Cast myself over the side and into the sea.
Panic seized me when I felt the shock of the cold sea and I—or, better put, my voice—started crying out that I couldn’t do this. Perhaps it’s not enough for a person, alone and loveless, to imagine that no one would care if he killed himself; it’s as if the will to live were in the body, and the body seemed not to heed such decisions of the mind. On the other hand, I should mention that I still came close to dying, because I was so paralyzed with cold that I thought I could never get back up in the boat again.
I finally managed to tie a loop from a tattered piece of cord that hung, by coincidence, over the gunwale; I got my knee in the loop, set the cord on the spool, and managed to kick myself up. My life literally hung by a rotten old thread. I wriggled aboard and collapsed in the prow, where I lay for a long time, exhausted. I listened to the wind and rocked in the waves and felt peculiarly well, as if I had managed to erase the outlines of sorrow from my breast for one earthly moment. Then I woke to the spouting of a pod of porpoises swimming by.
I was grateful to be alive; I knew that I should be humble and thankful for what life had handed me. I got to my feet and started punching myself to warm up, before hearing at the corner of my senses a clear and pure female voice coming as if from the reef, so pure that my heart skipped a beat. The voice shouted: “Welcome back!”
There was no one to witness it but me. It’s at such moments, dear Helga, which doubtless sound so peculiar described to others, that one understands life is larger than one can comprehend—it was as if life itself were calling! Just take this as the senile chatter of a bedridden old man, Helga, I don’t mind; but how precious are such moments—and I’m convinced that others experience sacred moments, which don’t become any clearer when one attempts to sort them out.
Despite the fortunate ending to this nonsense, I, Bjarni Gíslason of Kolkustaðir, was as helpless and forlorn a person as before. Someone who lived with the fact that love and the fullness of existence were things that belonged to “the other side,” as Unnur always called your farm; and though I began to despise my lust after this, and had long stopped quenching it in summertime dips in the spring, nature would not be mocked and instead sought an outlet in sleep. If I weren’t wandering out to the hayfield with my erection sticking out—did I mention that?—I would wake wet and sticky beneath my long underwear after having banged you in some dream—usually after having rubbed and felt out your whole body with the lant in the good old portable bathtub. I declare, as it says in the hymn: Man, who shall bear your heavy load?
16
Following this failed attempt at disposing of myself came a period in my life that I find impossible to see clearly under the searchlights of my consciousness. I wonder if I even existed. Observed closely, I would have turned out to be just a person in trousers, rubber boots, and a belt buckle tinted with verdigris; a person who tended his livestock and fulfilled his obligations. But inside me, the spark of life was extinguished. I remember that I tried to be thankful for what I had, but there was a hollow ring to such thoughts. The passion that previously kept me afloat day and night was now a fetter that I began to despise, because I realized that it would never be quenched. Unnur had to goad me into getting out of bed in the mornings; the house was empty and bleak; there were no other people in my life during this period.
Damned if the whole caboodle isn’t black and white in my consciousness, just like the photos from that time. When I look over this period, I think that it might be best of all never to encounter love—because after it’s lost, you’re much worse off than before. Yes, I’ve lived what the old folk song says, and maybe you have too:
Love is most passionate
When it’s still unachieved.
Never love—you’re never bereaved.
Everything rang hollow; all poetry and song was like hammering on an empty barrel. A succulent story served up by Gunnar of Hjarðarnes or one of the other master storytellers failed to touch me; it rolled off me, like water off a goose, not sticking in my mind. I suddenly came to my senses out in front of the Co-op, where everyone was laughing at the story, but it was too late. It was all too late—past and gone. The voice of my wrung-out soul had no words. Yet worst of all wasn’t feeling the pain or, how shall I put it, feeling nothing, but rather the loneliness in it. No one seemed to pay my infirmity any heed, and no one came to talk to me. Not even Unnur. Nor did it suit me to start bewailing my heartache to her. Yet the worst thing about the deepest pain is how visible it can be to everyone but the person suffering it.
