by Sjón
He carries the box carefully to a wooden table by the door, removes the lid and arranges it so that the contents are illuminated by the strip of light that falls into the pantry between door and frame:
— So, little Jossi, how are we today?
Leo brushes his fingertips over my forehead, very gently so as not to disarrange it. Reaching for the bowl of milk, he squeezes most of the moisture from the sponge and begins to bathe me. With light strokes he wipes the grey child’s body, and the clay from which I am made absorbs the milk. The bluish-white goat’s milk seeps into me like the maternal care I never knew.
He turns me over and plies the milky sponge under my back and bottom. Then he squeezes the rest over my chest, rubbing it into my breast on the left-hand side so the heart gets its share. He has done this every morning and evening for the fourteen years that have passed since he was carried off the ship in Reykjavík. But from today Leo can set about trying to retrieve the gold he needs to quicken life in the little figure in the hatbox. That, in addition to the small amount of gold he has managed to make for himself, should be enough for a new seal.
— There, there, old chap, Daddy will be home by suppertime and then we’ll be Icelanders, you and I.
He turns round in the pantry doorway.
— Icelanders, Jossi, imagine!’
6
‘It was on a Tuesday that my father had gone, a few weeks earlier, to the Ministry of Justice with the form he had filled in so many years before. The official who received him was a dignified middle-aged man, small-boned, with bushy eyebrows and a steel-grey five o’clock shadow. He rested his elbows on the desk with the form between them like a bowl of porridge. He was waiting for a call, that much was plain, for whenever there was a pause in his conversation with Leo his eyes would dart to the telephone.
— So, you are applying for citizenship?
My father said he was.
— And how have you enjoyed your stay so far?
He eyed the phone. My father nodded.
— Very much.
— And that is why you are now applying for citizenship?
— Yes.
— Leo Loewe; you’re German?
The official rested a finger on my father’s name.
— No.
— Just as well …
He ran his finger down the form with one eye on the phone. It remained silent.
— Right, there are some questions I need to ask you.
— Please, go ahead.
The official cleared his throat, then said with heavy emphasis:
— Do you speak Icelandic?
Leo paled: this question implied so much more than merely whether he knew the language. The official was in effect asking Leo if he was worthy of citizenship.
The country was full of people who had lived there longer than him but had not yet become Icelanders. There were Danes, Germans, Norwegians, Frenchmen and Englishmen who had never got to grips with Icelandic. Their speech was broken, ungrammatical. They were a laughing-stock. The Danes were considered especially ridiculous.
* * *
Two years after he had arrived in the country Leo had worked with a Dane on the construction of a funfair. The man had completed an advanced education in the management of fairground rides and held a Master’s degree in Tivoli Studies from the Royal College of Engineering in Copenhagen, but now he had to make do with labouring with Leo and a bunch of Reykjavík bums who had been press-ganged into the job from the city’s late-night watering holes. The low-lifes were respectful to the Dane, keen as they were to finish the job as quickly as possible so they could get back to the fun at the illicit drinking dens, but the foreman lost no opportunity to humiliate him. When the Dane said good morning:
— Goo’ morn!
The foreman wouldn’t answer. If the Dane happened to repeat his wishes for a good morning to his co-workers the foreman would turn to the low-lifes who were loitering bug-eyed from lack of sleep around the coffee shack and bellow at them:
— For God’s sake, say “goo’ morn” to the bacon-eater so he’ll shut up!
After that the Dane wouldn’t open his mouth for anything less than a matter of life or death. But it soon came to that.
— I don’ tink dis is strong nok …
They were busy erecting the Ferris wheel and the Dane was worried that the struts supporting it were not strong enough. The foreman, on the other hand, was adamant that they were and bawled back:
— This nok was welded by Icelanders in the factory down by the bay here and if it’s not good nok for you, you can bugger off back to Denmark and shove your Danish nok where the sun don’t shine!
The Dane became obsessed with those struts. For the rest of the week he went around alone, muttering to himself that this business with the struts wasn’t good nok, while the foreman winked at the men and roared until the funfair echoed:
— He’s nokking again!
Shortly afterwards the Dane was caught red-handed, alone in the middle of the night, trying to tighten the bolts that pinned the struts to the ground. He was fired on the spot and told he should be grateful he wasn’t being charged with sabotage. The following day Leo and the other labourers’ first task was to loosen the bolts again. After the funfair opened the Dane became its most loyal customer. He would be standing by the box office with his tuppence ready when the ticket girls arrived at work, and he wouldn’t go home until the last batch descended shrieking from the gondolas. But the Icelandic struts held firm nok. It was painful to watch this intelligent Danish engineer lose his job, his family and finally his wits.
In the end the customers and staff of the funfair found his presence so oppressive that the Danish ambassador was forced to intervene. The fairground specialist was arrested after a protracted pursuit around the funfair and it took a dozen policemen to coerce him on board a ship to Copenhagen. He went off in a straitjacket and the country was considered well shot of him.
