Oraefi

by Ófeigur Sigurðsson

  Next, The Regular enthusiastically read in my ear the 1979 Travel Association Yearbook, by the same Sigurður from Tvísker who sang hymns to save his life, and as we were finishing the chapter “Historical Outline” and just about to get to the section “Looking around Öræfi,” The Regular finally gave up and looked disapprovingly at our surroundings.

  Then an idea occurred to him; he rang a little copper bell to summon the bartender, who didn’t hear over the hubbub in the hall, so The Regular took a champagne bottle and struck it against the big ship’s bell that was hanging above the bar; the bottle shattered yet the ball rang loudly, causing everyone in the place to briefly fall silent and the server to come running at a hard sprint. The Regular suggested he forgo the DJ and let him have some time at the microphone, he wanted to read the patrons the 1979 Travel Association Yearbook, by Sigurður from Tvísker, in Icelandic, our dying language, The Regular told the server in Latin, so that this multinational crew, this assortment of tourists, people from the music and fashion industries, so-called art students and international students, visiting writers and guest professors and all the world’s guests might get to relax and to use the reading as a motivation for learning the country’s language, from now until the clock strikes twelve: the party right now doesn’t offer much in the way of education.

  I don’t know we’re expecting a DJ, the server answered in Latin, but we’re expecting our chamber orchestra, and they start at midnight; until then you’re most welcome to edify the guests; I’m all for learning.

  What’s on the program tonight? The Regular asked.

  Stabat Mater by the maestro Joseph Haydn, answered the server, these are our Haydn days.

  Haydn days? The Regular asked.

  Quite right, mon signor, answered the server. What did you say you’re going to read?

  “Looking Around Öræfi” by Sigurður from Tvísker.

  I’m not sure this is the right audience for regional stories and provincial descriptions, said the server.

  Then all the more need for it! The Regular said.

