Walking Into the Night
Page 20
He was sure he could find a cheap room down by the harbor, they always needed men on the boats. The course lay out of the bay, dead west over the calm ripples, toward the sunset. The net was cast when darkness had fallen—it sank soundlessly into the black sea and came up silvered. A long time ago, after he had gone out in the evening to fish for herring, he remembered Einar asking whether the sun ever got caught in the net.
At the last moment, he had decided to leave the letters behind. He had contemplated them for a long time before taking them out of his bag and wrapping them in a handkerchief. He left the shoebox on his desk, the note to the Chief on top of the shoebox, the letters next to it. Before he picked up his bags, he took one last look around his room. It already seemed foreign to him.
He didn’t know how long the Chief had been standing in the doorway. They stared at one another for a while, then the old man cleared his throat.
“Is there anything I can do?”
He had never asked Kristjan about his life before they met and Kristjan was grateful to him for that. But now it was as if he understood everything without Kristjan having to explain.
“I left a note. A note and a shoebox. The note’s for you.”
“And the shoebox?”
There was silence while Kristjan tried to quell the lump in his throat.
“The shoebox and the letters are for my son.”
The Chief was about to reach out his hand, then suddenly seemed to lose control of it, pulled it back.
“You don’t think you can . . .?”
Kristjan was on the point of groping for words to describe the thoughts he’d been trying for so long to understand; he was going to tell him that the explanation wasn’t simple enough to be encapsulated in a single sentence, was aware of moving his lips, then stepped back inadvertently, retreated, and said merely:
“No, I can’t. It’s too late.”
“Where to?” asked the old man after a long silence.
“I don’t know. I’ll leave the car . . .”
“Don’t worry about the car.”
Hearst looked down at his feet, then slowly straightened up and said, so quietly that he could hardly be heard:
“We all have to believe that we’re decent. No matter what, we have to believe that. For there are no innocents; life is full of mysteries and mistakes. You’re a good man, Christian. Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself, my friend.”
The highway continued north along the coast, the ocean to the left, mountains to the right. But he had decided to stop here and see what happened. When he climbed up onto the rocks beside the turn-off he could see the part of the village that had been hidden before and felt even more certain that it would be a good place to stay.
He didn’t jump, but eased his way carefully down from the rocks to the ground.
He shouldered his satchel and canvas bag, and set off in the direction of the village. The horse stopped grazing and looked up. As it sauntered away from the tree, still munching, the sun’s rays spilled off its mane, over its back, and down its flanks. The leafy shadows vanished from its back, but Kristjan noticed that the shadow of the bird remained. He looked up at the sky but couldn’t see it anywhere.
When the horse had disappeared into a hollow, the bird began to sing.
Acknowledgments
While some of the characters who appear in this novel are based on historical figures, it is important to stress that my portrayal of them is strictly fictional. I am, however, indebted to the brothers Arni Tomas and Kristjan Tomas Ragnarsson, who so generously shared with me their grandfather’s story as well as letters, journals, and reminiscences, without which this book could not have been written.
I must also take this opportunity to thank my editor, Carol Brown Janeway, for her thorough reading of the book and her advice; my agent, Gloria Loomis, for her care and support; and, last but not least, my dear friend Jason Epstein, whose guidance and wisdom I have had the privilege of enjoying for many years.
Also by Olaf Olafsson
The Journey Home
Absolution
Olaf Olafsson
Walking into the Night
Olaf Olafsson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1962, and studied physics as a Wien Scholar at Brandeis University. He is the author of two previous novels, The Journey Home and Absolution, which have been translated into fourteen languages. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
Many thanks to Victoria Cribb
for her invaluable assistance when writing this book.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, OCTOBER 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Double O Investment Corporation
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson.
Walking into the night / Olaf Olafsson.
p. cm.
1. Icelandic Americans—Fiction. 2. Hearst, William Randolph, 1863–1951—Fiction. 3.
San Simeon (Calif.)—Fiction. 4. Loss
(Psychology)—Fiction. 5. Runaway husbands—Fiction.
6. Butlers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3615.L34W35 2003
839’.6934—dc21
2003048812
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