The Journey Home: A Novel

by Olaf Olafsson

  “In the sight of your Maker,” as Mother was in the habit of saying to us children when we did something to displease her. “Disa, don’t use such language. You sully your soul in the sight of your Maker. What behavior, children. What a way to behave in the sight of your Maker.”

  That gaze never seemed far away when I was a child. Sometimes it dogged my heels or lay in wait, ever ready to be shocked by me. Or rather: ever hoping I would offend it.

  When I was in my teens I began to regard it as arrogant and haughty, proud and even prudish. I sometimes saw its owner in my mind: an old man sitting on a bench throwing breadcrumbs to pigeons and starlings, taking offense when the birds fought over the crumbs at his feet.

  As the years passed I thought of that gaze less often. I didn’t think much about death or the end either because I was carefree, both when Jorunn and I lived in Reykjavik and later when I sailed to England. Then the gaze of my Maker left me in peace, as did his justice—his justice which is nothing but punishment, his love which is nothing but contempt, his touch which is a blow, his mercy which is death. Then my Maker left me in peace and threw his breadcrumbs to other small birds, contentedly watching them at his feet. The days were bright and the nights warm as a cloak mantling the soul. No one reprimanded me and there was no shadow of a premonition on my mind.

  “Mors est quies viatoris,” his clowns whisper to us, death is rest to the traveler. “Pie Iesu domine dona eis requiem.” Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Anthony weeps when he repeats these words in your church because he knows that he is not pleasing in your eyes. “Mors est quies,” but after life there is nothing, though your charlatans never tire of their salesmanship, forever tempting the gullible with the promise of eternity.

  And so I was free from your kiss which burns and your sheltering hand which is always ready to strike, and so I was free until the day I rang Mother and told her that Jakob and I were engaged. That night your gaze chased me from dream to dream, accusatory, vengeful.

  When I woke with a jolt in the middle of the night, weak with emotion, it stared into my face. I met the look and suddenly recognized it. In an instant the veil was stripped away. It was the gaze of my mother. That was what had pursued me all those years.

  Self-pity doesn’t help anyone, nothing can be undone, nothing changed. The candle burns and its flame, slender and feeble, gropes for a purchase in the darkness before guttering and dying. We guess what lies behind the door but ask no questions. We take delight in a sunbeam on a windowpane and fear the night. Fate, we say, instead of looking into our own hearts.

  I took a painkiller half an hour ago which is making it difficult to concentrate. My fingers are cramped round the medicine bottle but slide apart without my being able to control them. I can see the book Help Yourself; I know it’s this book, even though it’s a blur and I can’t read the letters.

  In Bath, just by the Pulteney Bridge over the Avon, there was a little quay hung with pretty lanterns. There were also seats beside the lanterns where one could rest one’s tired legs; I remember that older people in particular used to sit there, people who had retired and perhaps had nothing else to do but watch the river flowing by. But I also have an impression of young people walking hand in hand along the quayside in the twilight, putting their heads together and whispering to one another. The young people didn’t mind when it rained, seeming when the first drops fell to enjoy the dash for cover under the leafy canopy of trees in the park.

  After David had received confirmation that Jakob and his parents were in Buchenwald, I went alone to Somerset to fetch my belongings. They weren’t anything special, just clothes and books, and fitted easily into a couple of medium-sized suitcases. I left the rest behind so that Jakob and I could return for it later.

  Anthony joined me in the evening and we went to Bath together just as the lamps were being lit. There were fewer people than usual down by the river, as there was a nippy wind coming off the water and the awnings hung forlornly over the seats, while the light from the lanterns didn’t seem as comforting as before. Anthony tried again to make me change my mind about going home to Iceland.

  “You can live with me,” he said. “There’s enough room, after all. It won’t be long before he comes back.”

  But his words were only wishful thinking, and the wind snatched them from his lips and blew them away before I was ready to answer. He knew I couldn’t stay there any longer. Everything reminded me of Jakob.

  “Without him . . .” I began, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “You know you’re always welcome.”

