Pets
The
Pets
The
Pets
Bragi Ólafsson
Translated from the Icelandic
by Janice Balfour
A Novel
Copyright © Bragi Ólafsson, 2001
Translation copyright © Janice Balfour, 2008
First edition, 2008
All rights reserved
Title of the original Icelandic edition: Gæludýrin
Published by agreement with Forlagid Publishing, www.forlagid.is
The book Armann Valur quotes from on pgs. 26, 27, and 29 is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. Published by William Morrow & Co., 1994.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008926608
isbn-13: 978-1-934824-01-6
isbn-10: 1-934824-01-1
Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America.
Text set in Goudy, an old style serif originally designed by Frederic W. Goudy (1865–1947).
Design by N. J. Furl
Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press:
Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627
www.openletterbooks.org
Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room;
—Oscar Hammerstein II
Part
One
The Lottery Prize
1
Someone, wearing an anorak, knocked on my door at lunchtime. My neighbor Tomas is out pottering in the garden and hears me when I open the garden gate. He welcomes me home from my trip abroad and tells me that some fellow—he couldn’t say how old he was—was hanging around outside my front door around twelve-thirty.
“He was wearing some kind of blue nylon anorak with a hood,” he says. “I couldn’t see his face properly because of his hood.”
Tomas himself is wearing an anorak, and has a knitted cap on his head, as well as a scarf with the colors of some English football team around his neck.
“Maybe he was at the wrong house,” I say.
“I don’t think so,” Tomas answers. “Somehow I got the feeling that he knew where he was going. He had a plastic bag in his hand, that I think he put down in the snow while he waited to see if you were at home. He knocked for a good five or ten minutes.”
At this moment I can’t think of anyone who needs to talk to me today—Tuesday, at lunchtime, when I’m not even in the country—but when Tomas mentions the plastic bag, for one second I’m afraid that it could have been Sigurvin, an old work mate, and that the bag contained recently purchased warm beer, though it would have probably cooled down a lot in February’s frost. This fellow Sigurvin was supposed to have stopped drinking, but the memory of him drunk was so vivid and terrifying that it still bothered me.
“You didn’t notice if he took unusually large strides?” I ask.
Tomas says that he hadn’t really paid him much attention, just noticed how long he stayed banging at the door. But, come to think of it, he had also seen the man peer through the kitchen window, as if he expected me to be hiding in there.
The fact that the fellow peered through the kitchen window when it was obvious that no one was at home made me think of another old acquaintance. However, as far as I know, it’s impossible, or at least very unlikely, that he is here in Reykjavik.
“There was something about him that gave me the feeling he was in need of shelter,” Tomas says, and I’m not sure if he is joking. “Then I noticed that he was fiddling with the name plate on the door. It looked as if he was polishing it. Probably just wiping the snow off so that he could read the name properly.”
These fine copper or brass name plates give a sense of endurance and eternity. Some old atmosphere lingers from bygone days. My name plate is only two years old and yet it is so weather-beaten that one imagines its owner is old or neither old nor young; it’s almost like a grave stone. The main difference being that there are no dates or title on it, like “managing director” or “ship owner”—as one sees in cemeteries—and no wish that the owner rest in peace, in this instance inside his own front door.
I ask Tomas if he spoke to the man at all. He says that he had been thinking of telling him that I was abroad, but had decided not to; not that he was hinting that this acquaintance of mine was by any means dubious, but one could never be sure if such men would take advantage of the fact that the flat was empty.
“Such men?” I repeat. “What do you mean by such?”
“Oh, I just meant, you know, ordinary men.”
“So he was only an ordinary man?” I say and emphasize the word ordinary so it is quite obvious that I am joking.
“I suppose so,” Tomas says. “I didn’t see anything peculiar about him really, come to think of it.”
“By the way, how did you know that I was abroad?” I ask with a smile. Tomas smiles back and says that Bella, the old lady who lives in the flat above me, had asked him to keep an eye on the house last weekend while she was away visiting her sister in Akranes because she had promised, he said, to look after my flat while I was in America. Then she had started talking about me, said she couldn’t have been luckier with her neighbor, that it made such a difference sharing a house with people one could trust. I correct Tomas: I had only gone to London, Bella must have misunderstood me.
“So you didn’t see his face?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation back to the original subject matter and put an end to it. Standing out here in the frost is killing me.
“No, I didn’t,” he answers, seeming to realize that I want to get indoors. “He was too well hidden inside the hood.”
I had told Bella before I left that I would be away for two weeks—though I don’t remember telling her where I was going—and she promised (without me asking) to keep an eye on the flat in the meantime. She even offered to water my plants and insisted on giving me some cuttings when I told her that I didn’t have any in my flat. I declined her offer politely.
