Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller

  i. I am ever more wretched / but what I desire / my cherished friend / he comes late and later / pains in absence / my friend in Guarda

  ii. in appearance everyone wins / honoring newly come girls

  iii. the state of joy exceeds the world / here the lord god’s grace is given

  These translations by Tómas Jónsson from the ancient Portuguese are largely absurd, but they are accurate and read well. They should really be worse.

  T. J.

  VI.

  I lay my curse upon this day. I returned to my room, followed by Títa’s eyes. I was tired from lack of sleep and my fingertips hurt. They didn’t enjoy touching the cup and taking it out of the oven. I brought out the coffee thermos, wrapped in grease paper, which crackled awkwardly around my provisions: a rye-bread sandwich with paté, a sandwich of wheat and rye bread with cheese, two crumbly christmas cake slices, one of them usually an end slice. I do not know why the end piece almost invariably ends up being mine. I would say to the dinner matron: there is an odd coincidence, I think, the end piece always ends up in my food parcel. I sat facing the parcel of goods. In the mornings I have a rather small appetite and find it hard to choose between the unacceptable slices. Ideally I would have the christmas cake the next day, but that would leave out the rye-bread and cheese slices. I opened the sandwich; the cheese looked dry at the ends. I sniffed the paté and checked with my nail to see if there were pits in the raisin christmas cake. After this ritual, I set to work (I decided to attend first to the rye bread). Here, no one can pick and choose. I thought for a moment about my EEG; one cannot cough during the examination, the needle tip dances out a graph. After the EEG ended I managed to muster some courage and eat rye bread. First I nibbled the crust of the slice, saving the softer part for later bites with my teeth. I went about the wheat bread, which is more appetizing, the same way; the margarine softened the cheese. Every night I bring a coffee and a snack home from the cafeteria. I keep two floral cups in my closet. I drink from them alternately when I wish to give myself a treat. The clay is cracked on my everyday cup; coffee has cracked the glaze and stained it. But the bowl is unbroken. Originally, my Sunday cup was intended for guests. Sometimes it occurs to me to sell it but I have not come to that. One has difficulty making big decisions. Selling the cup would transform my attitude toward life. Giving oneself a treat is essential for good mental health. The doctor advised me to keep the cup for the time being. Who knows if someone will visit, he said. Don’t offer visitors the thermos lid. No, but I could drink from the lid and offer the cup.

  The problem still unsolved after visiting hours.

  I drank lukewarm coffee slosh sitting on the bed.

  I need to buy a new stopper for the thermos.

  The coffee barely stays warm overnight.

  where is Elizabeth do we think has she come down no stories about her and the Italian laying-hens she truly planned to kill the old hens and make a total improvement the old ones wanted nothing to do with laying any more despite artificial eggs and new stuffing in their boxes she got shells and the hens just laid eggs without shells various runts or double yolks it was natural she was tired of the whims I do not know any man in this country who has made friends with chickens

  The dinner matron promised to give me a new stopper, taken from some thermos. Those kinds of bottles cannot be found any longer in this country. At least, not the narrow-nozzle type. She wrapped the cap in grease paper, then with plastic wrap to make it tight. Over time, the coffee has eaten up the cork, which has become little more than a brown froth. The warmth slips out somewhere, the cap dew-wet on the inside by morning thanks to condensation within the bottle. Well, the thermos has reached its time, its twenty-fifth year. It’ll reach its silver wedding, we will, the thermos and I, god willing. Then I’ll put cocoa mix in it. I bought this thermos downtown, the shop Nóra. One does peculiarly well in that store, poking around useful small stuff in boxes on the table. I remember I bought a newspaper quite by accident on one visit. Why did I buy that paper. Usually I studied the newspapers in the dining hall. The dinner matron does not wrap things between newspapers, but as she rations provisions into parcels, she has her biases. Because I bought the newspaper. I need to remember whybuying the thermos remains vivid for me. The girl had a paper or some dog piss in her hand. Something was written in bold typeface on the cover of the paper also a photograph of a cannonthe hard shall meet the rigid Hitler said at the beginning of the war. What drove me to purchase the paper what decided that on this very day I would buy a certain set of papers at a certain street corner for certain reasons. It remains strange. The power of forgetfulness is that it can absolutely put a man out of his mind. I do not understand.

