The Great Weaver From Kashmir (20 page)

Toward the front of the group stand two women clad in fur, one elderly, the other young, and a short distance away waits their car, which the driver keeps running so that the engine will not cool down: this is the Ylfingamóðir herself, along with her twenty-something foster daughter, Diljá Þorsteinsdóttir. At a suitable distance away stands one of the Ylfingur Company's executive managers.

“The Ylfingur Company has purchased three new trawlers,” writes
Morgunblaðið.
“Today Director Örnólfur is expected home from a six-week stay abroad. His itinerary included stops in Antwerp, Hamburg, and London.”

The ocean liner draws slowly nearer and nearer, coated with ice
from top to bottom as if returning from a trip to the pole. There was little happening on deck, few passengers; at this time of year only those who have urgent business set out on long voyages over the Atlantic.

In a short time the mother and her foster daughter catch sight of the Director. He is standing in the center of the upper deck, large-looking and strapping in his long dark overcoat, with its otter-fur collar turned upward over his ears so that it reaches the brim of his stiff black hat, wearing thick-soled steak brown boots, light-colored spats. As soon as he sets eyes on the women waiting for him on shore, he pulls a white-gloved hand from his coat pocket, waves two or three times, doffs his hat courteously, and smiles.

The ocean liner docks and stands out imposing and majestic among motorboats, small dirty fishing vessels, and trawlers; workers tie the moorings with several secure twists, and a bridge is set up connecting ship and shore. After several moments Örnólfur is standing in front of mother and foster daughter; he puts down his briefcase, doffs his hat again, and greets them. He has come home the same as when they said farewell to him here at the quay six weeks ago, his hands warm, his heart cold, his teeth pure white or banded in gold when he smiles, his hair just as carefully parted at the center of his forehead, his eyes as keen and distant as before. Only Ylfingur has added three trawlers to its fleet.

Every other hat in the group is lifted to the Director of Ylfingur; various people shake his hand; snow-white Reykjavík maidens wish him a pleasant homecoming with furtive coquetry in their glances, and the diplomat smiles to both sides in his well-known way.

He speaks privately to the company's executive manager for a
moment, listens to this man's report, smiles, takes several telegrams from his pocket. They leaf through them despite the cold; he points to particular words, gives explanations, then shoves the telegrams carelessly back into his pocket. They lift their hats to each other; Örnólfur gets into the car, sits down next to his mother, and the car drives off.

When they arrive at home, Madam Valgerður sits down at the tea table across from her son and asks the news, because she is like every other mother, expecting her sons to have news to tell every time they return from abroad. But reporting the news suits no one less than the Director. For him nothing of interest ever occurs. He is like an unwilling child learning its catechism: every answer has to be specially tugged out of him. He leans back in the easy chair and raps on the armrests a few times, obviously pondering something entirely different than the news.

“Did you meet Grímúlfur?” asks the mother.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Le Havre.”

“How was he?”

“Well.”

“Were you together long?”

“We went to Germany.”

“Where are mother and son?”

“I don't know –” but he stopped and corrected himself: “Yes, Steinn is in England.”

“But Jófríður?”

“I forgot to ask.”

“You never change, my boy,” answered his mother, and she offered him a piece of cake, as if to call his attention to the fact that she was speaking to him. “I don't suppose you saw Steinn in England?”

He takes a quick sip of his tea, stands up swiftly, goes to the telephone and makes a call, speaks, hangs up, and sits back down at the table. After this three-minute delay he finally answers his mother:

“Huh? Steinn? Yes, I saw Steinn.”

The phone call seemed to have brought him to his senses. He looks over at Diljá, sips at his tea again, lights a cigarette, and repeats with a smile:

“I saw Steinn.”

“How is the boy?” asked the madam somewhat more forcefully than before.

“Well.”

“What's he up to?”

“I think he's busy writing poems,” answered the Director, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly, although in such a way that the movement more likely expressed doubt as to whether he had given the correct answer concerning his nephew's occupation rather than disdain for him, because in the next breath he smiled again.

“Heaven help us!” said Madam Valgerður. “Is it out of the question that the boy will ever think an earnest thought in his life?”

“I don't know,” said the Director, and he glanced over again at Diljá, who sat hunched forward in her seat, staring at several tea leaves floating in her cup.

After a moment she looked up. She looked straight at Örnólfur, candidly, and asked:

“Then he didn't say anything about coming home?”

“He wasn't planning on it.”

She swirled her cup once more, making the tea leaves that had settled on the bottom float up again. Örnólfur continued to look at her.

“What do you think will become of the child?” the old madam asked her son.

“I said to him, ‘You forgot to comb your hair this morning, Nephew!'” answered the Director, as if he thought this an unforgettably amusing remark.

“Comb your hair! Good Heavens! Steinn, that dandy who was always paying visits to salons to have his hair styled?”

“His shirt-sleeves were dirty,” said the Director.

The madam then gasped for breath and said:

“Steinn Elliði in a dirty shirt! No, now this is not to my liking at all! Where is the child staying?”

“He lives in an old villa in one of the suburbs of London. Villa Warren Hastings in Hounslow if I remember correctly.”

Diljá looked up again and asked:

“He didn't send his greetings?”

“No, now that you mention it!” said the Director, and he laughed coldly.

“Is he there alone?”

“The only one I saw there besides him was an old butler. I recall that the place had ‘Carrington' on the door.”

“Do you think that the boy is still in his right mind?” asked the madam.

The Director didn't answer this, but cut a wedge of the cake, ate it quickly, drained his cup, lit a new cigarette and left the other one burning in the ashtray, then stood up.

“Didn't he have anything interesting to say?” asked Diljá after he had stood up, and she hunched down again over her cup.

