The Fish Can Sing (21 page)

If one glances at the newspapers of that period, for example the
Ísafold
, it comes to light that life was not entirely uneventful in this little fishing-station, even though some people might think that it lies beyond the edge of the world. At just about this time the news was spread round the country that our famous singer had now written a letter to the exalted Althing itself. In this letter he took leave to inform the nation’s legislators that, because of his fame throughout the world (which was due much more to God’s mercy than his own merits), there was now no longer any need for the horny-handed sons of toil in Iceland to be burdened further with taxes on his behalf; with this letter he was renouncing the funds he had been granted by the Treasury; the time had now come, the letter said, for the roles to be changed: it was now up to him to start kneading the golden dough for those fishermen and farmers from this day onwards. At the same time he thanked the Althing for the sums it had up to now granted him out of public moneys in Iceland in order to promote culture abroad. The Government’s magnanimity was eloquent evidence of the fact that the nation which lived here was still determined to hold aloft the banner of its great past. Above this letter there was printed a picture of Gar
ar Hólm, one of the first portraits to appear in Icelandic newspapers and the largest to be printed in those columns until the day the Danish king came to Iceland a few years later.

In the newspapers of those days one can read innumerable eulogies about this young genius, who was already acknowledged as the nation’s favourite son. Among other things, it was freely asserted in praise of Gar
ar Hólm that he was an example to every young student in the respect one should show to the Treasury.

He was regarded as one of the foremost of the intellectuals because of the consideration he showed for the farmers and
fishermen. In one paper it was said that no artist could achieve greater distinction in his career than to deny himself the privilege of grabbing the gold which was scraped from under the nails of these poverty-stricken people; nor could there be any doubt that the farmers and fishermen knew how to appreciate the moral strength that shone so brightly in the famous man’s letter. In a brief news-paragraph elsewhere in the paper one could then read that the singer had presented to the nation ten thousand picture-postcards of himself to be sold for the benefit of tuberculosis patients. In the next issue there appeared a further effusion from Gar
ar Hólm, again headed by the huge picture: “I wish to express my fervent and most heartfelt gratitude to ship-owner and shopkeeper Mr Jón Gu
mundsson, Knight of the Danish Order of Dannebrog, as well as to his son G. Gú
múnsen, wholesale merchant and Commander of the Danish Order of Dannebrog, for the money which those enlightened progressives, patriots, and compatriots disbursed so freely when a young Icelander timorously and apprehensively set foot upon the steep path never before trodden by anyone from this country, with little in his knapsack except the courage of hope. I thank these two good men and true Icelanders and Knights of the Danish Order of Dannebrog for their sympathy towards the endeavours of a little boy who from the very beginning believed in the voice of Iceland in the choir of the world: it is my hope that Icelanders will get the singing that their country deserves. Respectfully, Gar
ar Hólm.”

Yet another article was headlined in large type as follows:
DER ERLKÖNIG
AT AUSTURVÖLLUR. This report stated that Gar
ar Hólm the opera singer was intending to entertain the public with a concert from the balcony of the Althing building on the following Sunday, weather permitting. The famous singer was going to sing a few songs from the programme he had presented abroad, particularly those which had earned the greatest acclaim in the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and on the balcony of the Sultan’s palace in Algiers, such as
The Sheep are Bleating in the Pen, How Beautifully that Bird did Sing
, and
The East Wind Coldly on Us Blew
.

To these Icelandic songs countless thousands of people throughout the world, adherents of the Pope and Mohammed
alike, had bowed their heads. In addition, he was intending to entertain his fellow-countrymen here with a few songs of the type that had originated under the warm golden skies of the Mediterranean but had never before been heard in the cold blue realms of Iceland’s mountains – the famous so-called arias. Finally, he would be singing
Der Erlkönig
.

“Why do you never read the
Ísafold
, grandmother?” I asked.

She replied, “I have always been thought stupid.”

“It says in the papers that Gar
ar Hólm is going to sing at Austurvöllur on Sunday.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “ ‘Sweetly sings the swan all the summer long’.”

“Should we not go down to Austurvöllur on Sunday, grandmother?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be going down to Austurvöllur to hear a song we cannot hear at Brekkukot, my child,” said my grandmother.

“In that case I’ll go by myself,” I said.

“Do that,” she said. “In any case I have already heard my own song. Yes indeed. But you have yet to hear your song. On you go. And attend to God, as my grandmother used to say.”

All the same, I had a suspicion that there were few things that preoccupied people more on both sides of the churchyard. I do not think it is putting it too strongly if I say that everyone and everything, town and nation, earth and sky, were waiting for this singing. The churchyard and all its fantasies disappeared beyond my horizon of those days, the two bells ceased to sound, the clock stopped ticking.

On one of those days of expectancy just before the concert at Austurvöllur I was sent to town on an errand for my grandmother, and was walking down Löngustétt, as the main street in Reykjavík used to be called in those days, where Gú
múnsen’s Store and the Theological Seminary and the Hotel d’Islande stood. It was just after midday. The weather was dry. I was watching a train of pack-ponies loaded with stockfish moving off; in those days, farmers bought dried cods’-heads and transported them on ponies out to the eastern districts on journeys as long, measured in days, as
a journey from Paris to Peking, through countless districts, over mountains and moors and across rocky deserts and rushing rivers. It was a most impressive sight to see such a train setting off; there was about it an atmosphere of distant eastern places. Suddenly I felt a hand under my chin.