Paradise Reclaimed

by Halldor Laxness

  Steinar dipped into an inside pocket for these pictures which the emperors and kings, empresses and queens had given him of themselves, and put them on the table. The Mormon wordlessly unwrapped his hat from the grease-proof paper and put it on; and it was undeniable that this smooth, split-new hat blended ill with the wrinkled, dust-grimed, weather-beaten face of the Mormon, rather as if a foreign visitor had forgotten this contraption somewhere and left it on top of a lava-outcrop.

  “We Mormons only put on a hat for protection against the sun,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur. “Did I hear you correctly?”

  He put on his spectacles with great ceremony, tilted them on the tip of his nose, and drew down the corners of his mouth as far as possible; but he still had to hold the pictures at arm’s length in order to see them. For a long time they both studied these snaps of gold-braided gentlemen and queens with enormous frills and flounces. There was no human virtue, no exploit and no heroic deed which had not left its mark in some decoration on these people’s breasts. Steinar gave a ghost of a titter.

  When the Mormon had studied them enough he wrapped up his hat again in grease-proof paper, glanced sidelong at Steinar, and took off his spectacles with as much ceremony as he had put them on.

  “What are you doing with all this useless trash?” he asked.

  “Forgive me if I stand up for my kings, friend,” said Steinar of Hlíðar. “And no less for the poor emperors. Even if it were only King George of Greece, who is the least important of all the people in these pictures and is said to be on the dole in Greece (what the Danes call not having two pennies to rub together)— he is at least by rank and title high above every Icelander there is, even if one includes the Mormons too, I should think. Heeheehee. And he has a well-built wife, besides. These men are much closer to God than we are, insofar as they play a greater part in ruling the world.”

  “Yes, if they are not just damned robbers,” said the bishop. “And now I’m saying more than my prayers. But let me ask you one question before I shut up for good. You say you gave them your casket. Before that you said you had given them your horse. What are you expecting from these people?”

  But Steinar was now totally absorbed in contemplation of some beautiful flowers which were growing there in Denmark in a small bed just across from them.

  “How lovely the blessed flowers are in this country. And to think that it is autumn,” said Steinar.

  “Yes, it’s all one vast vegetable-garden,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur.

  Then Steinar of Hlíðar said, “When I looked at my little Steina sleeping so peacefully in the midst of this appalling world—she was about three years old then, I think—I suddenly realised that the craftsman who fashioned this world, if such a person exists, what a matchless person he must be! My God, my God, I was saying to myself: to think that such beauty and delight must soon pass away. Later I had a son, who was like Egill Skallagrímsson and Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi and the Norse kings all rolled into one. He slept with a wooden home-made axe under his cheek at nights, because he was going to conquer the world. Hmmm. Incidentally, what is it again that lies on the far side of the wilderness you were mentioning that other time?”

  “I should think it is a casket,” said the Mormon.

  “Quite so,” said Steinar. “And what sort of a casket would it be?”

  “A tabernacle,” said the Mormon.

  “Exactly,” said Steinar. “Well I never. You don’t say so? Excuse me, what sort of a container is that?”

  “Do have a little more cold water,” said the Mormon.

  “You ought to describe this container you mentioned to me a little,” said Steinar, “so that I have something to think about on the way home to Iceland instead of my own little casket; but especially to be able to tell the children about it.”

  “My friend Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s heir, staked out the ground for it the year after I crossed the wilderness. Then we started building. It is two hundred and fifty feet long, a hundred and fifty feet wide, and eighty feet high. The lid rests on forty-four pillars of sandstone. When we built it, there was a thousand-mile trackless trek to the nearest settlement to the east to buy nails, and eight hundred miles to the west down to the sea where one could also have bought some perhaps. So we decided not to buy any nails.”

  “It would be interesting to know what holds this huge container together,” said Steinar. “Is it jointed?”

  “Joseph Smith was never at a loss how to hold together even bigger things, my friend,” said the Mormon.

  “And what do you keep in such a large vessel, if I may ask?” said Steinar.

  “The Holy Spirit,” said the Mormon.

  “Exactly,” said Steinar. “Just as I thought. I am beginning to see just how much my own little casket was worth! But how did you go about getting the Godhead in?”

  “We built an organ for it,” said the Mormon. “We sought out the choicest wood and brought it three hundred miles by oxen. It is the finest wood for music in the whole of America. The Holy Spirit does not live in words, although it sometimes has to resort to them when dealing with unmusical people; the Holy Spirit lives in music. When they were both ready, the organ and the Tabernacle, the Spirit was so pleased that it came to stay there of its own accord. Yes sirree. The greatest maestros in the world have travelled to Utah specially to play on this instrument, which they say gives forth more moving sounds than any other mortal instrument.”

  “This is all most remarkable,” said Steinar. “For a man who usually comes home from market with nothing but a few cobbler’s needles, that’s something at last to tell his children.”

  “There are few people in Iceland who have been accused of lying as often as Bishop Þjóðrekur,” said the Mormon. “And you should not believe me, either. Seeing is better than hearing, my friend. Go and see for yourself.”