What kept me going were the animals, I do declare, my dear, and no one is alone who has made Icelandic sheep his personal friends—whatever that might mean. There’s a radiance in the animals’ vitality that relieves pain and allows one to survive every sort of disaster.
This reminds me of the story of Ólöf of the Úteyjar Islands and her hired hands, an older man and a girl who spent the winters with Ólöf out where everything was deserted long before our day. But the memory of the people survives. As winter drew to a close, Ólöf’s help started to grow weary of the monotony of sheep tending and wool dressing. Folk say that the lack of tobacco was hard on the man, whereas for the girl, it was the lack of men; so they came up with the idea of secretly breaking various farm implements, such as shovels and rakes, and announcing that they would take them to the mainland for repairs. Ólöf didn’t find this sufficient excuse and made the repairs herself, as best she could. Finally the two resorted to extinguishing the fire when Ólöf wasn’t there to see it. Returning to the mainland then became a necessity, and the pair rowed to land on Ash Wednesday to satisfy their urges in civilization. That night there was a north wind and severe frost, covering the bay with ice and making it impossible for anyone to reach Ólöf on her island for six weeks. And there she remained, with broken tools, without light and heat, in the cold north wind and darkness. When people finally broke through to the islands, Ólöf was still of sound mind and had managed to keep all of her animals alive. She’d apparently started seeing phantoms and specters in the darkness, the original Viking settler Þórsteinn haunting her the most. The fact is that this great feat of Ólöf of Úteyjar is impossible to comprehend but for the animals—it was the animals that kept her alive, fireless, and not the other way around. And that’s how it was with me as well, after you shook me off.
Until it came, the glorious news. You and Hallgrímur were divorcing.
17
Whether I’ve exaggerated the memory or not, two things are inseparable in my mind: the news of your divorce from Hallgrímur and the virulent breakup of the ice that spring. Of course, old hopes kindled unbridled within me. I thought, like Garún in the story, that it was all for my sake. I decided you would move with your children to Reykjavík, and then everything would be prepared for us to blaze anew. I could take on additional board work for the Association, could perhaps find something to do in the city—part-time work—and hire someone to help Unnur with the farm work in the meantime, staying for longer periods in Reykjavík, not far from you and the children. I’d give you a hand and get a chance to spend time with Hulda; yes, it was a message, deep and quiet like a whisper from the gods, that you could now let go of your pride, give in, because you, as much as I, didn’t want everything between us to be shut and locked; perhaps when it came down to it, you had warm feelings toward me. I felt myself released from the spell of gloom, and when in my binoculars, dear Helga, I spied your things being stacked in the farmyard that summer, I thought in my heart—because, like men of old, I have always thought with my heart and not with my head—I thought that now you would only have to wait for a moment; soon I would come to you.
They oughtn’t be repeated here, those low and primitive thoughts that the meltwater carried out into the current. You, naked in my mind, and the aroma of stale urine in my nose; I feeling the fullness of your breasts in a fine house in Reykjavík and then the two of us drinking cocoa afterward. Good heavens, God
help me, so paltry I am.
Perhaps you understand better now why things happened as they did that September day when I knocked on your door there in the newly built apartment block in the Kampur neighborhood. You opened the door, and outside it stood a man alienated from reality, looking at you. Love had deprived me of all reason as I stood there at the door in my finest clothing, my hair slicked with brilliantine, smelling of newly purchased cologne; I handed you the bouquet and said that I’d come to bring you flowers.
You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. You stare at me wide-eyed, with your fair cow eyes, which is my personal name for them. You snatch the flowers from my hands and rip them apart and call me an ass and a wretch who should screw off, and then a man comes to the door and shouts: “What person is this?”
