The Journey Home: A Novel (15 page)

It was a damp, chilly day, though it had begun promisingly with pale sunshine and a gentle breeze in the trees. But now it was trying to rain and the wind howled like a beaten dog, as it fumbled for dead leaves to sweep up off the pavements. The lights in the windows of the houses looked cheerless and feeble. It was impossible to prevent the grayness from seeping in through my eyes and settling over my thoughts. I was trying to drive it away when I suddenly witnessed an odd incident down on Laekjargata. It remained fixed in my memory, but I wouldn’t record it here were it not for the fact that the person responsible for the incident was present at a later date, when the veil of deception was lifted from my eyes.

There was no one about apart from me and an old man who sat on a bench in front of the old theater, staring into space. Maybe he was holding a bag of bread, maybe not.

A swan took off from the lake. I noticed it immediately as its flight was uneven and clumsy as if it were wounded and couldn’t use one of its wings properly. It didn’t get very high and quickly lost momentum until finally it crashed on to the road. I wasn’t far off and began to run but slowed down when a car approached and stopped in front of the bird. The driver got out. I recognized both him and the car, as his boss was a frequent visitor at 56 Fjolugata: Hallur Steinsson, editor and importer. The swan lay in the road, jerking from time to time, struggling to get on its feet. The chauffeur hesitated in the middle of the road, moved a step closer to the bird and inspected it, then stepped back and stood looking stumped. At that moment, the rear door of the car opened and Hallur Steinsson heaved himself out of his seat and stretched his legs out on to the road. This maneuvre wasn’t achieved without effort as he was clearly drunk.

“Can’t we get a move on?”

“I’m not driving over the bird.”

“Isn’t it dead?”

“No, it’s alive.”

“Well, shove it out of the way. We haven’t got all day.”

A young woman clambered out of the car behind him, hobbled over to the chauffeur on her high heels and steadied herself against him. I had seen Hallur Steinsson’s wife more than once, but she was probably at home doing her embroidery when this incident took place. Or baking doughnuts. Or perhaps at a meeting of the women’s institute. Anyway, the editor and importer told the girl to get back into the car and keep out of sight, but she ignored his orders.

“Poor thing,” she said. “It’s crying. Can’t you see it’s crying?”

Hallur Steinsson had had enough.

“Get rid of the blasted creature, I say! Right now!”

When the chauffeur didn’t immediately react, his boss got to work himself. He strode purposefully over to the bird, grabbed it around the neck and dragged it to the gutter. The girl exclaimed “Jesus!” but the chauffeur looked away. Perhaps the editor and importer momentarily imagined himself a big game hunter, for he smiled triumphantly as if he had brought down a whopper. But his smile quickly disappeared when the swan twisted round and closed its beak on his buttock. He let out a yell of pain and tried to shake off the bird, striking out at it and lurching toward the car, screaming at the chauffeur to “do something,” only ceasing his cries when the bird gave up and collapsed back on to the road, this time with a torn shred of trouser in its beak.

The boss jumped behind the steering wheel and ordered both girl and chauffeur into the back. As he stormed off down the road I noticed that the rear door had slammed on the girl’s dress, leaving the skirt hanging out.

The dress was red and flapped in the biting winter wind.

Jorunn had gone out. Her husband, Gunnar, rose from the green chair by the window when I came in and then returned to it. He’d been reading a book. Behind him I could see the gray snowdrifts on the slopes of Mount Esja, gray sky and gray sea. Little Helga was asleep.

“She’s gone out to the shop,” he explained. “She’ll be back in a minute.”

He looked at the clock.

“She should be back already. I’ve got a late shift.”

I told him to get along, as it didn’t take two of us to look after the child.

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” I added.

He was a quiet, reliable and likable man, though not particularly jolly. I always liked him. When Jorunn died he blamed himself.

So I was glad when I heard a few years ago that he had taken up with a woman, though admittedly I know nothing about her. I have a feeling she’s a teacher or works at a kindergarten, though I couldn’t swear.

