And the Wind Sees All

by Guđmundur Andri Thorsson

  He told her for the first time about the restless years, when he was off in faraway lands, searching. His journey had taken him around South America and then Europe, where he ended up at the centre of the Balkan War. While bombs fell all around him, he had fallen in love with a girl with a long name he could never get the hang of so he just called her Ása. For an entire week they spent every moment together and in her arms he finally discovered himself. But then it was time to return home. They vowed that they would find each other when the war was over, and the last night she lay in his arms while the bombs fell outside, and then the morning arrived and the grey glimmer of daylight wreathed their existence with its reality.

  ‘Didn’t you know this, Mum?’ he now asked, and she said no and stopped munching for a while.

  ‘I still don’t know what happened to Ása, just imagine that,’ he said. ‘She could be dead. I think about her every day, from the moment I wake up in the morning until I fall asleep in the evening.’

  And once he was on night watch in a tent somewhere in Bolivia and suddenly he heard something. Maybe a rustle.

  ‘Did I never tell you this, Mum?’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, there was this rustling, I thought I could hear something and then, suddenly, out of the blue, there is this guy on top of me and I feel – God’s truth, Mum – I actually feel the cold blade of a knife at my throat. And I swear to God that to this day I don’t know what happened, what came over me, where I got the strength from, but I yelled in Icelandic, “Get the fuck off me, you fucking arsehole!” or some such thing. And with this massive scream I somehow managed – with God’s help or perhaps the Devil’s – to throw the bastard off me and straddle him, and the next thing I know he’s gone, and I’m left with the knife, screaming after him, “You fucking bastard!” or something like that. Did I never tell you this?’

  No, he hadn’t told her.

  Then, in Ecuador, he’d seen something that he thought was probably a ghost, he’d felt the evil flowing from it. And there were girls – in Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico – but he loved none of them like he loved Ása in Sarajevo. He doesn’t know what’s become of her, but always dreams of looking for her and thinks about her every day.

  He’d met the president of El Salvador and got him interested in Icelandic greenhouse production. He had escaped from ferocious apes in the forests of Brazil. He had paddled down the Amazon in a canoe. She looked at his receding hairline and his domed forehead, red with sunburn and hot thoughts, his once-blond hair that had acquired a strange yellow tinge, and his blue eyes flashing with adventure. She knew that he was lost, but perhaps not utterly doomed, since each mouthful of cod carried a new flavour as he regaled her eyes and ears with stories of his life.

  He was forty-two now. She had been only eighteen when he was born. She’d sometimes wondered whether the fact that he was conceived in a church had affected his life. She and Kalli had been camping with other teenagers from the village and they’d tried all night to make love, but Kalli hadn’t managed to come because he was too drunk or something. She remembered how the rain had pounded the tent’s orange fabric, how the whole night she’d dozed in a state of bliss, every now and again waking to a gentle orgasm, while he thrust away at her until it drooped, then started up once more when his need made him hard again. They woke around noon, got dressed and cooked oxtail soup on a Primus stove and drank lukewarm Coke; and then suddenly Kalli pointed at the church and said, ‘Hey, Jósa, let’s go and take a look at the church.’ It was still raining as they left the shelter of the tent and ran towards the old, black country church. There was no sign of life from the other tents. The door squeaked as they opened it and sneaked in. They said nothing, didn’t laugh or even whisper; it was as if everything fell silent when they entered. And it was brighter in there, as if they had stepped through a doorway into Paradise, where everything was sweet gentleness. They felt the angels’ energy. The ceiling was blue, covered in gold stars. The pulpit was red and blue and green, decorated with crude paintings from Scripture. The altarpiece showed Christ feeding the multitude: he stood in the centre with outstretched arms, holding two small fish in one hand and five loaves of bread in the other, and around him were gathered a few men who were clearly local farmers intended to represent the multitude, though they didn’t look particularly multitudinous. Jesus looked straight ahead, offering the loaves and fish also to anyone looking at the painting. Kalli and Jósa advanced slowly into the church. A red carpet covered the slightly creaky floor; the altar was bare, its sacred objects kept elsewhere. Kalli reached out and touched her. He stood behind her and ran his fingers down the small of her back to her bottom. She moved her legs apart. He kissed the nape of her neck, her earlobes, and stroked her bottom and crotch and thighs and back and breasts. She turned round and thrust her tongue into his mouth, and the Holy Spirit hovered over them as they took off their clothes, overwhelmed with desire, and felt their skin touching, warm and soft. And as he glided into her it was as if at last everything fell into place, and he came in less than a minute. For a while they stood like that, holding their breath, listening out for the Holy Spirit or perhaps the heavenly host. But all they could hear was the buzzing of the bluebottles on the windowsill, all they could see were the stars on the blue ceiling. And now they realized that they’d forgotten to shut the door behind them and it was wide open. A sheep stood in the doorway, observing them with disapproval, then turned and primly walked away. Giggling quietly, they hastily dressed, and they continued giggling all the way back to their tent. And all that week too, and afterwards, whenever they recalled their secret.