At twelve-thirty I was probably moving slowly down the escalator in the direction of the duty-free store or going through the customs with my suitcases and bags. At the very moment when this fellow in the anorak decided that he had knocked long enough—was maybe even trying to peer through the kitchen window—I was probably getting on the bus outside the airport. Perhaps I had sat down beside Greta, the woman I got to know on the plane just before we landed and on the bus to Reykjavik. I realize that I am forgetting her features little by little. I can’t form a clear image of her, despite the fact that I first met her fifteen years ago, saw her occasionally after that, and saw her again today on the flight. It’s strange how quickly faces fade in one’s memory. The only things I can remember clearly are her wavy, fair hair, her full lips, and her thin arms—they poked out of the wide sleeves of her T-shirt like two drain pipes. I’ll recall small details and particular facial expressions of hers better this evening when we meet. That is, if she calls.
She said she would call. And I’m feeling really guilty because I hope she will. I know Vigdis—my girlfriend or lover (depending on how you look at it)—will call this evening; she said she would give me a ring when I got home.
Before I go in with my bags, Tomas repeats something about being sure that the fellow in the anorak will come back. I tell him that I have an idea of who he is, though in reality I haven’t a clue. I have discounted the two men I thought of first and there is no way that it could have been Saebjorn or Jaime. They weren’t going to come round until later tonight. Besides, Tomas’s description doesn’t fit either of them at all.
&n
bsp; There is something about my neighbor’s face that reminds me of my fellow passenger on the plane, the linguist Armann Valur. Probably the lower half of his face; his mouth and in particular his nose. It’s as if Tomas’s nose has no definite shape or form, almost as if it’s some tiny, useless blob. The grammarian’s nose was similar: bent, though it wasn’t broken, and the tip of it looked as if it had been melted or squashed under something, I don’t dare to imagine what.
When I’ve said goodbye to Tomas and gone indoors, it suddenly strikes me that it was strange he should be out in the garden at lunchtime, when the man in the anorak knocked at my door, and now again around five when I come home. It’s February and everything is covered in snow; what’s a man in his sixties doing out in the garden in such weather, twice on the same day? And yet sometimes it’s as if people and objects are put in a certain place on earth just to suit the whims of some eccentric; as if someone up above is amusing himself by arranging us as he likes, contrary to all common sense. I have sometimes felt as if I’ve been picked up by the scruff of my neck and moved, in different situations, either to rescue me from some calamity or—which I suspect is more often the case—to deliberately get me into trouble.
The air in the flat is stale, which is not surprising as the windows haven’t been opened for two weeks. I push the bedroom window wide open, but I only open the kitchen window a crack. When the cold, fresh air spreads through the flat I feel it’s good to be back home. I tell myself that this is my place. I have been put here, whether it was organized according to a whim of the fellow up above or resulted from a mixture of my own decisions and the unavoidable incidents which, nearly every day, give life just as much color as, for instance, music, sex, films, and books do. This is my home: my everyday world. Then, all at once, I get the feeling that my thoughts are complete nonsense. A peculiar sensation tells me that I should not take for granted the fact that I live here, that this flat is my home rather than someone else’s, even though I have lived here alone for nearly two years and haven’t made any plans to move in the near future. After a while I manage to shake off this uncanny feeling. This is my home. And I am just about to put “Lonely Fire” from Big Fun on the turntable.
2
When he kicked open the gate it sounded as if it was going to break. When he got out in the street he stopped and looked in both directions. It was very cold; he pulled the hood further down over his head. He spun around when he heard the man in the garden next door, a middle-aged man with a knitted cap on his head, kicking the snow off his boots before going into his house. Then he walked west along Grettisgata, towards the center of town. Four cars came down Frakkastigur, one after another, and turned into Grettisgata. The last one skidded when it rounded the corner and managed to stop just before the rear of it crashed into the wall of a house. He began to walk faster but had to watch his step because the soles of his shoes were so slippery; they were his best shoes, with narrow pointed toes which poked out from under the threadbare bottoms of his long jeans.
At the corner of Klapparstigur and Grettisgata he saw a group of school children standing in front of an antique shop window on the other side of the street. He stopped at the corner for a few seconds, gazed at the children, and banged the heels of his shoes together to get rid of the snow that had collected on them. Then he set off down Klapparstigur, and, after a few steps, he slipped on the icy pavement and nearly landed on his back. He paused, looked around, and then carried on. The traffic on the main street, Laugavegur, seemed to be moving very slowly. Three young girls stood on the corner waiting to cross the road. He, on the other hand, just squeezed out between two cars, slid over the icy road, and mounted the pavement on the other side of Klapparstigur. Then he disappeared into a little bar.
From the outside no one would have guessed that there was any trade going on in there; it looked more like a fisherman’s hut or a dilapidated country cottage. Even the name on the sign outside had worn off, if there had been any name there at all.
