Pets

by Bragi Ólafsson

  “Maybe it’s too loud,” he says, and though I don’t hear Greta agree, the volume is lowered, almost down to nothing.

  I don’t see if Armann succeeds in squeezing the spot on his face, but suddenly, as he starts whistling along to “The Blue Danube,” he has a comb in his hand—which probably came out of his pocket; I don’t own a comb myself—and he runs it through his tobacco-colored hair, from his forehead down to the nape of his neck. He seems to be having trouble getting his hair to stay in place, so he wets it with water from the tap, tries again, and seems to have more success this time. Then he puts the comb in the side pocket of his jacket, bares his teeth at the mirror, and walks out of the bathroom.

  “Now I wouldn’t mind getting one of those food trays that we had on the plane,” he says on the way into the living room. “Wouldn’t that be good, Greta dear?” he adds, like he’s addressing his wife.

  Greta says that she isn’t hungry enough to want airplane food and she thinks that they should wait for me, if they are thinking of eating at all. She then gets the idea that I probably have a cell phone and suggests that we try to find out, I must have one on me. While she phones information and asks for the cell phone number of Emil S. Halldorsson, I try to remember where I left my phone. I took it out of my jacket pocket when I came in, but I can’t for the life of me remember where I put it. I expect it is in the kitchen or the living room, but then it starts ringing here in the bedroom. I remember now: I put it down beside the computer when I was looking at my email.

  “Where is the ringing coming from?” Greta asks excitedly, as if she expects the telephone to tell them where I am.

  Which it actually does.

  Havard doesn’t take long to track down the sound; he rushes into the bedroom and grabs the phone.

  “Emil here,” he says in a gruff voice.

  Greta doesn’t answer him. Instead she comes into the bedroom and switches the cordless phone off. I’m relieved that I didn’t have my cell phone on me.

  “I don’t find this at all amusing, to tell you the truth,” Greta complains. “I’m beginning to fear that something has happened to him.”

  “It’s not a bad phone,” Havard answers. I’d give it to him if he would just get out of my home.

  “What about his father?” Greta asks. “Do his parents live together?”

  “That I can’t tell you,” Havard says. “But, I found the number of his father Halldor today and his mother answered the phone.”

  As soon as Greta sits down at the foot of the bed, right above my head, she asks Havard to call my mother to find out if I have gone there. The mattress sinks down uncomfortably close to my head and just misses touching me. Havard tells her that my mother has already called, and then Greta asks whether he knows of some friend I could have gone to visit. “We can’t stay in his flat all evening, you can’t finish all his wine, I mean, he has only just gotten home from abroad.”

  “We?” Havard seems to be rather offended. “Who are we?”

  “I mean all of us,” Greta says apologetically.

  “I don’t know any of Emil’s friends,” Havard says. “I haven’t seen him for a long time, we never really knew each other very well.”

  “You do know him, don’t you?” Greta seems to grow suspicious.

  “Of course I know him. We were in London together. We also worked in the same place.”

  “And was he expecting you here today? Did you speak to him first?”

  Armann’s whistling drowns out the quiet waltz in the living room; “Künstlerleben” is just about to begin.

  “Well, he didn’t really know that I was coming, I just came home from Sweden unexpectedly. It wasn’t really planned at all.” I hear him press on the keyboard.

  “What were you doing in Sweden?” Greta asks. “Hey, you shouldn’t read his email,” she adds accusingly.

  “I’m not doing much at the moment. You mean am I working or something like that?”

  “Stop reading his email,” Greta repeats angrily.

  “I’m not reading it, I’m just . . .” He is interrupted by my cell phone, which starts ringing. The first person I think of is Saebjorn; he’s the only person I know who prefers to call a cell phone number before a home number, even though he knows that I am at home. “Hey, now he’s calling!” Havard shouts. “He’s seen that someone has called him from here.”

  Oh yes? I say to myself, and Greta makes a similar comment; she asks if he really thinks so.

  “Emil?” Havard seems convinced that it’s me. “Hello? Who is that? Saebjorn? Yes, this is Emil’s place. It is Emil’s. Who am I? I am Havard.”

  I can feel Greta move her behind around on the bed, and then I hear her pick up something from my son Halldor’s toy box. It sounds like she is looking at a fire engine I gave him last summer.

  “Yes, Saebjorn, I think so. I think he just nipped out. Yes, yes, do that . . .”

  Greta lets out a sound, as if she has pricked herself on something, and for a moment I feel as if it is I who has hurt myself, that she has sat further in on the bed and made the springs poke into the back of my neck. She probably pinched her finger in the ladder on the fire engine; I have done it myself.

  “Vigdis?” Havard asks in surprise. “No, it isn’t Vigdis. It’s Greta, Emil’s friend. What? Do you want to talk to her? No, alright. Yes, I think he’ll be back soon. Shall I tell him you called? No, probably just out to the shop, but he has been rather long. Yes, just knock, we are here looking after his house. OK? Alright, Saebjorn. Goodbye, Saebjorn.”

  “Who is Vigdis?” Greta asks.

