The Whispering Muse: A Novel

by Sjón

  ‘As I have lain in my cabin reflecting on your kindness to me, I have indulged myself in the belief that it has not been from obedience to your master alone but that perhaps you have derived some small pleasure from this old man’s company on the voyage, just as he has unquestionably enjoyed yours.

  ‘But now the adventure is over, tomorrow our ways must part. For, you see, I have decided to abandon ship and head for home ...’

  I paused to let the news sink in. They looked at one another in surprise, shaking their heads and exchanging comments in low voices. I raised my hand for silence, then carried on in the same friendly tone:

  ‘One moment, please, one moment! In my letter of thanks to Mr Magnus Jung-Olsen I will give you all the highest recommendation. It is nobody’s “fault”, merely that I feel I have already seen so many things, experienced so much, that I doubt the journey to Poti in Georgia could add anything new. But if anything interesting should happen on the voyage I do hope that when we meet again you will tell me the story – I will give Captain Alfredson my address and telephone number before I go.

  ‘Finally, I would ask you all to be upstanding and drink a toast to the Jung-Olsen family and the Kronos shipping line.’

  Everyone rose to their feet and I led the toast:

  ‘Long live the Jung-Olsen family and the Kronos line. Hip, hip, hurrah!’

  When I returned to my quarters the fore cabin had been converted into a larder. From the way everything was arranged you would have thought it had been like that for the duration. It was a mystery to me how the purser and his lady friend had achieved this transformation without my being aware: the walls were lined with shelves and through the wire netting – designed to keep everything in its place in heavy seas – I saw piles of tins, jars of pickled vegetables and packets of flour, sugar and spice. There were sacks of potatoes in one corner and a stack of boxes of wine and fruit juice by the door, all lashed down with leather straps. In the middle of the cabin stood a huge refrigerator.

  My luggage, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  My first reaction was to assume that this was a practical joke in honour of my departure, something typical of life at sea and traditionally performed the night before men left the ship. But I soon realised that this couldn’t be right as I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving until just now. It must be some kind of misunderstanding. I was about to return to the saloon to ask Alfredson what was going on when the memory of the send-off I had just received prevented me; it had been so heart-warming:

  The men had hugged me. The purser’s lady friend wished me bon voyage on the long journey that lay before me as I returned home to Copenhagen overland. Mate Caeneus had laid his great fist on my shoulder and said: ‘Goodbye for now, brother Valdimar.’ And I invited him to drop the ‘Mr’.

  No, there was no need to spoil this happy memory by carping about something that must have a perfectly rational explanation.

  I decided to investigate the matter a little further and opened the door to the bathroom. It was dark and the light switch wouldn’t work, but once my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom I saw that here too someone had been busy. Bath and shower, mirror and basin, bench and cupboard had all gone and instead of white tiles the floor was now covered with black earth. The blood froze in my veins. For a split second I thought I saw the huge figure of a man standing where the shower used to be. Then the moon crept out from behind a cloud and shone in through the porthole – and its rays revealed a suit of armour hanging on a purpose-built stand; on top was a burnished bronze helmet with a high, billowing feather-crest; beneath it gleamed the breastplate, moulded for a muscular giant, while down on the floor stood a pair of greaves, showing what strong legs the owner must have.

  I was standing in an armoury. There were rows of halberds and daggers, bows and quivers, maces and axes, spears and swords. Beside the armour stood a shield the size of a wagon wheel, propped up against the wall so that it gleamed in the moonlight. An etching in flaming silver screamed from the centre of the shield; the head of the Gorgon with her swine’s tushes, venomous eyes and hissing snakes.

  I fled out of the bathroom, through the fore cabin and into the saloon, slamming the door behind me. Yes, there was no mistaking it, this was the door to the quarters I’d had the use of for the last seven days and nights; no other fitted the description. I looked from the cabin door over to the captain’s table. There was no one there. I shouted his name:

  ‘Captain Alfredson, Captain Alfredson!’

  No answer. I hurried across the empty saloon and looked to see if there was anyone in the galley. No one there. I stuck my head into the lounge, the radio room, the bridge. I went along the deckhands’ corridor, banging on all the doors: I knocked on the doors of both mates, of the engineers, of Alfredson himself. But there was not a soul to be seen anywhere. This was quite an ordeal for an elderly man and I frequently had to stop and catch my breath.

  It was not until my third circuit of the ship that I noticed the door down to the engine room was open a crack. It hadn’t occurred to me to go down there as I was wearing my best suit, which I was unwilling to dirty since it looked as if it would be my only outfit for the homeward journey.

  I opened the door and called:

  ‘Hello! Is there anybody there?’

  No answer.

