The Flatey Enigma

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  The Flatey Enigma

  Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  The Flatey Enigma

  CHAPTER 1

  Wednesday, June 1, 1960

  An easterly wind swept across Breidafjordur with the break of dawn, and a sharp spring breeze intensified the foam of the waves breaking on the strait between the Western Isles. A determined puffin flew low, skimming the surface of the waves at high speed, and an inquisitive sea raven stretched its wings on a reef. Black guillemots plunged into the ocean, while knowing seagulls circled the air high above, scanning the horizon for food. The whole of creation in the fjord was ablaze with life and alertness in the glaring morning sun.

  A small but sturdy motorboat tackled the choppy waves and moved away from the island of Flatey toward the south. The small vessel was a converted old rowboat and tarred in black, with its name painted on the stern in large white letters: RAVEN. It carried a crew of three: a young boy, a grown man, and another, who was considerably older. Three generations from a small croft called Ystakot, on the western corner of the island of Flatey.

  Jon Ferdinand, the eldest, sat at the stern, steering. White stubble sprouted from his hollow face, and black snuff trickled out of his wide nostrils. Some tufts of gray hair spilled out of his old peaked cap, groping for his face in the wind. His big and rawboned hand held the tiller, as the old eyes under his bushy eyebrows searched for a little island in the south. It wasn’t such an easy course to sail, even though visibility was good. Islets and skerries were scattered across the horizon before the mainland, beyond which lay the Dalafjoll mountains in the blue dusk.

  Jon Ferdinand steered the boat head-on against the largest waves but held his course in the gaps between them. It was a small vessel, so it could be unpleasant if the waves hit the side of the boat directly. But the old man sailed by his instincts and seemed to enjoy this duel with the sea.

  Gudvaldur, the steersman’s son, sat down on the thwart in front of the engine bay, smoking a pipe and sharpening a large pocketknife. Bareheaded, in a thick woolen sweater, he turned away with his pipe to avoid the spray of the waves that occasionally splashed over the gunwale. He had a weather-beaten face and a rugged expression and was blind in his left eye, following an injury to the eyeball that had whitened as it healed. The other eye was pitch black. Gudvaldur was named after a long-dead ancestor who had visited his mother in a dream, but locals normally just called him Valdi and associated him with the croft of Ystakot in Flatey.

  A freak high wave broke over the boat, splashing the curly hair on the back of Valdi’s neck. He looked up and scanned ahead. “Careful, Dad,” he barked. “Don’t forget it’s Ketilsey were going to; you’re heading too far south.”

  The old man smiled, flashing his few yellow teeth and raw gums.

  “Too far south, too far south,” he repeated in his husky voice, turning the boat against the wave, and Valdi resumed smoking his pipe and fiddling with his knife once he saw they were back on course again.

  Little Nonni Gudvaldsson sat on a folded sail at the bow, clinging to the gunwale with both hands. He was feeling cold and seasick, and although he was well used to the sea and didn’t normally allow the chill and queasiness to get to him, this was worse than usual because of his urgent, unseamanlike need to empty his bowels. Nonni had been late that morning and forgot to visit the outhouse before they left. He made no mention of this to his father because Valdi would just have told him to squat over the gunwale and do it right there. The boy didn’t fancy that in these rough waters. Every now and then he stretched his head over the stern to see if they were drawing any closer to their destination, but the boat seemed to be taking forever. Then he lay on the folded sail again, pigheadedly bit his lip, and tried to contract the muscles of his anus. Shutting his eyes tight, he muttered to himself over and over: “For Christ’s sake, Jesus, for Christ’s sake, don’t let me shit in my pants today.”

  He glanced toward the front of the boat again.

  “Dad, Dad,” he called out, “Grandpa’s forgetting himself again.”

  Valdi looked up and turned to the old man. “You’re veering too far east. We’re going to Ketilsey, remember? Seal hunting.”

