Season of the Witch (10 page)

When I arrived home at about one in the morning, Jóa’s bedroom door was closed. I blocked all exits, went into my own room, and opened Polly’s cage. Then I sat on the sofa in the living room with a Coke and a bag of chips and switched the TV on. A few minutes later the bird came flying into the living room and perched on the curtain rail. Polly sat there for a while, singing and squawking. I was biting into a chip when she suddenly took to the air, swooped down on me, and settled on the back of my white shirt collar. She sat there, nibbling at the chips I offered her from time to time and occasionally pecking gently at my neck. Now, when I wake up, she has returned to her cage, where she is perched with her head beneath one wing. I close the cage door as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the only lady in my life. Then I start scraping the bird droppings off my shirt.

Peace still reigns when I wake up again just before midday on Holy Thursday. I feel rested and find myself surprisingly cheerful. Behind her bars, Polly coos and cackles when I bring her breakfast seed. Outside, the sun is shining, and out in the gardens children are playing ball. I go into the kitchen, put the kettle on,
light a cigarette, and turn the radio on. The twelve o’clock news offers slim pickings, except for an announcement that catches my attention:

Skarphédinn Valgardsson, a student at Akureyri High School, is requested to get in touch with Örvar Páll or Ágústa at once. Phone numbers…

I met him
, I think to myself. I go into the hall, where the special Easter edition of the
Afternoon News
has been thrust through the door. I flick through until I find my article, under the headline:

MAKE MY WILL THY WILL

According to a new Loftur the Sorcerer from Akureyri, Jóhann Sigurjónsson’s classic play is as relevant today as it ever was. Students at the high school premiere the play this evening in its historical setting, Hólar in Hjaltadalur.

Is the last part of the intro about to be proved wrong?

“My desires are powerful and boundless. And in the beginning was desire. Desires are the souls of men.”

Skarphédinn Valgardsson, nineteen-year-old student at Akureyri High School, spoke the words, written over a century ago by playwright Jóhann Sigurjónsson, with such passion and conviction that I almost felt he was articulating his own thoughts.

“Take Loftur’s dialogue with the blind man in the first act,” Skarphédinn had remarked during our interview in the lobby of the gym at Hólar College. “The blind man says he has prayed over and over again for the merciful hand of God to lift the darkness from his eyes. Loftur replies:
Indeed I know that human desires can work miracles. They have done so in the past and still do so today.
And I agree. If we know what we want, we can achieve our own miracles. And when the blind man says, a bit later,
I wished, until it led me into sin. When I gave up my wishing, my soul could finally be at peace
, he has been led by his perception of sin into giving up. He gained peace for his soul by giving up and accepting his fate.”

“But,” I had dared to ask, being quite unaccustomed to such high-flown literary debate, “Loftur makes a pact with the devil in order to fulfill his desires. Do you maintain that he was justified in doing that?”

Skarphédinn smiled at me. “Well, initially Loftur wants the devil to make his desires his own, in order to get what he wants. But later he wants to escape from the devil’s control and be free. It’s a matter of opinion, of course, how literally the pact should be interpreted. You can see it as a pact between a man and himself or between different aspects of himself.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

After a brief pause for thought, he replied: “I just keep the options open. I feel it’s up to the audience to decide for themselves—like so much else in the play. And in life. I play this character, and I do my best to portray him. I’m not about to sit in moral judgment over him.”

“He comes to a bad end.”

“Yes, well, that’s the playwright’s choice. He’s in charge of what he puts down on paper, so he adds a moral dimension—perhaps he was bowing to the straitlaced standards of his time. I don’t know. The theme is an ancient one. Faust, Nietzsche, the idea of the
Übermensch
to whom the usual rules of human behavior don’t apply. In the play, Loftur says, shortly before his demise:
He who never commits any sin is not a human being. In sin lies a mystical joy. All good deeds are nothing but an attempt to reproduce that joy. In sin, one becomes one’s true self. Sin is the wellspring of all new things
. I’m quite sure that the playwright was expressing his own view and reflecting his own experience. He puts them forward in contrast with other, opposing views, which were also his, and were in conflict with them. A dramatic tension between opposite extremes, which are all given the opportunity
to prove themselves in the play—and that’s what makes it such a powerful work.”

This young man’s pretty powerful himself, I thought to myself as the tape recorder spun. The deep, expressive voice exerted a subtle charm. The brown eyes sparkled. Shoulder-length dark hair with a center parting, above a handsome, masculine face with strong eyebrows. If Skarphédinn didn’t shave for a few days, he would even resemble the traditional image of Christ in Western art.

Although dressed in historical costume, he was keen to stress the relevance of
Loftur the Sorcerer
to the people of today, or indeed of any period.

“Just think,” he said, raising his arms to emphasize his point and revealing hairy, well-muscled forearms under his white shirt, “how issues of class and discrimination are constantly arising, for instance in Loftur’s dealings with Steinunn. He’s the steward’s son, she’s a housemaid. He gets her pregnant, then throws her over in favor of Dísa, the bishop’s daughter. Or in his relationship with his boyhood friend Ólafur, who is also in love with Steinunn. And today, when the gap between rich and poor is constantly growing, and tension is increasing between native Icelanders and immigrants, people are dealing with exactly the same issues—even though we dress differently and use computers to communicate.”

I had nothing to add.

“And what about the question of reproductive rights? In those days a desperate woman might leave her baby in the wilds to die. Today we debate abortion rights. It’s essentially the same issue, isn’t it?”

I nodded in agreement.

“Life is always a matter of the quest for happiness,” Skarphédinn continued unstoppably. “Our efforts to make our dreams and desires come true and the methods we use to achieve them.”

