I admit that I sometimes wondered how I might get rid of him and make it look like an accident. That useless excuse for a farmer and lazybones in everything except maybe breaking mares. I thought about asking him to come help me fix the trailer coupler on the Farmall and seeing to it that the tractor kicked into gear—this happened often, by accident—with the throttle set on high, and backed over him before being able to stop. But these were just pitiful imaginings on my part, a kind of pettish consolation forcing its way into my consciousness without my being able to prevent it. I understood that these thoughts sprung from my dissatisfaction with myself, and that such silly ideas were just temporary relief. Of course, I could never have done him any harm. Things weren’t supposed to go as they did for my namesake in the novel Guillemot. That was never the idea.
I remember it was the same year the atom bombs were dropped on Japan. In the fall we were called together to the meeting house for some reason, and this new peril was quickly on everyone’s lips. Some had heard that enough bombs had been made to destroy all life on earth—more than once. Others said that now all hell could break loose, and no one could do anything about it.
Ingjaldur of Hóll spoke up and, with a profound expression, said that mankind had never built an apparatus that he wasn’t able to handle. Then the farmhand from Rauðamelur, his hair slicked with brilliantine, stood up and said he knew an example of such. Héðinn of Klaufnabrekka constructed himself a wheelbarrow far too large, shoveled it full of cow dung, and set off with it down his steep hayfield, but then he couldn’t keep it steady and it tipped over the verge. And there it still was.
Following the farmhand’s story, the assembly fell silent.
Gunnar of Hjarðarnes broke the silence. “Well, you don’t say,” he said, before shaking his handkerchief open and blowing his nose. And with that, the list of scheduled speakers was finished. Those who had prepared lines of snuff before the speeches commenced snorting them now, blew their noses, and said “mm-hmm” and “yessir,” and soon the meeting came to an end.
10
I invested in another pair of binoculars. Ordered the big book of birds from Reykjavík. My Unnur remarked on how keen I was on bird-watching. I almost never paid attention to the birds, except when Unnur or someone else caught me off guard, or could see me, in which case I would look up the slope or down the valley and say something about how unusual it was for the snipes to lay their eggs so high up in the scree. Or mentioned how the purple sandpipers were gathering early down on the spits, or how little there was for the tern to feed its young this summer. I only paid attention to her. And to you. Watched her swing all by herself on the farmyard swing set that I’d helped you assemble for your older kids, Einar and Vigdís, a long time ago. How she called to you when you hung out the laundry, no doubt asking you to give her a push. Called to Hallgrímur, who shuffled around the farmyard restlessly, completely ignoring her. Saw how she sat in the swing, looking as serious as you did when you bore her in your womb. How she looked down at the grass with dreamy eyes. How she stuck out her tongue when she concentrated on shoveling in the sandbox—which I built for her; how she ran in circles around the homefield. How she stumbled. Cried. Stood up again. Prepared food just like you, serving up sheep bones with sand sauce. From a distance, I watched my daughter making mud pies, until I was overcome with emotion and could no longer see anything through the binoculars because the eye cups were full of tears.
I composed a verse and likened her to sunbeams, how they warm and delight you, yet it’s neither possible to catch them in your hands nor claim them for yourself. They’re of another world, like her white tresses that fluttered in the sunshine breeze.
My heart is warmed by beams of sun,
as by the tresses white you wore.
Yet both of these I take as one—
my heart and mind both long for more.
You two are the only religion I’ve ever had. I haven’t chosen to kiss up to God and Christ when things have gone badly in my life. There are, of course, many who suffer from hunger and poverty. I’ve always had enough for me and mine and accepted responsibility for the decisions I’ve made, not interfering with those distinguished gentlemen in their jobs. I’ve also understood that this God in Heaven must be at least partly created by man. I guess I know He exists, but He’s hardly the type to sport whiskers. I’ve felt rather that He speaks to mankind in the autumn colors of the crops, or in the scent of newly cut driftwood pieces that cleave so exquisitely into fence posts and outlast their maker.
