“Of course you do,” she said, stroking my hair. “But sometimes we have to choose. That’s life.”
She took my head in both her hands and looked at me for a long time: her eyes blue, with thin white patterns in the blue; around her pupils a dark blue circle, which made the white even whiter, the blue even bluer. Her face in the half-light was so young and fresh, her hair wavy and her forehead smooth. Her eyebrows delicate and her nose straight. When she smiled, the corners of her mouth made dimples form in her cheeks and her eyes brighten.
“But you must promise me,” she said, “never to shirk your duties. Sometimes we feel life is not fair, but then we shouldn’t run away, but face our problems and hope for the best. That’s how you become a grown-up,” she said, and her eyes sparkled like she was looking into my soul.
The thundering organ fills the church with a blasting sound again, and the singers raise their powerful voices. At once, the bright sound of a trumpet soars, weaving itself in with the majestic harmony, and everybody stands up. It is a bit hard not to join in the singing because I can feel my soul expand inside me. And why shouldn’t I sing properly if I feel like it? So I raise my voice with the choir, in the safe shelter of my mom’s singing.
Christ is in his place on the altar painting, floating in midair between heaven and earth. Above him is the eternal light of the heavens, but below him Roman soldiers are rolling in the dirt. It looks like any moment now, Jesus will glide up and out of the painting. His face is handsome and bright, and his long hair falls in soft waves over his naked shoulders. He is probably quite relieved to be free from the tomb. Maybe he was worried that the angels weren’t going to be able to lift the stone. He is on his way to his father, and I know he must be looking forward to meeting him, just as I am. And even though, as it says in the Bible, it was two thousand years ago that he went up to heaven, I still wish him a safe journey in my mind, just in case.
When we’re home, Mom makes herself some coffee and starts to prepare the Easter dinner. Trudy and I, however, finish moving her furniture into my room. My books are now in boxes, which I have stacked up against the wall in the small room that used to be her room. It will be my storage room now. The things from my desk filled up a whole box: drawings, notebooks, paint, pencils, brushes, and a small jar with shiny coins from the beach. I took the postcards from Dad off the wall and put them in the shoe box, then placed it in the box and closed it. On top of that one, I stacked two boxes filled with books.
We carry my bed, my chair, and my desk into the storage room. Trudy will keep my bookcase for her books. Finally there’s nothing in the room to suggest that I was ever here, except for the fish tank on the chest of drawers in the corner. The sound of the water pump is different now that Trudy’s furniture is in here.
Mom puts the lamb in the oven and adjusts the timer on the stove while Trudy takes a bath and puts on her favorite dress. I fetch the plates, glasses, and silverware and place it all on the dining table in the living room. When the doorbell rings, I go to the door. There stands Auntie Carol, in her best Sunday dress, with rollers in her hair under her scarf. She always asks Mom to do her hair for holidays and celebrations. She has a huge plate in her hands.
“There,” she says, handing me the plate. “I’m not buying chocolate eggs for half-grown men.”
Under the shiny plastic cover is the one and only pear tart, just because I’m leaving. She really can be so kind.
She hangs up her coat and sits in the kitchen and starts to take the rollers out of her hair. Then the chatting and familiar kitchen noises begin. Carol struggles to watch quietly when things are being done differently from how she would do them. She insists the potatoes should be caramelized. Mom asks her to make the sauce instead, because she does it so much better then Mom ever could. And they joke with each other, with aprons over their pretty dresses, and Mom hurries to do Carol’s hair so she can start making the sauce. Trudy sits at the kitchen table, her face made up, earrings dangling down to her naked shoulders. She is opening cans of green peas and carrots. She is anxious and excited today, and I know why. Her new boyfriend has asked her to the movies tomorrow night. He doesn’t have a motorcycle but a real monster of a car with fat tires and spoilers and all. It’s probably much more enjoyable riding in that kind of vehicle than hanging on to the back of a motorcycle in all kinds of weather.
The lamb is on the table. There are glistening caramelized potatoes in a bowl, steam rising from the red cabbage, green peas, carrots, and sweet-smelling sauce. Grandma’s silver spoon stands upright in dark-red cranberry sauce in a small crystal bowl. Mom pours my favorite soda mix in the high glasses with the sandblasted flower pattern. Auntie Carol, with her hair beautifully done, carves the lamb, since she is so clever with the knife, as Mom puts it.
When Trudy and I are finishing clearing the table, and Mom and Auntie Carol are in the kitchen washing up, the doorbell rings. There stands Peter in the dim light; it’s almost dark. He places two fingers at his brow and flicks them away casually. “Sir.”
I repeat the gesture, and we laugh as we go inside.
“Come on in,” I say. “There’s a huge slice of pear tart in here with your name on it.”
On the dining-room table is the mouthwatering pear tart from Auntie Carol, the ultimate prize. I dig the knife into the soft icing and cut a big piece for Peter. We sit for a long while just gobbling up this unbelievable treat, our only conversation our happy sighs and murmurs of satisfaction.
With our stomachs full and smiles on our faces, we go up to my room. Peter stops on the threshold because nothing is the way it used to be.
