The Journey Home: A Novel

by Olaf Olafsson

  I know you’ve never approved of this hobby of mine but don’t worry, it won’t a fect my bookkeeping, I promise. Even though it is boring . . . The meat tasted of heather.

  4

  I understand the Gullfoss is a splendid ship, the national pride and joy according to the shipping company literature which arrived recently in the post. I’m glad, as I don’t have any other option, because I don’t fly, that’s for certain. Admittedly, I’ve sometimes mentioned lately that I’m not afraid of death. So it’s a mystery to me why I should dislike flying so much.

  The brochure I’ve received says that the Gullfoss is 330 feet long and 48 feet wide. There are three passenger classes accommodating 210 passengers in all, 104 in first class, 62 in second and 44 in third. The shipping company boasts of the ratio of crew members to passengers. There is apparently one crew member for every three passengers. Along with the steward and assistant steward the staff consists of seven chambermaids, nine waiters, two bartenders and two wine waiters, in addition to cooks and kitchen staff. The ship will call at Leith en route from Copenhagen, docking this evening and setting sail late tomorrow. The voyage to Iceland takes two and a half days but I get the impression things are arranged so that we have to spend three nights on board.

  I mean to use the time well during the voyage. For one thing, I want to reread the letters I wrote to Mother and Father while I was at the Commercial College. Gunnar, Jorunn’s husband, sent them to me after she died. He found them in an envelope in her bedside table. I also mean to carry on with this scribbling. I’d like to commit to paper some thoughts on cooking, as I’ve often been asked for recipes and advice but have seldom got round to putting anything on paper except notes as reminders to myself. I suppose it’s because I’ve long resisted any tendency to use formulae or scientific precision in cookery. To me, the food itself is the best way of conveying what I have in mind each time; the feelings can’t be adequately described in words. Moreover, I think there is a certain arrogance in precise recipes and I’m uncomfortable with laying down the law about how people should prepare their food.

  The day before yesterday, for instance, I sneaked a few figs into the chicken I was about to roast. I did it at the last moment because I had a sudden intuition that Anthony would appreciate the flavor of figs when he tasted the bird. Somehow I sensed it in his expression when he came trailing back from the tennis court. Sometimes I’m moved to cook snails in honey for the simple reason that I’ve seen bees buzzing in the sunshine; sometimes a bird singing on a branch will give me the idea of putting blackberries or currants in the sauce I’m preparing; sometimes the breeze billows the curtain over the little window in the corner and I think perhaps I’ll serve baked cinnamon pears with the veal I have in my hands. Why? Did the breeze waft me the scent of spices from distant lands? Did it bring me a message from someone who was thinking kind thoughts about me?

  How could I possibly put these feelings on paper without running the risk of spoiling the pleasure or revealing what should be discovered in peace.

  Admittedly, there are people who can write sensibly about food and cookery. I had no sooner arrived in England than I began to read Eliza Acton and I still enjoy glancing at the articles Elizabeth David writes in the Spectator. She is almost never pretentious or overly sentimental and doesn’t use words like succulent or sizzling, which I so despise. She seems to enjoy more freedom there than she did when she wrote for the Sunday Times. But as with everything else, this may just be my imagination.

  5

  Commercial College October 28, 1934

  Dear Father,

  Winter descended without warning. All at once it began to snow. We were out in the park and I called, “Joka, it’s starting to snow!” “Where?” asked Joka absentmindedly. “Look up at the sky,” I said, “can’t you see it’s starting to snow?” We chased the snowflakes for a while, then dashed across the street and hurried home beside the lake. A little boy came toward us crying that he was frightened of the snow. He was all alone. “I’m scared of it,” he said. “It comes from outer space.”

  We’re having a good time here in town. Yesterday we bought coats with black sealskin collars. They cost nearly 100 kronur. The sealskin was the cheapest (17.00 kronur a coat) and also the prettiest. Mrs. Olsen and I cooked trout yesterday, fried whole, and lit candles on the table. Everyone praised the trout; I could tell by their expressions how much they liked it.

  Mother has asked me twice now how I like the boys in my class. I suspect she’s getting worried that I never go out. You can tell her that I find them a bit silly. Though Jorunn probably wouldn’t agree.

  I bumped into Vilhjalmur Borg in the street the day before yesterday. He was with a young woman I didn’t recognize. He seemed rather drunk.

  Do you think he might have a drink problem, Father? I don’t think he noticed me, thank goodness.

  6

  I’m going to spend the night at Windermere where little Marilyn—or rather, Mrs. Marilyn Thomson as she should be called now—runs the Holbeck Ghyll country hotel with her husband. I wrote to her early in March, once it was obvious that I’d be making this trip, asking how things were going with her and hinting that I thought it was time we met up and renewed our friendship. It’s now many years since our relationship cooled but I have tried to forgive her, though perhaps she didn’t deserve it. She answered me by return of post, inviting me by all means to stay with her on my way to Leith. Although her letter was cautiously worded, I could detect the warmth behind it.