  I must have found the money in the gutter, which sometimes happened, but could not sort it into any of the envelopes, and so stood helpless with it stuck between my fingers. It wasn’t until later I created the envelope marked Found Money. It occurred to me while I gulped down the tepid coffee thinking about it now it was almost unavoidable to delay any longer I needed to acquire a silver chain instead of a loop, which is not easy to repair. In the cloakroom I had noticed and examined chains on the coat collars of some of the younger workersTryggvi’s overcoat has a chain too of silver inside the overcoat lapel the initials of the owner engraved in a decorative fonthow are these chains attached I have to look for informationthe younger men are a bit rough-looking for me Tryggvi I can ask without fear of objectionyou should ask me not some mister nobody

  Are you still there, drillcat. Don’t lie hidden. Come burrow under the covers. Snuggle

  no one can understand this cold spirit I present to younger folk think the contrary but it has been demonstrated many times it is inappropriate and unfortunately unhealthy to have too much contact with younger people more than what is moderate prudent employees do not follow such advice younger people no it is not right a man’s spirit follows established rules even if they are unwritten I name none I publish no names of various things I know about others that shall be confidential have authority with youngsters guide them indirectly unlike some who ignore the new employees marvelously and then say ill-temperedly no work gets done by hand and rip down the classification system in the filing cabinets it is safe to keep on that rather popular man Tómas Jónsson—that’s me—people address him constantly say he is steadfast this senior employee slowly and surely I find it bearable being called old it shows signs yes of confidence I am timid my work never drops from my hand most matters are important when each and everybody gives a solid day’s work right through to evening a friendly reaction chokes

  to spin from fine thread

  many old ladies find my work delightful it is flawless reaches the bank director’s ears he raises his hat greets me familiarly what’s more he is going to respond partly as a treat for my ears and my mind an invitation to work less he trusts me to take care of dutiful rule-abiding people, I grasp his slender shoulders I say he lifts a glass to me at the launch ceremony he says we’ll meet together at the opening of the new branch on the stroke of seven one night to come wearing formalwear and utterly impotent horses gallop from the meadow and prevent the chickens from laying under the young potato grass not the potatoes the hens are deranged the boy squeezes eggs from them with firm hands when they lie on the potatoes squeezes eggs from the creatures if the hen is hypnotized it falls into laying the winter descends upon Sólheimasandur a gaunt forsaken hen stands in the middle of the sand nerves shattered a white Italian hen on the sand’s middle its belly flies a wreck over Landeyjasandur fishermen live destruction

