“Hang on,” she said and disappeared.
A couple of minutes later she was back.
“That was Havstein,” she said. “He’s in Klaksvík again, down by the jetty, I arranged for us to meet him down at the brewery.
“Now?” asked Palli.
“Yes.”
“Great,” said Palli. “It would have been nice if you didn’t have your cell phone on in church.”
“But I had it on silent. And I did go outside!”
“Even so.”
Anna looked at him in irritation.
“Do you think God will be mad?”
“I’d just have preferred it if you’d turned it off while we were in here,” he said.
We got up and strolled quietly out of the church into the raw December air and toward the brewery, on the lookout for Havstein driving down the road.
Palli couldn’t stay offended for long. It had all been forgotten by the time we met Havstein again and stood in the Föroya Bjór sales hall, waiting for our orders. He’d looked forward to this all day, and waited impatiently for this visit to the brewery, he’d worried it might be closed by the time we arrived. We were normally happy to go to Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins where we could buy wine and liquor as well as beer, but since we’d come all the way to Klaksvík, we’d agreed we should make our purchases where the beer was produced, and they generally had a better choice here than elsewhere. Besides, they sold Föroya Bjór merchandise here too; T-shirts, shopping bags, hats, and towels, all bearing the brewery’s logo, and Palli wanted a fresh supply of everything, of course, despite the fact the motifs and designs never changed and he already had more than he’d ever use. This was clearly something Palli did more out of habit than necessity. The instant he saw Palli, the sales assistant put an example of each product out on the counter beside the three cases of beer we wanted, and as seemed routine, he didn’t ask for any payment for these additional items. We were good customers, and the assistant was on chatting terms with everybody, it was a long time since they’d been here last, so it took time, Palli had a lot to talk about, and he stayed with the assistant as we carried the cases out to the car, Palli talked about the boats that had come and gone in Kollafjør∂ur, about things that had happened in Tórshavn, and of course, about me, the new resident, as he called me. Palli waved me over and I had to go up to the counter to introduce myself properly, say who I was, where I’d come from, and then I had to taste the beer. It was against the rules, of course, and the assistant peered nervously around, but there was nobody else in the hall. He lifted the counter up quickly and let me in, opened a bottle of very dark beer, poured half a glass and gave it to me. I lifted it and took an enormous swig as the assistant and Palli eyed me closely. It tasted like rancid socks brewed on a soggy sheep and then dipped in petroleum.
“Not bad,” I said and looked at the assistant.
“Black Sheep.”
They shook their heads and laughed, the assistant relieved me of my glass, adding that not many people liked it the first time they tasted it. Then he made a remark to Palli I didn’t understand. I waited for Palli to translate.
“He says you’ve got some way to go before you’re a true Faroe Islander,” said Palli.
“I thought so.”
Nevertheless I felt certain the adaptation process had begun. It was definitely underway.
We bought groceries at the store in Klaksvík, I bought two postcards of the Ranndalur Pyramid, scribbled a few sentences about how things were, how things were fine, better than for ages, added a Happy New Year and Love to all on the last remaining inch before writing my parents’ address on one card and Jørn’s on the other, then I put them in the mailbox outside the store. We drove back to the jetty and waited for the ferry to come to town again and take us back, I sat squeezed in the backseat of the car with NN and Anna, contemplating what an idiot I’d been to think the Faroes were a good place to disappear, since information about me traveled quicker round here than sound. We were recognized in the strangest places, because there were so few of us and because we were obviously odd, between psychiatry and reality, like soft, cuddly mascots, I thought, and I continually found myself being introduced as the latest ex-lunatic, a role I played as best I could, although perhaps there was no longer any need to play it, I don’t know. All I know is that I left tracks behind me reluctantly everywhere I went, despite treading as softly over the ground as I could. I’d been an idiot to think I could disappear here, I was making myself more noticeable than ever.
Still, I was a reasonably happy idiot.
I began to recognize myself, and my hands did my bidding.
I was on the edge of being loved.