  While Gummi was telling her of his adventures in faraway lands, his loves and sorrows, she wondered whether to say that she too had had her moments – rare and fleeting, admittedly, but they had nevertheless glowed while they lasted. But she kept silent. He also fell silent, while he carried the plates to the sink, rinsed them and loaded them into the dishwasher. He switched on the little espresso machine he had brought with him and made coffee, which he served with handmade foreign chocolates and apricot liqueur.

  While they drank their coffee, he told her he was leaving Begga and the kids, that it was all over between them; he was going to come back to Valeyri and, to begin with at least, move in with her. He planned to buy the dilapidated old warehouse and open a restaurant there, buy a boat and catch cod, which he would cook for his customers in the evening. He was going to call the place the Three Cod. He sketched the logo he had designed, inspired by the flag of Jørgen the Dog-Days King: three stockfish on a blue background. She studied his forehead, his receding hairline and strange yellow hair, his eyes burning with absurd dreams. She sipped the sweet apricot liqueur and the strong coffee, and told him that he certainly knew how to cook cod, their meal delicious enough to be a national dish. She told him he was a good son, but that he must also be a good father and, more to the point, a good husband; if he was planning to come here and open a restaurant, which certainly sounded very exciting indeed, then Begga and the children must of course come too. He mustn’t do as his father had done.

  Life is outside. She sometimes hears it when she listens out for it – which she rarely does any more. She is going to put on some old records and have a celebratory beer while she scans school photos, to put them up on Facebook. She has checked her page once or twice today, and seen a few sixtieth-birthday greetings from former classmates. Sveinsína might ring. Gummi will definitely ring sometime later; he’s like that, he will do that. He sometimes calls just for a chat and to let her hear his voice. She knows that he is hopeless and that the Three Cod exists only in his head, along with old stories – some true, some not – and his love for Ása, who keeps the Sarajevo locket he gave her to remind her of his eternal love and faithfulness, before he left her. He did leave Begga and the kids, just as his dad had abandoned his family when Gummi was only seven, leaving them with nothing but his absence. Now Gummi has a flat in the centre of the village and work
s as a cook at a nice restaurant nearby, but he still says he’s miserable and he drinks too much. In a while she’s going to make gravy to go with the leg of lamb, and after supper she’ll have a couple more beers to celebrate the day, make popcorn and watch a film on television, maybe a detective film, or maybe just Benny Hinn, even though she’s not particularly religious. And now evening can come.

  Flying and Falling

  There’s always a certain calm as you return to harbour with everything shipshape, and all you have to do is aim for the beacon. Nothing else: if you stick to that, you’re safe. If you forget to, you are lost, you end up in the shallows, you run aground. Simple, really. You go through the village and the beacon is your home. You go through your life and the eyes of the children are your harbour lights. The lights of hope are burning.

  On Teddi VA all is shipshape. The lines are secured, hand reels rewound and fastened, buoys stacked and fish graded and crated on ice. A pretty good catch. And as you sit at the helm, steering towards the harbour, with this special smell in your nose, the comfortable sound of the engine in your ears, and with just the right kind of fatigue in your body after the work on board, and you see the afternoon chill with all its ghosts sneaking into the village – then you feel this calm descend, this special universal stillness. You know that, at this precise moment, Gugga is going outside to collect the washing from the line, wearing a white dress with blue dots, Gugga with her chestnut hair, her broad shoulders that carry everything, her strong jaw and all-seeing eyes and now, yes, at this very moment, she glances across at the kids squealing on the trampoline, grinning over some nonsense you let slip the other day. Of course, she isn’t actually wearing a polka-dot dress right now – what are you on about? – but this is the picture that comes to mind as you hold your course back into harbour, thinking all sorts about all sorts; as you think about your children, not in the usual terms of ‘Come and eat your supper!’, ‘Put your sweater on!’ – all that – but wondering what will become of them in a troubled world. You begin to think about yourself and what happened to you in the troubled world. And all that.

  The boat slips slowly forward on the calm, cutting steadily through the water, a fulmar flying in attendance, satisfied and sated and on its own. Though you are always alone, you’re never as alone as here. And when you are as alone as you are here – then you aren’t, not really. When the universal stillness has touched you, you are alone with the sky and the sea, your catch, the resonance, the birds – and your beacon. There are laws at work in the world, and they are not the least bit mysterious or cold, and it takes no time to list them. Everything in life is simple; everything is very simple.

  Such are your thoughts as you steer towards the village, drawing slowly and steadily nearer. And the village returns your gaze, observes your every movement, and yawns: Ah, that Teddi, it thinks absent-mindedly, maybe listening to the sound of the boat, and wonders if everything is exactly as it should be, speculates for a brief moment, casually, about your catch. Ah yes, that Teddi with his usual two or three hundred kilos. The village knows all about you, has seen the changes you have gone through, watched the greatest embarrassments at village-hall dances, seen the good, quiet moments too. Heard the yelling and the groaning. Remembers that yellow jacket you once had, and the red trousers, remembers your first drink, your first cigarette, your first kiss. And all that.

