Far Afield

by Susanna Kaysen

  “Why do you say that?” Jonathan asked, putting him back into a standing position.

  Jón Hendrik just said it again, like a bird with only one call.

  “He wants to know why, Great-Grandpa,” said Heðin. Then he covered his eyes with both hands and said, “Oh, God.” He sat down on the sand.

  Petur came into view, lugging a sack of whale meat. “Go get your meat,” he told them.

  Heðin stood up again. “Come on,” he said to Jonathan. “We’ll get Grandpa’s meat too.” He put his hand on Jonathan’s back for support. “I feel terrible,” he confided.

  Jonathan felt terrible too, and the sight of dozens of butchered whales didn’t help. Nor was he especially eager for a sack of whale meat; one steak would be enough for his taste. But because Petur had speared the first whale, and because the grind was a large one, and because Jonathan was considered an honorary member of the Dahl family, he got a sack so full he had to drag it behind him on the sand. Heðin was dragging two. Jonathan was glad to see Sigurd standing beside the car on the road above the harbor; at least they wouldn’t have to haul a hundred pounds of whale through the whole village.

  It all went into the trunk, and Jón Hendrik was coaxed into the back seat with Heðin. Jonathan was about to get into the front when Petur said, “No, no, you come back on the boat with us.”

  “I don’t want to go back on the boat.” Jonathan was too tired to mince words.

  “It’ll be good for you,” said Petur.

  Jonathan looked wistfully into the car, where Heðin and Jón Hendrik were already settled in, napping. Then he watched Sigurd try to start the car with the skeleton key that opened his shop and figured he might be better off with Petur.

  Jens Símun was bailing out the boat with an empty red-cabbage can, rather small for the job. But he had another one, which he thrust into Jonathan’s hands. They bailed while Petur checked over the oars, looking for damage from yesterday’s battle. “Okay,” he said after about ten minutes. They cast off into the fjord.

  The ocean was calm and their progress easy. Peter and Jens Símun, intent on their work, rowed without speaking. Jonathan sat shivering in the stern; he slid his hands up in his sleeves and huddled into his slicker.

  Silence: even the oars slicing the water and the water breaking on land were silent. The boat slipped along the sea between the gray cliffs of Húsavík, leaving far behind the beach where kittiwakes and gulls reeled above the carcasses. Dead ahead, the sun loomed at the mouth of the fjord, clear of the water now but still blurred by sea fog. On they went, a dot in all that gray vastness, the hooked prow of the boat cutting straight through the chill swirls of mist and murk.

  Jonathan’s head was heavy, and despite the cold he felt himself drifting into sleep. He had the rare sensation of falling—as if “falling asleep” were a simple description of an action. He was tumbling down a long dark shaft, sometimes floating, sometimes plummeting, and the deeper he fell, the lighter grew his hold on consciousness. And then, in a peculiar reversal, he seemed to be rising, or, rather, rising and falling simultaneously. His body dropped down deeper—he could actually see it sinking—and his mind, reawakened, shot up to the top of the shaft, where a circle of light beckoned. With a rush he popped out into the sky.

  Below him the boat lay in the water with three forms in it, two rowing, one still. That still one was himself, but he had no feeling for it. Whatever his essential self was, it was in the sky and rising higher with gusts of speed that made him dizzy but thrilled him. He soared into darkness, above the range of the sun. The whole fjord ran silver under his eyes, flanked and banked by rock that pressed the water out to sea. He could see the tug of the tide below the waves, the shoals where cod lay sleeping. He rose another notch, up to the clouds, through whose veils islands glimmered brown and gray, long Streymoy, tiny Mykines, and his home, Sandoy.

  Jonathan knew he had seen this before. The effort he made to remember when dislodged him from his vantage point, and with sickening suddenness he was back in the boat, jerking awake on the wooden seat.

  “Fell asleep, didn’t you,” said Petur. “That’s good.”

  He had seen it from the airplane, when he’d first arrived: the patchwork of land and sea, the dot of a boat on a fjord. But then the scene had been static and impenetrable, like a painting, and like a painting, too, provoking sorrow, almost nostalgia, for a world he could not enter. Now it was not a painting, it was real and he was in it—deep in it: wet with its water, cold with its wind, stained with its blood.