When Leo learned of the fate of his former co-worker he decided to master Icelandic as well as is humanly possible for a foreigner. But the first thing his tutor in the Icelandic language impressed upon him was that he would never achieve a perfect grasp of the tongue.
— Never!
Dr Loftur Fródason, librarian, reiterated his words by raising a finger and flexing the muscle of his forearm at the elbow, causing his finger to quiver like a barometer needle indicating low pressure. The lessons took place in the National Library that housed the Icelanders’ literary heritage – which was all a closed book to Leo and, according to his teacher, would remain so for ever and a day.
Leo’s fellow pupil was Mikhail Pushkin, a Russian Embassy employee who had been unable to finish reading the Icelandic–Russian dictionary before being summoned to serve in Iceland. Apart from a fair knowledge of Icelandic vocabulary from A to K, all he could say when he arrived in the country was:
— A man of Muscovy am I.
And although this caused amusement wherever he went and people were forever buying him drinks on the strength of his attainment, it was in no way sufficient for the job he was supposed to be doing. Comrade Pushkin was a master chef at the Russian Embassy; that is to say, a KGB spy.
— Icelandic is like a mountain spring, a great and mighty river, so clear that one can see to the bottom wherever one looks. At times it has flowed with the light current of narrative, at others cascaded in the roaring rapids and whirlpools of poetry. During the spring thaw streams have run into it from far and wide, bearing with them dirt and clay, but they have never succeeded in muddying the deepest wells. They have formed no more than streaks of sediment along the banks, and gradually the grime has sunk to the bottom and vanished out to sea.
Loftur slammed the book shut and glared at his students. Had Leo Loewe or Mikhail Pushkin grown up by such a river, sipping from it with tender, childish lips? No, and so they would begin every lesson by drinking a glass of pure Icelandic water.
— The main characteristics of the
Icelandic language are as follows: it is pure, bright, beautiful, soft, strong, splendid, ingenious, rich, and so, it follows, especially well suited to literature. That is the opinion of respected linguists from all over the world. If you wish to argue with them, be my guest!
No, neither Leo nor Mikhail trusted themselves to enter into a debate with foreign professors. Loftur laughed.
— I thought not. Now listen to this!
He took a violin down from the wall and began to play. The tune was poignant and vigorous by turns. The notes poured from the instrument until Leo was no longer in the poky little basement under the Icelandic National Library, no, all those literary riches lifted from his shoulders and he was sailing slowly up the Vltava. He is seven years old; Prague lies behind, a picnic ahead. He leans over the rail; the river water boils against the hull. Towers and town squares. Now he is playing with his sisters in a woodland clearing; a magpie flies overhead with a piece of glass in its beak. Now he is running down to the river; his father is sitting on the bank. An old black hat is silhouetted against the dazzling water. Now he takes a bite of rye bread with sweet pickled herring; the fish oil trickles over his tongue and the onion crunches between his teeth. Now he dives into the water; a barge sails past with engine throbbing. A tram. Now he wakes up in his mother’s arms; the journey home always makes him sleepy.
— That is the song of Iceland!
Loftur put down the violin and Leo returned to his adoptive land. The basement had grown darker. He looked at Mikhail and saw from the sensitive expression on the Russian’s face that he too had returned from far away. The Icelandic teacher seized a rattle from the desk.
— And this is what it sounds like in other languages …
He shook the rattle. It was an ugly racket that left both Leo and Mikhail unmoved.
At the end of the first lesson Loftur handed his students an Icelandic primer for complete beginners and told them they could teach themselves that stuff. He would help them with their comprehension and their feel for the language’s infinite possibilities.
— Infinite!
This is how the Icelandic classes were organised. They consisted mainly of practical exercises in acquiring mastery of the language of the medieval Golden Age. Only once did Leo see the doctor at a loss. He was demonstrating the language’s rich vocabulary to his disciples by competing with them as to whether Icelandic or their own languages had more words for various concepts. And all evening long he had trumped them.
Then the moment came when he challenged them to name all the words they knew for the thing that grew out of the rear ends of the beasts of the earth, and began immediately to list the contributions of Icelandic to this area:
— Rófa on dogs or cats, hali on cows, skott on mice, stertur on horses, spordur on fish, dindill on sheep, stél on birds—
— Excuz mi …
Here Mikhail interrupted the doctor, something that had never happened before, since he was an exceptionally courteous man.
— Stýri on cats, vél on birds … Yes, Mr Pushkin?
— Gan yu dell mi vhat zis is galled?
He stood up and began to fiddle with his waistband.
— What what is called?
The doctor didn’t know whether to look at the Russian’s face or at his fumbling fingers.
— Zere is no vord in Russian.
Leo averted his eyes; the man was pulling down his trousers. The doctor flapped – or waved, or shook, or wagged, or brandished – his hands at him. At his hips and behind him.
— Now, now, man, control yourself! You must have a word for that in Russian – more than one, no doubt.
— No, no, Doctor, listen to Pushkin, I am delling druth …
The suffering in the Russian’s voice was so undeniable that the doctor and my father looked round as one; his eyes were filled with a childlike plea for mercy.
— Well, let us see …
Loftur put on his glasses.
