, slapping their white foam hither and thither as they swelled and subsided in turn. Sleet began to pelt from the sky and the view faded. I watched until I could no longer distinguish sky from sea, then lay down, worn out from my letter-writing the night before.

I set my alarm clock for 5 pm. The food on board the vessels of the Kronos line is famed throughout the shipping world and it is claimed that the Danish king borrows their chefs when His Majesty’s own ship’s cook is indisposed.

I was shown to a seat at the captain’s table, where Captain Alfredson introduced me to the first and second mates, the first engineer and the purser. There was a woman there too, the purser’s wife, I assumed, but later gathered that their marital status was somewhat irregular and it would be more correct to call her his lady friend. Apparently I was not to be the only supernumerary on this trip.