  The Regular was given a microphone and he read a story by Sigurður from Tvísker, based on an account in Fitja Chronicle but peppered with his own embellishments. He improvised as he read: it was an account of the time the Dutch gold ship Het Wapen van Amsterdam was driven across the Atlantic Ocean by storms until it stranded at the mouth of the Skeiðará in Öræfi, September, 1667; it was the most modern and most luxurious ship in the Dutch commercial fleet and was returning from the East Indies, namely Batavia, in Java, awash with colonial goods; the ship was massive, with forty cannons to fend off pirates, 300 crew members, Het Wapen was not a warship but a cargo ship, The Regular announced, a so-called flute; back then, the British and Dutch were fighting a war, so ships couldn’t sail via the English Channel but had to go north, past Scotland; there, they often got caught in strong headwinds, and so the Het Wapen was driven several days northwest and the sea flooded over it, breaking both mast and rudder; it got separated from the rest of the commercial fleet and ended up stranded at low tide in Öræfi at night during a sharp southeast wind and rainstorms; 240 people were killed either at the water’s edge or on the freezing sands; sixty survived. Work started immediately trying to save the cargo of jewels, treasures from the east, uncut diamonds, gold, pearls, silver and copper, scarlet, decorative and luxurious garments, chintz, I don’t know what that is, carbuncle, I don’t know what that is either, silk and linen and all kinds of assorted curtains and blankets, worth forty-eight barrels of gold in total, or so everyone says, according to the Fitja Chronicle, never since the land was settled had a ship with such precious cargo reached Iceland; the ship was freighted with 40 tonnes of copper meant for church bells in Europe, and Sigurður calculated that on board the Het Wapen van Amsterdam was 550 tons of black and white pepper, The Regular said into the microphone, and a grumbling started up in the room at the sound of these figures, pepper was expensive in Europe but all the aristocrats competed to have the most pepper at their table; also on the ship were 35 tons of cloves, 17 tons of cinnamon, 10 tons of peanuts, 10 tons of sugar, 65 tons of Indian redwood, clubs or staffs (5 tons), indigo dye (5 tons), hardwood (5 tons), tin from Malakka (5 tons), 4 tons of cotton yarn, 3 tons of Japanese camphor and Persian silk (3 tons), the Fitja Chronicle says, Sigurður says in the Travel Association Yearbook (1979),The Regular said at Circus to what was now a great tumult all around the room; also, part of the cargo was saltpeter and all kinds of spices and pigments, and on board there was a large number of civets from which people take the secretions from a special gland to use for perfume, a joy to Parisian halls. It’s said there was a black on board who swam like a fish, rescuing sixty of the 300-man crew; the rest died of cold and exhaustion, wearing only silk garments; the black man trod water a long time, transporting people to the beach one by one, and men actually stood there in shirts or nightgowns alone in the icy rain storm at night on the sand; many of them froze to death, they were all confused and helpless, some went to try to find a settlement, the black man swam ashore with the captain who was fat and cumbersome and had pockets full of gold and diamonds and pearls; this black fellow was so exhausted that he came ashore with the captain and fell down at once and died; he was buried in a gravel hillock and the place was afterward known as Skollamelur. The captain never returned to the Netherlands; nothing is known of his fate. Bodies lay scattered on the sand by the time the farmers reached the place; there was one prone form, dressed in black, a man who’d gone weeping around gathering gold and precious stones, only to succumb to a natural death. The Öræfings saved all those who were still alive and dispersed the seafarers across the country. One Dutch survivor came to like Öræfi so much he stayed for the rest of his life; he was called Pétur Jakobsson, and he is the progenitor of a large family descended from various women. He was a good carpenter and he settled in Skaftafell. He learned construction from the Skaftafell farmers and they from him, for Pétur had sturdy tools and instruments he’d taken from the ship; together they built a sail-powered wagon, and the Öræfings went flying across the countryside in this four-wheeler; such land ships were a popular sport in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, but the development of this vehicle ended after a fatal accident involving the wagon, the brother of Jón Einarsson from Skaftafell died in this accident and the Skaftafellings, having lost such a respected youth, lost their appetite for the invention; they hadn’t been particularly given over to the thrill of speed in the first place. Impoverished people went riding about in silks, clad in fine clothes; they were considered quite striking, although they were clothed like this out of lack rather than for ornamentation or extravagance: no other material was available, so housewives had silk sheets and the Öræfings slept in them for a long time. Ever since, this great wreck occasionally emits a strong spice smell across Öræfi; the smell stems from a gold ship that no one knows how to find in the sand. Even today people go snouting about on the sand hunting for treasure and digging holes and channels far and wide and wandering around with metal detectors like idiots …

  Kiddi! The Regular screamed into the microphone, startling everyone; a young man could be seen walking across the marble floor, wearing a waist-length leather jacket with oversize cuffs, a turned-up collar and a hat at a jaunty slant on his head; he smiled, flashing his broken incisors. Kiddi is a born-and-bred Öræfing, The Regular announced over the microphone to Circus, and everyone seemed impressed and clapped; Kiddi got a little shy at this, laughing softly, with an ironic expression; he took off his hat and put it on the bar … So, so, so, so said Kiddi, er, truly … er, just finished renovating everything …The Regular flung the microphone away with a crash and a ringing and hugged Kiddi close; they sat at the bar and the server went up into a castle up in the air in order to turn down the audio track. And so we stayed silent for many hours, drinking champagne and gazing out at a mesmerizing splendor of bottles behind the bar; we were all in a row, talking telepathically, which is an art am
ong the Öræfings: when Kiddi rings me, The Regular said telepathically, he doesn’t say anything into the phone, when he calls his grandfather in Svínafell, they are silent together a long time, even asleep, and they’re getting honest, quality time, sincere conversation.

