“Uhuh,” said Hallbera, “very nice for anyone that can take them, maybe. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison. And fresh fish, especially fresh-water fish, is more than I can stand. I’ve never been able to take much fresh stuff somehow. I come out in a rash with it. It’s too strong.”
That, he considered, could hardly be right; fresh food was good for you.
“Where might the gentleman hail from?” she inquired.
He said: “From the south.”
“Yes, of course, poor man,” she said with all the sympathy that old folk usually show for anyone who lives in a distant part of the country.
And Asta Sollilja just stood and gazed at him preparing the fish. His hands were so skilful, the movements so few and sure, the work seemed to be doing itself, and yet at such a marvellous speed. And there was a smile on his lips though he was not smiling, he was so good to look upon; and such a good man. He filled the pan to the brim; he was a great man, no one must discover what she had dreamed since this man came to the valley; he asked for the salt.
The fragrance of fresh trout on the boil filled the room. He took out his pipe and pressed the tobacco down before lighting it. The smoke had a smell like meadow-sweet, only much more delicious; there is another world in a sweet smell, and the fragrance remained to live and talk when the visitor himself had gone. “Good day to both of you,” he said, and went.
And was gone. He closed the door behind him. Hurrying to the window, she gazed after him as he ran into the driving rain in his huge coat, and his sou’wester. Rain could do little harm to such a man—how light was his step! The girl felt her head swimming slightly, her heart knocking against her ribs. She stayed by the window till the palpitation wore off and the rain had entranced her. Then the old woman suddenly remembered that she had wanted to ask him something, seeing that it was the south he hailed from, but her wits were so gummed up nowadays that she could never remember anything, shame on you, Sola, why couldn’t you have offered the poor man some coffee? But Asta Sollilja did not hear what she said, for she felt so ridiculous somehow with her bare arms and bare feet, her old slip, her thin legs; ugly.
“Geese,” said Bjartur that evening, glancing disdainfully at the birds the visitor had left. “No one ever grew fat on fowling. May he be of all men the most cursed for his gifts!”
“We might try to boil them,” suggested his wife.
I’ve heard that the gentry are supposed to eat bird-flesh,” said old Hallbera.
“Yes, and Frenchmen are supposed to eat frogs,” snorted Bjartur, and never tasted the geese. Nevertheless he forgave the visitor for both fish and fowl, and after breakfast on the following Sunday morning he was heard to say:
“It’s just like the lot of you to snatch the gift from a stranger’s hand and say thank-you like a bunch of tramps. But that it should ever occur to you to send the fellow a drop of milk on a Sunday morning is of course far above the flight of your imagination.”
The upshot was that Asta Sollilja and little Nonni were sent off round the lake with some milk in a little tub. She washed her face and hands and combed her hair. Her eyes, one straight, the other crossed, her eyes were very large, very dark. She donned the sheepskin shoes and her dead mother’s gown. It had been washed after her journey to town and mended where it had been torn, but it was very faded and not a bit pretty now; actually rather a miserable rag. But fortunately the soul’s joy had blossomed considerably in these ten days since the cow calved, as was obvious from her complexion.
They walked across the marshes with the tub between them. Asta Sollilja was so nervous that she was silent all the way. For three days now there had been intervals of reasonably fine weather, which, though too short to be really useful, had sufficed to rush most of the hay home. There was sunshine today also, but the marsh grass had begun to grow yellow, and the delicate blue that characterizes the spring had long since disappeared from the sunshine. The plovers had begun to gather into flocks, but the snipe crouched low in the grass in moping solitude, as if they rued all that had happened. They flew up from beneath one’s feet with a sudden flutter of wings that startled one; no song now, only the song of the heart.
There was no movement to be seen about the tent, and as they had no idea how to knock at a dwelling that had neither door nor doorpost, they halted in perplexity a few yards away. Finally they mustered sufficient courage to peep in under the edge. The man then crawled out of a fur-lined bag, pushed his head through the flap of the tent, and blinked at them with sleepy eyes.
“Were you looking for me?”
“No,” said Asta Sollilja, and setting the tub down in front of the tent, gripped her brother’s hand and took to her heels.
“Hi, there!” he shouted after them. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“It’s milk,” shouted little Nonni in full flight.
“Stop!” he bawled, and as they didn’t dare do otherwise, they halted and looked over their shoulders at him as if ready to make off again at the slightest suspicious movement, like young deer.
“Come on,” he said encouragingly, but they didn’t dare for their lives and simply stood still and watched him. He lifted the lid off the tub, cautiously took a little drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spat.
“I’ll give you a fry,” said he.
They gazed at him for a while longer, then they sat down, both on the same tiny hummock, ignorant of what a fry meant, but willing to wait for whatever might appear. The visitor began to set some things out in front of the tent, barefooted, in trousers and shirt, while they followed his every movement with marvelling eyes.
“It won’t hurt you to come a bit nearer,” he called to them, without looking up.
