The Great Weaver From Kashmir (39 page)

“New movements! No! That's something else entirely! They're not going to get caught making a fuss about those new movements there,
no, ma'am! They believe in God and Saint Columba just as they did in the old days. They're not about to eat their words!”

“But their ceremonies are incredibly beautiful,” said one of the women, and the others chimed in: “The ceremonies, yes, the ceremonies, ceremon, cere . . .”

“I'll never forget one Sunday last year,” said the first woman, “when I and another woman went together to the church at Landakot. It was around midafternoon, and the sun shone on Jesus Christ. The nuns sang in Latin, and the altar boys swung the censers, and at the front of the church a few Catholic individuals were kneeling in prayer. Don't you find it wonderful to see folk kneeling? And the sun shone on Jesus Christ. I felt that God was much nearer to those people than to us.”

“Conviction is nowhere but there!” howled the businessman. “But there's nothing enviable about getting caught in their claws.”

In the next room Dvor˘ák's
Humoresque
was being played as if it were the accompaniment to a prankish kiss of gloom.

“I've really been wanting to see your grandson, Steinn, Madam Valgerður,” said one woman. “I haven't actually read his poems, because my understanding of English is limited, but I've heard him often spoken of as an entirely incomparable young man.”

“I've read his poems,” admitted another. “And it's not everyone who can understand them, because they're both deep and dark, and besides that written in such difficult English that you have to look up every third word. And it always seems that a poet's brain isn't put together like regular people's brains. His harp isn't tuned to either flats or sharps. You ask yourself involuntarily at every other line: ‘Are
these sounds, or what is that I hear?' I realized only this one thing: the man's got to be quite exceptional.”

“I remember when he was a schoolboy here at home,” said a third woman. “He was really a lovely boy. All the young girls had crushes on him, especially since he was raised for some of the time down south in Europe. Isn't he going to hold a lecture in Reykjavík before he leaves Iceland again, or give a public poetry reading?”

Madam Valgerður thought this unlikely. “He's not much of a socialite these days. I've always said that the traits he inherited from his family would show up sooner or later. And he takes after his kin more and more with age. His grandfather went on long trips without telling anyone beforehand. Three weeks ago Steinn left town, and I didn't hear any news of him until he'd reached Skaftafell out east.”

“Couldn't we get him to speak at a dinner party for the Twenty-Five-Aurar Society?” said a respectable old madam, the president of a charitable society that funded itself by charging innocent people on the street twenty-five aurar for useless paper stamps. “I've actually been given the duty of finding a good speaker for our meeting a week from next Saturday.”

In the middle of this hubbub Steinn Elliði showed up. Speak of the devil! Outside, bridle bits clinked and horses snorted; in the next moment he was standing in the doorway, wearing a gray sporting outfit covered with loose horsehair and dirty travel boots laced up to the knees, with long gloves, a bare head, a dusty, tanned face, and disheveled hair; 180 centimeters tall. “Good day,” he said, at ten o'clock in the evening. And when he smelled a familiar odor, he asked:

“Tea?”

“Steinn! Welcome, child!” said Madam Valgerður as she got up from the table to go and greet the visitor. “Where have you come from?”

He had come from Gullfoss, had spent the night at Kjóastaðir, wanted tea.

Whispers went around the table and greedy, inquisitive eyes fixed themselves on the doorway. The Director's wife informed everyone that this was Steinn Elliði. Madam Valgerður led him to the table and introduced him to her guests: “My grandson, Steinn Elliði Grímúlfsson–”

“Was there a wedding here?” he asked.

He had come all the way from out east in Öræfi, had set out from Reykjavík with three Englishmen but had lost them on the way, no more about that. Beautiful countryside, wonderful weather, excellent haymaking, good milk. Icelanders are akin to the saintly ancient peoples of Asia. “Is there more tea in the pot?”

