The sun had now risen and hovered over the ocean. It was a quarter to two. Dinner churned inside Jonathan’s stomach, which struggled noisily to process material it had never before encountered. If the people proved too complex, there was always the food. What myriad degrees of rot and raw were waiting for analysis and categorization. Jonathan tried to imagine a year of sniffing and tasting. Now how long did you say you hung this outside? It was ludicrous, but perhaps easier than trying to encompass the entire society in some sort of formal village study. Below him, lights were going out in Tórshavn; it appeared the natives waited until sunrise to go to sleep. Tórshavn was not a village, though. Life might be different, maybe more encompassable, outside the capital, in his house on the island of Sandoy.
Jonathan sighed again and wished for a beer. But there was no beer. This country had no nighttime, no trees, no napkins, no beer. Professor Olsen had lamented this to Jonathan several times. Instead of beer, they had national liquor allocation: those who paid their taxes got a certificate entitling them to buy a case of beer or four bottles of hard liquor (aquavit was most popular) each quarter, handed out to the law-abiding by government dispensaries. Outsiders such as Jonathan, however, were omitted from this system. And as the Faroese drank up each quarter’s supply immediately in a two- or three-day binge, there was nothing left over to offer a visiting friend. A near-beer was available at the hotel, but it was thin and bitter and did not satisfy.
A dark, gloomy bar and a beer and a jukebox: all these things existed in the Hebrides, source of world-famous malts and brews. Why hadn’t he gone there? Perhaps he could go there and the anthropology department would never know the difference. For didn’t they also eat a sort of rotten meat? Didn’t they fish and raise sheep and live gloomy lives under an overcast sky? Jonathan realized that this was the second time he had turned to the Hebrides as potential relief from the Faroes and was amused that within two weeks his standards had shifted to accommodate local ones. He knew he was right about the anthropology department; from the viewpoint of Cambridge, little distinguished Tórshavn from Stornaway. But he was no longer in Cambridge.
As if to prove this to himself once and for all, Jonathan stared out to sea, for the first time since he’d sat down, and gave himself over to the view. To the left was open ocean, frothing now from a wind that had risen with the sun, and tinted purple beneath the green. Below him was the capital, still ugly. To the right, a long dense spit jutted out, and beyond it a pale blue cloud of land appeared to be suspended above the water: his future home, Sandoy. As always in these islands, the very surfaces curved with the globe. Water and land described portions of circles as though molded from a malleable substance. But the arcs tilted in such a way that they seemed incomplete, tipping dangerously up into the air at one end so the land looked as though it might at any moment slide down into the ocean. It gave Jonathan a touch of vertigo.
More than beer, now, he wished for a companion. Someone familiar through whom he could filter all that was strange and by this make what was ugly beautiful and what was unknown and daunting mysterious and promising.
But Jonathan was alone in the world. And the reasons for this, like the reasons for his self-confidence, had been left in Cambridge. In Cambridge it was pleasant to walk through the familiar streets at his own pace, to sit by himself in the café where he ate lunch with the paper, to enter every party given by his classmates expectant and yet safe in his solitude. No broken heart motivated him; Jonathan’s relations with women were few and cool and had not disturbed his life. Because he was tall and fair, intelligent, and possibly headed for success, he was sought after. His congenial, even responses deterred most women from persisting. Some few, evangelists of love, tried to take him on for reformation. He was not to be reformed. He could resist seductions of every sort, even the ringing of the telephone.
And the Faroes’ seductions too were resistible. Jonathan’s detached gaze turned momentarily to himself and were disheartened by the view. In plain terms, he thought himself a fool. Any of five women he knew at home would have been a warm, living creature to sit beside on this rock, to wonder at the sliding landscape with, to plan the next day’s journey with. What arrogance to plan his life around his determination not to be trapped with another human being. Wasn’t he trapped in himself? And wasn’t something—either stolid or frightened—blocking his senses, so that he sat here on the rim of the world, on the edge of adventure, sulking and thinking of beer?