After waiting awhile longer, they seized the opportunity when his back was turned on them and sneaked a few yards nearer. He said they could come into the tent if they liked, so they followed him into the tent, first the boy, then the girl, and stood with their backs against the pole. They had never landed in such an adventure before; the whole tent was redolent of tobacco, fruit, and hair-oil. She gazed at his arms, brown as coffee with cream in it, and watched him light the oil-stove and melt some butter in the pan. He had three ducks all ready for cooking, and soon the smell of frying was added to the other smells.
“Don’t you know any games?” he inquired without looking up.
“No,” they answered.
“No?” he said. “Why not?”
“We have to keep on doing something.” said little Nonni, without explaining the process of his thought.
“What for?” asked the man.
They didn’t know.
“It’s great fun playing games,” he said, but they didn’t know whom he was referring to—whether he referred to them, to himself, or to the people of the district The young girl’s cheeks were burning for fear he should look at her or address any remark to her in particular.
“Why don’t you shoot some of the birds?” he asked.
“Father doesn’t want to,” said the boy, without remembering that his father had published his considered opinion on the subject.
“What did you do with the geese I gave you the other day?”
“We boiled them.”
“Boiled them? You ought to have fried them in butter.”
“We haven’t any butter.”
“Why not?”
“Father doesn’t want to buy a churn.”
“Does your father want anything?” inquired the man.
“Sheep,” replied the boy.
Then at last the visitor looked at the children, and it was as if he realized for the first time that this was a conversation, and that there was, moreover, some real substance in this conversation. He was rather surprised. “So he wants sheep,” he said, with a heavy stress on the “sheep,” as if unable to understand the word in this context. Presently he turned the birds over, and then it came to light that the side that had been below had turned brown; the butter spat and c
rackled as he turned them, and a dense smoke filled the tent. “So he wants sheep,” said the man to himself. He shook his head, still to himself, and though they did not really fathom his disapproval, they felt nevertheless that there must be something not quite right in wanting to have sheep. Nonni decided to tell his brother Helgi that it was questionable whether this great man was in complete agreement with all their father’s opinions.
She looked at him all, and at his belt, and at his toes, and his shirt was made of brown cloth, open at the neck, and she had never known the like of him; he could no doubt do anything he wanted. His house—in her mind’s eye she saw the house, lovely as a dream, on her mother’s cake-dish; but that was impossible. And why was it impossible? Because there was a girl standing in front of it. This man’s house stood by itself in a wood, like the house on the lovely calendar that the sheep had trodden into the muck when it fell downstairs two years ago—by itself in a wood. He lived there alone. In his house the rooms were more numerous and more beautiful even than those in the mansion of Rauthsmyri; he had a sofa that was more beautiful even than the Rauthsmyri sofa; this was he of whom it is written in Snow White.
“What do they call you?” he asked, and her heart stood still.
“Asta Sollilja,” she blurted out in an anguish-stricken voice.
“Asta what?” he asked, but she didn’t dare own up to it again.
“Sollilja,” said little Nonni.
“Amazing,” said he, gazing at her as if to make sure whether it could be true, while she thought how dreadful it was to be saddled with such an absurdity. But he smiled at her and forgave her and comforted her and there was something so good and so good in his eyes; so mild; it is in this that the soul longs to rest; from eternity to eternity. And she saw it for the first time in his eyes, and perhaps never afterwards, and faced it and understood. And that was that “Now I know why the valley is so lovely,” said the visitor.
She hadn’t the faintest idea what to say—the valley lovely? For weeks afterwards she racked her brains. What had he meant? She had often heard people talk about lovely wool and lovely yarn and, most of all, lovely sheep—but the valley? Why, the valley was nothing but a marsh, a sodden marsh where one stood over the ankles in puddles between the hummocks and deeper still in the bogs, a stagnant lake where some people said that a kelpie lived, a little croft on a low hillock, a mountain with belts of crags above, very seldom sunshine. She looked about her in the valley, looked at the marsh, the evil marsh where all summer long she had lifted the sodden hay, soaking and unhappy; the days seemed to have had no mornings, no evenings to look forward to—and now the valley was lovely. Now I know why the valley is so lovely. Why, then? No, it wasn’t because she was called Asta Sollilja. If it was lovely it was because a wonderful man had come into the valley.
The ducks went on sizzling.
“Let’s go outside,” he suggested. They sat down on the bank by the lake. It was nearly three o’clock, a summer breeze in the valley, warm. He lay flat in the grass looking up at the sky, and they gazed at him, and at his toes.
“Do you know anything?” he asked up at the sky.
“No,” was their reply.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“No.”
“Is there anything you can do?” asked the man.
At this point the children felt that perhaps it was scarcely polite to answer all his questions in the negative, so they did not absolutely deny that they could do something. What could Asta Sollilja do? She racked her brains for a few moments, but found when it came to the point that she had forgotten everything she could do.
“Nonni here can sing,” she said.
“Let’s hear you sing, then,” said the man.
But apparently the boy had suddenly forgotten how to set about singing.
“How many toes have I?” asked the man.