  The old man seemed bewildered a moment but then regained his focus. He wrestled with another wave and headed straight for the island, which was now just a short distance away. Then he looked at Valdi, muttering an old refrain: “To Ketilsey the men did row, to catch the sixteen seals.”

  Valdi didn’t answer, stuck his knife back into his pocket, and emptied his pipe on the gunwale. Then he moved back to the stern.

  The tide was out at the island, and the landing toward the south was well sheltered. Valdi took command of the boat now and Jon Ferdinand waited, ready with a small anchor dangling from a long chain. The boat broke a wave, which crashed on the rocks, and Valdi turned the engine off as the old man dropped the anchor. The chain slid overboard with a rattle, and shrieking birds shot into the air from the island. A seal surfaced a short distance away before suddenly vanishing into the depths again. Little Nonni stood ready at the stern, and as soon as the anchor had steadied the boat, he managed to grab a bulky, rusty iron ring hanging from the rock, and to slip the rope through it and fasten it. Hopping onto the boat again, he stretched over to grab a pile of old newspapers from the place where they were kept under the cover of the engine bay. Valdi watched the boy leap off the boat and disappear behind the rock.

  “I’ve told you many times before not to shit on the island,” he growled. “The seals will pick up your scent for weeks.”

  Little Nonni felt a tinge of guilt. This was one of the golden rules of seal hunting, but he couldn’t help it. He ran up the island, found a good spot between the rocks, and yanked down his pants. The relief was immense, and he started to look around now. Natural monoliths formed a sheltered alcove, and two eider ducks lay brooding a short distance away. They were perfectly still, and only a trained eye would have been able to distinguish them from the turf. A sea pie perched on a rock and screeched loudly. His nest was probably close by on the edge of the shore. Further on, under a mighty boulder, lay the carcass of a large animal.

  Nonni had often seen things like this on the shore, small whales, fat gray seals, or the bloated carcass of an old sheep. The novelty of this specimen, though, was that it was dressed in a green parka.

  “Tell me about the Flatey Book,” he asked.

  She pondered a moment. “Do you want to hear the long story or the short one?” she finally asked.

  “The longer story if you have the time.”

  She gazed through the window where the sun was setting behind the mountains in the northwest and said in a soft voice, “I’ve got plenty of time now.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Thursday, June 2, 1960

  The mail boat sailed from Stykkisholmur to the island of Flatey once a week, on Saturdays, and then traveled on to Bardastrond north of Breidafjordur. The wharf was in Brjansl?kur, and it was there that the few farmers who inhabited the roadless fjords to the east of it came to collect their mail. Transport was limited in these parts, and the vast differences between the tides made sea travel there very difficult.

  Once a road had been built over Kleifaheidi, there was far greater access to Patreksfjordur in the west and the villages to the north of it. A growing number of passengers started to travel on the mail boat, which increased its transportation of goods.

  The boat followed the same route back from Brjansl?kur, stopping off in Flatey on the way and terminating its journey in Stykkisholmur. The whole trip took an entire day, and it was often in the small hours that the boat was finally tied to the wharf of its home harbor.

  Life was fairly
uneventful in Brjansl?kur when there was no mail boat on the way. On this particular Thursday, however, a young stranger stood on the wharf, watching an open motorboat approaching the shore, long in the distance from the south. The man was dressed in a coat tied with a belt at the waist. He was of average height, slim, and sported a conspicuous scar on his forehead. He squinted his gray eyes at the glaring sunlight, as if he were unaccustomed to light, and the cool breeze ruffled his thick, dark hair. A metallic oblong box with handles on the side lay at his feet.

  The man stood alone on the wharf, watched from a short distance away by two old men under a shed who were intrigued by this unusual guest. A small truck was driving up the road, away from the wharf, and it soon vanished from sight to the west in a cloud of dust.