On the floor is my suitcase, ready to go.
“When are you leaving?”
“Dad’s on his way now.”
Peter sits on my cousin’s bed. He looks a little confused, like he doesn’t know what to say. Finally he stands up, walks over to the fish tank, and looks into the water for a long time, like he’s searching for something.
“I guess we won’t be publishing the magazine, then?” he asks.
“I guess not,” I say.
“It was a really good idea, anyway,” he says.
“Yes, it was. It was a great idea,” I say.
I hear Trudy on the phone, talking to her boyfriend, Mom and Auntie Carol in the kitchen, the sounds of their voices trickling up the stairs. Then there’s the sound of a car stopping outside and the engine still running. The horn honks twice. It’s Dad.
“He’s here,” Mom calls.
Peter thrusts his hand in his pocket and takes out a small chocolate Easter egg, wrapped in red foil.
“Just for fun,” he says, and hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Well, I guess you’re going now,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“I should go too,” he says.
I follow him to the front door. When he’s on the doorstep, I tell him that I’ll call him when I get to my father’s and he nods.
And because I guess we won’t be seeing each other for some time, I raise a stiff hand to my forehead, curve my eyebrows, make the harsh soldier face that Peter finds so funny, and puff my chest out.
“Dismissed! Farewell, Peter Johnson!”
He doesn’t react immediately but hesitates for a moment. His lips move like he’s searching for words. His face is all red, and when he puts his hand to his forehead, his hand isn’t stiff and firm as it should be when you salute. He just rubs his eyebrow in an awkward manner with his fingers and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Safe journey, Josh Stephenson,” he says finally, and turns around abruptly, runs down the stairs, and disappears out the front door.
But then I suddenly remember what I had completely forgotten and rush upstairs, into my little storage room. Mom and Trudy call after me, telling me to bring down my suitcase, but there is no time to answer them because I have to catch Peter before he gets home.
I hurriedly put my shoes on in the hal
l as Mom and Dad stand, utterly astonished, outside the front door in the dull evening light.
“Where are you going with that?” Mom asks.
“I’ll be quick,” I say, and run down the street into the gathering darkness.
Under the streetlight, green sprouts are sticking their heads out of the earth in their gardens. Soon they’ll turn into Easter lilies. There’s nobody on the streets, but lights are lit in every window. In the warm light, families are sitting at their dining tables. All these different people, in all these different houses, all doing the same thing.
I run down the alleyway because I have to catch Peter before he gets home. I call his name, and in the twilight I think I see his silhouette hesitating, as if he expected me. I run harder, and a sudden gust of wind catches the wings of Christian the Ninth in my arms; they flutter as if he has come alive. The light gleams in his eager eyes, as if he’s more than ready to help my very good friend on his journey to freedom, the journey we all must take, everyone in our own way.
Fish in the Sky was originally written in Icelandic, the author’s mother tongue, and was translated into English by the author himself for publication. Halfway through the editing process, a translation by Bernard Scudder was brought to light. This translation was immensely helpful during this process.
Sadly, Bernard Scudder died in his prime shortly after his manuscript was found. He had lived in Iceland for decades. His obituary in the Guardian described him as “a poet and the doyen of translators of Icelandic literature into English.”
His deep understanding and love for the Icelandic language shows through in all his work, from translations of the sagas to contemporary poetry and literature.
FRIDRIK ERLINGS is a novelist, screenwriter, graphic designer, and musician. In 1986 he founded the alternative rock band the Sugarcubes with Björk before leaving music to pursue his writing. He has written and translated lyrics as well as film and television scripts and is the author of the Icelandic classic Benjamin Dove.
He says that Fish in the Sky is “about the extreme pains and joys of being a teenager, the curious period in our lives that we all experience in more or less the same way, regardless of our culture, country, race, or gender. Perhaps it is the one time in our whole lives when we are in fact the most perfect human beings we’ll ever become. The question is: where will we go from there?”
Fridrik Erlings lives with his wife on a farm in Iceland’s wide-open South.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2008 by Fridrik Erlings
Cover photograph copyirght © 2012 by Ocean Photography/Veer
Hymn on page 65 by Valdimar Briem; translated by Bernard Scudder
Hymn on page 69 by Steingrím Thorsteinsson; translated by Bernard Scudder
Verse from “Hear the joyful news from throne up high,” by Rev. Magnús Guðmundsson used by permission from YMCA/YWCA Reykjavík, Iceland. Translated by Bernard Scudder
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Fridrik Erlingsson, date.
Fish in the sky / Fridrik Erlings. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Josh Stephenson’s thirteenth year starts with a baffling sequence of events, including an odd gift from his estranged father, the arrival of his flirty seventeen-year-old female cousin, locker-room teasing about certain embarrassing anatomical changes, and wondering if dreams of love can ever come true.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5888-5 (hardcover)
[1. Coming of age — Fiction. 2. High schools — Fiction. 3. Schools — Fiction. 4. Single-parent families — Fiction. 5. Cousins — Fiction. 6. Dating (Social customs) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F89586Fis 2012
[Fic] — dc23 2011048348
ISBN 978-0-7636-6197-7 (electronic)
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