— But you mustn’t think that this is going to become a habit.
— No, no, only zis vonce.
The Russian pulled down his trousers, but instead of taking out his John Thomas he turned his backside to them. And everything was not as it should have been. Leo leaned forward: there was a bulge in the underpants where they should have been empty. Pushkin looked over his shoulder, briefly whipped down his pale blue pants and said pleadingly:
— Vhat is zis galled?
The chef-spy’s audience gasped: he had a tail. It was the size of a finger, hairless, with joints visible beneath the bluish skin.
— Nobody knows vhat zis is galled in Russian …
Mr Mikhail Pushkin looked hopefully at the doctor. But it did little good. The tutor was stumped: although words existed in Icelandic for every thought on earth, and he knew them all, his pupil’s overgrown coccyx had been left out of that tremendous lexical creation. After some thought:
— Well, the bone is called the tailbone. So I suppose it’s a tail?
Pushkin burst into tears.
— No, no, Dr Fródason, Pushkin iz not pig or dog.
Dr Loftur comforted him by saying that in the next lesson they would have a go at inventing neologisms. Perhaps they could come up with something if they combined their efforts.’
‘A Russian with a tail? I thought the Red Ogre was dead…’
‘No, it’s true. I feel kindly towards Pushkin; he and my father became good friends.’
‘And he had a tail?’
‘Actually the phrase they invented for it was a “rear-projection”.’
‘So in other words he had a rear-projection?’
‘Yes, he showed it to me when he came to Iceland several years ago. He was in Gorbachev’s entourage at the summit meeting with Reagan. He could even wag it – not much, just a little. It’s called atavism or reversion to an ancestral state.’
‘Really, aren’t you the know-all?’
‘Leo and Pushkin graduated after a three-year course of instruction. In parting, Dr Loftur Fródason gave them each a newly issued set of stamps featuring pictures of Iceland’s principal manuscripts. A group of scholars had chosen them, making their decision after a prolonged dispute. Dr Loftur was a member of the committee.
— It is our hope that these stamps will help us in our struggle to compel the Danes to return the manuscripts to us.
This was Leo Loewe’s first experience of the Icelanders’ special relationship with stamps.
* * *
— Yes, I speak Icelandic.
Leo spoke loud and clear so the official wouldn’t fail to recognise that here was a model candidate for Icelandic citizenship.
— That’s good to hear.
The official stuck a finger under his left eyebrow and lifted the tuft of hair from his eye. Then the phone rang and it didn’t take him long to snatch up the receiver.
— Yes, wasn’t it?
He listened a good while, then put his hand over the receiver.
— What do werewolves eat?
Leo didn’t realise the official expected him to answer.
— What do they eat?
The official whispered. Leo whispered back:
— People? Aren’t they man-eaters?
The official shook his head, astonished at the foreigner’s ignorance, then continued his telephone conversation.
Leo kept silent.’
7
‘Leo walks down Ingólfsstræti. It’s five weeks after his interview and four hours and seventeen minutes until his case will be put before parliament. And what is a waiting man to do? Where is the best place to do something like that? Leo goes to a café.
He takes a seat at the long table in Café Prikid. It’s fairly empty since it’s a weekday today and still early. “A coffee, please, and the morning paper.” He drinks it black and opens the paper at random. Oh, why did he have to do that? On the left-hand page he sees that they’re burying Ásgeir Helgason today.
There are three obituaries: a long one by Ásge
ir’s brother-in-law, a short one signed by Hrafn W. Karlsson on behalf of the Icelandic Philatelic Society, and the third a farewell from his colleagues at the Reykjavík Swimming Pool. They are all tinged with awkwardness. Murders are so rare here that obituaries for murder victims are outside people’s experience. It’s clear from the notices that Ásgeir had accomplished nothing beyond collecting stamps and fussing around naked men, activities that are described in exaggerated and elevated style. Is it perhaps because the murderer has not yet been caught and the authors of the obituaries hope he will feel remorse when he reads about the victim’s virtues? As if he hadn’t known him. Here everyone knows everyone else.
Even Leo knew the murdered man. Ásgeir Helgason was one of the unluckiest individuals he had ever met. During the time Leo had been going to the swimming pool the man had continually lost fingers and toes, even earlobes.
After reading the obituaries Leo feels he knows Ásgeir’s father, Helgi, rather better than the man himself. The father appears to have been a champion swimmer and an expert on Icelandic manuscripts.
— Apparently it was a grisly sight …
Leo looks up from the paper. A red-haired man with a Jack-of-Spades beard in the same shade has taken a seat beside him. He leans towards Leo.
— His tongue had been cut out.
— What?
— I heard it from a woman I know who’s married to a policeman. He was first on the scene.
Leo is in no mood for such talk; today is a day of celebration. The redhead’s voice grows reedier.
— He knew something, it was a warning to others.
Leo closes the paper, picks up his purse and begins to count out the coins for his coffee. He puts the money on the table and stands up. The other continues:
— His stamp collection has vanished.
— Why are you telling me this?
— What? I’m just making conversation.
— Well, good day …