World Light (20 page)

“No, I’m sorry; I don’t understand you,” he said, and shook his head sadly.

The stranger for his part was just as unhappy that their souls could not make contact; again and again it looked as if he were going to start crying. At last he grabbed the flask with its elixir of life and handed it despairingly to the boy, clutched his hand, and said, “My brother!”

But Ólafur Kárason did not want to taste the life-giving elixir on any account; he had never known such a vile stink in all his life. On the other hand, he allowed the stranger to express his respect and devotion in whatever way he liked—greeting him over and over again with protracted handshakes, pawing him with trembling hands, embracing him tearfully. They carried on like this for a long time. The poet thought with somewhat mixed feelings of his future here on earth with the One who was left behind when all other people had vanished. But then he suddenly saw smoke rising from a chimney, then from another and a third. His heart rejoiced at that; the village was not dead after all. It had only been asleep, now it was waking up: Jesus! My brother! Heave-up!

“I don’t suppose you could please direct me to the parish officer’s house?” said the boy.

The stranger led the poet to a garden gate and pointed to a homefield, cabbage patch, and a house, from which came a sound of hammering. Once again, to the stranger’s chagrin, the poet declined to taste the elixir of life. If the stranger had had his way, he would have made the parting handshake last all day until nightfall. Finally the poet withdrew his hand from his trembling grip and gave him to understand that he could no longer tarry, that life called, that their ways had to part; it was a doleful moment. The stranger gave the poet a tearful parting embrace outside the parish officer’s gate: Jesus! My brother! Heave-up!

4

When he had knocked for a long time a woman came to the door and asked what was the meaning of this damned racket? He bade her good-day, but she ignored that. Then he asked if it were possible to have a word with the parish officer.

“I’ve no idea,” she replied. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“Perhaps he isn’t at home?” asked the boy.

“He’s not tied to my apron strings,” she said, and slammed the door shut in the boy’s face.

The hammering was coming from a nearby outhouse; the boy went there and saw the parish officer at his carpentry, with sawdust in his eyebrows and wood shavings in his hair.

“What the devil do you want here?” asked the parish officer.

The poet always became tongue-tied when he was spoken to very harshly. He usually began to search his mind for a sufficiently mild and Christian reply, but sometimes had difficulty in finding it.

“What, can’t you open your trap?” asked the parish officer.

“I had to sleep in the open last night,” said the boy, in the hope of moving that cold heart to compassion for such misery. But the parish officer replied, “It’ll do you good.”

“I was thinking of asking you to give me some help,” said the poet.

“Help! Yes, I’ll certainly give you some help! Just do some work. Go and carry rocks. You’re in good health. You’re no concern of mine.”

That was all the answer the poet got, and he had not the courage to prolong the conversation against such odds. But he remained standing in the doorway for a while after the parish officer had returned to his work. No, no coffee, no bread. This was the way the world’s suppliants had stood since time immemorial. They stood there behind him, unseen and yet more real than anything visible, a thousand million wet, hungry men who had slept in the open, but unfortunately were neither half-witted, dying nor withered on one side of their bodies. He even felt a twinge of sympathy for all these men. Then he shuffled away.

The children were up and had started yelling in the ditches and on the fences. No, he had no fixed purpose any more. The household of Skálholt was the only place where he could conceivably find refuge— and yet he was not even in dire enough straits to qualify as one of the children of the happy old woman. Nevertheless, before he knew it, he was standing in the same place where he had stood the previous morning. And the girl in the cottage on the other side of the road was standing in the same place as on the previous morning, leaning against one of the doorposts with her toes braced against the other and gazing out onto the road. Her hair was dishevelled, and she had the bloom of youth in her cheeks, a high bosom and holes in her socks; it did not matter that she was wearing worn-out shoes, she was beautiful and rich in her doorway. He got palpitations and forgot his own misery, but she did not look at him today, she did not see him, just gazed far out, down the road.

“Good-morning,” he said.

She did not reply, but went on gazing out, down the road; finally when he had repeated his greeting she looked at him askance, and rather suspiciously.