  The Cat King

  January produced snow, a rarity in this maritime climate. The kids went out on flattened cardboard boxes, screaming past Jonathan’s house down to the harbor, where they smashed into barrels and lay laughing on the concrete. Jonathan made a short but elegant snowman in his front yard, which was visited and commented on by all the villagers as if it were a wonder of nature. Lacking a carrot, he’d used a potato for the nose; he was particularly happy with the eyes, which were fish eyes still in fish faces, embedded in the snowman so artfully that they seemed to be returning the stares of the admirers.

  The entire fall was gone after three days, melted down by the usual torrent of winter rain. And most of February was the epitome of drear: gale-force winds kept the mail boat away for several days at a time, and the calms between the storms were tentative, overcast, mere brewing periods for more bad weather. As Petur had predicted, everybody was eating a lot of whale meat. Only the biggest boats were out—and they were far out, gone for weeks. When the Skarvanes returned late in the month, Jonathan went over to the Dahls’ to gorge on halibut and cod. But soon they were back to grind, digging around in their buckets of salt for yet another slab of overrich steak. If Jonathan had been less finicky, he could have varied this with half-rotted cod, braces of which hung from Maria’s clothesline. Instead he reminisced about a sausage—it almost qualified as a hot dog—he’d eaten in Tórshavn when he first arrived in the Faroes, and made omelets twice a week.

  From the sausage to Daniela was not a big leap. Jonathan decided to take a trip to Tórshavn. Easy enough to decide in his snug kitchen, with Tom Jones lying open on the table in front of him (he was reading his way through the large classics, ordering from Blackwell’s only fiction of over four hundred pages); the season was against him. Reconnoitering on the dock one dark morning near the end of the month, he got many pessimistic assessments of when the next boat trip would take place, ranging from “tomorrow” to “March.” He called Eyvindur.

  “Bah,” said Eyvindur, disgusted. “They use the weather as an excuse to stay on their godforsaken little island. Come immediately.”

  “Well, I can’t, if the boat doesn’t go.”

  Eyvindur snorted at the irrefutability of this. “Come in a fishing boat, then. We’ll send the helicopter.”

  “I’ll do what I can. I just wanted to let you know I’m hoping to get over there.”

  “We’ll have a special treat when you come. Fresh whale steak.”

  Jonathan sighed. “How about puffins? I like them so much.”

  “There are no puffins now. Puffins are in summer.”

  “Frozen puffins?”

  “Jonathan, you get here, then we’ll discuss dinner. Dinner is not important; social intercourse is important.” With this piece of arch-Eyvindur wisdom, he hung up.

  He called back just as Jonathan was going out Sigurd’s door. “We’ll have frozen puffins for you,” he yelled, and hung up again.

  Jón Hendrik was manning the phone that day, and unlike Sigurd he had no interest in people’s calls. He contented himself with saying “Eyvindur, hah,” as Jonathan left.

  When he got home, Jonathan noticed an odd smell. He’d got a whiff of it the day before, but it had gone away. Now it was back: sweet, thick, sneaky. He poked in his whale bucket, but that smelled only of salt water. Some ancient potatoes in the refrigerator might be the culprits; although they smelled clean when he sniffed them, he threw them out. No leak
in the kerosene line, nothing objectionable about a small pile of socks in the bedroom closet. He would ignore it, he figured.

  By morning it was unignorable, or perhaps it was because his plans for a trip were still frustrated—for whatever reason, Jonathan focused on the smell. It had an undertone that made him gag, and it seemed to be getting stronger. He called Petur in for a diagnosis.

  “Mice,” said Petur, standing in the middle of the bedroom, where the smell was worst. “Could be dead ones. You need a cat.”

  “I don’t want a cat. In fact, I want to go to Tórshavn tomorrow.”

  “In this weather?” Petur shook his head. “Jens Símun has cats. He’ll lend you one.”

  Jonathan didn’t like cats. “What good will the cat do?”

  “Find the mice.” Petur looked at him strangely.

  “I know, but then what?”

  “Eat ’em.”

  “Even the dead ones?” Jonathan was now sure that dead mice—flocks of them—were causing the smell.