Insight, like pain, passes quickly and can’t be accurately recalled. Jonathan at the bottom of the hill, where he shortly was, was Jonathan cursing the mud of the road and the volcano of dinner, with the siren voice of doubt fading on the wind.
Early Warning
Jonathan awoke with a case of nerves. Some schedule was not being met. He decided to go to the dock to find out when the mail boat went to Sandoy, but the activity there only confirmed his feeling that everyone else had something to do and he was a sluggard. Winches creaked, stacks of crates grew as he stood on the concrete pier, open boxes of silver fish alternately glinted and dimmed with the movement of the clouds. The harbormaster in his corrugated tin shack told him the boat left daily at two, “except if the weather prevents.” He was eager to embark on a conversation in English, and Jonathan, to give himself the semblance of involvement, was eager to oblige. They toured the harbor together. The man showed no interest in Jonathan’s reasons for being there; his attention was entirely focused on the boats, their crews, and their cargos.
Másin, Ritan—the mail boats were named after birds: the gull, the kittiwake. The fishing boats seemed to be named after places: Mykines, Eysturoy, the islands of their captains’ births, maybe. Seven thousand pounds of cod lay in each hold, some gasping still. And from here, where did the fish go? asked Jonathan. To the fish factory, where some was ground into meal and most salted to be sent to Spain. “The Spanish like salt fish,” the harbormaster said, “just like the Faroese.” Boats whose holds were filled with disassembled radios, motorcycles, refrigerators, boats bringing eggs and vegetables up from Denmark on a journey with a high mortality rate, boats out of Scotland stopping on their way to the best summer fishing in Greenland, these last bobbing high in the water because their holds were empty. Small boats whose crew of four sat on the edge of the dock mending their nets, Danish Navy boats that disgorged troops of nineteen-year-olds in white uniforms and blue caps, boats beaten and chewed by the sea, boats that sparkled and gleamed, trawlers, tankers, rowboats, steamboats. Smuggling boats. “What do they smuggle?” “Alcohol,” said the harbormaster. “I let them.” “Why?” “It’s not much. I know when they are coming, and I give them two hours to unload it. Then I come down here to the side of the boat, so they know it’s time to stop.”
The harbor smelled of oiled machinery, a piercing rusty odor, and fish dying, the odor of blood and brine. Mixed in with these was the smell of rope that had been soaked in salt and dried by wind over and over, a sharp tang. Here and there a blowtorch added its sulfur. And also here was the smell of movement, change, departure. Nothing was steady or fixed. In that rough water, even anchored, lashed vessels drifted forty feet out from shore and rode the waves the seawall couldn’t hold back.
It all made Jonathan more agitated. He should be on a boat, heading for his new home. At the very least he should be on a boat investigating how “things worked”; who owned the boat, who had shares in the boat, who was related to whom, how the profits were divided.
“Tomorrow at two?” he asked the harbormaster, to indicate that he was leaving now, to return to the Seaman’s Home and brood on his faults.
“And nine in the morning as well.”
“Oh? You didn’t say that.”
“Yes. Nine and two. And you can come back at three-thirty, with the return of the two o’clock.”
“Why did you only say two o’clock before?” Jonathan saw withholding of information and became curious and slightly insulted.
“Well, today, to
day you can only go at two. Because the nine o’clock has already left, don’t you see?”
Jonathan saw that he was in a ridiculous mood in which everything was abrasive and disturbing. Here was a perfectly reasonable explanation, a down-to-earth, northern-sensibility sort of explanation. But he felt patronized. An American would have said nine and two, leaving it to Jonathan to figure he’d missed the nine; the harbormaster, wanting to spare Jonathan the pain of having missed the nine, was willing to pretend there was only a two. Following this line of reasoning—unreasoning—would only worsen his temper.
“Well. At nine, then,” he said. “Do you sell the ticket?”
“On the boat. Everything on the boat. The Másin. If the weather doesn’t prevent.”