“Ten,” answered little Nonni at once, and immediately regretted his hasty answer, for he had not troubled to count them, and who dare guarantee that such a great man did not have eleven? Asta Sollilja turned her head aside; she had never in all her life heard anyone ask such a funny question, and however hard she tried she simply couldn’t keep back her smile. And when she looked around again, the man was giving her such a funny look that she laughed out loud. She was very much ashamed of herself. But she couldn’t help it.
“I knew it,” said the man triumphantly, rising from the grass to watch her laughing. She came all to life with the laughter, roguery in her eyes; she gave up, and it was a girl’s face.
Then he had to see to the ducks again. The odour of frying spread out all around the tent, and the children’s mouths watered as they thought with delight of eating food with such a lovely smell. The man brought some tins full of sweet fruit and turned them out into a basin and was so occupied with his fragrant delicacies that he had little time for the children, and Asta Sollilja was suddenly angry with her little brother Nonni for being so stupid and so tiresome. “Why couldn’t you have sung for the man, you fool, when I let you come with me?” she said. But that evening when she was sitting outside on the paving alone, she reproached herself bitterly for not having shown what she herself could do—why, for instance, hadn’t she told him the story of Snow White, which she knew practically off by heart? Once upon a time in a great snowstorm—she had been on the very point of beginning. But the truth was that she had felt that he might possibly misunderstand such a story. Yet, whatever the result might have been, she could not help thinking of what she had left undone and regretting the story that had gone untold. She did not tell anyone, only sat gazing towards the tent gleaming in the dusk on the bank of the lake. And then she saw what, to the best of her vision, was a man walking away westwards over the marshes, as if he were making for Rauthsmyri. It was he.
When bedtime is near in Summerhouses he walks away westward over the ridge. Where could he be going so late at night? She had never noticed it before, but perhaps he went there every night without her knowing. But hadn’t he said that the valley was lovely? What had he meant? Nothing? Had he said it just for fun, and she so sure that he meant it? For, if the valley was lovely, why did he go away over the ridge—and night fallen. It had grown cold.
They did not see him for two days, but she heard him shooting. Then he came. It was at nightfall again, and they were getting ready for bed. Fortunately she had not taken her slip off yet. There was a light in his pipe as he stuck his head up through the hatchway in tiie dark and said good-evening. From his pocket he took a box that gave out a light and the women were standing in their under-petticoats. He was puffing vigorously at his pipe; the clouds of fragrant smoke filled the room immediately.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“What’s all your hurry?” asked Bjartur. “I always thought a week or two extra made no difference to you southerners. And the marsh is as good a place as any for you, mate.”
“Yes, quite so.”
“You were giving the youngsters some duck to eat the other day,” said Bjartur.
“Oh, it was nothing,” said the guest.
“Quite right,” agreed Bjartur. “It’s famine food, no pith in it; the stuff they ate after the Eruption. I suppose you’ve been half-starved in the marshes there, poor chap, as was only to be expected?”
“No, I’ve put on weight.”
“Well, we prefer our food with a bit of strength in it,” said Bjartur, “we like it sour and salt. By the way, you know all about building, I expect. I was thinking of starting to build myself a house, you see.”
Here old Fritha could restrain herself no longer. “You building?” she interjected. “Huh, it’s about time you were thinking of building some sense into your thick skull. And painting it as well. Both inside and out.”
Yes, he had decided to build, but it would perhaps be wiser not to say too much in case these half-wits heard, spiteful old paupers, parasites battening on the community, but whatever happens, you’re welcome here on my property at
any time, be it night or day.
The visitor thanked Bjartur for his royal hospitality and said that he would most certainly return to such a pretty valley. And Bjartur answered, as in their first conversation, that pretty, well, it all depends on the hay.
Then the visitor began to shake hands in farewell.
The old woman seemed to have some difficulty in withdrawing her feeble hand from his farewell grip. She who so rarely needed to say anything to anyone seemed, strangely enough, to be trying to produce something from a recess in her mind; there was a little question she had been wanting to ask him. What was it?
“Did I hear aright the other day, does the gentleman hail from the south?”
“Yes,” answered Bjartur loudly, relieving his guest of the inconvenience. “Of course the man’s from the south. We’ve all heard it a hundred times.”
But the old woman said that she had thought she might have misheard, she was such an old wreck these days.
“Yes,” agreed Bjartur, “you’re getting the worse for wear. The fellow can see that.”
“I was wanting to ask the gentleman before he went away, seeing that I was brought up in the south, whether you might happen to know anything of my sister or perhaps have seen anything of her down there lately.”
“No, no,” cried Bjartur, “don’t be so silly, he’s never seen her.”
“How the devil do you know?’ asked old Fritha.
But the visitor wanted to make further inquiries into the matter, and said that there was always a chance that he might have seen this old woman’s sister, what’s her name?
He shone his pocket lamp on her and she tried to look at him with her dull, blinking eyes. Her sister’s name was Oddrun.
“Oddrun? Is her home in Reykjavik?”
No, her home wasn’t in Reykjavik. She hadn’t a home anywhere, had never had a home. “She was a housemaid in Methal-land for a long time—that’s where we come from.”
“Tcha,” interrupted Bjartur. “How do you expect him to know folk like that, common folk?”
Independent People Page 31