  This was clearly an alien environment to the young man, and he anxiously scanned the broad fjord and islands in the distance. Two ravens hovered high above his head, croaking at each other. Down on the sea, some arctic terns fluttered and screeched. These riotous birds brought back memories, and they weren’t good ones either, so he instinctively blocked his ears with his hands and closed his eyes a moment-until he realized that it was pointless trying to shut them off like that and decided to shrug off the feeling. He dug his hands deep into his pockets and clenched his fists.

  The boat was pulling into shore now. The engine had been turned off, and the vessel was being steered toward the wharf. The stranger caught the rope tossed to him by the men on the boat and held onto it as the two men climbed onto the edge of the wharf.

  “Hello there,” said the man who stepped up first-a vigorous man in his sixties, chubby, with a round, ruddy face, a collar of white beard that lined his big cheeks, and a stubby nose. He was wearing thigh-high boots, an old woolen pinstriped cardigan, and a black cap on his head.

  “I’m Ellidagrimur Einarsson, administrative officer of the district of Flatey; call me Grimur. I guess you must be the district magistrate’s representative from Patreksfjordur?”

  “Yes, I’m Kjartan,” the man who had been waiting on the pier answered, taking the hand the officer was holding out to him. It felt thick and the skin was rough, but it was a warm and firm handshake.

  “This is Hogni, our teacher from the Flatey primary school and our church organist,” said the local officer, indicating his partner, a tall, spare man in neat blue overalls and high Wellingtons. “Hogni works with me during the seal-hunting season in the spring and helps out with the hay when the harvesting starts,” the officer added.

  Hogni gave the young man an equally vigorous handshake. He had a large gray moustache, well-groomed to the sides, but otherwise clean-shaven cheeks. The teacher seemed to be of the same age of his companion but bore his age well. A bright peaked cap perched over the back of his head.

  The local officer observed the district magistrate’s man for a moment and took out a tin of snuff.

  “So you’ve only just started to work for the magistrate, have you?” he asked, offering Kjartan some snuff.

  “Yes, I took the coaster to Patreksfjordur the day before yesterday,” said Kjartan, declining the offer with a wave of his hand.

  “And they’ve thrown you straight into the deep end!” Grimur grinned roguishly, handing Hogni the tin of snuff.

  “Yes, this isn’t exactly the kind of assignment I was expecting. They told me working for the district magistrate would be a clerical job, and that I’d be dealing with notarizations and things like that.”

  “So this isn’t a long-term career move then?” Grimur asked.

  “No, just until the autumn.”

  “Are you training to become a district magistrate?”

  “No, I just graduated in law this summer, and I wasn’t planning on any district commissioning job.”

  “So what are you going to do then?”

  “Well, I might be able to join a lawyer’s practice in the fall, so one of my tutors got me this summer job. I’d like to work in property law in the future, so it’ll be good experience for me to audit some mortgage pledges this summer.”

  The local officer glanced at the box that lay at their feet. “Right then, let’s just get this box on board and pick up the corpse. But let’s stop off in Flatey to grab a bite to eat from my wife, Imba, on the way. She should have some lunch ready by one if I know her right.”

  “Have you identified the deceased yet?” Kjartan asked. He was hoping for a yes to make his job a little bit easier, but his wish wasn’t to be granted.

  “No, we haven’t,” Grimur answered. “The only thing that Valdi from Ystakot could tell us was that his boy found a dead man in Ketilsey and nothing more. Those lads sure talk a lot, not that they ever make much sense, and they normally repeat everything twice. As far as I can make out, though, the poor wretch had been dead for some time. Might have been shipwrecked or something in the winter and got washed up by the spring tide. As far as I can tell, it’s basically just a heap of bones, and our job is just to collect them, though I guess we better be prepared for anything. Then we’ve got to log it all and file a report, of course. You must be pretty good at that.”

  Kjartan couldn’t remember any part of his law education that covered chores of this kind, but he imagined he’d be able to throw something down on paper. He instinctively dug his hand into his coat pocket and fished out a notebook and pen. He tested the pen on a blank sheet, and it seemed to be working. The islanders watched with interest.