“It’s raining a bit today,” he said affably.

She made no reply.

“But even though it’s not very much, one gets soaked through little by little nonetheless,” he said, and coughed a little as if he were getting pneumonia.

Silence.

How he longed to thaw the icy armor of this young girl’s soul and get a cup of hot coffee from her, but she no longer wanted to see him or hear him. She stood there frozen in her doorway at the height of spring, this newly blossomed flower.

Then he said as bitterly as he could, “It’s awful to have nowhere to lay one’s head.”

She looked at him from far away and said, “To have what?”

“To have nowhere to stay,” he said.

“Really,” she said. “Is that so? Why?”

It was like a difficult long-distance telephone call from one end of the country to the other.

“Those who have nowhere to stay,” he said, “have really lost their souls already.”

“Ha!” she said. “Lost their souls! No, I’ve never heard anything like it in all my born days! Can’t you stay with old
uríður on the other side of the road at Skálholt there?”

“No, unfortunately I’m no longer confined to bed, not even withered on one side,” he said with growing bitterness.

“It’s awful the way you talk, man!” she said. “So it’s true after all what they say about you?”

“What?”

“That you’re eccentric.”

“Who says that?”

“Everyone. And you look just like an eccentric, too. Why are you so tall?”

“It’s because I have lain in bed for many years.”

“And why is your hair so funny? And why are you wearing a shawl under your jacket? And why are your hands so long? You’re obviously eccentric.”

He did not have the courage to defend himself against these well-founded accusations, but stood where he was in the road, dull-witted and cold, with his books under his arm.

“Oh,” she said, with a twinge of remorse at being so brutal to someone who was already down. “But in spite of everything I’ll offer you some coffee if there is any; yes, and even if there isn’t, hahaha.”

“A thousand thanks,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you have any money for biscuits?” she said.

“No,” he said. “I’ve never had a penny in my life.”

“Never had a penny?” she said. “No, I don’t believe you!”

“I swear it,” he said. “I don’t even know the difference between coins. I’ve only seen one coin. And that was a gold coin.”

“A gold coin!” she said. “Are you crazy?”

“It’s the land of coin that great poets and masters get from southern lands when they grow old,” he said.

“You’re obviously weird,” she said.

It was a single-roomed cottage with a kitchen at the front and a living room at the back. She invited him to have a seat on a box beside the stove. The kettle was boiling, the warmth in the kitchen was very comfortable, especially after a night in the open, there were no worries in this house; peace and comfort for a lost heart.

“It’s ridiculous, inviting guests like this,” she said. “I’ve only got half a piece of chicory. But that doesn’t matter, the chicory’s good enough for us damned paupers, I suppose, hahaha; yes, and too good if we don’t want it. But I can give you rye bread, and rye bread is rye bread. And there’s even some poisonous margarine to spread on it, if you like.”

“There are no words for such kindheartedness toward a stranger,” he said. “And don’t apologize; it’s the kindness of heart that matters, not the coffee or the chicory.”

Then he told her all his ordeals since they had last met: that he was not capable of carrying rocks, that he had slept in the open all night and had roused a corpse that morning, that the parish officer had turned him away empty-handed. On top of all that he was beginning to doubt whether God meant anything by testing those He loved.

She listened to him amazed at how blue and deep his eyes were and how clean his countenance; and that remarkable hair. She began to try to solve his problems and create a future for him, and said that he was more than welcome to have a bite of salted catfish with her whenever he had nothing to eat. He asked what her name was, and she was called Vegmey Hansdóttir, known as Meya of Brekka, and the cottage was called Fagrabrekka and the cow was called Skjalda, hahaha. He looked at her, spellbound, and asked, “Excuse me, but are you betrothed?”

“Why do you ask that?” she asked sharply, and looked down instinctively as if she thought something was showing on her.

“Because I can hardly believe that such a fine girl can be unbetrothed,” he replied.

“No, I’ve never heard anything like it!” she said. “And you who can’t even carry rocks!”