  “Emil seems to know some girl called Vigdis,” Havard answers, and I beg him, for God’s sake, not to say any more about it. “How did you manage to hurt yourself on that?” he asks, and I’m really thankful that he steers the subject away from Vigdis.

  “I pinched myself,” Greta answers.

  “Hey, I want to show you something in the other room,” Havard says. I imagine he is going to show her the ship and the book.

  He stands up from the computer table, and, as he goes towards the door, I get ready to make the most of the opportunity and tap Greta on her foot while she’s still sitting on the bed. But just when Havard goes out of the room, Greta stands up, and before I can do anything it is too late to touch her. I curse myself for being so slow, but I am convinced that it would be less risky to try to get her attention when she goes to the toilet by herself, which she must do soon.

  I think back to our first conversation in front of the toilet on the plane. If we get to know each other better (that is when this nightmare is over) that trip to the toilet will be a shared memory of our first conversation.

  “I was beginning to think that you had both gone,” Armann says when they come into the living room. I haven’t heard much from him, apart from the occasional whistle to the Viennese waltzes. He seems to have forgotten that he was hungry.

  “Here’s what I want to show you,” Havard says eagerly. “See here, isn’t she beautiful?”

  “Is she your daughter?” Greta sounds surprised.

  “Don’t you think she is pretty?”

  “Yes, she’s a very pretty girl. How old is she?”

  “She’s . . . what . . . she’ll be eight this summer.”

  I had no idea that Havard was a father. I don’t even know if I should be happy for him, I haven’t a clue about the circumstances in which the poor child was conceived.

  “She is very pretty, Havard,” Greta repeats.

  For some reason I feel I can believe what Greta is saying, even though she seems to be something of a tease. It’s no doubt because I trust her; she is the only sensible person in here—apart from myself, that is. If she says that Havard’s daughter is pretty, then I believe that she is pretty. But I still find it difficult to accept the fact that he has a daughter.

  “May
I see, Havard?” Armann says, though I can’t imagine he is very interested in children.

  3

  “Is she holding a Bible?” Armann asks, and Havard sounds rather annoyed when he answers:

  “Yes, is there anything wrong with that?”

  “Absolutely not. The Bible is as good as any other book,” Armann says and adds that she is a pretty girl.

  “Was the photo taken abroad?” Greta asks. “The atmosphere seems to be so foreign somehow, especially those heavy dark curtains in the background. Was it taken in America?”

  “In America?” Havard hesitates for a moment and then tells Greta that yes, the photo was taken there; the girl’s mother, with whom he no longer lives—understandably, I say to myself—had gone off to America with the girl, but he sees her now and again. She visits him regularly, last time in Sweden.

  Sounds likely, I think to myself.

  But I think it is very strange that Havard never mentioned his family to me. If his daughter is nearly eight, she must have been two or three when we were in London. Now I recall that he told me once that he didn’t have any children; that children were better off without a father like him, as I think he put it.

  “Well, my friends,” Armann barks after Havard has told them about his daughter and her mother. “One can’t just survive on photos. Isn’t it time we had something to eat?”

  “What’s the matter, aren’t you happy here, Armann?” Havard asks, as if he is addressing a little child. “Didn’t I give you coffee and cognac. You had a cigar too, and can have another if you want. You just came here to fetch your glasses. Don’t you think it is a bit much to suddenly expect food?”

  Good fellow, I think to myself and mentally thank Havard for putting Armann in his place, even though I suspect it was done to impress Greta.

  “Havard, my good fellow,” Armann says, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for what you have offered here . . .”

  “What Emil has offered,” Havard butts in.

  “Yes, what our friend Emil has offered here,” Armann says and is again interrupted by Havard, who suddenly starts singing:

  “Where the Lord provides / blessings come from above . . .”

  Greta laughs; she seems to recognize the hymn.

  “I am not talking about a four-course meal or anything like that,” Armann adds. Havard carries on singing:

  “Where holy words are recited / there is heavenly peace and love.”

  These religious words don’t seem to make any impression on Armann; he is more interested in finishing what he is trying to say: “I was only wondering if Emil had a little something in the freezer that we could heat up. It is not very sensible to drink on an empty stomach, you know that, Havard.”

  I’m not so sure that Havard does know it. At Brooke Road his breakfast consisted of two or three large cans of Carlsberg Special Brew, and normally he didn’t eat anything solid until later in the day, out of dire necessity. He doesn’t seem to bother answering Armann, and leaves it to Greta to find a solution to the problem.

  “Why don’t you just run out to the sweet shop?” she suggests.

  “Sweet shop, you say?” He is upset; he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction. “Once it was called a confectioner’s, if I remember correctly.”

  There is a knock on the front door.

  “Have a look out the window and see who it is!” Havard calls out in a whisper, no doubt to Greta, and before they find out who it is, there is another knock.

  “I don’t think it’s Emil,” I hear Greta say in the same kind of loud whisper.

  “Wait a moment then,” Havard says in a warning tone. “Don’t open straight away.”