Helga slept peacefully, her face faintly lit by a small lamp on the windowsill. She was like her mother; I wonder if she still is? I’d like to meet her while I’m here.

The flat was small but neat, not a speck of dust and everything in its proper place. Jorunn had arranged knick-knacks here and there for decoration and pleasure; ornaments and pebbles, two red boxes I’d sent her from England, an old alarm clock of Grandmother’s which no longer worked, a silver inkstand and quill pen, and a white wagtail’s egg which we had found on the moors down by the stream when we were small and which Father had ordered us to put on display in our bedroom as a permanent reminder of how naughty we had been. On a round table in the sitting room were a small blue cloth and a vase of dried flowers, a book of poems and a few letters which Jorunn had bound together with yellow ribbon. I went over and picked up the letters after a moment’s thought. I recognized the writing on the top envelope: they were from Mother.

That morning I had put on the necklace which Jakob bought for me in Bath as a birthday present and I now began unconsciously to fiddle with it. A tremor ran through the peace in the room and I put down the letters for a second while I recovered my composure, then reached out for them again, hesitantly, to be sure, and undid the ribbon. Mrs. Jorunn Jonsdottir, 24 Frakkastigur, Reykjavik. Two twentyaurar stamps, a red
Gullfoss.
The letter on the top of the pile was postmarked two weeks ago. I opened the envelope.

Fate, people call it, instead of looking into their own hearts . . . I would have been much happier if I had never read that letter. Or put it in my pocket before leaving. Kept it with me ever after. And read it again and again to confirm that I had been in the right and my behavior afterward had been justifiable. Fate, people call it; I can’t help laughing.

. . . I have turned a blind eye to her behavior all along, put up with the most
extraordinary whims, supported her in some things against my better judgment, paid for her to travel abroad when she chose to throw away her expensive
education at the Commercial College. I have told myself that not everyone is
the same and she has the right to choose her own course, however erratic and
bizarre it may seem. In return all I have ever had is ingratitude, as you know.
When she was younger she got her own way by pushiness and obstinacy, but
over the last few years she has considered your Father’s and my opinion unworthy of consulting . . . I thought I had become used to her reproofs, the way she
rides roughshod over us, but it has gone too far these last few months, not least
after her deception over that Jew. Since then I have asked myself again and
again whether she has always gone behind our backs. Whether I can ever trust
her. Whether she knows herself when she’s telling the truth and when she’s
lying . . .

I put down the letter and stood motionless for a long time. I must have continued to fiddle with the necklace because I suddenly became aware of it cutting into my neck. I flinched and it snapped. I was trembling so much when I went to fetch my coat that I had to carry it downstairs and only put it on when I stepped into the cold. The letter was in my pocket.

It wasn’t until I opened the front door to 56 Fjolugata that I realized I had left the baby alone in the flat.

The day the British occupied Iceland the mistress took to her bed. She had invited me to a piano concert at the Old Cinema the previous evening, as Dr. Bolli was playing bridge at Vilhjalmur Borg’s house. It was a beautiful evening with a dark blue tint over the mountains and gentle ripples out in the bay, so she suggested walking home after the concert. I remember that we walked hand in hand. When we drew near the lake we saw theatergoers flocking out of the old theater into the mild evening air. There was a new comedy showing and everyone looked happy. The mistress said: “Disa, isn’t it wonderful that spring is on the way?”

For the last few days the weather had been overcast, sometimes with a dusting of snow during the night, but now swans flew above their reflection in the lake and a couple we met at the concert said they had just come from their spring chores at the allotments down on the marsh.

“Isn’t it wonderful that spring is on the way?”

But now she was laid up and my employer was rushing around town and couldn’t take care of her. At first she refused to eat, but in the evening Maria brought me a message from her saying she wanted some soup. I have sometimes wondered since why she didn’t let me see her when she was in her worst state, using Maria as a go-between instead. I see now that it was pride and affection. I’m also sure that it was better for both of us.