Several years ago a French trawler was stranded in Björg. The farmer in Björg is a poor man, but a good fisherman, and he was able to save every last man on the ship. He saved the lives of fifteen men single-handedly. It was written up in French newspapers. He brought them home to his cottage, and the family gave them their beds and slept out in the stackyard. He slaughtered his fattest cow, like a rich man holding a wedding feast. On the next day he set out walking in bad weather to procure tobacco for his guests. But no one in that district smoked, so he had to go to another district, returning home after a twelve-hour journey; and they held a great feast and smoked tobacco.

Six months later, on a summer day, a French warship dropped
anchor out by Björg. They sent for the farmer, and on the ship's deck a great feast was held for him and his family. And before they left the table, the commander said: “Dear sir, you have saved the lives of fifteen men for a powerful state far to the south. It is called France. And I have been entrusted the duty of offering you anything you might wish, up to fifteen thousand gold-crowns' worth, or in ready cash if you prefer.”

But the farmer in Björg tried to excuse himself for a long time and said: “God be praised that the men were able to make it home. They were innocent men.”

But when he saw that there was no way that he could refuse the reward, he had this interpreted to the commander:

“Esteemed sir commander! God bless France and the king of France. Tell him that I live by the sea and the soil here is scanty. My salvation is the sea. But my yawl has started to leak, because it's so old, and sometimes I've thought about how I might get myself a new yawl. And I've seen nothing in my life that has awakened in me such an unchristian desire as the ship's boats here on deck. Those are fine boats, my Lord, I said to myself, and if Torfi in Björg could have one of those he wouldn't need to fear for his children's future.”

“Now that's an Icelander!” bawled the businessman, and he hammered his fist on the table so hard that tears of fear came to the women's eyes.

“More tea, more tea!” said Steinn Elliði. “The cheese is like rubber, Grandmother. And how come there aren't more of those fine cakes on the table? I hope that the guests don't have stomachaches?”

The mandarins in China are said to take three hours to greet each other, for the rules of courtesy demand that they hop, kneel, cast
themselves down and stand on their heads, sing, shout, whistle, warble, crack their knuckles, and stand on one foot in front of each other untold times before they dare to ask the news or mention politics. When Saint Francis of Assisi addressed the birds in the forest he did so halfheartedly, because he found himself unworthy to speak to God's handiwork, and he began this way: “Forgive me, dear brothers and sisters, that I should be so bold as to disturb you! When you have finished your conversation might I be permitted to say a little something that lies in my heart?” And who has ever compared to Beinteinn from Fagurhóll for courtesy? A well-mannered man, when he bids his guests farewell, accompanies them at least out over the threshold. An even more well-mannered man accompanies his guests out through the outer doors, even to the gate of the yard. Beinteinn from Fagurhóll accompanied his guests back to their own homefields. The parish there lies far from the main routes, and therefore every visitor to Fagurhóll is received as a divine revelation. Three times Beinteinn has accompanied his guests from Reykjavík all the way from the paving stones at Fagurhóll south to the Elliða River. And that is a journey of eleven days, as from Paris to Peking on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The road crosses twenty parishes, sandy wastes, and extremely dangerous rivers. Beinteinn won't hear of allowing his guests to ride their own horses the whole way back. Several years ago an agronomist from Reykjavík, with degrees from Askov, Hvanneyri, and Voss, stayed at Fagurhóll. He was researching agricultural conditions in the eastern part of the country and came riding on a clumsy, haggard nag that he'd probably stolen somewhere out east in the Múli district. He went and fetched two small rocks up in a ravine, hammered them together until they broke,
scrutinized the fractures, and then measured the waterfall. He was received like a king at Fagurhóll, and when he left, Farmer Beinteinn accompanied him out of the yard and then rode with him for eleven days. When they came to the slope above Ártún, five kilometers east of Reykjavík, Farmer Beinteinn dismounted, and they put the visitor's saddle on his jade and bade each other farewell with a kiss, as was customary.

“Listen, Beinteinn,” said the agronomist when they had said their farewells. “You don't suppose you could possibly loan me ten krónur? I'll send it back to you by post.”

Nothing was more self-evident. Beinteinn removed the safety pin from the opening on his breast pocket and took out his wallet, wrapped within three white handkerchiefs, and from the wallet took ten krónur and gave them to the agronomist. After this they parted.