And now I shall speak plainly, Helga: at that moment, I felt the life taken from me; I saw only black. I don’t remember clearly which of us started it, but I was like an injured and helpless beast, penned in a corner by butchers. My only way out was to bare my teeth or die, so I grabbed the man forcefully and threw him against the wall, despite his being much larger than I, and let the blows rain down on him as you screamed and hit me in the head with the torn bouquet, and your children came to the door and people came out of their apartments into the hallway, but I felt good about it, damn, it was good when you pounded me, this touch was so much better than no touch at all and to me it was sheer bliss to hear you cry again and shout at me, just as you did by the dung-channel of old; you—life—shouting at a block of driftwood. Me.
Then I left.
And truth to tell, I really didn’t give a damn where I went.
18
Afterward, my situation grew worse than ever. The queen was gone from my life, replaced by a king named Bacchus. The fact is that I don’t have many memories of that winter, and neither before nor after have I behaved in such a contemptible manner. I suppose I did this because I didn’t have it in me to kill myself. I brought eternal shame upon myself here in the district, and make no secret of the fact that all the rancor I caused cut me to the core. But good people in the community were kind to me, and this kindness kept me afloat, Helga—that and the animals. Blessed be human kindness. Just as I have chosen not to focus on the rain but rather the shine as I scribble these words to you, I’ll write no more concerning that time of degradation and mention instead how I recovered.
When your letter arrived.
God alone knows how many times I’ve picked up this letter and read it. You should see how worn it is. It’s as worn as it is holy to me. I learned every word of it by heart ages ago; I’ve laid it on my breast beneath my shirt and wept and sought comfort and strength in this letter of yours nearly my entire life, or so it seems to me; but it wasn’t until just now, here on the banks of my grave, that I finally sat down and replied to it, dear Helga. I’ve never before felt I needed to answer you; it was enough for me to know that you’d left Hallgrímur, that you wanted me to come to you, that you asked me to forgive you. That you said—that you wrote in your letter—that you—loved me.
This knowledge of warmth on the other side, knowledge that there was a place where someone thought warmly of me, and loved me, was more than enough for this farmer. After all that had happened, and after I came to realize that I would never do anything else than swim with the tide, I started wishing that you would find a new man, a good man, who would love you and give you everything that you could ask for. As far as I know, that man finally came into your life. Yes, in the end I fled when I had the chance. Look, Helga—see what a small person I am, now that the tub has finally been emptied.
I keep one clear childhood memory in my heart, and, in conclusion, I wish to share it with you here. I was only seven, eight years old. My eyes wandered to our homefield and I noticed a gray-brown creature I didn’t recognize, so I ran over to it to take a better look. As I drew near, I saw it was a great big eagle that had landed there in the field. It was sickly—mottled gray and patchy—and so feeble that I was able to come quite near it. Its yellow feet and black claws, thick and powerful, witnessed to the ancient grandeur and strength of the old champion. I don’t know whether it was simply too old and worn from life’s rigors, or was ill from eating the poisoned carrion that was baited for foxes and scavenger birds to keep their numbers in check and protect the breeding grounds of the eider ducks, a bad practice abandoned shortly thereafter. There it had landed, and took it very badly indeed when the young boy came too near. At first it hissed, then screeched and glowered at me, spreading its ragged wings. I saw how tattered it was; many of its flight feathers were missing and its wing bones showed through bare patches, as if its plumage had been plucked off here and there. I thought for certain that this big bird would never fly again and felt sorry for it. I wanted to take it and bring it home with me, but it hopped away and flapped its wings up and down as I ran around the field after it. Its remaining flight feathers whistled and sang with a whining, sucking sound like that of a bilge pump, but then a most astonishing thing happened that shouldn’t have: the bird took flight, just barely making it over the fence, and headed straight toward the beach and onward out over the ocean, vanishing from my sight far away where the blue of sea and sky met.
I never saw it again, and the thought has crossed my mind that this vision perhaps wasn’t real but rather a dream that became a reality in my mind, a dream with an important message. In fact, I sometimes feel as if my spirit has, just like this bird, tried to fly away from the everyday bustle of earthly life, that I’ve tried in the same way to glide through the poetic sky with my ragged writing, and if the gods allow it I will doubtless fly precisely in this way to you in the end—on ragged wings.