I slept well at night.
I don’t think I really missed anything.
Probably never had.
Apart from Helle, perhaps.
Yes, I’d missed her. For a long time. And a lot.
But now?
I didn’t know. It had begun to pass.
Somebody had begun to fill the cracks, hang wallpaper over the peeling paint.
I was being renovated.
Finally warm in my jacket, driving home in the car, I put an arm round NN in the backseat, she said nothing, just let me rest it there. We crossed Eysturoy and disappeared up into the mountain and back down into Gjógv on the other side. We stowed the crates of beer and food in Cloakroom A, filled the fridge and that evening we ate dinner together, for the first time in ages, and it was a good supper, I don’t think I thought about how many people we were that evening, just that it seemed natural, as it should be, everything in its right place. Havstein didn’t disappear up into his room as he usually did, and Palli talked more than ever before, about his job, about plans he had for building his own boat, he was in good form in his T-shirt from the brewery, we were homeward bound astronauts in the quarantine bunker, and NN played the Cardigans, and I opened one beer after another and was the only one drinking, my brain stuffed with cotton wool as their voices grew muffled, warm, a deflector shield against the rays of the Death Star, I talked about Jørn in Stavanger, about my parents, told them I had no intention of leaving, and it almost saddened me to see how happy they were to hear it, how fast people grew dependent on each other, how much I already meant to them, and inside, somewhere deep inside, I knew I’d suffer for it, since it went against everything I’d decided, I’d opened myself up, open for anyone who wanted me. And tomorrow the future would come to the Faroes.
3
There are two things I really can’t quite explain. The first is why gravity is not constant on the moon, but variable between poles, causing worried expressions on the faces of NASA’s engineers in the sixties who sat hunched over their calculations trying to find safe places to land. And the second is the night a person came to us from across the sea.
He seemed to come from nowhere, just as I had six months earlier. He, too, came in from the cold, and this is perhaps the night I remember best, as we entered the millennium. Elsewhere on the planet, people burnt millions of dollars of fireworks in an attempt to hide their anxiety that everything they believed in might be taken away, or to underline their joy that everything would be wondrously different. We celebrated the New Year in a more subdued manner. We weren’t waiting for anything special. Didn’t expect much. We’d take things as they came. Nonetheless it’s this that stays in my memory. I remember sitting in the kitchen with the man who’d arrived from no-man’s land, the man from 1999, he sat wrapped in blankets, bearded, water running off him, almost six feet tall, and strong, and I remember thinking how completely absurd this was. But I think he had to come, sooner or later. If he hadn’t, we might still be sitting there, Havstein, Anna, Palli, and I. In the kitchen in Gjógv. Sometimes one doesn’t know what one needs before one has it.
I sat up in NN’s room on New Year’s Eve, the clock on the wall showed five and she was of two minds as to whether to wear the black dress or the navy one. She vanished into her bedroom, emerged wearing one,
stood before the mirror and began a detailed analysis of what gestures and poses brought out the best in the dress or herself, before she resolutely disappeared, only to return wearing the other dress, new poses, fresh assessments, I sat on her sofa and watched a fashion show of limited repertoire as it went in a loop.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“They’re both fine.”
“But which do you think I should wear?”
“That one.”
“This one?”
She studied herself in the mirror, then grew bored.
“Or the other one,” I said. “I really don’t know.”
“You’re not exactly helpful, are you?”
I smiled. It reminded me of evenings with Helle when we were going out. I always liked it when she tried different clothes on, asking repeatedly what I thought, for my opinion. Can’t you just choose for me, she’d say. And sometimes I would, though she’d rarely end up wearing what I’d suggested. It was like watching the weather forecast on TV, you can have any opinion you like, but at the end of the day you have no power over what really happens. And now, new place, new person, new dresses.
“How about the blue one?” I ventured.
“Do you think so? The blue one? Hmm … maybe.”
“How about just putting a tracksuit on?”
“Mattias!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aren’t you changing, Mattias?”