“I could perhaps compose a poem about you,” he said.

She turned to him and looked at him in delight and amazement, clapped her hands and asked, “Are you a poet?”

“Yes,” he said, serious and dignified.

“Well, then I’ll have to run next door and ask the woman for a coffee bean and a biscuit if she has any,” said the girl, and was gone.

He composed an excellent poem about her while she was fetching the coffee and biscuits, and when she came back he had finished the poem; it contained woman-kennings like “ocean’s-current’s-island” and “gold’s-field.” She had never in all her life heard such a good poem. She had a handful of coffee beans which she put into the mill and began to grind; a strong fragrance arose.

“Now at last I know what you ought to be,” she said. “You ought to be a pastor.”

He thought about this for a while, and then said, “I doubt if I am religious enough for that, or a good enough person. A miracle has happened to me, and yet in reality I feel as if nothing has happened. I don’t even feel properly grateful. Sometimes I even doubt the victory of Goodness.”

“Tcha, that doesn’t matter,” said the girl. “It makes no difference what pastors believe, and many people say they don’t believe anything. The main thing is to become a fine gentleman and a great man, because that’s what you ought to be and it’s I who says so. And why the devil should they want to make a man with your hands and your eyes and your hair carry rocks? They ought to be ashamed of themselves! No, I’ll tell you what you should do when you’ve finished your coffee. You should go straight to Pastor Brandur, he’s very old now and he’ll be dead soon, and tell him you want to study to be a pastor so that you can take over from him immediately after he dies.”

That was how intimate an interest she took in his fortunes, and she was determined to bring him to maturity; he had never in his life got such good coffee as he got from her, and it never even occurred to her any more that he was an eccentric.

“Hurry up with the biscuit before these damned children come back,” she said.

“A thousand thanks,” he said.

“And now go to the pastor.”

He was determined to do everything she said. He paused at the door after he had stood up and thanked her; he could not tear his eyes away from her. She came right up to him and looked into his eyes.

“Since you insist on knowing,” she said, “I’m not engaged. But I was a little bit engaged to a man this winter; he wanted me very badly, I couldn’t help it, but then he went away, and I said Thank God he went away, he can go to the devil, I only got engaged to him out of boredom, hahaha. And now I’ve told you more than I’ve told my father, and that’s because you have such blue eyes and red hair; you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

She came right up to him and he felt her closeness for a moment as she opened the door for him and made him go, and he saw in her eyes that hot, wordless dreamland which is sometimes in a girl’s eyes when she looks at a man, and then she closed the door behind him and he stood outside her door and looked at the cottage, entranced as if in a vision, and loved it. It had perhaps been one of life’s loveliest mornings.

5

The whole village was up and about now. Life there had not declined since the last time after all; the children crowded round the unknown traveler, called him queer and worse, and made many remarks about his build and his clothing. They knew a host of bizarre terms of abuse and strange swearwords. The young men stood in groups against fences and walls with their hands in their pockets and told one another to go to hell, or jeered at the passers-by, or uttered awful howls and other peculiar cries.

“Do you walk in Christ, my good man?” asked the pastor, and dusted some fluff off his nose with his fingertips and snorted at the same time.

The boy was quick to recognize the note and replied without hesitation that with God’s help he hoped that he walked in Christ, if that were the Will of the Holy Ghost.

“Huhu,” said the pastor, and became cautious at once. “And who are your kinsfolk?”

Ólafur Kárason gave his father’s name and his mother’s, certainly, but hastened to add that he reckoned that God and good men were his kinsfolk first and foremost.

At this reply the pastor’s face suddenly froze; he cleared his throat three times running, huhuhu: “And what brings you here, young man?”

The boy told the pastor his life story in the most theological language he could muster, and in an edifying parable style, and laid great stress on representing his years of lying ill in bed as irrefutable proof of God’s glory: nothing in this world meant anything to him except the spirit. “The revelation of the deity has always been my comfort,” he said, “and I am quite convinced that one’s relationship with the Lord is all-important for people. That’s why I have come to you to ask you for help,” he added, using the informal “thee.”