She stayed in bed for almost a week and when she finally got up, her husband relayed to us her wish that the occupation should not be mentioned in the household. If she was nearby, we were careful, for instance, not to switch on the wireless during the news and made sure that the newspapers weren’t left lying around. Maria read to her from the morning paper, mainly the obituaries and articles of general interest, and the mistress would turn her back to her so that she couldn’t see the front page.

Maria and I told each other that this isolation must end soon. For the first weeks of the occupation, the mistress didn’t leave the house, but at the beginning of June her doctor rang and asked her to come to his surgery. I’m pretty sure it was a deliberate ploy on his part to make her come to him, rather than visiting her at home in Fjolugata as he usually did.

We were tense while she was out, dreading the worst. It therefore surprised us how calm she was when she returned after an hour or so. “Perhaps she’s accepted the inevitable,” suggested Maria, but I guessed that the doctor had given her some stronger drugs than usual.

The mistress said she’d kept her eyes closed in the car on the way down to the town center where the doctor had his surgery. At his prompting, however, she had opened them on the way home. She described the troops in the lorry outside Hotel Borg as if she were telling us news, the sandbags which had been piled up against the cellar windows at the Post Office and the air-raid shelters on the hill. Her voice was low and her eyelids were heavy. Shortly afterward she fell asleep in a chair in the drawing room.

We were relieved and hoped that the worst was now over. So it came as a shock how badly she reacted to the first air-raid drill a week later.

Dr. Bolli had warned her but she didn’t mention to Maria or me that she was dreading the practice. It began after midday with the sirens giving the warning signal, a constantly varying tone at first, followed by frequent sharp blasts. Several minutes later every telephone in the town rang for thirty seconds altogether. It was at that point that she had a fit.

“Bolli!” she screamed. “Bolli . . .” raising her voice as usual on the final syllable.

He was at her side and yet she continued to call for him.

She never got used to the drills, though she never again reacted quite as badly as that first time. As for me, I tried to prepare myself for them as well as I could. When I look back I can’t help concluding that her reaction was my salvation to a certain extent. Although the war had now chased me to Iceland and memories ambushed me at every step, worrying about her provided me with a certain comfort. Yes, I think she was my salvation.

In the middle of June I came across her in the drawing room. She was wearing a yellow dressing gown decorated with pictures of white birds, and had her back turned to the door. On the table at her side lay a copy of the morning paper.

“Atli,” I heard her say over and over again. “Atli, my darling boy.”

Shaken, I hurried into the kitchen to distract my thoughts.

Late in the summer of 1940 two officials became frequent visitors to Fjolugata. In fact, quite a few so-called men of influence were in the habit of visiting Dr. Bolli, generally for advice or support. This time, however, there was something unusual going on. My employer seemed not merely preoccupied but sometimes positively anxious. His smile was unusually distant and there was no glint in his eye when he tried to maintain his custom of making a little joke with me whenever he had the opportunity. Though he moved around quietly and tried to avoid waking anyone, I would hear him get out of bed night after night. I always slept lightly, remaining on my guard. Why, I don’t know. One night when I went down to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk, I saw him standing in his office with the lights off, staring at the gray light which filtered in through the window. Like a statue, with his hands behind his back, until dawn. Then at last he sat down and was still asleep in his office chair when Maria arrived at eight. His mind was far away and he would lose the thread in mid-sentence, saying: “Asdis, two men will be coming to talk to me later today . . . if you wouldn’t mind . . . three o’clock . . . if you . . . ,” losing the thread and staring into space until I asked: “Three o’clock? Three o’clock, Dr. Bolli?” Then he’d come to himself and say, “Yes, some cakes, maybe. There’ll be two of them. Maybe some cakes with the coffee, if you wouldn’t mind.”

They came to see him, and it was obvious that this time they were not seeking his support but helping him. I heard them say: “We’ll do what we can. The ship is to depart from Finland. Petsamo is the name of the town. In the far north of Lapland. But first he’ll have to get to Copenhagen . . . We’ll have to ask the German embassy in Denmark to mediate, preferably Ambassador Renthe-Fink himself . . . Georgia will be making the journey too but her son Bjorn’s staying on in Germany . . .”