  It never entered my head: that I might purposely do someone some wrong or evil. How could I commit wrongdoing. My conscience was sleeping, unaware that it was Sunday morning. I sat on the bed in front of the covers, which I’d rolled up into a cylinder against the wall, drank my morning coffee, and picked at my lunch bag like a small bird, as I sometimes am wont to do, having dreamt of feathered rats. Autopsy: a decision to reappraise life, as Sigur
ður plans to in his miserable condition, a result of three weeks of drinking, but such a thing is quite unsuited to me; this: to stare endlessly at my navel. For my part I never indulge in such brooding, which indicates an insufficient character (I do not deny that it would be fun to see inside oneself via an annual X-ray and TB-exam, the curiosity being of the same kind as when you were a kid and put your index finger deep inside a chicken’s ass to find the eggs and burst them: a scientific bent). He literally mewls for sympathy; such men always succeed in justifying themselves. Every healthy person, which I understand to be the majority of the population, should agree with me. I scarcely recognize this degraded but fully-grown adult man groveling with his dirty claws, caught in a frenzy of accusation like some religious youth, constantly confessing his sins; this damned I (capital) that is almost impossible to bear. That is how Sigurður is, screaming in agony when his hungover conscience gnaws at him (so says Ólaf). Sympathy does not thaw me. Most people wear the skin of wretchedness all too well. Or else he will finally arrive at his destination, be able to start a new life. He is a swamp. Who is not a swamp, when all is said and done (he lets himself tell me), you can see mud boil out the mud pool of the brain cells as you roll home at night to fuck (a word I do not want inside my mouth) the cat. Accord deep-sea fish due attention when they lose their way to the surface. The animals down there respect each other’s lives, evidence of nature’s ingenious design, some threading through the waterhole as the blind deep-sea fish swim out through the spout in full view. Even cats shake their heads at that language. Life’s columns do not tally when the account is closed in duplicitous bookkeeping, I am going to crack him. (He will let me work on the bookkeeping, whether he likes it or not.) I have the strongest hatred for poetry. Of course not this: Nerine Galatea, thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae, candidior cycnis, hedera formosior alba; there a human being is not babbling his complexes out in the rain, footsteps sounding on a deserted street, rain falling on the window pane, the sun lowering to the blue mountainside, fleet-footed twilight dropping over the valley, or tourists taking photos of themselves and the sunset up on Vaðlaheið (where is classic serenity): The jeep and the sunset; the jeep, Jón and the sunset; the tent and the jeep; Gunna with the primus stove; light on the film. No, they can write overstuffed books, I will not read them, books that are made like the motion of the waves, rising and falling as chapters transition.

  She: Gísli.

  The girl was strong.

  He answered, tenderly stroking her cheek:

  Unnur, even if I win the world . . .

  No, Gísli. Forgetfulness will make you free and you will forget me, she interrupted, rising with the victorious pride of a woman who has given her all on a spring night. A spring night, the brief spring night their love passed into a still morning with broad-winged birds flying over a tranquil fjord. Hard realities replaced sweet tranquility in the girl’s mind.

  They stood on the farm slope, shy with one another, like children, both externally seeming disinterested as they faced their teacher.

  Farewell, Unnur Ey, he said, and slipped awkwardly into the bag that held all his earthly possessions the old book a young hand had extended him in goodbye, an old, worn book of poetry.

  I could scarcely forget you, he said stiffly after a moment’s silence.

  You will forget me, my friend, before the frost sits on autumn’s window, said the girl. She went through the low door.

  Unnur Ey, he whispered. But she had gone to wash the milk pails, to call over the dog, Snata, and give it the fishskin, to order the old woman to warm coffee. She was gone, some world distant from everyday life like an alien globe in space with its countless stars. He whispered something to the grass on the farm roof, something it was to remember and to whisper always to the girl until it withered, waking up next spring, remembering and whispering along with the wind in her ears.

  After, he went up the mountain road and disappeared into the fog as he walked slowly down the slope to the valley floor and the threatened reflection of the fjord in the gold morning light and the dewy trail of the little girl under the mountain.

  The journey had begun.

  Paris - Ulm - San Remo - Rome - Corfu 1948-49.

  educational institutions do not care for stories about The Journey that was traversed over a high mountain and a heath with a clever collection of poetry in a knapsack on a quest to conquer the world, though it was more natural to sit passive and let the world carry on. Students whined in a high-pitch chorus: do it, teacher, do it. Read the story of the journey never taken. Pleasure drew the teacher’s mouth into a pucker. I read it last christmas. Now write an essay about christmas. And the class, being both radical- and literary-minded, breathed inspiration and wrote diligently about that great merchant festival of money:

  sleet and slush covered the central streets of the town. The snow reached people’s ankles. Everyone was in the finest jolly christmas mood except little Magga in her Nissen hut. She played with her old rag doll on the damp floor. Her mother sewed skirts for her daughter from an old coat.

  Run to the dairy and buy a drop of skimmed milk with the last of the money, she said, red-eyed with tiredness as she looked at her daughter’s pale cheeks. With gnarled, callused, red, and swollen hands she worked to fish the coins from the faded wallet.