  The shadows are lengthening and lie like fallen trees across the narrow road leading to Holbeck Ghyll. I won’t mention a word about our quarrel when we meet, at least not unless she brings up the subject herself.

  I’ve always called her “little Marilyn” because she was barely twenty when she first came to work for us, a slim, small-boned creature, less developed than girls of her age are usually. Her surname was Stevens, if I remember right. For the first month she worked as a chambermaid, helping out with the washing and gardening. These are back-breaking jobs and the other girls spent their time off amusing themselves, usually by shopping or going into town to have some fun, playing bingo or cards, or attending dances. But Marilyn showed little interest in joining them, becoming instead a frequent visitor to my kitchen whenever she was free from her chores. At first she was unobtrusive but kept a close eye on whatever was happening at the stove. Soon this extended to lending me a hand with this and that. Her help was appreciated, as she was good-natured and genuinely interested.

  It is harder to find kitchen helpers than girls to do the cleaning (though I don’t want to detract from the importance of their job) and after a few months little Marilyn was employed full time in my realm. I think it only right that those who cook should be well acquainted with other kitchen tasks, so she spent the first few weeks washing up and tidying. In the following weeks she graduated to helping me prepare the food, washing and chopping vegetables, cleaning the meat, ensuring that the jars were kept stocked with spices and things like that. Each chore, however unexciting it might have seemed to others, was performed by her with meticulous care.

  She never complained about the work. I mention this particularly because there have been quite a number of girls who have given up after only a few weeks in my kitchen. Yet, I’m no tyrant, let me tell you. I have sometimes suggested they read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell when their self-pity has started to get the better of them. I myself got used to the pressure early on. My patrons, Sivertsen and Boulestin, spared no one, but I never complained. No, I have never been one for that.

  For six years little Marilyn was my right hand. I put myself out to teach her and couldn’t have asked for a better pupil. Before I knew it I no longer needed to instruct her. She anticipated my thoughts, reached for a pot before I could even ask for it, removed a basil leaf from a slice of tomato when I thought it unpresentable and replaced it with another one, all without my needing to say a word. We worked as one a
nd I can confidently claim that we felt comfortable in each other’s presence.

  But just when everything was going swimmingly the storm broke. It had long been my habit to greet the new day in the conservatory on the eastern side of the main house. The view over the meadows and the fields rolling off into the distance is lovely and I’ve even gotten used to seeing the two shacks on Helmsdale’s property across the brook, with their gray corrugated roofs and half-open doors into darkness. I hadn’t been sitting there for long that morning when Marilyn appeared in the doorway and took a seat beside me. It can’t have been more than quarter past six. The light settled like a thin dusting of snow across the landscape and we sat in silence side by side, enjoying the peace. I poured a cup of tea for her. It was then that she dropped the bombshell: “I’ve decided to get married.”

  Naturally, I was completely dumbfounded by this news. It was all I could do not to drop my cup on the floor. I had never seen her with a man and hadn’t thought it odd, since she seemed to stay at home when she wasn’t in the kitchen. She read, went for walks, tended the plants in the greenhouse. But now her voice sounded odd in my ears. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. In my agitation I blurted out, perhaps more harshly than I had intended: “You can’t be serious? You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  She was stunned and speechless, and realizing it would probably be sensible to change my tone, I tried to do so, adding: “Who is the man?”

  “William Thomson,” she replied curtly—actually, I think it was: “Mr. William Thomson.”

  Well, well, my dear, I said to myself. Next you’ll be calling him “sir.” But I bit my tongue and merely asked what he did. She explained that he was a market gardener from Windermere in the Lake District who had earned a good reputation for his produce. Marilyn had read about him in an article by Elizabeth David in the Spectator and got in touch with him shortly afterward when we urgently needed green peppers and other vegetables following a mishap in my greenhouse. Apparently they got on well together on the phone and talked regularly after that, until little Marilyn eventually went up north to Cumbria to visit him. For some reason I had been under the impression that she was going to stay with relatives.

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea? Do you think it’s sensible to marry a man you hardly know and move away to a place where you’ll be a complete stranger?”

  At that point she said she loved him.

  I couldn’t prevent myself from rolling my eyes at that and saying, “And you have a lot of experience in that field, do you?”

  She stood up. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears and her voice broke when she said, “I thought you would understand me. Of all the people I know, I thought you were the one I’d always be able to rely on.”

  Then she turned on her heel and left.

  “Marilyn!” I called after her. “Marilyn!” but she didn’t look back.

  The newly risen sun was beginning to warm the conservatory, but the tea was cold.

  When she took her leave of us a month later, I asked Anthony to give her a necklace which I had inherited from my maternal grandmother. I was in bed with a cold at the time and couldn’t bring myself to go down and see her off.

  7

  9 Gardast. October 17, 1935

  Dearest Mother,

  We’ve been back at school for one and a half weeks now. Our new classroom is sunnier and warmer than last year. It’s on the top floor and there’s a view out of the window from where we sit. We’re learning the same subjects as last year with the addition of commodities studies. It is unbelievably boring, but I don’t want to burden you by saying any more about that or about bookkeeping.