I’ve had ideals and lost them. Perhaps my belief in the Association of Icelandic Cooperative Societies was a kind of religion to begin with. I sat for a long time on the board of the Co-op and oversaw the slaughtering and salting for the Norwegian market. They used to say that three knives could be seen in the air when I chined lambs’ spines, butchering them into large cuts to go into oaken barrels, in much the same way that three swords were seen aloft when Gunnar from Hlíðarendi brandished his blade. The Association was originally an organization of farmers formed to protect their own interests and ensure a good price for their product. This was, might I say, the only sign of socialism that I’ve ever seen in these parts, and probably the only example of socialism in this whole country before or since; some farmers had so much ardent faith in the ideal that never an unkind word could be spoken of the Association. Now I’ve witnessed the decline of both the Co-op and sheep farming, because that ideal was forgotten along the way, as well as the farmers; the Association turned into an empire and freeloader’s club in Reykjavík, driving a wedge into the cooperative ideal. They’ve come a long way toward eliminating all sheep farming in this country; that’s what came of the ideal, and what the skald declared is right: “The first to light the fires seldom enjoy their warmth.”
You know, Helga, I’m not your typical old coot who praises the past and finds fault with everything contemporary. We know that progress has been made in many areas. Do you suppose that any other generation will experience such drastic changes in its circumstances in one lifetime? We who grew up in a culture that had experienced little change since the time of the settlement and who also got to know the dubious modern world: its technology and its pasteurized milk products. Of course it was an improvement when rubber boots arrived. I wasn’t yet of confirmation age when my father sent me up the valley to the moorland to mow, and there I stood half the summer with moor slop squishing in my sheepskin shoes, finally leaving me seriously ill with pleurisy. I was only allowed to rest a few days before he sent me back up the valley. It took many years to regain my full strength, and I declare to you that such a person is extremely relieved when his first pair of boots is handed to him. Yet we watched the old turf farmhouses of Hörgár Parish being cleared away by bulldozers upon the arrival of cement. It’s one thing to believe in and devote oneself to progress, Helga, and another to start despising the old ways. The old turf farms are all gone now because they reminded people of cold and damp and what people so mercilessly call “hayseedism.” But what culture do people have who say such things? It’s only when folk turn their backs on their own history that they become small. And it was no small revolution when the telephone and television came to the countryside. Grandma Kristín asked how they fit a whole person into such a little box, meaning the radio. But another thing she said was truer, that everything spoken on the telephone was a lie, and because of that it couldn’t be trusted. And though one might glorify the radio receiver and the usefulness of the weather reports, the fact is that one remembers little or nothing of what comes out of it. On the other hand, family readings of the Passion Hymns or Vídalín’s Sermons are as if engraved in my memory: the expressions on the reader’s face, the clarity of his voice, the sighs as he read, and the discussion afterward. And wasn’t it true what old Vídalín said, that it’s easy for evil to keep good in check, but difficult for good to keep evil in check. The radio came, and Vídalín died—as Bárður of Staður declared in his poem.
What one really remembers best is when people gather together, for instance out in front of the Co-op, or for the Reading Club, and the storytelling spirit takes flight. People these days don’t talk to each other; they don’t gather anymore! Good storytellers are nowhere to be found.
I’ve tried to do more than just farming and fishing. I fought for various causes that I felt were important. I took on the task of building fifteen-thread jenny wheels for several homes, because there was no reason for people in the countryside to be sitting around doing nothing in the winter while it was possible to multiply the value of the wool fivefold.