Loftur the Sorcerer was in full flood when a cell phone rang in his pocket. He answered the phone, which was in a tooled brown leather pouch, taking a break from his rhetoric. Or was he just an expert salesman?

What has happened to this promising young man? Why is there an appeal on the radio for him to get in touch, just hours before he is due to make his first entrance onstage?

I clearly remember an atmosphere of tension and anticipation among the young people who had recently taken over the Akureyri High School Drama Group. There had been talk of disbanding the group, but they had revived it, and their first production was to be this ambitious staging of
Loftur the Sorcerer
in its authentic setting at Hólar. “We wanted to do the first performance at this important historical and ecclesiastical site, which was the center of the church in north Iceland for seven centuries and
de facto
capital of the region. The rest of the performances will be at the old theater in Akureyri,” I had been told by the chair of the drama group, Ágústa Magnúsdóttir.

After Jóa and I took our leave of them in the gym, where the stage set concealed athletics equipment and basketball goals, we were in agreement that this production of
Loftur the Sorcerer
seemed to be worth seeing. But now, when the chair of the drama group and the director, Örvar Páll Sigurdarson, have apparently lost their leading man, we can’t be sure we’ll have the chance.

Lost in my thoughts, I hear a key in the front door, and Jóa enters. I hadn’t noticed her go out. The door to her room is closed, as it
was when I arrived home last night. “Hi,” I call out. “Have you been out for a walk?”

“What? No,” she replies. She comes in wearing her parka and takes a seat at the table.

“Oh?” I ask.

Jóa looks a bit bleary. If I didn’t know better I’d think she might have a slight hangover. She seems a little embarrassed, but there’s a strange light in her eye. Then I notice that under the parka she is still wearing the suit and shirt she dressed in yesterday. But without the tie.

“Hey, hey,” I say. “You’re just coming home now!”

I look at the time. It’s past 2:00 p.m.

I put on a disciplinary expression: “This will not do, young lady. We cannot allow such conduct here under this roof. We have a strict curfew, which must be respected.”

She just smiles.

“Get lucky?” I grin.

The smile gets wider.

“Come on, tell Daddy.”

Jóa makes no reply. But her eyes go a little misty.

“Who is it?”

She is reluctant to answer. I look her up and down. There’s something she wants to say, but can’t get the words out. I keep on looking.

And then it clicks. Something I’d sensed about 15 percent yesterday evening, but pushed aside in favor of 85 percent wishful thinking.

“Adalheidur Heimisdóttir, editor of the
Akureyri Post
!”

She nods.

“Whoopdedoo!”

The smile is back.

“And I was fool enough to have some silly hopes of my own,” I say, feeling my surprise, embarrassment, and humiliation evaporate as I observe the happiness in Jóa’s eyes.

“I knew,” says Jóa, standing up and placing a friendly arm around my shoulders. “And I’m awfully sorry if you feel I spoiled your chance with her. It wasn’t like that.”

“Of course not, Jóa dear,” I say as I stand up and give her a hug. “I never stood a chance against a foxy lady like you.”

We both fall over laughing.

“You knew each other before,” I say. It’s not a question.

“Back in Reykjavík, Heida used to come to the odd gay event. So we knew each other by sight, but we’d never really met. Not until I moved up north.”

“So when you’ve been taking your walks around town with your camera, and at the movies, or whatever, were you actually meeting her?”

“No, absolutely not,” retorts Jóa. “We went to the movies, admittedly, but nothing else happened. Not until last night. I wouldn’t lie to you, Einar.”

“But does she keep it a secret here or what?”

“Yes. She hasn’t dared take the risk yet. Because of the paper. The contacts. The ads. The readers.”

“Secrets and lies, Jóa dear. Sexuality, gender, ethnicity, color, nationality, religion. When questions like that come up, there’s a tendency not to be able to tell the forest from the trees. For whatever reason.”

“That’s just the way it is. Even today.”

“So you thought it was better to bring a male along for cover? To counteract any misunderstanding? Avert any difficulties for Heida?”

Jóa shakes her head vehemently. “Not at all. Don’t sell yourself short, Einar. You’re not bad company, on your own terms. When you’re in the mood.”

I light a cigarette. I don’t think the mood’s been right for a very long time. But I let it go.

“But when you nodded to each other outside the restaurant yesterday, had you decided to meet up afterward?”

“Einar, sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Sometimes you just get a feeling.”

“Absolutely. Know what you mean. I’m an expert in getting a feeling.”

Although the next edition of the
Afternoon News
isn’t due for publication until the Tuesday after Easter, I’m in my closet at the office by late afternoon. Not from a sense of duty, but motivated by sheer curiosity.

Jóa and I had treated ourselves to coffee and cakes at Café Amor, appropriately named after the god who had shot his arrows of passion into my friend. Tables and chairs had been placed outside in the sun. The town was aglow. Town Hall Square was humming with energy and high spirits. Youngsters, frisky as calves in spring, were zooming back and forth on their skateboards, cheerfully falling over in all directions. For whatever reason, the town seemed to be full of young girls pushing strollers, all dressed, no doubt, in the very latest style from the fashion magazines. Most wore such deeply plunging necklines that even at a distance Jóa and I had no trouble discerning their heaving maidenly bosoms. At the tables around us sat the cooling remnants of last night’s passion.

____

When I stroll across the square toward the red wooden building with its banner—
Truth Be Told
—I think of Gunnsa and her traveling companions, on that bigger town hall square in Copenhagen. I open the news website and find the radio announcement asking Skarphédinn Valgardsson to get in touch. I debate whether to ring Örvar Páll or Ágústa, and opt for the latter. She told me she was in her second year at the high school. A small girl, she was a bundle of energy, freckled and lively, with her hair cropped short. In the play she wore a gray wig, in the role of the wife of the Bishop of Hólar.