  I was no more than halfway down the companion-way when I saw that the whole crew was assembled there, including the purser’s lady friend. They were all dressed in white coats and stood around a black platform in the middle of the engine room. The platform was about four feet high and at a guess twenty-four feet in diameter. An imposing four-sided prism jutted up from the centre, revolving with infinite slowness, while from inside the platform came a heavy ticking, a slow, deep pulse. This was the only sound that could be described as an engine noise – there was nothing else resembling an engine to be seen.

  Next I heard the sound of effortful groans and the onlookers stepped aside for the first engineer who came walking backwards, guiding four deckhands who struggled over to the platform under the weight of a man-high key for winding a clock, all of them clad in white coats. Here they dispersed, one climbing on to the platform to receive the key, the other three lifting it. Then these three climbed on to the platform too and together the four of them lugged the key to the prism. The engineer signalled to them to hoist the key and they held it suspended over the prism while the engineer guided it into place, then they lowered it. The engineer and deckhands jumped down from the platform. The captain nodded:

  ‘Good work, lads ...’

  At this point Caeneus appeared. He took up position by the platform and the purser’s lady friend helped him out of his white coat. Caeneus was now wearing nothing but a loincloth. He stepped up on to the platform, walked once anticlockwise around the key, then stopped and flexed his muscles like a wrestler. He stroked quickly but firmly over his biceps and thighs, spat on his palms, then set to work on the key.

  As the second mate turned the key in a clockwise direction, his pliant body gleamed in the dim light of the engine room.

  I yelled:

  ‘What about my cabin?’

  Captain Alfredson was the only one who looked round. He seemed to have been expecting me and called back:

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Mr Haraldsson, everything will be fine.’

  He turned to the ship’s steward and jerked his thumb over his shoulder at me:

  ‘Make up a bed for him in Caeneus’s cabin ...’

  And he added so that everyone could hear:

  ‘The old man can sleep there tonight. It’ll take Caeneus till noon to wind up the ship ...’

  homecoming

  XI

  MY NEIGHBOURS SAY I have changed since I came home from my voyage. And I respond with the following question:

  ‘What is the point of travelling if not to broaden your mind?’

  They like this answer and we chat a little about our travels, past and present, for most of us who live h
ere are getting on in years. One sign that I am an altered man is that I have changed the topic of my conversation at the Café Sommerfugl. I haven’t entirely given up discussing the influence of seafood on the Nordic race but I spend less time discoursing on this and more on the fittings on board the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen. Everyone is amazed at how well I was treated. ‘Is that right?’ and ‘You don’t say!’ are the most common reactions to my tales, and I am often asked to describe my quarters or explain certain events in more detail. In particular, they are interested in the fact that I witnessed a possible crime, and I have often been called on to repeat the story of my dealings with Chief Constable Knud Hamsun.

  Sometimes a disgruntled voice will pipe up:

  ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t it heard with my own ears that a fascist like Magnus Jung-Olsen had it in his stinking bones to be kind to an old addle-pate like you ...’

  But only one man speaks like that; the owner of Café Sommerfugl. He lost an ear in a German penal camp and has been bitter ever since; he can’t bear people to talk about anything other than that ear of his. We discussed it for the first year and a half after he came home – and from time to time after that – but have long since tired of this topic. When he starts on his ear, we regulars say:

  ‘Everyone prefers what’s there to what’s not.’

  Another thing that has changed is my attitude to Widow Lauritzen. Before I went on my travels I thought her foolish and tiresome, and neglectful of her garden. I am still of the opinion that she could take better care of her apple trees and currant bushes, and I am not alone in that. She is the only one of us who has the chance to do any gardening since the other flats do not come with plots of their own. But I don’t find her tiresome any more.

  Shortly after my return to Copenhagen the lady turned to me in the queue at the fishmonger’s and said archly:

  ‘Oh, so the Viking has returned?’

  For everyone here knows that I am an Icelander.

  The waves and the hull were clashing,

  the surf on the rails was splashing,

  the winds in the sails were lashing;

  the ocean my ship was smashing.

  I recited by way of reply. She laughed, saying she always loved hearing Icelandic spoken even though she couldn’t understand a word. And one thing led to another until we had become the best of friends.

  Now we dine together twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the meal is held at my flat because I like to be host. We contribute to the spread jointly, and if Madame Lauritzen wishes to eat meat I have decided not to object. She brings it herself as her grandson is a butcher and often slips nice treats to his grandmother, while I have a herring salad or buy myself a deep-fried plaice from the sandwich shop in the next street. In this manner we avoid conflict and the evening passes in cosy chat about life and everything.

  The widow is well-informed about all kinds of current affairs as her husband was some sort of poet, so she can tell me news from the world of theatre, music and literature. She does this in her frank and cheerful manner, and her accounts are always diverting, though the subject matter is undeniably often lightweight. I myself speak of international affairs and the most topical issues in contemporary science, chiefly dietetics, the importance of which has greatly increased as a result of all the reconstruction following the war.

