The Great Weaver From Kashmir (21 page)

All of her behavior toward him was characterized in a certain way by an impulse that is stronger in young women than in any other beings, the love of service: her concern for his welfare was ever-watchful. When he went abroad it was she who supervised the packing of his trunks, picked out his clothing, made sure that he didn't forget anything. If he had to go to a banquet or to some other formal function, she would trust no one but herself to brush his suit. During the winters she would sometimes go into his room to make sure that the heater was turned on, so that it would be warm when he arrived. If he happened to take a nap at midday, she took genuine delight in answering the phone and saying that he was not at home. Sometimes she would secretly switch the phone connection before he came to the dining room, so that it would ring in the empty office out front while he was eating, and not in the adjoining sitting room.

Perhaps it had not been made clear to her that in philosophical terms the same power was required for practical accomplishments as spiritual ones, but all the same, she knew that Örnólfur was a great man. She never mentioned it, never once let it be seen in her glance, but she felt it: the air around him was charged, his will was a silent primordial element. She felt it whenever she heard his soft, strong voice in the foyer.

She knew that the productivity of the Ylfingur Company had first begun to reach its peak only after Örnólfur decided to put his powers, his knowledge and financial genius, into the company's service. While Ylfingur was in the hands of the foster brothers, Grímúlfur and her father, Þorsteinn, other fishing companies were more successful. Five years after Örnólfur entered the picture Ylfingur lorded it over every other fishing company in the country.

It was scarcely a secret that Örnólfur Elliðason was one of the chief pillars of Icelandic society: “Parliament and the government are nothing but scarecrows in the egg-laying grounds of Ylfingur,” as the Socialist newspaper put it in its imagistic way. When the “Ylfingur Company” was spoken of, everybody knew that what was meant beyond anything else was Örnólfur Elliðason. When people said that the fishing industry had subsumed all of the country's other industries, people meant this one man, because fishing was Ylfingur and Ylfingur was Örnólfur Elliðason. When the loudest voices proclaimed that the country and the people were in the grip of the merciless claws of capitalism, they meant the merciless claws of
Örnólfur Elliðason. When the farmers formed a political party to protect their interests inside and outside of Parliament from the devouring practices of the fishing industry, and handed out abusive tracts vituperating the Grimsby rabble and “the trumpery,” their missiles were aimed at this svelte, amicable businessman who had never said a disrespectful thing about a cat, let alone a man. And when the Socialists held their May Day parade, raised banners covered with some sort of grandiose red-lettered nonsense and delivered speeches on Austurvöllur concerning the fraudulency of capitalism, their demonstration symbolized nothing other than the groans of the people under the yoke of Örnólfur Elliðason.

There was never any rebuke too strong for him: he was the one whom untold thousands of oppressed cried out most passionately to see dragged down. It was he “who bribed members of Parliament with loans, expensive gifts, and banquets, and dictated terms to the ministers,” and, “when voting takes place on important matters in Parliament the same poltergeist can always be found roaming about the antechambers. It is Örnólfur Elliðason, peering in through the doorways, keeping an eye on his subordinates. It is said that they don't betray the conservative flag so easily if they are shown ‘the smile.'” “At the end of a bad year one can always be certain that an ingratiating lanky fellow with a golden tongue slinks in through the back doors of the banks: this is Örnólfur Elliðason. He makes suggestions, using carefully chosen blandishments, concerning whether it might not be more prudent for the banks to empty their vaults into his company's hands than for the state to go bankrupt. He asks, with deepest respect for the public, whether he might not be allowed to reach into the pocketbook of every man, woman, and
child in the country, and filch a third of the value of every króna so that Ylfingur could continue to speculate. Although he is dapper and smiles warmly when he meets with the representatives of the workers concerning wage negotiations, various people know for a fact that he has been seen these days in Parliament, frowning and banging his fist on the table.” “It is Örnólfur Elliðason who hands out hundreds of thousands in secret to newspaper reporters, to have them publicly propagate shameless political lies, scandalous stories, and insults among all of the honorable people in the country, cleverly fabricated falsehoods about the situation in Soviet Russia, praise for the noble-mindedness of the millionaires in the West, essays and poems by national poets who live by begging from the capitalists and then allow themselves to be used as dupes of advertising in order to panegyrize conservatism,” and so on.