  Then little Magga ran out to the store and the police kicked her with their large clogs, so that the girl dropped the milk pail and the milk puddled into snow identical in color. With that, it became clear that celebrating christmas this year in the hut meant hunger and tears. But in a mansion opposite (mansions in icelandic novels always face the dismal American military huts left over from the war) the birth of the Savior was welcomed, by contrast, with a fried christmas goose and creamy mashed potatoes. Einar Magan the great merchant sat at his table feeling blessed after a huge christmas sale. In the huts, darkness reigned—desolate and empty and with hushed weeping.

  Having finished their christmas essays, these prospective lawyers and ministers went out onto the school steps and had a cigarette and Coke and candy. They have brought their sympathy with humble people in artistic form. On the way down the hallway they deepened their voices, made themselves appear solemn and told the dames in the cloakroom that Nietzsche and Rilke were “out of date,” along with Dostoyevsky. The ladies hang their virgin complexes on hooks and make weak protest. They are still on the sensitive Dostoyevsky step but will pass rapidly through Gide to Camus and Sartre (one must practice the French one learns). Blessed girls, they say, rescue men from tattered phrases. Nietzsche was nothing but a supple phrase-logician. At the bank there is an excellent case of a man who became a womanly maid from reading such things (yes, you guessed it: Sigurður).

  When evening fixed a dusky veil on the withered earth and the trees dropped leaves that curled like shriveled parchment, they strolled enamored along Sóleyjargata. He, Haraldur Sóldal, a newly appointed doctor, led his fiancée, Todda Bomb, as the mischievous boys in the village shouted after her as she approached. (Here you can see an excellent example of the poet, the way the author uses in his work two contraries, critique and beauty, he says.) The lights sparkled drowsily in the pond like grief glittering in her eyes the morning he said goodbye to her for countless springs and went away over the lakes and moors. (Next spring she sailed after him to the big city, Reykjavík, where the formidable corruption of the capital appeared to her in the form of an opulent merchant’s son on the one hand and, on the other, the drug addict, the drinker, the wretch, the homosexual, the poet Tjafsi Í. Vaffs.)

  They picked their way across the bridge. Mt. Esja loomed above the roofs of the houses, wearing a thousand and one fall hues—an adventure in color.

  Þorbjörg, I want you to know that in my life I have had countless women. I will not deceive you.

  I know, Halli, you always loved Vala Storð.

  Tell me, were you ever with Ólafur Magan?

  No, she answered in a low voice.

  What about the p
oet et cetera, Tjafsi Í. Vaffs?

  She shook her head no.

  I pity him. He had a hard time. He was a poet whose life and sensitivity people treated harshly.

  They had arrived back home. He sighed, tired after a difficult operation in the hospital, where the powers of life fought battle with a vain hope of conquering the omnipotence of death. There was no assurance what would happen in intensive care, whether the victorious power of life could gain the patient any respite.

  In the silence that came after her answer, ice formed over her innocent love like puddles on a street during fall’s first frosty night.

  Then, once inside, they removed their bindings, he embraced her modestly on the divan, and the night surrounded and wrapped them and remained silent about their naked bodies interacting, seeking each other’s love the way a stream seeks spring water, widening constantly in the flowing river running into the immensity of the sea.

  Silence.

  The potato grass withered overnight.

  In truth, fiction is a superstition spun in the fabric of people who neither know nor want to know life itself. LIFE IS NOT IN BOOKS. If the writers and poets wrote about men at work and during their leisure, fiction would be superfluous. Should a writer, however, construct some narrative that does not exist in reality but rather takes reality’s place, i.e. the only true fiction, fantasy and imagination, then no one can understand it but the writer himself (supposing even he understands it). With this eliminated, nothing should be left but writing biographies. Fictions are useless to every living human. On the path of life, people meet others who are much closer to their problems and to real environments than those in novels. The only way to enjoy to the full