  Petur shrugged his shoulders. “Go get a cat,” he advised.

  Jens Símun’s extra cat was a svelte little creature, speckled brown and gray. Sigrid offered to carry it over to his house.

  “What should I feed it?” Jonathan asked her as they paraded through town.

  “Don’t feed it anything,” she said, “or it won’t look for the mice.”

  The cat yowled when Sigrid left it in Jonathan’s kitchen. “Shh,” said Jonathan. The cat stared at him with yellow eyes. Jonathan had to look away. This was one of the reasons he didn’t like cats; they enjoyed staring people down. “I’m not playing that game,” he told it, and took up his book. But he felt uneasy with the cat in the room.

  He stood up. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s go upstairs.” He had little hope that the cat would follow, and it didn’t. He waited in the hall for a minute, then poured a bowl of milk and, waving it under the cat’s nose, tried to lure the animal up the stairs. The cat ignored the milk. Jonathan left the bowl near the bedroom door and went back to his book. When next he looked, the cat was asleep on the bench by the stove.

  Heðin came over after dinner. Jonathan was glad to see him. Dinner with the cat had been a trial. It was whale night, and the cat had wanted some whale for itself and had rubbed incessantly on Jonathan’s leg while he cooked. Then it had stared at him all through dinner from its perch by the stove, tracking the movements of his fork from plate to mouth with its yellow eyes.

  “Hey, what a nice little cat,” said Heðin.

  “What’s nice about it? I’m borrowing it from Jens Símun and it’s a terrible cat. It’s supposed to find mice but all it does is watch me.”

  Heðin picked up the cat and tickled it under the chin. “You have to make friends with a cat, Jonathan.”

  “I don’t like cats,” Jonathan whispered. The cat heard and stared at him.

  “What’s its name?” Heðin asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Heðin dumped the cat into Jonathan’s arms. “Tickle it,” he said, “and give it a name.”

  “It’s just borrowed,” Jonathan protested. The cat settled into his arms and started to purr. Unthinking, Jonathan stroked it. “I’m not going to bother with a name.” He put the cat on the floor. It hopped back into his lap.

  “See, now he likes you,” Heðin said. “See how easy it is?”

  “How about getting to Tórshavn? How easy is that?”

  “Did you call her?” Heðin grinned.

  Jonathan shook his head. “I will, though. I’ll call her as soon as I know I can get over there. But everyone keeps telling me I can’t.”

  “Well, you could get there.” Heðin seemed doubtful. “I don’t think you’d want to get there.” He leaned over the table. “It’s that boat, you know. It’s so horrible in bad weather.”

  “I’ve been on it,” said Jonathan.

  “That was in summer.” Heðin leaned back. “In winter …” He didn’t bother finishing, just rolled his eyes. “But maybe you don’t get seasick?”

  “I do. At least, I did.”

  “If you had to go …” Heðin trailed off again.

  “Wouldn’t you go, if Kristina were in Tórshavn?”

  “Nah,” said Heðin. “I’d make her wait.” Then he winked. “Lucky I don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Are you really going to get married?”

  “Of course.” Heðin nodded. “Of course we are. So will you. We’ll have a double wedding.”

  “Not if I don’t get over to Tórshavn,” said Jonathan grimly.

  The cat slept at his feet. The day dawned dark, windy, and more redolent of the smell. Jonathan shut all the doors to the kitchen, shutting out the smell, and made a lot of progress in Tom Jones. He had an omelet for dinner. The cat wanted omelet just as much as it had wanted whale.

  “No,” Jonathan said to the cat, as it yowled at the frying pan. But when it jumped into his lap and began licking forlornly at the edge of the plate, Jonathan felt too sorry for it to protest. They finished the omelet together. Then the cat curled up in Jonathan’s lap.

  The next morning he hardened his heart, shut the cat into the bedroom, probable home of the mice, and went down to the harbor. Jens Símun was standing on the dock looking mournful.

  “Terrible weather,” he said. Jonathan agreed. “How’s Tróndur doing?”

  “Tróndur?”

  “The cat.”

  Knowing the cat was named for the hero of a saga changed Jonathan’s feelings about him. Perhaps at this moment Tróndur was tearing into mice. “I left him near the mice,” Jonathan said.