The pastor listened absentmindedly to the life story and dusted bits of fluff off, here and there, but when the life story was nearing its conclusion he stopped dusting himself and looked serious, even astonished. He pushed his spectacles higher up his nose and said, “One ought to get into the habit of using the formal ‘you’ towards one’s superiors and using correct titles for the country’s officials. I am Pastor Brandur Jónsson, pastor and rural dean of the deanery of Sviðinsvík, and I should be addressed by the formal ‘you.’ ”

Until now the boy had been convinced that he had hit on the only note appropriate for God’s servants, but he was now sorely disappointed; he blushed crimson and could not utter a word for shame.

“What was it you were talking about again, my friend?” asked the pastor.

“I have a strong leaning towards poetry,” said the boy, trying to be straightforward.

“Tcha, for heaven’s sake try to get that sort of idea out of your head, see,” said the pastor, and went on dusting himself here and there. “Young men nowadays ought to set themselves the aim in life of not becoming a burden upon others. That’s why they should also make demands upon themselves, above all, and never upon others. There is one man here in the village whom youngsters ought to look up to as an example, and that’s old Jón the snuffmaker on the French site. Now there’s a man who has shown how far one can get by industry, thrift and saving; and by never making any demands upon others.”

“Unfortunately I have nothing to save except my own life,” said the poet, and had now stopped talking theologically.

“Yes, but that’s not the right way of looking at it, my friend,” said the pastor. “Your own life, that’s the one thing a man shouldn’t try to save; old Jón the snuffmaker never spared himself. For thirty years he has sat in the same shed and chopped his snuff for God and man from six in the morning until eleven at night, and even though it’s not considered an eminent task to chop snuff for people’s noses, in his old age he has now become the richest man in the village. One should work while the day lasts, and set oneself the aim in one’s youth of never going on the parish. Neither should one get into the habit of making excessive demands, least of all if one is someone else’s servant. People never did that here in the old days, and that way everyone had something to live on for most of the year, and it hadn’t become a habit to be on the parish all the year round and demand the impossible from both God and man.”

“They tried me at the quarrying yesterday,” said the boy. “But I’m afraid I didn’t have the strength for it. I collapsed.”

“One should get up again, my friend, when one collapses,” said the pastor. “It is the duty of all Christian men to get up again. What do you think old Jón the snuffmaker had to endure in his young days? Jesus Christ collapsed seven times under the Cross.”

“Yes, but he was the Son of God, after all,” said the boy.

“Huhu, he was the Son of God, was he, and just what kind of talk is this, may I ask? Are you trying to be impertinent with me? Youngsters shouldn’t get into the habit of answering back.”

“I beg your pardon for being so stupid and uneducated,” said the poet. “But don’t you think that God would be willing to help me?”

“Help yourself, and then God will help you,” said the pastor.

“I want so much to be a man of learning and a poet,” sighed Ólafur Kárason.

“Tcha, where’s the money?” asked the pastor.

“What money?” asked the poet.

“The money, you see,” said the pastor, and brushed the dust from the sleeve of his frock coat. “Education is a question of money, my friend.”

“I thought that true education expressed itself in doing something free of charge for those who yearn to see the light,” said the boy.

“No, no, no,” said the pastor. “I’ve never had anything free of charge. And old Jon the snuffmaker has never had anything free of charge. God punishes all those who try to get something free of charge. Even the Son of God got nothing free of charge, apart from a donkey which they borrowed without the owner’s consent on the Saturday before Palm Sunday—and you know how that ended.”

As a matter of fact Ólafur Kárason had already realized how pointless all this was. There was silence. Inwardly, the poet felt like someone being roasted. The pastor went on clearing his throat and brushing dust off himself.

“So you don’t think, then, that God is willing to help me at all, Pastor Brandur?” said Ólafur Kárason.