Every day Diljá read new criticisms of Örnólfur, direct and indirect. Those bigmouthed cads and hacks never grew tired of letting their printing machines spew out curses and slander over the public. How often had she gotten a lump in her throat from chagrin and disgust or struck her fists together in anger when she let herself be tempted to read those rags that were brought to the house every morning?

But at twelve-thirty his voice would be heard in the hallway, or just his footsteps, resolute and calm. And when he sits at the table, and she beholds the quietude, the security, the shine in his face, she forgets everything that had perturbed her in the morning; she feels only that this man overshadows his opponents. How wonderful to be superior to one's opponents, she thinks, because a woman admires a man's power and not his cause. And she is filled with silent pride to
share her meals with a man who has willed and achieved more than any of the other 99,999 – and who walks every day like a foreigner into his own dining room.

If it happened that she woke at night to the cries of the loose women who let drunken men take them home from the dances, a long time would pass before she would be able to sleep again, because those deranged voices that tore through the quiet of the night spoke the language of life. Life was not reading a novel in a soft chair. And she realized a long time ago that nothing was further from life than a peaceful sleep between white bedcovers. Life in all of its intensity and brutality was crystallized in one shout that emerged from the still of the night. In her insomnia her heart beat more briskly than during the day. Her heart remained silent in the daytime; at night she could hear it beating.

And she asked, “Why am I being kept here?” She had become too mature a woman to be able to sit at the window any longer during the spring and let herself dream something blue, eternal, and untouchable. She no longer thirsted for things that no one understands, she longed for the fulfillment of life.

Maybe people thought that she was made to be a happy spinster who would pose as a Francophile at club meetings; or just how long did folk think that she could bear to watch time stand still? Oh, how much time did she plan to waste listening to cajoling aunts,
well-bred madams, and the other riffraff talk about composure, wisdom, and wariness, and spend the rest of the time complimenting themselves? Why didn't she throw herself headlong into blessed and careless mirth like other women of her age? Why didn't she misuse her handclasp and her glance like other women? Why didn't she play with fire?

Her heart in her breast accused her in her wakefulness and repeated, “Cow-ard, cow-ard” – until she promised that she would leave this place and enter into vagrancy and foolishness, lose herself and be happy like other women, and then become a nurse when she had grown too weary of being an actress. “Away, away, out into life!” she said. “Out into reality! Anything is better than novels and dreams, anything better than a sound sleep between unstained sheets! Away, away!”

But when the sun came up she opened her eyes and discovered that she hadn't moved. She hadn't gone away; instead she had slept. The walls were the same as yesterday and the day before yesterday. In the house where fate had condemned her to grow up nothing was ever said, even less done, both by night and by day, about which it would have been possible for the walls to spread rumors if they had had eyes and ears and been able to speak. And she felt that if something were done within these walls that no one ought to know, they would tumble down and bury them all alive.

And the day today came like the day yesterday and the day before yesterday; the clock kept on with its dull, silly strokes, but time stood still. Every step that Diljá Þorsteinsdóttir took was measured, every word that she spoke carefully considered. She walked about here like a phantom from another world while thousand-colored reality
glittered outside, a beggar woman in her inner life while other women cried out on the squares in a blessed ecstasy of life and let men take them home.

One Sunday visitors came to Örnólfur. It was late in the day: Madam Valgerður was at a meeting of the Women's Club, the servants had the day off, Diljá had to wait on the guests. They were ship captains, ponderous men, fat and red and loud like bad weather; they laughed like berserkers who had just arrived from sea and were ready to set out immediately on another sea voyage. It was like a raging storm suddenly subsiding into silence when they left.