She looked at me. I looked the same as ever.
“I don’t have a suit,” I answered, pondering the idea of putting my overalls on. Or making a space suit for myself.
“You don’t have a suit?”
“No, not here. I have one in Stavanger.” And then, I don’t know whether she heard it or not, I added: “But I hadn’t expected to stay this long.”
Havstein called up from the ground floor. My name. I called back.
“Maybe I should go down to him,” I said.
“Okay.”
I left the room. Stopped on the landing, opened the door a moment and watched her, the most beautiful person you’d ever meet, trying out gestures for an imaginary party in the mirror.
“The black one,” I said, and NN looked over at me. “It’s got to be the black one.”
She smiled.
“Thanks,” she said. “You can do it when you want.”
“It’s a shame I want to so rarely.”
I found Havstein in the kitchen. Bent over the pans. He’d gotten up early that day, I’d been woken by the sound of him singing in the bath at eight o’clock that morning, and he’d been puttering around the Factory all day ever since, cleaning the living room and kitchen, preparing dinner, setting the table with the best china and things. Palli and Anna had taken the car and driven down to Anna’s mother to wish her a Happy New Year, and we all went around discreetly peering at our watches, waiting for their return, in time for supper.
“Potatoes,” said Havstein.
“Where?”
He pointed at the bowl on the kitchen counter full of potatoes. I got out the potato peeler and filled the sink with lukewarm water, stood beside him and began peeling potatoes. Havstein had three dishes going, turkey, pilot whale, and skerpi, a Faroese speciality of cured mutton. The turkey smelled delicious in the oven, the skerpi and whale meat stank, but that was how it should be, and we said nothing, just got on with our tasks, looked out of the big windows, down toward the beach, tried to stare straight into the sun, couldn’t. An almost cloudless sky, a steely chill in the air, yet the windows all stood open, a final airing before New Year, and the floor was cold, cold underfoot, it felt like the first day of spring, when you fling the windows open and release the submarine air you’ve lived in all winter.
It’s just the way of things. We do everything except what we ought. I was horribly afraid. Of everything. And I was so glad that I knew nothing about it. I didn’t put my potato peeler aside and go up to her. Instead I stayed and finished the potato peeling, and Havstein and I said nothing until Anna and Palli came into the kitchen half an hour or so later, returning from their car trip, fresh cheeked, yes, I know it’s a strange thing to mention, but it’s what I remember, their fresh cheeks as they walked in. Like teenagers returning from a mountain walk they’ve been forced to go on, against their will. All that exuberance, that ruddy health. The excitement they try to disguise, but that their faces exude, because it’s been such a fantastic day after all.
Do you remember those days?
When it was like that?
I remember them all.
And half an hour later Havstein took the turkey out of the oven as NN came into the kitchen, wearing her navy blue dress, we looked at each other, then away, Havstein looked at us both and gave NN a hug, I said she looked great, you’re lovely, I said as we sat down, carved the New Year’s turkey, on the 10,756 day of my existence.
I’ve looked through my mental photo album so often, replayed the corny films, and to begin with it’s always in slow motion, we’ve eaten the turkey, a great meal, the skerpi and whale, we’ve drunk wine, beer, we’ve chatted, one of those great conversations, and then we stand in the hallway, put our shoes on, because it’s nearly midnight, and Palli has bought a rocket, and we follow him out into the courtyard, walk around the Factory and down to the stony beach. And we stand in a semicircle on the patch of grass above the harbor, watching Palli as he looks for a good place to set up his wine bottle with the rocket in the neck. It’s raining lightly, I stand next to NN and she’s wearing my jacket, it’s too big for her and I’m freezing, but act as though it’s nothing, and Havstein cracks a joke, I can’t work out what he’s saying, but we laugh, we all laugh, and Anna shouts Happy New Year and NN shouts Happy New Year and Palli sets to his task, strikes the match against the side of the box, the little stick sparks, hesitantly catches fire and flares up with a crackle, and then his hand guides the flame toward the fuse on the rocket, Havstein opens his arms, big arms, and we all melt in his embrace, and Palli’s hand ignites the rocket, then he gets up carefully and steps back toward us and we all stand together as the rocket lifts from the bottle, gathers momentum and disappears upward, ignorant of the faces that turn up toward it, waiting for it to reach its peak and watching as it explodes against the background of outer space, our eyes fixed on the point where glistening sparks are flung out in preordained patterns, almost like synchronized swimmers, and it’s only when almost all these points of light have fizzled out that we see one single red light shoot up from somewhere beyond and hang in the air, and from this moment time moves noticeably faster, and I think it’s Anna who opens her mouth to say:
“What’s that over there?”