“Oh, I don’t rule it out altogether, my friend, once in a while, now that you have learned to address people properly,” said the pastor. He stood up and pointed out of the window. “There’s Hlaupa-Halla over there, who has had children by a number of men—go and help her weed the garden, and you’ll get a dribble of something for it later in the day.”

“A pipit in the pocket is said to bring wealth,” mumbled Hlaupa-Halla without looking up from the weeding.

“Eh?” he said, perplexed by this observation.

It was still damp, a fine drizzle over homefields and gardens, and the poet grudged having to muddy his trousers, no matter how shabby they were, by kneeling in the wet soil; instead he bent down and carefully loosened a few shoots of chickweed and put them neatly to one side, taking care not to dirty his fingers.

“And when they pick the dog muck off the road,” Hlaupa-Halla went on, “they say to themselves as they put it in their pockets, ‘There’s always a use for everything.’ And yet even though they go on skimping and scraping all their lives, and even grudge the money for something to eat, they never become richer than petty fish-thieves, not to speak of wreck-looters.”

“I’m sure you must be exaggerating a little, good woman,” said the boy, straightening up because his back was already getting sore. “At least, I don’t believe that any living person is so thrifty that he would pick dog muck off the road and put it in his pocket.”

The woman stopped weeding and looked at the boy in amazement, and said, “Where on earth have you come from, you poor creature?”

She found him a sack so that he would not have to kneel on the soil, and taught him how to weed a vegetable bed. She was a little peevish with him because she did not know what sort of a creature this was, but he told her his life story, and gradually her heart was moved to compassion. “Poor wretch!” she said. “I think you’d have been better off if you had lain for another year under the sloping ceiling.”

“I can only hope I’ll get a roof over my head by and by,” he said manfully. “And perhaps I’ll get some clothes to cover my body eventually.”

The woman made no reply, and in his mind he went on reveling in all the luxuries he hoped to have one day.

“It’s also quite possible,” he said aloud, “that somewhere there is some great man who wants to care for those in distress and help a friendless youngster to get on in the world.”

“Yes, that’s very possible,” said the woman drily, and glanced at the boy not unsympathetically, without pausing in her weeding. “But,” she added, “I’ve always heard that those who sleep with dogs wake up with fleas.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Who was talking about dogs? A great man, I said. Or have you perhaps never heard of great men like those you find in famous books?”

“No,” she said.

“Really,” he said. “That’s odd.”

This seemed to be one of those sad occasions in life when two people fail to understand one another.

“It’s quite true, my lad,” said the woman after a brief silence, “I’ve never done much reading in my time. But on the other hand I have had nine children in twelve parishes. Perhaps people have forgotten to write about it in books and famous stories, but if you haven’t heard about it already I can tell you that my children were all thrown on the dung-heap as soon as they came into the world. I’ve never heard tell of the type of great men you’re talking about; they might well be found in books, but they’re not known in this part of the country. The only great men I’ve ever known all had one thing in common— they set more store by the jackals who showed them abject obedience than by these so-called friendless youngsters who want to get on in the world. And there were parish officers in my day, and even pastors, too—and I can scarcely believe they’ve all died out—who thought it a calamity that the Great Verdict had been abolished in Iceland.”

“What Great Verdict?”

“Oh, there was never more than one kind of Great Verdict— drowning people in the river Öxará.”*

“It’s a great mercy it’s been stopped,” said the boy.

“Stopped?” said Hlaupa-Halla. “Only up to a point! What do the people matter in this country?”

“Whom is one to blame for being poor and homeless?” said the boy. “Isn’t it God who governs the world?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s easy enough to blame God for every misdeed and disgrace in the world,” said Hlaupa-Halla. “But it certainly wasn’t God who governed the world I lived in, while I lived.”

“And yet I have heard a distinguished woman say that while the Privy Councillor was here, he provided for everyone,” said the poet.

“Yes, but there was only one thing the Privy Councillor forgot,” said Hlaupa-Halla. “He forgot to slaughter us before he went away. When his cow stopped giving milk, he drove her out into the snow instead of killing her, while he betook himself to the king in Denmark with his Privy Councillor’s title and his million.”