  “He’ll get them. He’s a good cat.” Jens Símun relapsed into gloom. “What a terrible winter,” he said.

  “Do you think I can get over to Tórshavn this week?”

  “Maybe next week.” Jens Símun brightened a little and added, “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Jonathan was eager.

  Jens Símun looked up at the impenetrable sky. “No, I reckon not.”

  Jonathan went home to check on Tróndur’s progress. He was asleep on the bed. The smell had overtaken the entire atmosphere of the room.

  “That does it,” Jonathan said out loud. He set off again, to complain to Sigurd.

  “I have mice,” he began. Sigurd pulled a mousetrap from under the counter. “No,” said Jonathan. Frustration seized him. “No, listen. I’ve got this cat of Jens Símun’s, Tróndur, and it doesn’t do a damned thing, and the mice are rotting in my bedroom somewhere, I can smell them—”

  “So, so, so,” Sigurd cut in. He put the mousetrap away. “That’s a problem, I reckon.” Jonathan was momentarily soothed. “That’s a good cat, though.”

  “Sigurd,” Jonathan banged his hands on the counter. “Please. The cat isn’t working. I have to do something else. I want to go to Tórshavn.”

  “You won’t find a better cat in Tórshavn. That’s a good cat.”

  “I’m not looking for a better cat,” Jonathan said slowly. “I want to go to Tórshavn for a visit.”

  Sigurd smiled. “To see your fiancée?”

  Jonathan ignored this. “Can you help me?”

  Sigurd looked out the window. “You might have to take up the floor,” he said dreamily. “Sometimes they get under the floor.” He looked back at Jonathan. “The cat can’t get under there, you see.”

  “Can we do that today?”

  “You could do it right now,” Sigurd said.

  “Couldn’t you help me?” Jonathan was reduced to pleading.

  “Jens Símun. He’s good at that.”

  Jonathan bought a raisin cake for Jens Símun and went back to the dock.

  “A good day for raisin cake,” said Jens Símun, eyeing the box Jonathan held.

  Jonathan’s frustration abruptly funneled into hatred of the smallness of Skopun, where everybody could tell that you’d bought raisin cake from Sigurd by the shape of the box you carried. Anonymity, privacy, solitude—forget it! Bu
t did that mean they rushed to help out with the vermin they knew were in the house, or the cesspool they knew was clogged? No. Jonathan tried calming himself down by seeing this reluctance to help as their version of privacy: Do nothing unless asked. Well, here he was asking—and asking Jens Símun again.

  “Would you like to come over for a temun with me?” he said. “I’ve got a problem.”

  Without a word Jens Símun turned from his sad contemplation of the weather and walked home with Jonathan.

  “Puuh,” he said when they were inside. “What a stink!”

  Hearing his master’s voice, Tróndur dashed down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he yowled loudly, complaining, Jonathan supposed, about his bad treatment over the past two days. Jens Símun paid no attention. “Got a hammer?” he asked.

  Jonathan found a hammer and a screwdriver under the sink.

  “Bring them both,” said Jens Símun. They went upstairs, Tróndur accompanying them. Jens Símun lay down on the bedroom floor and wriggled along it, nose to the boards. “Aha,” he said after a while. He sat up and attacked the floor with the claws of the hammer, which had no effect. Then he began hammering the screwdriver in between the planks. Jonathan sat on the bed and watched. Tróndur hid in a corner.

  Soon Jens Símun had destroyed a foot or so of flooring. “Come here,” he ordered. Together, he and Jonathan pulled up several boards, revealing a dark, dust-ball ridden landscape. “Got a broom?” Jens Símun demanded. Jonathan produced a broom from the closet.

  After ten minutes’ poking, Jens Símun fished out a tiny gray lump about the size of a man’s thumb, which he held aloft by its thread-thin tail. Tróndur came out of hiding to stare up at it. The sweet smell of rot was overpowering.

  “A little thing, a lot of trouble,” said Jens Símun.

  “You think there’s only that one?”

  “We’ll leave the floor like this for a couple days, in case we need to get in again, but I reckon that’s it.” Jens Símun opened the window and threw the mouse into the yard.