The Journey Home: A Novel

by Olaf Olafsson

  “I’d completely forgotten that I’ve got to go to a funeral on Saturday. Would you be a dear and answer the phone for me while I’m out? I’ll be back by three.”

  I was overcome and all at once the weather seemed even drearier. Who would give that piece of old junk a second glance, even if it was useful once, before the Great War? But I didn’t like to say this to her after all she had done for me.

  When I told Jakob I wouldn’t be able to come, he could hear my disappointment at once. So it shouldn’t have been necessary for me to repeat myself so often.

  “We’ll just have to go another time,” he said. “Good luck with the sale.”

  I thanked him.

  “By the way, what did you say she was trying to sell?”

  “An ancient Vactrix vacuum cleaner.”

  “A Vactrix? I say!”

  We both laughed.

  Mrs. Brown went out at midday on Saturday. She had hardly moved from the phone all morning but of course it had remained silent.

  “Perhaps there’s something wrong with it,” she kept saying, picking up the receiver to make sure she could hear the tone.

  “I don’t understand this at all.”

  She had just left when the phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin, as I had been preoccupied with thoughts of the concert I was missing, but had recovered my composure by the time I answered.

  “Good afternoon,” said a squeaky male voice. “Am I right in thinking that you are advertising an electric Vactrix vacuum cleaner?”

  I said he was.

  “What luck. I’ve been looking out for a Vactrix in a good condition for months. It’s as good as new, is it?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “There’s hardly a scratch on it.”

  “What luck,” he repeated. “And what do you want for it?”

  I mentioned the price that Mrs. Brown had said, but was quick to add that I was prepared to be accommodating if necessary.

  “Only four pounds and three shillings!” he exclaimed. “I hardly like to pay so little. Wouldn’t five pounds be more like it?”

  “That would be even better,” I said. “If you would prefer . . .”

  “We’re agreed, then. Five pounds. I much prefer that. Five pounds. When can I fetch it?”

  “Whenever you like.”

  “Now?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Good. I’ll be along shortly. I don’t live far away.”

  Shortly afterward there was a knock at the door.

  “He didn’t take long to arrive,” I thought to myself. “Mrs. Brown will be pleased when she comes home.” I had formed a mental picture of the buyer, a small man in his sixties, bald apart from a few straggling white hairs at the sides perhaps, with kind eyes. And this was what I was expecting when I opened the front door.

  “Jakob!”

  “I was just passing.”

  I didn’t want to show how pleased I was to see him but knew he couldn’t help noticing.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at the concert now?”

  “I would rather see you. I bought us lunch on the way. I hope you haven’t eaten already ?”

  He was carrying a paper bag and I automatically leaned over the threshold to peep inside. Fruit, cheese, bread, paté and red wine.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “No,” I answered, finally coming to my senses sufficiently to invite him in.

  Sitting at the little round table in the room which overlooked the square, we cut slices of pear and cheese to put on the bread and poured ourselves glasses of wine. Naturally, I forgot all about the vacuum cleaner and the little old man I had been waiting for, forgot him completely until Jakob said, “How are you getting on with selling the Vactrix vacuum cleaner?”

  I was startled.

  “He should have been here by now,” I said, as if to myself.

  “Who?”

  I told him about the funny old man and the five pounds he had insisted on paying for the thing.

  “Really? What was his name?”

  I realized I had never asked his name.

  “Young?”

  “No, getting on. At least, from what I could hear.”

  “Rather a squeaky voice?”

  I nodded.

  “Like this?”

  He altered his voice, sounding just like the old man on the phone. “In good condition? What luck. But four pounds and three shillings is nothing. Five, at least five pounds. I couldn’t pay any less . . . ’ ”

  “Jakob!” I cried, leaping up. “Shame on you!”

  He dodged, shaking with laughter, and I chased him: “You tricked me . . . shame on you!” I shook him in high spirits and he put his arms round me playfully to restrain me. I struggled in his embrace and he crushed me against him until our lips met.

  I couldn’t tear myself away from him, unwilling to let this indescribable sense of well-being slip from my grasp.

  I should have sensed that I was being warned. It should have been obvious to me, as I don’t believe in coincidences and Dr. Kivan’s farce must have been a bad omen. It would have been enough to have thanked him for his help, said good-bye and hurried home instead of sitting down with him in a café and losing myself in a treacherous happiness.

  Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had listened when Mrs. Brown said: “I know it’s none of my business but he’s Jewish, isn’t he?”

  The end seemed inevitable, obvious even on the evening he proposed to me. If only I had remembered Dr. Kivan at that moment and the Icelandic dwarf which he persuaded people to believe was a monster, I would have understood that this was what the world had come to and everything would have been different. Everything.

  Boulestin said little at first when I plucked up the courage to tell him that I was going to move to the country and stay there for the next few months.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “A summer cottage not far from Bath,” I answered, without mentioning the fact that I intended to live there with Jakob.

  He looked at me in silence for a while; I could see he was putting two and two together. However, he was too discreet to mention Jakob. Instead he said: “Maybe the work is too difficult for you.”