  Right from the beginning you’ve sensed that the village is watching you, and forgets nothing. And even though you’ve tried to rise above this, to get away and live the life of a troubadour and sing songs about flying and falling, travelled all over the country with your guitar and amplifier and a lump of hash to get you flying, gone from bar to bar performing songs like the one about Old MacDonald and his farm and all that – even though you’ve grown your hair long and a beard and then shaved them, gained and then lost weight, taken to the bottle and dried out, found God and then hidden from him again – and all that – it’s as if nothing can ever surprise the village; it’s as if the village created you and knows what happens next. Hey, Teddi, give us a song! they sometimes yell, and then you do your best, although they know perfectly well what comes next; and that’s what it will be like tonight at the party when you’re done playing the old pop songs with the Óli Smartypants Dance Band.

  The village remembers the album Out of Your Skin, which didn’t sell. The village also remembers that review in Morgunblaðið, by some metropolitan smartarse pretending to be ever so fair but in fact saying: Your life, your innermost thoughts – it’s just crap, bugger off!

  The village remembers the wreck you were when you returned home with shattered dreams – and also that you heaved yourself out of bed, went back to the sea, behaved like a man, and soon had a three-tonne boat and a straight back. The village remembers everything.

  As you head back to harbour you think: You spend half your life trying to find out things the village already knows about you when you’re born. However much you study yourself, your life and innermost thoughts, the village always knows a whole lot more. There are some women in the village who know Mum, remember Biggi and those bands he played in, know about Guðjón going south to fetch a woman and little Teddi after Biggi had flown from the block of flats in Ljósheimar and hit the pavement.

  That thud on the pavement and you’re awake again. And begin to think about the washing on the line and Gugga, so big and strong, and the children bouncing on the trampoline, and you gliding back to harbour surrounded by the universal stillness. The sea gives sustenance and the companionship of birds, gives energy and nourishment for the brain. Gives the silence that is not silence but a kaleidoscope of sounds. Gives the peace that is not inactivity but motion. Gives the deep. You fix your eyes on the beacon and begin to wonder whether the village, with the context it had prepared for you when you came here at the age of seven, really is the right place for you. You feel all kinds of currents in your head, deep undercurrents that might bring something new, were they allowed to mix with other currents. There is so much hidden inside you, in this depth. You’re not even really sure that you’re exactly the same as you were all those years ago – even though the village thinks you are; after all, the cells of your body are supposed to completely renew themselves every seven years. And, back then, there was so much that was bound to mess with you: the women, the pot, the drunken-troubadour life. And all that. And even if you have a little something tonight after the concert, there is no law that says you have to have another tomorrow. You are a father now and you own a boat, you have to measure up. Keep your eyes on the beacon.

  Find your beacon for tonight’s concert, so that you’ll enjoy standing on that stage, even though Uncle Kalli will be singing his interminable solo – of course, the most important guy and all that, bless him. Gugga will be in the audience with the kids; you might even catch their eyes and wink. That’ll be fun – that’ll be a good moment. And then that party afterwards at Sidda and Kalli’s, and someone shouts: Hey, Teddi, give us a song! And you take your guitar, strum the old C major a few times to warm up, and sing the song about the lights of hope that burn: Hope restores your failing powers / Hope dispels unease / Hope soothes sleepless night-time hours / Hope’s lights burn in peace…

  There’s this peace that hovers over you as you make for harbour. You are whole; you are complete. The clattering of the engine, the smell of oil and fish, everything shipshape, the fishy slime on your old woolly jumper, the fulmar flying in attendance, the boat’s onward course, and your head alive with vague plans of which only the village knows. All this movement: the sea is eternal, it nourishes, heals, rinses, gives and takes, is made of currents that have been in motion for millions of years, slipping beneath each other in one continuous swirl, because the sea is, above all, movement. As you make for harbour, there is this peace inside you. The beacon is there, and all you need to do is to aim for the beacon, if you stick to that you’re safe, whereas if you forget about it you are lost, you end up in the shallows, fall, si
nk into the deep.

  Off Sick

  Svenni lives in one of those houses that look like a man with his trousers hitched up far too high – a little house on big foundations.

  He has been here for nigh on twenty years. He is industrious, resourceful, polite, but people find him taciturn and reserved. He has worked on shore for some time now. He’s foreman in the refrigeration plant’s machine room, and everybody who has dealings with him speaks well of him; he is kind and patient with the kids who work the machines, is fantastically hardworking and strong as an ox – a good bloke. When people encounter him at the swimming pool he returns their greetings amicably, with a big smile, but he never initiates conversation. Some were a bit surprised when he showed up to sing in the choir and proved to have a lovely tenor voice that added real colour to the overall sound. But he only turns up for the actual music-making, he doesn’t take part in anything else. Everyone respects this. He envelops himself in a kind of cell that nobody dares breach, apart from old Grímur, his one-eyed, yellow-striped cat, and his sister, who lives down south in Sandgerði.