  “Yes, I can write the report,” said Kjartan awkwardly, shoving the notebook back into his pocket again.

  The islanders stepped down onto the boat and grabbed the box that Kjartan eased over the side of the wharf. A small suitcase was passed down in the same way, and then finally Kjartan himself, once he had loosened the moorings. Hogni tied the box tightly to the thwart with some old string while Grimur cranked the engine. Throwing the engine into reverse, they backed away from the wharf until they were out in the open sea. Then they pressed forward, heading south at full speed.

  She browsed through some pages of the Munksgaard edition of the Flatey Book. Occasionally, she would stop and read a sentence out loud. Every page of the book contained a facsimile photograph of a vellum leaf from the original manuscript. The images were clear and legible, even though the full coloring of the original was missing. The pages were white and well preserved.

  She finally closed the book, then opened it again to the front page and started to tell the story in a low, confident, and unwavering voice: “The Book of Flatey contains a variety of writings: it starts with the Eddic and the Hyndla poems, the tales of King Sigurdur Slefa, and genealogies. All of these writings were probably set down at the end of the book but then moved to the front of the manuscript before it was bound. The history of Eirik Vidforull starts to take off on the fourth page, followed by the saga of the mighty King Olaf Tryggvason. Olaf ruled Norway from 995 to 1000, and his story forms a large part of the manuscript and is interwoven with many other accounts and tales, such as the Jomsvikings saga, the sagas of the Faroe Islands, sagas of the Orkneys, sagas of the Greenlanders, and many more…”

  CHAPTER 3

  As soon as they had passed the skerry by Brjansl?kur, Hogni moved to the bow and lay down on a canvas bag that was spread over a pile of nets. He drew his peaked cap over his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and stretched out his legs. Kjartan sat on the thwart opposite Grimur, who was steering. The engine growled noisily, and the conversation was spasmodic.

  “Not the most comfortable place to sleep,” Kjartan said when Hogni had settled down.

  “The man’s tired,” Grimur answered, “and he likes to have a lie down on sea trips. The working hours in the hunting season are long, and he isn’t used to hard labor. He’s a boarder at my wife Imba’s place and pays for it by working for me in the summer.”

  “Is he a bachelor then?”

  “He’s a widower; his wife died a few years ago. He sleeps in the school building and has two meals a day at our place.”

&nb
sp; The boat sailed smoothly along its journey. Grimur kept a sharp eye on the course he was steering because in many places their sailing path was strewn with rocks and reefs.

  Kjartan felt he needed to keep the conversation going, without quite knowing where to start. He gazed across the bay. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be islands big and small.

  “I’ve never been to Breidafjordur before,” he said. And then, just for the sake of it, he added: “It must be true what they say then, that the islands in this fjord are countless?”

  Grimur smiled and seemed to be willing to participate in the conversation. “They’re certainly not easy to count with any exactitude,” he answered, “and first you’ve got to decide on what you call an island. If we define an island as a piece of land that’s surrounded by sea at high tide and has some vegetation on it, then maybe we can count them. By that criteria, there are about three thousand islands that have been counted in the whole fjord. But then you’ve got the barren skerries that no one’s been able to count with any certainty, so they can be considered to be countless.”

  Kjartan nodded, trying to strike an interested air.

  Grimur pointed at an island that rose high out of the sea: “That’s Hergilsey, which was recently abandoned by the last farmer. It’s named after Hergil Hnapprass. Have you read Gisli’s saga?”

  “Yes, but not recently,” Kjartan answered.

  “Hergil’s son was Ingjaldur, a farmer in Hergilsey. The story goes that he sheltered the outlawed Gisli Sursson. When Borkur Digri was going to kill Ingjaldur to punish him for hiding the convict, Ingjaldur the old uttered the following words…”

  Grimur took a deep breath, altered his voice, and declaimed: “ My clothes are rags anyway, so little do I care if I won’t be able to wear them down any further.”