There was no one inside apart from one member of the staff—a girl of about twenty who was standing in front of a blackboard that was fixed on the wall to the left of the bar. She was writing the day’s menu and seemed to be deciding what would be on it as she went along. He walked over to a table in the corner, beside the window, and let go of a worn plastic bag before he sat down. The girl stopped writing on the blackboard and turned around to see who had come in. Then she seemed to get an idea; she started writing again. It was warm inside the bar. The smell of food hung in the air.
3
At the bar in Heathrow I had been musing about the flight home, what we would eat on board and so on. I hoped I wouldn’t end up beside a chatterbox or someone who was forever getting up to go to the toilet or talk to other passengers. The last time I flew I sat beside a young man who had tried, without luck, to get me interested in his business (wholesale trade in sportswear and equipment for some peculiar fringe sports) and then rushed back and forth along the aisle, as if that three hour flight was some sort of family or general gathering: Icelanders meeting up after being away from their native soil for at least a week. Really it’s no small risk one takes, boarding an airplane. For three hours (not to mention on longer trips) one is locked in a tight, uncomfortable space, way above any civilization, with unpredictable people, who could drink themselves senseless or spill their food and drink over you—and the only place of salvation is the toilet.
I was looking forward to relaxing on board, reading the newspaper I had bought in the airport and perhaps dozing off after the meal. But those plans were to be completely disrupted. I hadn’t even sat down in my aisle seat when the man in the middle seat—a rather scruffy fellow of about sixty with a mop of grey hair that was tobacco-colored in patches, who looked like he might smell of alcohol or sweat—made it obvious with his friendly smile that we would enjoy a good chat on the way. While I waited for my turn to put my hand luggage and jacket up in the locker, he offered me an Opal lozenge from a battered box which looked as if it had gotten wet or been sat on. I declined his offer and made an effort to smile and show the appropriate amount of gratitude when he insisted that I take one.
“They are always the same, these air trips,” he said when I sat down. I got the feeling that he had been preparing this sentence while I was busy fitting my belongings into the locker. His use of the term air trips indicated that he was trying to avoid using the word flight in the plural—something that I have always felt was wrong, though I don’t know why. When he introduced himself as a linguist a little later—more correctly Armann Valur, linguist and prospective pensioner (this latter title was added more as a joke)—I was rather pleased with myself; I had immediately thought that he had something to do with languages. The power of the subconscious or good intuition, I told myself, smirking at my misfortune in meeting a hulk of a linguist before the pilot had even gotten around to announcing take-off.
I introduced myself to the fellow but got the feeling that he didn’t take much notice of my name. I didn’t fasten my safety belt straight away, as I half expected him to stand up and take off his dark blue overcoat. He was wearing a suit and a jumper underneath. I took the flight magazine out of the seat pocket and found an article that I could pretend to be engrossed in for a while. It was about the world’s most northern golf course, at Akureyri, where Vigdis is staying at the moment. But, just as I feared, I got no peace; the man beside me pointed at the flight attendant who was approaching down the aisle and reminded me to fasten my seatbelt. The “dears” are coming to make sure everyone is strapped in. I expected him to carry on talking, but when he paused I used the opportunity to get my portable tape player out of my bag in the locker. I was back in my seat with my belt fastened before the flight attendant walked past with a smile and checked (in a rather unconvincing manner) that the belts were fastened. I was quite sure that she was laughing to herself about the overdressed fellow beside me.
From the corner of my
eye I saw that the woman in the window seat was slyly watching him—a dark haired woman in her forties, clearly well-educated and likely, I thought, to see the comical elements in the linguist’s appearance. I, on the other hand, had put a tape into my portable player (remixes of several Miles Davis recordings) and was busy rewinding with my headphones already in place. I gazed along the aisle while I waited for the tape to rewind. All at once I noticed a young, fair-haired woman who was sitting several rows in front of me. I felt as if I recognized her, and when she turned her head towards the person on the other side of the aisle—she had obviously been asked a question—I remembered who she was. I didn’t know her name but I had first seen her fifteen years ago, at a high school party in Hjalmholt. Her unconventionally beautiful face had caught my eye, not to mention her almost perfect body, which seemed just the same today.
This memory from Hjalmholt is still very clear, although I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. There I was sitting on the sofa between two classmates, probably drinking to pluck up enough courage to chat up some girls from my class, and gazing in adoration at this girl I had never seen before but who was, I think, a friend of the people who were throwing the party. It wasn’t just her appearance that made her seem exciting; she was even more memorable for having disappeared with a boy, whom I knew vaguely, into one of the children’s bedrooms slightly later in the evening. She reappeared half an hour later, red-cheeked and—making no attempt to cover up what she had been doing in the bedroom—with her fair hair tousled (and even prettier), clearly after some kind of “friendly combat,” as one of my classmates put it. But the boy, who had gone with her into the bedroom, didn’t come out again, and we found out shortly afterwards that he was fast asleep. My friends and I joked that she—the one who was now sitting just a few meters away from me on the plane, in jeans and a T-shirt—had completely done him in.