  I was so hurt and angry that I couldn’t utter a word.

  “If it is,” he continued, “there’s no hope of your ever being able to run a restaurant. It’s not enough to show promise.”

  I was on the verge of answering him back but fortunately had the sense to bite back the words.

  “When are you going?”

  “In three weeks.”

  “Try to use them well,” he said. “You won’t learn anything about cooking once you’ve left town.”

  That he should dare to insinuate that I couldn’t handle the work! I decided to show him what I was made of and refused to take a single day off during my last few weeks.

  “Isn’t this going a bit far?” asked Mrs. Brown, who knew what was going on.

  “No one tells me that I can’t cope with hard work,” I answered.

  Boulestin pretended hardly to notice me during those last days but now I suspect he was amused by my obstinacy. In fact, I’m sure he was.

  Jakob tried to make me change my mind but I lost my temper with him. He was light-hearted in those days as he had just finished his doctoral thesis and was at last free to enjoy himself. He had taken on some proofreading for the University Press and was looking forward to getting out into the country. At first his happiness made me even grumpier but before I knew it I had started to laugh at his teasing.

  I am ashamed to recall what a simpleton I was in those days, how blind I was. Of course, I loved Jakob more than words can tell, but what is love but a quest for disappointment? I was blind when I took leave of Mrs. Brown with a long embrace. Blind when I lied to my mother that I was going to Somerset for Boulestin.

  Blind.

  When we got talking after dinner, the first engineer began to enthuse about the car I had arrived in. He
was clearly surprised that I should know anything about it, though I explained to him that this was quite by chance. It was obvious that he was very keen on machines and cars and he embarked on a rather lengthy description of the spare parts and carburetors he had bought while in port. I nodded out of politeness as he was a nice chap. When he turned the conversation to the Gullfoss’s engines and invited me down to the engine room, I didn’t know what else to do but go with him.

  We were down there for some time and I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself. The engines roared with a confidenceinspiring steadiness, unaffected by the whims of the world, by disasters or changes of mood. The smell of oil mingled with sea salt, filling me with courage.

  As we emerged from the engine room, we were greeted by the clinking of glasses and crockery, and an unpleasant reek of smoke. The engineer invited me to sit with him in the smoking saloon and I couldn’t really do anything but accompany him, even though I had no interest in consorting with the people sitting in there. Supper had passed without strain as I had the good luck to end up between two Danes who spoke neither Icelandic nor English. To make things easier for myself I lied to them at the beginning of the meal that I didn’t speak Danish. They were therefore perfectly agreeable dinner companions.

  Now, however, I was defenseless. We had no sooner entered the saloon than the engineer began to introduce me to one passenger after another. Till now I had managed to keep myself to myself, avoiding having anything to do with any of them, but now there was no escape. No doubt he thought he was doing me a favor, assuming that my lack of sociability stemmed from shyness.

  “She knows about cars,” he said more often than once to break the ice. Unfortunately, he was successful.

  “Cars, hee hee,” tittered a young woman with a pale complexion and a white hat, her long fingers toting a cigarette-holder, which made them seem even thinner and whiter. The man with her began a long monologue about a Studebaker he apparently meant to buy shortly. I bore with the conversation which followed his declaration, trying to show the proper politeness so that the engineer wouldn’t think I was arrogant. All the same, I guessed from his expression that he read my mind and sympathized. But perhaps it was only my imagination. He took me to a table in the corner and asked whether I wasn’t in need of refreshment after all this car talk. Then he turned to wave to a waiter.

  I had no sooner sat down than the doctor of medieval literature slumped down in the chair opposite me. There was something about his manner which I didn’t like, a pathetic look that I hadn’t noticed before and couldn’t put my finger on but which immediately put my back up.

  “I’m finished,” he announced to me, continuing to drain his glass. “Finished,” he repeated. “Fini.”

  “That’s a shame,” I answered, instead of keeping my mouth shut.

  “Three years in Copenhagen and two in Edinburgh. And my father and mother think I’ve taken my exams. They think I’m the best-educated man in Iceland.”

  “And that you’ve discovered the author of Egil’s Saga, isn’t that so?”

  I looked around. The engineer had disappeared. I would have to wait.

  “My father’s a fisherman. He’s a fisherman,” he repeated, mumbling into his glass. “A fisherman,” as if he had only just realized the fact.

  The waiter brought me a glass of sherry.

  “Ingolfur will be back in a moment. He just had to step up to the bridge.”

  “My mother works in a bakery. I’m the eldest. Siggi is twenty and my sister Edda was confirmed this spring. They’re all going to meet me on the docks. All of them. And my father will put his fist on my shoulder and say: ‘we’re proud of you, my boy.’ ‘Dr. Hallgrimur Palsson,’ my mother will say solemnly. ‘Soon to be professor.’ ”

  He laughed, then his face crumpled and he began to sob.

  “I haven’t completed a single exam in the last three years.”

  He was sorry for himself. My goodness, was he sorry for himself.

  “And they’ve scrimped and saved. All these years they’ve been saving up.”