  “I’ll come when they let him go. Until then, I’ll stay in Iceland.”

  “Then you’ll both come.”

  “Then we’ll both come.”

  The train to London rattled along as if nothing had happened, hooting now and then in the night as if to leave behind a memorial to something that would never return. I was too tired to sleep, too listless to feel any pain. Why did I let him go? Why didn’t I beg him to stay?

  Fortunately, the train was nearly empty but I can still remember my compartment after all these years. Every tiny detail is engraved on my mind. I can even see the split seam in the seat in front of me, running right across the seat so that the stuffing bulged out in the middle. The seat was red.

  When we arrived in London it was snowing. I was caught unprepared.

  Did I expect to see him again? I don’t know, can’t work out when I gave up hope, don’t know whether I ever really succeeded in deceiving myself completely.

  All people knew about Buchenwald then was that it was a prison camp. The truth about concentration camps came later. When I tried to imagine the prison camp I generally saw Jakob doing hard labor and convinced myself that he would be able to bear it as he was strong and healthy, both mentally and physically. Gradually, however, this image faded as rumors began to circulate, each more horrific than the last. But by then I was in Iceland and there is no point recalling them now when they are common knowledge.

  We had a bad crossing home on the Bruarfoss and I spent most of the voyage lying below deck, throwing up. I kept seeing Jakob before me as he looked when we said good-bye at the airport. In my delirium he would sometimes change into a shadow and then I would jolt upright with the reek of wet clothing in my nostrils and a fog before my eyes. Father had promised to come to Reykjavik to meet me and I tried not to think of anything but his embrace and the smile of my sister Joka whom I had missed so much. From time to time I must have been delirious because the captain later said that he had been worried about me. On second thought, I believe the delirium did me good, deadening the suffering and making time pass more quickly.

  I was bed-bound for a week after my homecoming. It was comforting staying with my sister Joka and her husband, Gunnar, and the chirping of Helga, their three-month-old daughter, cheered me up. Father spent the first days with me but then he had to go back up north to see his patients. Before he said good-bye, he arranged a job for me at number 56 Fjolugata with Bolli Haraldsson, the bank manager, and his wife, Gudrun. Gudrun was an invalid, he said, she suffered from depression which had grown worse since their son went abroad.

  “She must be pretty frail,” he said. “They need a cook.”

  “Will I be living in?”

  “Just while you’re getting back into shape, Disa dear. Later you can always get a job with Sivertsen at Hotel Borg. When you feel up to it.”

  He didn’t know Dr. Bolli himself but Vilhjalmur Borg spoke well of him, he said.

  When I was back on my feet, I took up the habit of smoking cigarillos for comfort. I went for daily walks to regain my strength, sometimes to Mrs. Olsen, but more often down to the harbor to gaze out to sea. Most days were gray but once or twice the wintry sun shone in a cloudless sky and it was possible to look forward to seeing the moon in the evening. Cigarillos, ten to a packet. I restricted myself to smoking no more than five a day to give myself something to look forward to.

  After a
month had passed, I rang Father and told him that I was ready to start work. By the following day he had given notice of my arrival at number 56 Fjolugata.

  Now we are sailing the waves which I used to gaze at from the harbor in the old days, when I would smoke cigarillos and blow the smoke out into the indifferent breeze. Mount Esja is drawing near and so are the cathedral, the Catholic church on the hill and the warehouses down by the harbor. I have a premonition of the smell of tar and sacking as we draw closer. The gulls soar around the ship as if they have received some secret intelligence of a catch. They have the sense to keep quiet about it.

  My fellow passengers are mostly under the weather following last night’s revelry. A young man, who claims to be a great singer, won the bet despite the fact that fog hid the land from sight all night. At some time during the first watch he claimed that he could smell Iceland and the captain confirmed that land would have been sighted a few minutes earlier if there hadn’t been a fog. Hallgrimur Palsson celebrated. The singer belted out “Oh blessed art thou summer sun” and offered those still standing whiskey and gin. I slipped away to my cabin, climbed into bed and turned my face to the wall.