  When I think about the prospectors on Skeiðarársandur, said The Regular, floating his thoughts over, a gusty wind blows through my mind, I get filled with a furious desire to look for gold on the sands, I’m ready to sacrifice everything, no matter if there’s no hope of finding anything in that barren place; it’s not the gold itself: there’s sand and adventure, the search for the ship, the search itself, man himself, whenever I’m sad I think of the gold ship Het Wapen van Amsterdam, when I’m sad, I think of the black fellow ignominiously buried in Skollamelur, how he rescued the crew, how he sacrificed himself, I think of the people looking for the gold ship, and I’m reminded how delightfully absurd life is: the unbearable initial excitement when gold prospectors first head out, full of dreams and passions, onto the sands; they labor there, enjoying themselves, the public watching their excitement, constantly following what they’re up to out on the sand, hailing them, curious local folk and traveling reporters alike, the prospectors are always having to answer the same questions, are always equally intense, equally full of life. Gradually, they gain a fuller and richer knowledge than any of them could have imagined they would. The search becomes their life goal, year after year they’re out on the sand, shoveling, their hopes never hobbled by the impressive competitors around them; after three decades of searching they strike something hard down there, they rear up desperately, convinced the ship has been found, the whole nation gets excited, I was six, I think, said The Regular, when the papers reported the gold ship had been found, I was really excited and wanted to go out onto Skeiðarársand, ever since I was six I’ve had Skeiðarársand on the brain—these prospectors, thirty meters deep after thirty years of searching with shovels, excavators, magnets, metal detectors, and all the gadgets available—but it turned out to be a rusty German trawler from 1903 … how hope and greed go together, do they not! The Regular said, how far down it is to the depths of happiness from surface joy; surmounting life’s passions and goals is a deep need to dig. That’s the way it is to fall in love, it’s energizing, you escape out onto the sand with a metal detector and shovel, ready to sacrifice everything and hunker down on the sand like a dragon on treasure; love overwhelms you, lets nothing else in, makes you want to get to know every hillock and every rise, every grain of sand, digging and digging, your dreams leading you astray, people are soon demolishing the landscape, destroying nature, and then from the sand emerges a rusty German trawler from 1903 named Friedrich Albert, from Geestemünde, the worst wreck in Skaftafell in recent times, although many hundreds of ships have been stranded here … that’s love! said The Regular: a man exhaling before this rusty German trawler, almost completely mad with embarrassment and frustration and anger, shattered to his very core—but then when everyone is done making fun of him, the man goes to examine the wreck, which proves quite remarkable, with significant characters caught up in it, the wreck is connected with a big tragedy, you might empathize, feel this surge of emotion, providing you’re open to that … it’s easy to fall in love with the beauty of Skaftafell in Öræfi, said The Regular, most of those who head there want to return again and again, Öræfi haunts you, as you get to know the region better you love it more and more, you feel you have a share in her beauty because she has aroused such interest in you, humans don’t own beauty but beauty owns humanity, Öræfi becomes part of you, of your self-esteem, you’re the most fortunate man in the world, getting to hunt around on the sand, in the mountains or on the glacier; when I was on this trail, I told myself I could subsist on beauty alone, and perhaps you’ll say something similar yourself in Öræfi—but beauty can turn against you, she’s cruel, suddenly you want to throw yourself off a cliff or hurl yourself into a waterfall or toss yourself into a glacial crevasse because you understand nothing about beauty, because she awakens an intolerable grief inside you; you’re happy now so it doesn’t matter what happens to you, perhaps the best place for a happy man is in a glacial crevasse, perhaps happiness lives there, in the heart of horror. Times change, or everything changes but time stands still, something happens that’s altogether different from what was expected, the same family lived in Skaftafell from the settlement until the National Park was established and the ring road opened in 1974, for 1100 years the same family lived in Skaftafell, until the sequence was broken by incursions into the beauty, probably everything since then amounts to the destruction of Öræfi due to relentless tourism and the decline of agricultural society, due to natural disasters, but what do I know? said