“Yes, the weather.” It probably would, and then he’d have another drenched, hopeless day in Tórshavn.
Jonathan walked slowly back to the hotel for lunch, debating whether it would be boiled cod with boiled potatoes or what he now knew to be whale with gravy and boiled potatoes. Once there had been a fried fishcake. It was the only time he’d been able to make use of the HP Sauce that sat between the salt and pepper on each table; the Faroese put it on potatoes, but Jonathan didn’t like that. It did, however, soften and improve the nearly impenetrable batter of the fishcake. He voted for cod.
Cod it was, cooked beyond necessity—beyond conscience—to a bleached stiff mass. Jonathan shut his eyes and wished for an artichoke, a little pot of hollandaise, a goose sausage, an endive salad: a roadside inn near Nîmes. The last green vegetable that had touched his lips had been an Icelandic one, many weeks before. A slow cementing process was occurring inside him; each day the amount he expelled decreased in comparison to the amount he ingested. Soon, at this rate, he would lose the ability to excrete. Modifying his intake didn’t seem to help, and besides, boredom and anxiety made him hungrier than usual. Beyond that he was simply hungry—for anything that resembled a meal as he knew it. The more cod was heaped on his plate, the more he spent hours of his day conjuring dinners, actual and fictitious, that had given or could give him pleasure. Like a prisoner or an invalid, he lived in a world shrunk to the basics.
A shadow fell across Jonathan’s plate, and a pale long hand took hold of the empty chair beside him. The substance of the shadow, as long and pale as the hand, was a man who looked familiar, though Jonathan had never seen him before. When he spoke, Jonathan realized why: he was American.
“Y’Amerrucan, right?” he asked. “They told me.” He nodded his satisfaction and sat down. “Bart,” he said, extending the other hand. This one had a ring. It was the sort of ring offered by senior committees to the graduating classes of large midwestern high schools—chunky, carved, set with a stone that looked like glass and was probably a low-grade sapphire. Jonathan put his fork on the table and joined hands with Bart.
“Whew.” Bart sighed and said “whew” again. “Helluva place.” Jonathan could only agree. “How’s that lunch?”
“Not too good, but it’s all there is.”
“Don’t care for fish myself. Seems like this is the wrong place to be.” He laughed a whispery laugh, which slowly moved into a cough that kept him occupied for a full minute. Jonathan inched his chair away; he did not want to get sick.
“So,” Bart said, when his cough had run its course. He looked at Jonathan. This was a question of some sort, but Jonathan couldn’t formulate an answer. Stumped, he said “So” as well.
“Yup,” said Bart.
This was an impasse. “What brings you here?” Jonathan asked. At the same moment, Bart said, “Where y’all from?” So they were at another impasse. Before they could get stuck again, Jonathan blurted, “Boston. How about you?”
“San Diego, by way of San Antonio. ‘Course I flew over from Washington. But I’m based on the Coast.” His shoulders shook; an as yet silent battle with the cough. “Whew.” He had won, this time. “Boston? Never been there. Went to New York once. Craziest place I ever saw.”
“It’s not like that,” Jonathan said, “it’s smaller.”
“Yup. So I hear.”
Bart had close-cropped hair and a black suit and big, shiny shoes, one of which nicked Jonathan’s calf as Bart settled in and crossed his legs. Adding up “Washington,” the suit, “stationed on the Coast,” and Bart’s overall closed demeanor, Jonathan decided he was from the CIA.
“You from the Company?” he asked, confident he’d used the term that would guarantee an honest answer.
But Bart was either very dumb or very quick. “What company?” He looked around the room. “Guess I’ll get some of that lunch there.” He searched more determinedly.
“They’ll bring it,” Jonathan told him. “They know you’re here.”
“Got here last night, you know, on the plane.”
“Quite a trip.”
“I’ve seen worse.” Bart nodded. “Seen worse.” He nodded again.
“Yes?” Jonathan was sorry he’d interrupted, because things had come to another halt. “You were saying?”