I did a great deal of handwork. Made button holders of bone and horsehair and lamp brushes and brooms from the same material, rope buckles for pack saddles, ash cans from sheets of tin, clothespins of wood. I built tables and chairs for the kitchen and the other rooms, and for the chairs, Unnur embroidered exceptionally elegant cushions that turned out to be very popular. I made washtubs and watering troughs, buckets, cabinets, created lampshades from wolffish and spotted wolffish skin, and built a trunk that I covered with sealskin, just as the late Gísli Konráðsson did. The list could go on. It’s a damned culture shock to see how homes look these days, when every single thing is from its own part of the world, and very often people have no idea where those things come from. What separates something homemade from something factory-produced? One has a soul and the other doesn’t, because whoever makes something with his own hands leaves behind a piece of himself in his work. I wrote an article for The Farmer’s Journal in which I asked why the only models and patterns for sewing were found in foreign fashion magazines. Why were Icelandic women imitating foreign forms, but then couldn’t learn Icelandic handicrafts anywhere—brocading in the old style, lace knitting, crocheting, bobbin lacemaking, or embroidering with gold and silver thread? What I wrote wasn’t really very remarkable. And afterward I saw that I was perhaps trying to justify life here in the countryside in the face of all those stylish fashion magazines that you said were in Reykjavík. But I’m not going to change my opinion. If people had continued to develop and promote Icelandic handicrafts and the domestic wool industry, more culture would be found in contemporary Icelandic homes, not just piles of mass-produced items, each more soulless than the next.
At the post-roundup dance in the autumn, Ingjaldur of Hóll came to speak to me and said that he’d heard I was having a hard time giving Unnur a child. Word had started going around the district that Unnur couldn’t have children. I’m sure this wasn’t meant badly, but when he started talking about pinching her back firmly, or putting ice cubes on her nether regions, I turned and walked out.
11
It was in the spring, when I let out the lambs, that it hit me hardest, the desire that you abandon your pride and come over to me. And always when the dandelions started spreading over the fields, yellow flames kindled in another place as well. I would have left Unnur, yet seen to it that she lacked nothing. But you always stuck to your cursed pride, as did all your kin from Breiðafjörður, where, long ago, Guðrún’s cheeks turned scarlet and she married Bolli out of sheer pride.
Bloody cursed pride.
Forgive me.
I’m sorry, Helga.
I got a bit worked up. It’s all right. Naturally, when I view things objectively, I’m unable to see which was worse: my stubbornness in staying on the farm or your pride. It’s certain that neither would yield. I know it would have been difficult for you to live here with me. On the next farm over. Side by side with Hallgrímur. But I also know that I would have wasted away in Reykjavík, that my will to live would have ebbed. When things became difficult between us, I would have always longed to be back in the countryside. You would have sensed it. Who knows what would have happened.
But my desire for you burned in my flesh. It made me shudder sometimes. Once in late April I woke up standing out in the hayfield, wearing only my long underwear and sporting an erection! Thank God it was early morning, and no one witnessed it as far as I know. I’d been sleepwalking. I’d dreamed of you. I dreamed that I’d sold the farm for thirty hens—not silver—and was on my way to your place with the hens in a cage to tell you that now we should set off for Reykjavík. But first you wanted to make love with me, and had taken off all your clothes in the barn. You can imagine how pathetic I felt when the dream ended. A person standing in a hayfield in Iceland in the dead of night, wearing only his tattered underwear, his dick sticking out like a stranded sperm whale; someone who has chosen toiling in the countryside over love. “Woman is sometimes my grief,” declared Björn the Champion of Breiðavík; “a bright and pure maiden loves me,” declared another; and a third said that souls who love will never be parted. Do you know which of these applies to us? I don’t.
I never went behind your back to try to get to Hulda. We’d made an agreement. I arrived last at church and sat nearest the door, while you sat up front with your folk. You quit the Women’s Club, and I always let you know a day ahead whenever I came to inspect the hay and examine the animals, so that you could keep Hulda away. We worked together to keep it secret, as cooperative as we were during haymaking. Concealing what was true and right.
Covering up our true sparks, ignited by Mother Nature.
Hadn’t it gone far enough, Helga?