  I haven’t told you yet that the first thing I saw when the ship docked was Nuna. She waved and yelled, “Disa, are you back?” And dashed over to me as soon as I came ashore.

  “You’ve lost weight over the summer,” she said. “You’re almost unrecognizable.”

  Since then I’ve heard the same thing from several other people. This evening I’ll be able to pick up the hat that’s being altered. Joka went over to Hafnarfjordur to buy us slippers. Apparently, you can get really good shoes in Hafnarfjordur.

  Anyway, I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Do give my love to the girls.

  Love from,

  Your daughter Disa

  P.S. It’s true that I’ve started helping out in the kitchen at Hotel Borg. I completely forgot to tell you when I last wrote. I had a stroke of luck as Mrs. Olsen knows the chef, Mr. Sivertsen, who offered me work on Friday and Saturday evenings. I know I’m going to learn a lot from him. Last weekend fish soup and steak were on the menu. This Saturday there’s a banquet for some Danish officials who are on a visit here in town. Sivertsen is going to cook goose for them, with ptarmigan broth for the starter. I can’t wait.

  You mustn’t worry about this affecting my studies. Most of the other girls spend Friday and Saturday evenings at the cinema or skating.

  8

  I didn’t sleep a wink the night after little Marilyn left. Around midnight a storm blew up and the branches of the ancient poplar rapped against the gable of the house while the rain lashed my window. The poplar had always given me the impression that it was kindly disposed toward me, often seeming to acknowledge me when I was out for a walk, as if it knew me. All kinds of birds perched in its boughs and one summer I remember there being as many as three nests at once. The community was surprisingly a harmonious one. But now as the tree beat relentlessly against the house, I was filled with unease, for it suddenly felt as if someone was in desperate need of my help.

  There had been a coolness between Marilyn and me ever since our talk in the conservatory and as I lay awake I began to wonder whether I had been unjust to her. Had I reacted out of jealousy? I asked myself. Was I inconsiderate to her? Should I have congratulated her instead of trying to make her see that what she thought was love would only bring her unhappiness in the long run? I sat up in bed and asked myself again: was there something else behind my words which I couldn’t put my finger on?

  I tried to keep calm but the noise of the storm frightened me and I thought I saw lightning flicker in the gap between the curtains. Shortly afterward I heard a distant clap of thunder. I resolved to think over the chain of events objectively as if I had been a bystander, uninvolved. I came to the same conclusion as before: that my reaction had above all been motivated by concern for her, though I couldn’t hide the fact that I might also have been thinking of myself. She had been closer to me than almost anyone else, and I couldn’t contemplate how I would manage without her. I had taken care of her as if she was my own daughter. Which is why I felt she had been so inconsiderate to spring such a decision on me out of the blue.

  No, there was no doubt that she had let me down, and I made sure she was aware of the fact, deliberately saying to Sean Truelove in her hearing: “Some people think about no one but themselves.”

  Shortly afterward she offered to stay longer. I turned down her offer, saying I didn’t want to cause her any further inconvenience.

  All things considered, I believe I treated her honorably, though I might have been a bit sharp on a couple of occasions. I really do believe that it was with her welfare in mind that I reacted as I did. At least, I hope so.

  So passed the night after her departure. Toward morning the wind dropped and at daybreak I put on my dressing gown and opened the window. I was exhausted but the breeze was too warm to refresh me. I went down to the kitchen and lit a cigarillo to calm my mind. The sunlight crept toward me across the floor and I walked to meet it, opening the door and stepping outside. A pleasant scent rose from the earth after the rain, and the grass had turned green overnight. A bird flew by with a caterpillar in its beak and vanished from sight behind the east wing.

  I walked over to the poplar and leaned against it, my head still full of the night’s preoccupations. As always, the tree’s presence was soothing, but this time I felt as if there was something it wanted
to say to me.

  9

  9 Gardast. March 12, 1936

  Dearest Mother,

  I went back down to the telephone exchange yesterday, but gave up after an hour. They still hadn’t got through to Kopasker.

  As you can imagine, I haven’t been able to think about anything else since our conversation. You mustn’t think that I’m ungrateful to you and Father for having fixed me up with a job at the bank. I know it wasn’t easy and don’t doubt that many other girls would welcome the job. But after long thought and many sleepless nights I have come to the same decision as before.

  It would do no one any favors if I turned my back on my existing plans to go abroad and learn more about cookery. Mr. Sivertsen said yesterday that he was sure I would get a place at either the Angleterre in Copenhagen or at his friend’s restaurant in London. Just think, Mother: Copenhagen or London! I was so excited that I flung my arms round his neck and kissed him right on the cheek. He has been terribly kind and considerate to me. And he’s expecting an answer very soon.

  Don’t be angry with me, Mother. Please don’t, because you know how much I care about you and Father.

  Love from,

  Disa

  10

  Father looked exhausted. He was first down the gangway, stopping midway to peer around, but didn’t see me even though I was standing no more than ten yards away from him, waving. He looked desperately tired, and didn’t move on until the woman behind nudged him and whispered something in his ear.