“Couldn’t find a goddamned bar. Couldn’t find one. You know this place, don’t ya? Point out the high spots to me.”
“I’d be glad to take you around. But there aren’t any bars.”
“Whaddya mean? They got Prohibition here?”
“Sort of, yes. You can’t buy liquor. You can only get it from the government if you pay your taxes.”
“I paid ’em.”
“Me too,” said Jonathan sadly. “But not to the Faroese. So no booze.”
“Well, I’ll be. What do they do?”
“Pay, I guess.”
Bart’s lunch arrived and he fell to it. Like an old-timer, he put HP Sauce on his potatoes and enjoyed it. “Not so bad,” he said halfway through, then, after a few more bites, lost interest and sat silent, staring, his shoulders twitching again. Jonathan was waiting for the arrival of the tea, which was brought out approximately seven minutes after the fork and knife had come to rest on the plate. He guessed Bart’s presence had gotten the waiter off schedule. Bart began to cough in earnest.
“Got a flu?” Jonathan asked.
“Sure,” said Bart, hopeless. “Had it for years.” He grinned. He pulled a pack of Luckies from his shirt and lit one between spasms. “I’m down to three a day. One after breakfast, one after lunch, one after dinner. Can’t quit, though. I even tried hypnotism, but I couldn’t get under.”
“Three’s good,” Jonathan said.
“So. They tell me you’re an ornithologist.”
“No. Well—” Jonathan debated leaving it alone. “Well, I’m actually studying the people. The culture, you know?”
“Like what? Prohibition?” Bart laughed a juicy laugh and heaved some more.
“Old stuff. Old songs they sing, native costume, that sort of thing.”
“How long you figure on being here?”
“A year.” It sounded like forever, and Jonathan sighed.
“You with the Army?”
“Army? No. Why would the Army be interested in that?”
“Beats me. I’m with the Air Force myself. I don’t know what goes on in the Army. They’ve got the money.”
“What are you doing here?” Jonathan asked idly.
“Checking the system.”
“What system?”
“The one up there.” Bart moved his head to the left. “Early warning.”
“Warning of what?”
“Attack. Missiles. Catch the Russian missiles before they get to us.”
“Jesus,” Jonathan said. This put Eyvindur’s paranoia in a new perspective. “You mean, it fires them back or something? Intercepts them? What does it do?”
“Classified,” said Bart, stubbing his cigarette out on the plate. “It protects us. That’s what it does.” He looked at Jonathan. “They’re all over the north. That’s because that’s the path the Russians set their missiles on, over the north. They got all their missiles up in Siberia aimed at us. Don’t you know that
? They got missiles aimed at every city with a population over half a million. ’Course, so do we.”
A web of potential missile paths spread over Europe like a grid, some red (for the Russians), some blue (for the Americans), took shape in Jonathan’s mind. It was a new geography; perhaps it was the only geography that counted. He shivered. “That’s insane,” he said.
Polite Bart pretended not to hear. He patted his belly, full of fresh, bad Faroese cod. “You gonna take me around this burg?” he asked.
“What do you want to see?”
“You’re the expert. Show me what’s important. All the native stuff.” Bart chuckled.
This was just what Jonathan wanted—needed, in fact, to put his mood straight: expertness. No outright failure or foolishness can compare to the pervasive sense of incompetence engendered by being a foreigner—and a foreigner condemned to remain so into what seems the infinite future. In the strange algebra of human suffering, the condition of a sufferer is always improved by contact with one who suffers more. Bart, the ultimate foreigner, was, according to this formula, the worse off of the two.
But as they rambled through crooked and muddy Tórshavn, from the Parliament building to the street of sod-roofed houses to the bustling jetty, the happiness that had welled up in Jonathan at the prospect of relief from his chronic ineptitude ebbed away. Something was wrong. Bart didn’t care. Jonathan was reluctant to fault him for not caring in the particular: Tórshavn had little to offer in the way of the marvelous and exotic. In a grand sense, however, Bart was unimpressed and uninterested.
Far Afield Page 4