  “I think I would give quite a lot to be able to go and see your casket,” said Steinar. “Happy the man who has a share in such a casket. It could well be the treasure worthy of my little daughter who slept so well, and the little boy I mentioned. If I were not setting off for Iceland on the steam-ship the day after tomorrow, I would readily take the trouble of trekking across the wilderness for the sake of the children.”

  “God’s charges are certainly high,” said the Mormon, “but He never gives short measure.”

  18

  Visiting the Bishop’s House

  We have now heard how Steinar of Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar left Iceland to visit his horse at the Danish king’s residence; how he delivered the gift he brought and received for it few thanks and fewer titles, and then started to drink water in Denmark. But as was previously explained, this water brought him a drinking-companion who was to mould his destiny for a time—the man who was once tethered to a boulder outside a church in Iceland.

  After a while, Steinar revealed his curiosity to see this country that the Lord of Hosts had indicated as part of true doctrine. If all the needs of soul and body were provided in that country, then Steinar thought it obvious that Joseph Smith propounded a truer doctrine than the Danish kings, and he wanted his children to benefit therefrom. Hence it followed that he, old Steinar of Hlíðar, on behalf of himself and his family, should become a disciple of this revelation; but he added that he was sadly short of the funds required to betake himself across land and sea to the other side of the earth. But the hardest thing of all would be to explain such a journey to his family.

  “What God inspires you to, you need neither explain nor justify to men,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur. “It has never been reported that the Saviour made any long speeches to His mother when He left her to go forth and redeem the world, or the prophet Joseph when he said goodbye to the cattle-bums in Palmyra and went off to restore Christendom. And since you deserve nothing but good of me, my friend, I shall see just how much I can scrape together for your sake.”

  In short, Steinar was now so overwhelmed by the news that Zion was to be found on earth, with vac
ancies available, that he did not catch the last autumn ship to Iceland. His funds were now exhausted, and he went into town to do some trading. On one and the same day he visited a butcher, a baker, and a rope-maker and offered to sell them some excellent pictures which royalty had given him. They told him to go to hell; such pictures, they said, were no ornament to a home, and anyway they were printed in the newspapers every day; the butcher said that pictures of royalty made everyone in Denmark sick. The rope-maker said that pictures of kings were not worth the string people needed to hang themselves with. But the baker said that Steinar could have one pastry gratis for each king. Then Steinar went into a shop to see a girl he knew sold haberdashery, for he had once bought from her a button for his overcoat. He gave this girl the medallion from Olga Konstantinovna, whom he described as nearly a perfect example to other women, both in beauty and modesty. The shop-girl thanked the Icelander courteously for the gift, and gave him a packet of needles in return.

  Not long after the ship for Iceland had sailed, Bishop Þjóðrekur of Utah came to visit Steinar in the Seamen’s Home. Steinar was sitting in his cubicle, eating pastries and thinking rather melancholy thoughts. The bishop, without any philosophical preliminaries, pulled out of his pocket his purse, which was wrapped in a handkerchief fastened with three safety pins. In this purse were some American dollars which he gave Steinar to pay for his fare to God’s City of Zion. He told Steinar to join a company of Scandinavian Mormons who were on the point of leaving after they had been properly immersed in clean water as a token of baptism and spiritual salvation. There were also some others, their dependants, who had shown inclinations towards being converted. Þjóðrekur asked Steinar whether he wished to embrace the Gospel, which is what Mormons call it when someone is converted to the true Golden Book from Heaven which Joseph Smith found on Hill Cumorah. Steinar replied that he was a poor man with no resources other than his little bit of commonsense, which he on no account wanted to ignore, however small it might be; he said that persuasions which people adopted in defiance of their commonsense would not be much of an asset to them, least of all when the need was greatest. A country which prophets, apostles, and church-fathers preached from a Golden Book could not be justly praised until one had actually lived there; because the human heart is not discriminating, although some people have excellent hearts, of course, and there is no limit to the absurdities of which the head can convince one; but the mouth and the stomach are the most dependable organs, unpalatable as the fact may seem. Þjóðrekur replied icily that he had no wish to trick anyone into believing the doctrines which Joseph and Brigham had propounded; every single person was free to make his own body the touchstone of truth, particularly those who think that the soul is an imbecile. If Steinar, at the end of his explorations in the Territory of Utah, thought that God had told lies to the Mormons, he could go right back to where he came from. They agreed on these terms that Steinar should go to America without immersion.

  Þjóðrekur said that this group was first to sail to England and there await a ship to take them across the Atlantic before Christmas. He said that they were not to expect to receive any great privileges in England; and this, indeed, turned out to be correct, for they were given labels around their necks like cattle bound for the slaughterhouse, and were herded into emigration camps for three weeks with few comforts and only soup and dry bread to eat. But when they reached the Mormon office in New York, said Bishop Þjóðrekur, no one would need to chew dulse nor drink water; they would get steak and milk more than once a day, and heaps of vegetables; there was no question of gruel there, he said, which turned out to be true; there were many who would have liked never to leave the place.