Against his habit Örnólfur remained at home after their departure, and the girl felt an instinctive anxiety when he came into the sitting room, after all the others had left, for many years had passed since they had been alone in the house. This is something new, she thought. He walked in carrying some foreign notebooks, tables or registers, nothing but numbers, dressed in a long robe. He added several pieces of wood to the hearth fire, and then sat down opposite the girl in another easy chair in front of the fireplace.

She looked up from the seventh or eighth volume of
Jean-Christophe
and realized that it was the first time since she was a child that she returned his smile without anyone else being present. She quickly looked down again at
Jean-Christophe
to hide the blush on her cheeks.

“Where's Mother?” he asked.

But she pretended to be sunk in the book and answered without looking up:

“At some old women's meeting.”

“You're not going out at all?” he asked.

“No.” Her girlfriend, whom she named, had rung and asked her to come to the cinema at nine, but she had said no. “I want to go to bed early tonight,” she added.

“Are you sick?”

“No.” But she had slept badly last night.

“Slept badly? What was wrong? Were you sick?”

“No, no, I often sleep badly. I wake up and can't get back to sleep. But it doesn't matter.”

“You've got to get more exercise during the day,” he said.

“No,” she said, “it's not because of sluggishness at all. It's because when I hear something out in the street I jump up.”

“Hear something–? What kind of noise? Here on the street? We'd better do something about that.”

“No,” she said. “It doesn't matter; it's just the usual noise; jabbering; sometimes singing; sometimes laughter; sometimes–”

“Does this happen often?”

“Sometimes.”

“I'll let the police know,” he said. “No one has the right to disturb another's peace and quiet.”

“No, no,” she said, “by all means don't tell the police! That would be a shame! Because this is just ordinary noise; it–it's life. I love noise.”

“Life?” he echoed in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don't know what I mean!” she said, and she threw her book suddenly up onto the mantelpiece and leaned back again in her chair, rested both of her arms on the chair's own, and closed her eyes. He gazed for a moment at her bosom, at her arms, bare and white. The smile on his lips faded, and, raising his eyebrows slightly as a sign that he was thinking about other topics, started to leaf through his tables; the self-control that this man had was like an overwhelming force.

And when she lost all hope that he would say more, she jumped to her feet and went to the mirror to arrange her hair. She could see his image in the mirror, and she thought: Is there really nothing between Heaven and Earth worthwhile in his eyes but the trawlers in Hali and the loads of fish going to Grimsby and Genoa? He placed a finger on one after another column in the volumes, made comparisons, memorized figures, seemed to find it interesting. My dear Lord, what abominable reading material for a Sunday!

Finally he looked up. He did not set the notebooks aside, no, but held them up as if he were ready to begin again at any moment. Perhaps he snuck a furtive peek at her because she turned her back on him, because he thought that she could not see him directly?

There was no longer a smile on his face. It was nearer the truth that his face showed signs of a hidden suffering. It was almost alarming to see how deeply the lines in his face were marked, and how dark it was around his eyes. Did he by chance always look that way when he was alone, immersed in his work? She thought, This man is carved from stone; but under his fingertips beats the pulse of an entire nation. She was frightened.

She walked from the mirror over to the little table at the window,
where the ninth or tenth volume of
Jean-Christophe
was lying. Such a long time has passed since I was little, she thought. She felt like a naughty child, and was seized with an overwhelming longing to do something good for him, to affirm for him that the trawlers north at Hali and the fish loads bound for Grimsby and Genoa were not everything; that there were also human feelings in the world; that the friendship of a little girl changed into womanly concerns with the years. All the same she couldn't even bring herself to fetch his cigarettes from the next room and offer them to him. All she did was clear her throat. He also cleared his throat. And she forgot everything except that they were alone in the house. Or did it press upon her consciousness like a nightmare hidden in the air? Nothing is more menacing than the unspoken between a man and a woman.