Twelve months passed and the post came twelve times, but nothing was heard from the agronomist. Beinteinn had never known a debt to go unpaid, and such a thing chafed against his conscience, so he thought the agronomist might be dead. But two years later he took a steamship to Reykjavík and learned that the agronomist wasn't dead, but had actually set up an experimental farm employing the latest methods in Kjalarnes. Poor man, to have forgotten to pay his debt, thought Beinteinn, and he took this so sorely that he set off on foot up to Kjalarnes in stormy fall weather. The experimental farm was comprised of one tomcat, a woman, and three chairs of American design. “Those few krónur were somehow forgotten over the past few years,” said Beinteinn, “it doesn't really make much difference, but still . . .”

“That's good luck, because just this morning I happened to buy five hundred lambs,” said the agronomist, and he rounded them up, drove them in, and gave Beinteinn a small, late-born lamb in payment for the debt. Beinteinn begged forgiveness for having had to remind him of this trifle, thanked him, said good-bye and set off again for Reykjavík with the lamb upon his shoulders. But it had started to grow dark, the weather was rough and the fall night dim, so Beinteinn decided to stop for the night at the first big farm he reached. In the morning when he woke he suddenly remembered that he'd left the lamb at the foot of the homefield the night before. But he wasn't going to work himself into a lather about it, and instead paid for his lodging graciously, bade farewell to the householder with a kiss, and left.

“What an unparalleled delight it is to listen to the man!” sighed the madam from the Twenty-Five-Aurar Society devoutly.

But Steinn Elliði had his grandmother pour more tea into his cup and kept on eating.

“At Hvolur I spent a night with Aðalbjörn from Hrísar. He'd been a respected farmer and parish administrator in Lón. But due to his good deeds for both the worthy and the unworthy, the parish coffer was emptied, and Aðalbjörn was taken to court; he was ordered to relinquish all of his possessions, but this still wasn't enough to cover the loss. He had six sons, strong, promising men. Two were lost at sea, another in a river, a fourth from tuberculosis, and a fifth went to America. The sixth became a scholar and drunkard down south. Because of their bankruptcy the parish administrator and his wife were forced to go begging, and the wife died of exposure. Then Aðalbjörn was alone. He is eighty-two years old. He is like a cardinal,
infirm and august, uglier than anyone but to children the kindest of all men. He invents machines, slaps his thigh and says: ‘Oh my dear children, I have so many machines to invent!' He has far too serious work to attend to give himself time to die. We spoke together for five hours about machines. He told me about seven machines that he had invented during the last few years, and claimed that they had become so much in vogue that I would find them on every farm in the Eastern District and every other farm in the Western District. Then he asked me whether I'd invented any machines. And since the answer to that was no, he entrusted me with a secret. He was, to wit, on his way toward inventing a new machine, more remarkable than any previous one, an eiderdown-cleaning machine that would surely make all of the other methods of cleaning eiderdown obsolete, and would use about seventy-five percent less labor. He had come on foot over mountains and wastelands and was heading west to Vík to have a talk with the bailiff there about this grand innovation. He wanted to try to get a patent on his invention and later bequeath his parish the patent, so that it could build a children's school there after a time. He set off early in the morning and worried about the cough that he would get along the way, because his route put him headlong against a breeze. The path curled like smoke up a steep slope. He wanted to make it to the western side that same day. He walked on with bent back south of the lane and staggered in his steps, supporting himself with a large staff. The breeze blew through his silver white locks. A spotted dog followed him, but otherwise he was alone.”

Steinn came to the breakfast table after a long morning hike and sat down at it alone. But shortly after he has begun eating, the Director's wife walks in. She is pale as usual in the morning; her body is still a mirage, but her soul is everything; even her hands are nothing but soul.

“Good day!” he says with his mouth full. “I thought that everyone had eaten already. I walked east to Vatnsvík through the entire copse. Such a fragrance!”

She sat down wearily and poured herself some tea.