  But now no one is singing; they are red of eye and pale of cheek. A man from first class who has been sleeping with a girl from second class for the whole trip, now pretends he doesn’t know her, as his wife is waiting for him on the docks with their two daughters. They are all wearing red hats and wave to the ship as we approach. He is a bit sheepish as he waves back. And the learned Dr. Palsson is silent at last as he greets his parents. Perhaps he now regrets not having taken my advice.

  I take a taxi to Hotel Borg where I intend to stay while I’m in Iceland.

  “Asdis Jonsdottir,” says the girl at reception. “Six nights.”

  When I open the door to my room I feel an indescribable emptiness.

  13

  Later I couldn’t remember whether it was the bowl of apples I noticed first or the shaft of sunlight falling on them between the thick curtains. I hadn’t seen such beautiful apples since leaving England, red and shiny like precious gems. I yearned to touch them and moved closer to the table where the bowl stood on a round, yellow cloth but stopped at the last moment and made do with reaching out my hand and grasping at the sunbeam. A shadow fell on the apples in the dim drawing room and I instantly whipped back my hand in order to see them shine anew.

  It was then that a voice spoke behind me: “They’ll rot too, if they’re forgotten.”

  I wasn’t startled because the voice was gentle and amiable. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief, inspecting them absentmindedly, then instead of putting them back on, twisted them between his fingers, clockwise and counterclockwise in turn.

  “It’s getting dark,” he said eventually and switched on the lamp beside the bowl. “These long, dark winter nights.”

  I was about to point out that it would still be light if he were to draw back the heavy curtains, but thought better of it.

  “I woke to the snow buntings this morning,” he continued. “They had found some treat in the garden after last night’s rain. I enjoy watching them, so I went out on to the balcony in the dawn breeze to get a better view. Poor things,” he said finally, then fell silent, putting an end to these ramblings. He invited me to sit down but remained standing himself, rubbing his glasses with the handkerchief while pacing up and down, obviously out of habit.

  “The winter has a bad effect on my wife. Apart from the Advent season, of course, when she always takes part in the Christmas preparations. Rushes round the house, making sure all the rooms are decorated, and lighting candles from dawn to dusk. She does her bit when it comes to baking and making leaf-bread too and the house is filled with the smell day after day. With a smile on her lips, my dear, a smile on her lips.”

  He fell silent before adding: “But now Christmas is over. And some people find the winter months slow to pass.”

  He was stocky without being precisely fat, jollier than in the photographs in the newspapers. His eyes were shrewd but at the same time distant, his hair gray at the temples and his hands more delicate than his build would suggest.

  “You had better know straightaway that my wife rarely leaves her room in the winter. On bad days she stays in bed but when she’s feeling better she sits by the doors to the balcony, which has a view over the bay. She’s from the west of the country. She likes to watch the sea. You should know all about that,” he added with a smile, “a girl from Kopasker.”

  I nodded and muttered something about understanding what he meant.

  “We have to make sure that she eats, as generally she doesn’t have much appetite. The maid does what she can but she only knows the absolute basics. I’m hoping that better food will help restore her health. In fact, I’m sure it will.”

  He fell silent and inspected the reflection in his glasses; it was as if he didn’t quite know how to finish his description of life in the household. Just as it looked as if he was about to continue, a voice called down from upstairs.

  “Bolli! Come here! Oh, Bolli . . .” The voice lifted on the final syllable.

  He started, then without seeming unduly agitated asked me to excuse him and went out. I heard his slow, even tread going up the stairs to the first floor where he knocked lightly on a door before opening it and saying, “My dear . . .”

  I glanced round at the heavy furniture, a sofa covered with red velvet and two chairs belonging to the same set, a mahogany table and vase of flowers, a stuffed eagle and a painting of a woman holding a book. She was delicate and pretty but I sensed the sadness in her eyes. Just as I was walking over to the picture, a girl entered the room. Small, brisk, no more than about twenty.