  I have mentioned before that I live in a flat consisting of two rooms, one of which performs a threefold role as kitchen, dining room and sitting room, with a bedroom opening off it (I share a lavatory with others on my floor and the showers are in the basement). When the widow comes round for dinner I leave the bedroom door ajar and turn the kitchen table sideways on so that one or other of us has a view inside.

  We make it a rule that if Madame Lauritzen is ‘not in the mood’she will sit in the chair nearer the kitchen while I sit with my back to the bedroom door, but when she is ‘in the mood’ she sits on the bedroom side and I sit facing her. From there I can see both the lady and the door half open behind her and beyond it the bed that awaits us. So we need never discuss whether the lady is ‘in the mood’ or not. I, on the other hand, am always ‘in the mood’ and this is the most significant change that has taken place in me since the voyage with Captain Alfredson and his crew.

  I have placed a decent desk under the bedroom window and spend my days sitting on the edge of my bed, writing these memoirs or else articles for fishing periodicals in Iceland. On the top right-hand corner of the desk there is a small bundle that at first sight might appear to be nothing more than a folded napkin from the Kronos shipping line. The company’s logo is embroidered on it in wine-red thread:

  A winged hourglass hovers over the sea with two crossed sledgehammers beneath, both pointing to the right.

  But inside this innocent-looking napkin I keep the object that, with its odour and unusual properties, has reinvigorated my potency in the sexual arena. Yes, the night I stayed in Caeneus’s cabin I discovered the splinter from the bowsprit of the Argo in the inside pocket of his officer’s jacket, which was hanging over the back of a chair. And I spirited it away with me when I left the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen on Easter morning last spring. It was some compensation for my luggage, which never turned up.

  Yesterday evening when I took out the splinter of the Argo and began to toy with it, as I always do before burrowing under the bedclothes with Widow Lauritzen, there was a tap on the bedroom window. We were both startled as I live on the third floor; the drainpipe is next to the sitting-room window, and it is unthinkable that any human being could climb so high. There was another tap, louder than the first. I drew back the curtains.

  A herring gull was perched on the sill outside. It struck its yellow beak against the windowpane, flapped its wings and squawked:

  ‘ARRK! ARRK!’

  To the lady’s great amusement I mimicked it:

  ‘ARRK! ARRK!’

  And drew the curtains again.

  Sources used in the writing of The Whispering Muse:

  Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes

  Medea by Euripides

  Hypsipyle by Euripides

  Innan lands og utan (Home and Abroad) by Matthías Thórdarson frá Móum

  Fiskneysla og menning (Fish Consumption and Culture) by Matthías Thórdarson frá Móum

  Ég sigli minn sjó (Life on the Ocean Wave), the memoirs of Hrafn Valdimarsson

  Enn sigli ég sjóinn (More Life on the Ocean Wave), the memoirs of Hrafn Valdimarsson

  Metamorphoses by Ovid

  Trójumannasaga in forna (The Ancient Saga of the Men of Troy)

  SJÓN is a celebrated Icelandic poet and novelist. His novels have been translated into twenty-five languages and include From the Mouth of the Whale and The Blue Fox (both by Telegram). Sjón won the Nordic Council Literary Prize, the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize, for The Blue Fox and ‘Best Icelandic Novel’ for The Whispering Muse in 2005. Also a songwriter, he has written lyrics for Björk, including for her most recent album, Biophilia.

  VICTORIA CRIBB has translated the works of Sjón, Gyrðir Elíasson and Arnaldur Indriðason. She is currently studying for a PhD in Old Icelandic Literature at the University of Cambridge.

  ‘The Whispering Muse is a quirky, melodic, ticklish, seamlessly translated, lovingly polished gem of a novel. Sjón’s work deserves space on any self-respecting bookshelf of European fiction.’ David Mitchell

  ‘An extraordinary, powerful fable, travel-log, adventure story and metaphysical mystery. A marvel.’ Alberto Manguel

  ‘A wonderful tale – The Whispering Muse ties together tales from myth and antiquity with the modern age. Sjón writes like a man under a spell, filled with enchantment and magic and great wit. He is a rogue of the first order.’ Keith Donohue

  ‘The Whispering Muse is a wonderful story about stories, evoking comparisons to Borges, Nabokov and Calvino while remaining a complete original. What’s more, it’s a bundle of fun.’ Chris Wilson

  First publ
ished in Icelandic as Argóarflísin by Bjartur, Reykjavík, in 2005

  English edition published 2012 by Telegram

  This ebook edition published 2012

  TELEGRAM

  26 Westbourne Grove

  London W2 5RH

  www.telegrambooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-84659-124-2

  eISBN: 978-1-84659-143-3

  Copyright © Sjón, 2005 and 2012

  Translation © Victoria Cribb 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.