“An emergency rocket,” answers Palli. “A flare.”
“Can you see anyone out there?” asks Havstein.
Palli says he can’t. Havstein runs back up to the Factory for a flashlight as we stand there, squinting into the distance.
“It’s just a false alarm,” I say. “New Year’s Eve. There’s never a New Year’s when someone doesn’t do that.”
“What do you mean?” asks NN.
“There’s always some jerk in Stavanger who can’t get enough, even after he’s sent all his rockets up, always ends up digging an emergency flare out from the garage.”
“There aren’t any garages out here,” says Palli sharply. “There aren’t even any boats. You don’t send a flare up for fun if you’re in a boat.”
I say nothing. I stare through the darkness, but can see nothing. I move swiftly down the beach, as if a few feet might make a difference, as though I’ll see everything more clearly from there, and Havstein comes running back down again. And behind me I can hear everybody talking at once, Havstein shouts wait wait wait and brings the binoculars up, scans the area out there and we all go quiet as he does so. I see nothing. Then he says, there’s something out there! And my legs turn my body toward him, I race across the few feet to where he’s standing, ask him to show me, and before he
gives me the binoculars, he points with one hand in the direction I should look in, and I take the binoculars, bring them to my eyes and begin searching in the direction he’s pointing, but can find nothing, where? I ask and Havstein guides the binoculars with his hands, to the left a bit, up a bit. There.
And there is something out there. Something small. Vaguely reflected in the red light of the flare.
Hard to say what.
It could be anything.
But it can’t be good.
Which is when I remember the boat.
Óli’s boat in the harbor.
“The boat,” I say, “over here.”
And I start running. I run through the wet village streets, and I’m actually a bit drunk, but I run faster than ever before, and Havstein follows close behind, wait! he yells behind me, but I don’t wait, I run, run past the houses where almost no one lives any more, from where the people have vanished, moved, died, where everything that could happen has happened long ago, and my legs carry me down to the harbor where I put my back to the bow of the wooden boat, shove it away and watch it slip over the logs and out into the dark waters of the deep, narrow inlet, and Havstein comes up from behind, running, only just managing to get aboard before I push away with one oar, pushing us out, and I sit in the middle of the boat, oars down in the water, and start to row.
Havstein sits in the aft, shouting rhythmically: Come on! he shouts, Come on! And I row, and he urges me on, and I row beyond my capability, out, out through the narrow channel, past the first breakers, I can see nothing, sit with my back to the sea and Havstein commands me to the right and left and the rain falls at a ninety degree angle, it fragments to all sides, fills my eyes and I keep them shut, I row on, and Havstein tells me I’m close, and my arms are tired, but I go on rowing against the stream, I descend from the crest of a wave and shoot forward over the water and the flare has gone out, only Havstein has the course now and he knows where he’s going, and as he shouts to me to row faster, I turn for a second to look over my shoulder and glimpse a yellow rubber dinghy and a man struggling to stay upright, fumbling for his possessions as the waves lift them lazily and they escape from him, sinking into the sea, and the dinghy starts to sink too, and he’s up to his knees in water and I manage to swing the boat around in a single movement, put all my strength into one oar, yell to Havstein to take over, stand in the boat, turn toward the dinghy, and dive in.
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? Page 26