I find it good and right to have written this letter, dear Helga. And though you’re dead and can’t read it, I’ve found it reassuring to scribble these lines to you.
Yesterday, I took my cane and went out for a walk on my decrepit legs and lay down in the grass between the Helga Tussocks as I had so often before. There were cumulus clouds to the south, swiftly moving, but light in the gaps between the cloud banks, and then an absolutely splendid sunbeam shone down between the piles onto me and everything around me—or should I say, rather, onto us—as I lay there on your breasts.
Then the blessed wagtail came and alighted on a nearby tussock, and I asked it, as Grandma Kristín had taught me, where I would live next year. But the wagtail just stood there and wagged its tail up and down, and I knew that the questioner’s death was finally ordained. The sunbeam flooded the slope with such light that I felt it to be a beckoning to me from the great spirit behind life, and I started to cry, senile old man that I am, stranded between two tussocks in Iceland, the Helga Tussocks; and I realized that what really hurts in life aren’t the sharp points that stab and injure you, but rather the soft call of love that you disregard—the letter from Helga, the holy letter that you answer too late, because now I see clearly in the light of the end that I love you too.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book came into existence particularly because I’ve had the fortune to keep company with excellent storytellers. It would take too long to identify all of the wellsprings of narrative that I’ve incorporated, yet I have to mention Steinólfur Lárusson of Fagradalur, Gunnsteinn Gíslason of Norðurfjörður, Guðjón Guðmundsson of Bakkagerði on Selströnd (d. 2010), and his son Guðmundur Heiðar (d. 2009). My hope is that I’ve managed to convey a fraction of the storytelling spirit of these men, whereas all of the distortions and changes that their material has undergone in this book are my responsibility. The verse “If of himself the advisor took measure” is by Kristján Samsonarson of Bugðustaðir (d. 2004). I wrote the verse as I learned it, a bit differently than is recorded in the collection of verses published online by the District Archive for Skagafjörður. The poem “Life is reverie and dream” I wrote as I learned it from my grandmother, Vilhelmina Pálína Sæmundsdóttir (d. 2003). She had learned it from her mother, Kristín Sigríður
Jónsdóttir of Kambur in Árnes Parish (d. 1978), and everything suggests that Kristín learned it from her mother, Vilhelmína Pálína Guðmundsdóttir of Kjós in Árnes Parish (d. 1900). Whether she learned the poem from her mother, Guðríður Jónsdóttir (d. 1898), or from someone else, is impossible to know, but there were always many visitors and much poetry in Kjós, which lay on the main route over Trékyllisheiði Heath. In a recent obituary, the poem was attributed to the poet Páll Ólafsson (d. 1905). That’s doubtful, and the poem isn’t to be found in editions of his collected works. I prefer to view the piece as a popular poem until evidence to the contrary is uncovered.
BB
GLOSSARY
Reply to a Letter from Helga includes many references to classic Icelandic texts. To assist the reader in tracing these allusions to their source, the author and translator have compiled a chapter-by-chapter glossary. We hope you enjoy discovering these texts that are so central to Icelandic literature, which can be found in English translation in the Penguin Classic The Sagas of the Icelanders, Viðar Hreinsson’s Complete Sagas of the Icelanders, and online through the Online Medieval and Classical Library.
Chapter 1: Hallgrímur Pétursson: An Icelandic poet who lived from 1614 to 1674. He is particularly renowned for his Passion Hymns, a collection of hymns to be sung during Lent, as well as for the Icelandic funeral hymn, “Allt eins og blómstrið eina” (“All as the One Blossom,” also known as “On Death’s Uncertain Hour”). “Welcome to it, when it comes,” is from this hymn.
Chapter 2: Hallgerður: Hallgerður Langbrók is one of the Icelandic sagas’ most memorable characters, known for her stubbornness and inability to forgive. As told in Njáls saga, when her husband is on the verge of being killed by his enemies, he asks her for a lock of hair with which he can make a new bowstring and continue the fight, but she refuses, saying, “Do you remember the time that you slapped me?”
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