  “After that you will be put on board a steam-train,” said the bishop. “It runs for a long time through low-lying and fertile countryside, and then over extensive deserts which were utterly trackless in my time, so that we had to pioneer our own paths over the rugged, rocky ground. Now there are no hindrances on the way, except for the bison which wander across the rails in long lines and obstruct the train. The wilderness is overgrown with a type of fibrous-rooted brushwood that the natives call sagebrush, which needs no water and is fatal to all animals. Red-skinned men sometimes come creeping out of this brushwood; in attitude of mind and accomplishments they are not unlike the Icelandic saga-men of old—they use bows and arrows like Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi and never miss their mark. It is not so unusual for the passengers to have to get down from the train and do battle with them.”

  Steinar said, “The last thing I expected, when I left Iceland, was that I would have to fight Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi.”

  “When you eventually reach journey’s end in Salt Lake Valley,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur, “do nothing except ask for the main road to Spanish Fork, and say you are from Iceland. Everyone will kiss you in welcome. Ask to be directed to the mail-coach for Provo. From there you go on foot, following the main road all the way. On your left and a little ahead of you lies a higher mountain than Icelanders have ever seen, named Mount Timpanogus after a Red Indian queen. The ravines in it are ten times deeper than Almannagjá (Everyman Chasm). Here Icelanders can indulge themselves herding sheep in leafy woods, with no storms to care about and therefore no need for schnapps, either. Right at the top of this high mountain, at about twice the height of the glacier Öræfajökull there grows an innocent and kindly tree known as the poplar aspen. I keep two flocks of sheep on this mountain. But that’s just by the way. Where had we got to? Just be careful not to stray from the road, my friend. All of a sudden you will find Mount Timpanogus behind you, and a new mountain appears; it looks as if it had been cut with scissors from a folded piece of paper. This is called Sierra Benida, where the sun rises over Spanish Fork; some old woman went up there once with a bucket and spade to prospect for silver and gold. You carry on along the main road and ignore all other houses until you come to one that stands at the crossroads. This is No. 214, the Bishop’s House. Inside the gate, the sagebrush grows all the way up to the veranda, for I want to have the desert all around me and in it I want to die. There is a veranda along the whole front of the house on the ground floor, and that is where the door is, with two windows on either side. The house is built partly of bricks, which I baked myself, and partly of logs. The upper storey stands on pillars. On the upper floor there is a balcony with a carved balustrade. Many a good man has slept up there, for in the Territory of Utah it is healthy to sleep outside except in midwinter, which barely lasts until February; and there is none of these appalling late-winter months as in Iceland, when people starve and the livestock perish.

  “Don’t trouble to knock on the door, for we disapprove of knocking. Three sisters will come out to meet you with my middle sister’s children; but you are not to give any of them my regards. Tell them I send them nothing, but will be back myself in three years; I am with the king, composing a pamphlet for the Icelanders. The sisters have plenty of pigs and fifteen sheep and as many vegetables as they wish, as well as Pastor Runólfur to hold services for the sheep in his frock-coat. We call him Ronki. Say that you are to sleep upstairs on a bench on the balcony. If you want a job, have a word with the old one with the spectacles. On the other side of the road, just a stone’s throw away, is my bricklayer’s yard; tell the woman that you have permission to go there to make bricks if you like. Tell her to have some clay fetched for you, and get some straw from Ronki. Tell the middle sister to make sure that the children come to no harm, because I am not in a position to look after them. I cannot help being always a little anxious about children. Tell her that truth must always take precedence, and this is something women must learn to accept. And tell my poor old María that if the King of Angels has ever sent a truly saintly person to the Vestmannaeyjar, then it is she. And remember, if you are ever immersed, to have yourself immersed as well for all your dead kinsmen whom you don’t want to consign head-first to Hell. You can sell the bricks or give them away as you think fit. For my own part, I have given awa
y more bricks than I have sold. Bricks are a good gift, which is more than you can say for gems; and a Christian gift at that.”

  Steinar Steinsson of Hlíðar thanked Bishop Þjóðrekur with all his heart and kissed him in farewell. But when they had said goodbye, Steinar remembered that he had forgotten a small trifle:

  “Since it looks as if you will be in Iceland before me,” he said, “and it could well be that you happen to meet a little woman under a big mountain, I want to ask you to give her this packet of needles.”

  And with that they parted.

  Steinar knocked three times on Bishop Þjóðrekur’s door after travelling halfway round the world. It was in a broad desert valley which turned green in winter, in contrast to valleys in Iceland; and lo! to the north stood a high mountain which made Iceland’s mountains look like hillocks, the way a troll makes men look like dwarfs; and to the east stood a barren hill, no doubt full of silver and gold, as neatly and symmetrically shaped as if it had been cut with scissors.

  The woman who came to the door—it was the one with the spectacles—was shrivelled with age and deeply wrinkled. She said imperiously, like an elf-woman, “Who is rapping at this house?”

  “It is only proper to give a knock for each one of the Trinity when one knocks at a bishop’s door, and good day to you, good woman,” said the visitor.

  “The Holy Spirit is not praised by knocking,” said the woman. “But we allow Lutherans to give two knocks, in the name of the Father and the Son.”