Once Hulda and a friend of hers rode horses over to my farm. She was about fifteen or sixteen, had come to stay in the countryside with her “daddy” during a school holiday, and the girls had stolen away and drunk a bit of moonshine. They were so lively and jovial here in the kitchen that my house felt like a tomb a long time afterward. Hulda said she was starting high school, and her friend related that Hulda had received the highest marks of all. I mixed a little cocktail of vodka and ginger ale and poured each of them a glass. Unnur was scandalized and went up to her room. They said that there were endless parties and rock and roll in Reykjavík. They both joked and laughed and asked whether I knew how to jive or if I’d heard of rock and roll. I enjoyed their exuberance immensely.
But suddenly everything in me went black. I thought I would pass out, asked them to excuse me, and hurried out to the barn. As soon as I’d shed my tears there in the barn, my anger flared. I found existence to be unjust and my life devoid of all meaning. I was angry at you for sparking this life with me and then taking it away, and now it looked as if this life had come only to mock me and reveal to me my destitution.
I didn’t feel better when I returned to the kitchen and Hulda asked why Unnur and I didn’t have any children. I declare to you, Helga, that this was also hard for me; at least you gained the fruit of our passion. I: nothing. And after Hulda became a television announcer, thereby entering people’s homes every single evening to read the schedule, it didn’t do anything to help me forget or relieve the tightness around my heart. Quite the contrary. I tried to read in her facial expressions, in her voice, whether she was happy, whether she was well-married there in Reykjavík, whether she wasn’t simply thankful for having been created. She was so beautiful. Sometimes, when Unnur wasn’t sitting in her chair, I went up to the screen and touched Hulda’s face and hair.
I can tell you a story that took place many years ago. One evening we were both sitting in the living room, Unnur knitting in her chair. Hulda had just announced the evening’s schedule, when I stood up and yanked the television free from the wall; I threw it straight out the living-room window, causing a frightful explosion in the yard as the screen shattered. Outside, the dog barked, baffled as to what was going on. Unnur paled and stopped knitting. She looked at the footstool where the television had previously stood, as if her soul couldn’t comprehend its sudden disappearance.
I said, “There’s never anything on this damned TV.”
She said, “Why didn’t you throw it out the door instead?”
12
I could accept living in town if so many people didn’t become so boring living there. Even the ducks on the Pond, who get as much to eat as they want, lose their rad
iance, their personalities. When the Co-op sent me to Reykjavík, and I wandered down to the Pond, I saw that the birds behaved differently there. They weren’t curious or playful, like birds in the wild. The ducks at the Pond had become just like the people: dull parasites who quarrel over what’s thrown to them. Isn’t it precisely this that makes you think life has no purpose? Precisely among the creatures that have lost the connection with their true nature? I could have become either a street sweeper or gas-station attendant; when I died no one would have paid any attention. I would simply have been replaced. I would have become a laborer in Reykjavík, and a dull glow would have reflected from my being.
I’ve lived all my days with the rediscovery of love as my embers of hope. Those embers would have died out in a few months in Reykjavík. I would have found my work empty of meaning, felt boredom wash over me, and started drinking to entertain myself. That’s how they turn out in Reykjavík. I see it from the movies they make about folk in the countryside: they’re portrayed as poorly indoctrinated numbskulls who occupy themselves only by being horrid to their next of kin, expressing themselves in one-syllable words. So I see what they’re up to in Reykjavík, those miserable people there. Do you think that I could have loved you in such a place, Helga? And if we accept what people in modern cities believe, that happiness consists of being able to buy so much from shops that one becomes destitute inside, that happiness is being free to choose whatever one pleases in life, as if the world were one universal restaurant, isn’t that a judgment against all past generations that weren’t able to live so? Aren’t happiness and fulfillment in life, then, brand-new inventions of city people, while all past life in this country, in fact, the lion’s share of all life, of all times, is both meaningless and hapless? I’m not certain that the bright gleam in the eyes of my grandmother, Kristín, and her cheerful mood harmonize with such a view of history.
Reply to a Letter from Helga Page 5