  “That’s the mistress,” she said, adding in explanation, “in the picture. When she was young.”

  Then she introduced herself as Maria, the family maid.

  “My name’s Asdis. How do you do?”

  She inspected me for a moment, then darted to the mahogany table and seized a half-empty glass of sherry which had been left on top of a magazine.

  “He’ll never finish this,” she said as if to herself. “It’s been here since yesterday evening.”

  She wiped the dust off the table with the corner of her apron, then said good-bye, wishing me luck.

  Outside, the sun went behind a cloud and a shadow settled on the bowl of apples, despite the lamp on the table beside it. It was as if the glow was absorbed by the bowl without illuminating it. The gleam disappeared from the apples and I almost took the fact to heart. Then the clouds parted again and the late afternoon sun darted between the curtains, bathing the apples and my mood with light.

  “It doesn’t take much either way,” I said to myself.

  Shortly afterward Dr. Bolli came downstairs. This time he made sure that the drawing room door closed properly behind him.

  “Once I had a meeting with some men who were complete strangers to me,” he began. “But when I sat down at my desk opposite them, I felt as if I had met them all before. I felt as if I had sat opposite them at the same desk, in the same chair, at the same time of day to discuss the same things. I even imagined I had heard them utter the same words and seen them make the same movements. Suddenly, I had a premonition that one of them had a gold front tooth. He had sat in silence until then and I became impatient to see him open his mouth. I remembered a joke I had recently read in Icelandic Humor and decided to repeat it, though I don’t usually make jokes while I’m working. He smiled at first without revealing his teeth, then roared with laughter along with the others and the gold glittered in his mouth. I thought I was going mad and spent the rest of the meeting in a state. Later I remembered what my dear old grandmother used to say when I was a boy: The mind of man is a great labyrinth. Oh yes, so it is. And it is easier to judge others than to know oneself.”

  There was a sound of voices outside the room. He listened but remained where he was. After a moment, there was a knock at the door
and Maria popped in her head without waiting for an answer.

  “The Minister’s here,” she announced. “He’s waiting in the study.”

  “Take him some coffee, would you? I’ll be along in a moment.”

  “Well, Asdis.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to know about me, sir? You haven’t asked me anything.”

  He smiled.

  “No need for titles. We’re not so formal in this household. I know all I need to know. Vilhjalmur told you about the wages and conditions, didn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “If you’d like the job . . .”

  “I’d be very grateful.”

  “. . . then Maria will show you your room and all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen. Your room catches the sun in the mornings and so does the kitchen. Even in the autumn. You can start on Monday . . . unless it would suit you better to begin earlier. Superstition, you see . . . But it’s up to you.”

  “It would suit me to start on Monday,” I replied.

  He held out his hand to me and I stood up to shake it. Then he was gone.

  When I emerged on to the street it had begun to snow. The wind had also blown up and whirled the snow around my legs. A little way from the house I looked back over my shoulder. In a window on the top floor I glimpsed a face watching me. It was as white as the snow and vanished as soon as my eye fell on it.

  The snow covered my tracks on the pavement.

  I didn’t see the mistress of the house for the first three weeks. Maria arrived in the mornings and left in the evenings, sometimes late if Dr. Bolli had guests. She also had a little attic room for her use if she chose to stay over, but this rarely happened as the room was inadequately heated. She delivered messages to me from the mistress, usually verbally but occasionally in little notes. The mistress had elegant handwriting. The messages were mostly about cooking. She asked me, for example, to get in touch with two ship’s captains who she knew could get hold of goods unavailable in the shops, and a Dane who lived in Hafnarfjordur and provided the Danish embassy with various luxuries. I noticed that her appetite grew from day to day; sometimes her plates would come back empty on good days, usually when the sun was out. Then she would also put records on the gramophone in her room, generally Mozart or Verdi. “La Forza del Destino” was a particular favorite. Maria said that she had praised the food and was looking forward to meeting me but wasn’t quite ready yet. I didn’t ask any questions.