The Regular, one simply has to accept what happens, whether shipwrecks or technological advances, you cannot always resist everything, otherwise I’d be perpetually toiling against everything. I’m against innovation, I want everything as it was, for example, particular men were against the telephone coming to Öræfi at the beginning of the twentieth century, being against such so-called progress is often held up as an example of amusement and stupidity, not wanting to be subject to a pretextless system, remaining unbowed before authority, corporations, the masses, the executioners, I’m afraid I would have been against the telephone at the time, would’ve considered the phone no less a disaster than the eruption in 1362 which made a desert out of settlements for fifty years. I actually believe the telephone marked the beginning of the region’s utter destruction for all time: the telephone transformed Öræfi into something else, perverted it, and the cellphone does the same thing to humanity in our time, a man with a cellphone is no longer a man but a perversion of man, everything that has been achieved through progress, The Regular said telepathically at Circus, has proved a deterioration, always the talk of progress is the talk of deterioration. I’m considered abnormal because I don’t walk about with a cellphone, I’m suspicious because I don’t walk about with a cellphone, I’m antisocial because I don’t walk about with a cellphone, I’m guilty because I don’t walk about with a cellphone, arrogant, boring, putting on airs, old-fashioned because I choose not to walk about with a cellphone, but that’s jealousy and envy. I miss everything and have no friends but I do not complain because my nervous system doesn’t suffer me to walk about with a cellphone, I don’t travel that way for the sake of my health, for quality of life reasons, I cannot imagine having a cellphone with me, I wouldn’t be able to write, I can’t think and write when something is constantly looming, the thought that someone is going to poke me in the back, there’s no peace, the phone companies are tyrants, they choke and kill and bury all the studies that demonstrate the harmfulness of the mobile phone, both mentally and physically, going around with a cellphone is like walking in shackles, I prefer to roam free and wild and be hated rather than to be constrained and subservient and loved, I’m despised because it isn’t possible to reach me in an instant, at times that suit others rather than me, having a cell phone is being operated by remote control, remotely controlled by network operators, remotely controlled by the whole of society, I don’t want to walk in shackles, a remote-controlled slave to the cell companies, they’ve destroyed me plenty on many occasions, wasted enough of my time and thought, cleaned me out of enough money, those comedians Halli and Laddi aren’t at all right when they say phones save time, no, phones waste time, phones destroy your time, your spirit, and your body even when they don’t ring, it’s enough it might and you know it, being aware of your phone eats away at your time, spirit, and body; progress is nothing less than the annihilation of humanity and the earth, a person’s conscious mind celebrates progress but their subconscious knows it constitutes destruction and doesn’t dare bring that knowledge to the surface, represses it, the awareness of progress as annihilation gets suppressed so you can survive suffering via deception: better to live an illusion than die in truth, that’s the definition of a cellphone, the network operators confuse people over the m
eaning of concepts, the way all tyrants maintain their power over the populace, tyrants change language in order to abuse power, Victor Klemperer studied linguistic abuses by the Third Reich, Lingua Tertii Imperii; LTI can be applied to the phone companies, to all big business, but no one dares investigate, people walk around shackled by the telecommunication companies, believing themselves free, money gets vacuumed up from people under the pretext that they’re free, but no one is free because everyone around them has a cell, everywhere. It’s not like hearing people talk, having conversations, hearing someone talking on the phone is intolerable, hearing someone speaking on the phone out in the street, on the bus, in a bank, a café, or worst, in one’s home, your consciousness suffers severe pain, loud complaints from the realm of the dead, what a fate, always having to talk on the phone, even in movies everyone is always blabbering on phones, there’s never anyone there, we’re all at 30m deep in the sand, an iron heap of disappointment, the phone has eliminated focus, cellphones kill the spirit no one had to begin with, destroy the body no one had, destroy the life no one had, humanity was nothing anyway, the phone lays waste to reality and that’s absolutely fine so let’s get more champagne and toast our cells … Servus!