  There were two couples sitting at the next table. I noticed that the women were eavesdropping.

  “I’m going to drown myself tonight. I’m going to throw myself overboard before we get home.”

  His declaration clearly worried the women at the next table. They nudged their husbands. But I had had enough.

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “What are you waiting for?”

  He looked stunned.

  “I’m going to drown myself,” he repeated. “Put an end to my life.”

  His voice was slurred but he managed nevertheless to pronounce “put an end to my life” with something approaching solemnity.

  “Yes, well, shouldn’t you be getting a move on? The weather’s fine and the sea’s calm. Not bad weather for killing yourself.”

  I stood up. He looked like a dog which had just been kicked.

  “How could you say that? How could you say that to me?” The couples at the next table put their heads together. I guessed what they were whispering when I saw their expressions. But what did they know? What experience did they have of boys like this?

  I knew what sort of person I had been sitting with. I knew the type.

  12

  Franz Himmelfarb owned two factories, one in Berlin, the other in Düsseldorf. He also owned a book shop which stocked antiquarian and rare books, an abattoir, a partnership in a newspaper, and a firm selling umbrellas and sunshades.

  “Of course they’re rich,” said Mrs. Brown. “They’re Jewish.”

  Jakob had little interest in his father’s business and seldom mentioned it.

  “The only difference between an umbrella and a sunshade is the color,” he once said. “No doubt Father would be delighted if the Lord were to invent something new for people to shelter from.”

  I never met his parents but judging from photographs Jakob was the image of his father. Yet he had his mother’s mouth—a beautiful woman with large eyes and wavy hair. I once asked him about their religion.

  “They have assimilated,” he answered, smiling. “They have the same representative to the Almighty as you—old Luther.”

  As for himself, he said he believed in the sun, moon and stars.

  His doctoral thesis was on Blake’s poetry.

  I care not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care

  Is whether he is a Wise Man or a Fool.

  Go! put off Holiness,

  And put on Intellect.

  How impressive it sounded when he quoted it. The Great War was the result of stupidity and misunderstanding, he explained, not wickedness, treachery or cunning. “Wretched fools,” he said of the Continental heads of state, “cockerels who competed to see who could crow loudest on their dunghills until they could no longer avoid clashing.” And that’s how it had always been—since history began—though ignorant historians did their utmost to define the lunacy in terms of good and evil.

  We were sitting out on the veranda under a blue tarpaulin which we had hung over it shortly after our arrival. It began to rain but we remained dry and unconcerned under the canvas, watching the drops forming rivulets along the gutters in the road, and the dusk falling silently over the valley. Jakob leaned back in his chair, the song of his typewriter silenced, the hare which I had bought that morning cooking in a pot on the primitive stove. We feared nothing under that blue canopy, nothing whatsoever. Wars and battles belonged to history and there was little danger of them being repeated here.

  Steam rose from the earth after the rain. He put his arms around me, his eyes large and brown, his fingers long and tender on my breasts.

  “Out here?” I asked.

  “Show him the way,” he whispered.

  “Here?”

  “Stroke him . . . Show him the way . . .”

  Brown eyes, I think, though sometimes I seem to see other eyes staring at me when I try to remember him. Sometimes all I can see is his silhouette in my mind. So
metimes just his beret with no face under it. Then I become afraid and sit up in bed with a jerk. “Anthony,” I call, but have forgotten what I meant to say to him by the time he comes to me with the sleep still in his eyes.

  It was a warm spring. We generally sat outside on the veranda in the late afternoon, waiting for dusk to fall on the day’s efforts. I remember once hearing laughter carried to us from somewhere in the valley. This was at the end of May. We both listened as the wind wafted it over to us in intermittent waves which were sometimes difficult to pick up. It was like listening to a tune from a hurdy-gurdy man carried a long distance on the breeze. The wind would drop for a moment and nothing could be heard, so I thought the girl had stopped (we were both convinced it was a girl laughing), then at that moment the wind would change direction and without warning the laughter would sound again.

  “She laughs like you, Disa.”

  “I don’t laugh like that.”

  “Exactly the same.”

  “Me?”

  “Just that sort of rippling laughter.”

  “Not like that.”

  Jakob imitated the laugh: “Tee, hee, heeheehee . . .”

  “I don’t laugh like that.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  The breeze caressed our cheeks and the night drew its blanket over us. We embraced again and again, unable to be apart, his breath was my breath, his heart beat in my breast.

  The following morning I went to the telephone exchange in Paulton to ring my mother. It was sunny when I set off but by the time I reached the outskirts of the village it had begun to rain. I was cycling and hadn’t brought a coat, so I was soaked to the skin in a matter of seconds. There was no wind but the raindrops were big and heavy and my dress soon clung to my body. By the road into the village there was a small church and I remember the vicar standing in the doorway as I cycled past. I think he waved to me with a smile. I also remember the butcher, a friend of mine, standing cheerfully at the window of his shop as I coasted past, but perhaps that is just my imagination. I enjoyed the feel of the rain on my face, which was red and hot after the sunshine of the last few days.