“I don't remember clearly what he said,” answered the Director. He positioned himself behind his chair, placed one hand on its back, looked over the table, then at his cigarette. “I don't have much practice at figuring out what poets are saying; it's not all that easy to catch their meaning. But as far as I could understand, he's up to his ears in Marxism.”

“What's that now?” asked the madam.

“It's that thing in Russia.”

“God help me, the child's become a Bolshevik!”

“He said something about the Director of Ylfingur having nothing other to look forward to than to be executed. ‘Alright then!' I said. ‘Then someone better at it can take over! Maybe you'll take over, Nephew!' He said that the gospel of modern times demanded not only that disciples forsake their fathers and mothers, lovers and friends, but also that they be ready to lead them to the chopping block. ‘Umm-hmm,' said I, ‘we certainly are great men, my dear Hrólfur.'
⁴⁷
Of course I saw that it was useless for us to try to have a conversation.”

“The child is crazy!” said the old madam.

“Idealist,” answered the Director, smiling.

Foster mother and foster daughter gave each other terrified glances, but the Director disappeared into the next room.

Örnólfur appears like a phantom in the dining room twice a day; he is a visitor in his own house. No one knows this man; no one knows who he is; it is always as if he has arrived recently from a foreign country.

All morning he is at the company's offices, but at twelve-thirty footsteps are heard on the steps, steady and secure. He brushes the snow off his cloak in the foyer, goes into his bathroom, and sits down at the table at one o'clock. And although he speaks little it is quite wrong to think that his silence is caustic; his presence is comforting, like a protective wall.

If he has no business in town he works in his private office at home during the afternoons, most often alone, sometimes with an assistant, a young lawyer. An incredible number of people had business with him. People came and went all day: ship captains, sailors, lawyers, merchants, bank directors, members of parliament, common workers, smiths, machinists, reporters, foreigners; he must have spoken to a hundred people a day. He sat in meetings long into the nights; he was involved in lawsuits, put together court documents, had long discussions with litigators, made court appearances. This is how it went day after day.

Although Diljá was for the most part proud of Örnólfur's merits, she often regretted how their acquaintanceship had changed since she was little. He was certainly still courteous and gentle, even more courteous and gentle than he had been during his years as a student, but the cordiality in his deportment seemed to have been for the most part erased.

When Diljá was a girl she didn't know anyone more sincere or humane than him. He was even more beloved to her than her father; he was like a big brother. He alone always had enough time for her; gave her answers to everything that she asked; came to her when others had forgotten her; paid attention to her childish interests. And she never had a wish so absurd that she could not be sure Örnólfur would grant. She always went to Örnólfur. If she wanted to go to the movies, in complete opposition to her foster mother's ban, she secretly went to Örnólfur, and they both went together like little sister and big brother. And if she wanted to buy some silly thing that no one else would ever dream of buying, she could always count on Örnólfur agreeing that it was completely natural and correct; then they would both go on a shopping spree and buy and buy: she chose, he paid. If she wanted to invite her friends on a trip during the summer, she went to Örnólfur, and he would fetch the car immediately, sit down at the wheel like a dutiful servant, and ask: “Where to?” And he would be answered: “Up to Mosfellssveit or down to Álftanes,” and they would drive away, and the little girls would sing and laugh in the sunshine.

During his last year in lyceum she was six years old. That winter he had taught her to read. As incredible as it might otherwise seem that the Director of Ylfingur had taught a little girl to read, it had indeed been done; she sat on his knees for several evenings and before she knew it she had gotten the trick. They looked into each other's faces, she little and bright, he grown-up and black-browed; they looked into each other's eyes and laughed from sheer delight. The spring that he graduated she had become so learned that she could read the
Book of Youth
all by herself, and
Nonni's Journey to
Copenhagen,
and she knew the stories of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood. It was not until the next year, when she had to start learning about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other boring men, that she noticed her regret at having learned to read.

Örnólfur studied economics, and spent a year and a half in America after leaving lyceum. Then he studied various subjects in Germany or Denmark and graduated from the University in Copenhagen in the spring of 1915. During the summer months he normally stayed in Reykjavík.

And although he would disappear in the fall, lost in the bottomless whirlpools of huge foreign cities, and nothing would be heard from him unless he happened to publish an excessively dry and boring essay about international banking in some journal or other, he never forgot the little girl whom he had taught to read; always when he came home during the summers he brought her newfangled things and continued to be her good old Örnólfur; she always looked forward to his annual homecoming.

Of course the difference between their ages, their knowledge, and their maturity was too great now for them to be able to associate any longer as playmates. They both developed in their own way: she grew toward her dreams, he toward a life of activity. And the more that her mind matured, the more she realized that he was too canny, too attached to the palpable gravity of reality, to be able to become a true resident in the whirling “city of beautiful nonsense,”
⁴⁸
her young girl's dreams. His earnest concerns were a closed book to her, too distant to be able to touch any thread in her soul. But although the frankness of youth had surely diminished in the grown-up girl, the sympathy between them remained nonetheless, and she was more at ease
in the presence of this strapping foreignish man than in that of most others. The years passed by. It was not their fault that they were two different worlds, but rather the fault of creation: friendship is like a crossroads. When they saw each other they still smiled, as if their memories of youth stirred involuntarily in their minds, and although their own particular matters of interest were incomprehensible to each other, an unwavering kindness on both of their parts bore witness to their mutual understanding. Although his face might be laden with concerns, he never forgot to treat her considerately. He always opened the door for her as he did when she was little. He would always make sure that she wasn't cold, just as before. If they went for a drive in the countryside, it was she who decided where they went, and when she didn't want to go any farther they would turn back.