  I hear him go into the living room. Armann asks him what he is doing; Havard signals to him to keep quiet and comes, almost running, into the bedroom, where he puts something down on the floor near the toy box. The knocking continues. Havard rushes out again; it sounds as though he slides on the floor when he goes into the hall. He pauses to catch his breath before he opens the front door.

  The person outside—clearly a man, judging from his voice—says something I can’t hear and Havard answers:

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  I can feel cold, fresh air flow in along the hall and into the room. I recognize Jaime’s voice straight away; he asks if I have come home yet, and Havard says no but why doesn’t he come in.

  Although I had told Jaime and Saebjorn about my stay in London with Havard, I have no idea if they remember his name. I got to know Saebjorn shortly after I came home from that trip and Jaime about two years ago, so we have never really spoken about him.

  Jaime says good evening to Greta and Armann and they return his greeting. I’m impatient to find out what it is that Havard ran into the bedroom with before he opened the door, and I wriggle a little in the direction of Halldor’s toy box in order to get closer to it. I pull it carefully in my direction with my left foot; the dust gets stirred up with each movement I make and settles on my face like a cement.

  “Are you the Spaniard?” Armann asks cheerfully, as if they are waiting to complete a group and only the Spaniard is missing. “We are here, Emil’s flight companions, all we need is our pal, Emil.”

  “Were you on the plane with him?” Jaime asks.

  “Yes, we were,” Armann answers proudly. “Not him though,” he adds. No doubt he means Havard, who takes over:

  “I was just coming from Sweden. You know: Sverige. Volvo. Abba.”

  “So everyone has come from abroad, it seems,” Jaime says—I can just imagine his boyish smile—and then he corrects Armann: “I’m not really Spanish, I come from Chile.”

  “That’s even better,” Armann says. “It’s not every day one talks to—how is it again—un chileno, isn’t it?”

  “Si: un chileno. You have obviously learned some Spanish.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Armann answers, almost as if Jaime’s praise was an insult.

  Behind the toy box I discover the sailing ship and the book. I don’t have to wonder much about Havard’s reason for removing the objects from the living room; of course he doesn’t want my friends to find out who he is, at least not while he is the host here (if one can speak in those terms). He naturally assumes that I have told them all about him, and he hopes that they won’t recognize him. With some difficulty I manage to reach the book with my foot, but I get a terrible pain in my hip; it feels like I’ve strained something, which wouldn’t surprise me after lying here for so long. Normally I would shout out in pain, but with the discipline and concentration I have been forced to master the past few hours, I‘m able—admirably I think—to suppress the shout.

  It feels rather special to be handling the book again. I think that Orn paid around five thousand pounds for it. And though he didn’t let me suffer in any way on account of its disappearance from his collection, just the same I suspected all along that Havard sold it for a song in some second-hand bookshop. I put the book on the carpet in front of me and find the first page of the story:

  Call me Ishmael.

  By removing the letters s, h, and a from the name Ishmael, one is left with the anagram of my name: Imel. And the removed letters form another anagram for the English word ash. I smile to myself. Without intending to take these word games too seriously, I think first of the word cremation and then the thing for which I would almost be ready to give this original edition of Moby-Dick: a cigarette. White, new, and fresh smelling from the carton on the table in the living room. When I glance quickly over the first chapter, I recall the first time I read the book many years ago. As I approach the end of the chapter, my eye pauses automatically at the word horror. I read the whole paragraph and get the feeling that the contents are appropriate at this point in my life:

  Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since i
t is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

  All of a sudden there is a sound of breaking glass. I hear Havard swear and then Jaime declines a drink when Havard says that he had intended to give him whisky, but he had just let the glass slip to the floor.

  “There are more glasses,” Armann says, but Jaime insists that he doesn’t want anything to drink, he can’t really stop, he has just come to see if I had brought back the CD he had asked me to buy. To tell the truth I am quite surprised; I did buy him a CD—exactly the one he asked for and it took me some time to find it—but I understood that both he and Saebjorn were going to come and have a drink and chat with me this evening. Of course I am aware that I don’t seem to be there, but I think Jaime could at least wait for Saebjorn, who is bound to come any minute now.

  “Can’t I offer you a little red wine?” Greta says. I nod on Jaime’s behalf. I can imagine that Greta would like him to stay for a little while; in a way it must give her more hope that I will turn up.

  “Thanks, maybe just one glass,” Jaime says after a little thought.

  “Of course, you prefer wine down there in Chile, don’t you?” Armann asks. He seems to be very pleased that Jaime is staying.

  “Yes, perhaps,” Jaime answers. “Emil was on the plane today wasn’t he?” he asks with a laugh. I am rather astonished at this stupid question; the CDs didn’t come by themselves.

  “Oh yes,” Armann answers. “We were all traveling with God today; Emil, Greta here and I . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” Greta interrupts from the kitchen, where I imagine she is opening the red wine bottle. “Who was traveling with God?”

  “Well, weren’t we? Weren’t we on the un-explorable path high above civilization today? On God’s path as our friends in the church say.”

  “Don’t count me in, for God’s sake,” interjects Havard, who sounds rather tired.