The Fish Can Sing (52 page)

“Who’s he?” I asked.

“The Barber of Seville?” said Gar
ar Hólm. “You’ve never heard of the greatest barber in the world? What do they teach you in the Grammar School if they don’t teach you about the barber before whom all other barbers pale into insignificance?”

“I’m afraid we haven’t got very far yet in the art of barbery,” I said. “Forgive me for being so ignorant. Where does this barber do his shaving, if I may ask? And whom does he shave?”

“That’s another matter,” said Gar
ar Hólm. “You see, it’s more than doubtful whether the Barber of Seville ever knew how to
shave. At least, everything certainly went wrong when he tried to shave Don Bartolo in the Third Act, because Don Bartolo suddenly jumped to his feet with the soap all over his face and started fighting with Count Almaviva. All that we know about this barber is that he tried, with the help of a guitar, to make total strangers fall in love with one another. But if it were now to be proved that Figaro could not shave, would you then reject the Barber of Seville out of hand, and Rossini himself and the whole orchestra as well?”

“I have listened to great debates on the Barbers’ Bill, which is one of the biggest political issues here in Iceland,” I said. “But I have never heard before that one should believe in a barber who actually could not shave.”

“But you believe in ghost stories, I hope?” said Gar
ar Hólm.

“Oh, ghost stories be blowed!” I said.

“Really,” he said. “Is that so? I can see that you’re rather an arrogant youngster; a little above the rest of mankind, if I may put it that way. Because mankind has an inclination to believe in ghost stories. That is its strength. If you don’t respect this fundamental truth about mankind, I’m afraid you may suffer for it, my friend.”

“I think that ghosts don’t exist,” I said.

He said, “Mankind’s spiritual values have all been created from a belief in all the things that philosophers reject. I asked you just now: What do you choose at this crossroads in your life? But you didn’t give me an answer. Now I ask you: How are you going to live if you reject not only the Barber of Seville but also the cultural value of ghost stories?”

“I’m going to try to live as if ghosts didn’t exist,” I said. “And concern myself as little as possible with this world-famous barber who never shaved anyone.”

Gar
ar Hólm asked, “If it were to be proved scientifically or historically or even judicially that the Resurrection is not particularly well authenticated by evidence – are you then going to reject the B-minor Mass? Do you want to close St. Peter’s Cathedral because it has come to light that it is the symbol of a mistaken philosophy and would be more useful as a stable? What a catastrophe that Giotto and Fra Angelico should have become
enmeshed in a false ideology as painters, instead of adhering to realism! The story of the Virgin Mary is obviously just another falsehood invented by knaves, and any man is a fraud who allows himself to sigh,
‘Pièta, Signor’.”

My life story was over for the time being, and Gar
ar Hólm rose from the Archangel Gabriel’s tombstone.

“Go down to the hotel and sleep there for me tonight,” he said. “If someone asks for me, I’m dining with the Government.”

He was up and away. I heard the tansies brushing against him as he walked away and disappeared into the darkness between the tombstones. I walked down to town again as he had asked me to do.

There was a light on in his many-roomed suite. Little Miss Gú
múnsen was sitting there and waiting. And it was I who came in. She stared at me dully and said without any preliminaries, “Where is Gar
ar Hólm?”

“He’s having dinner with the Government,” I said.

“Have you, too, started telling lies now?” said the girl.

“Too?” I said. “Like whom?”

“Everyone,” she said. “Can’t you hear how everyone tells lies; if not deliberately, then involuntarily; if not out loud, then silently? But I don’t care if he lies. It’s just that he has no cause to despise me even though he despises all my family. I haven’t done him any harm.”

“What on earth makes you think he despises you and all your family?” I asked.

“You’ve seen how he behaves,” she replied. “And you’ve heard how he speaks. He greets me like a complete stranger. He never even looked at me – even though he had written that he had started a new life and that when he came, he would be coming because of me. He doesn’t have to lie to me because of that; I
don’t care in the least if he doesn’t live in palaces in various countries whose names I don’t even know. And he doesn’t have to be ashamed of himself on my account, either, even though he knows that I know it. If you’re fond of someone, you don’t care even if he doesn’t live in a palace and even if all the banks where he has deposits and all the world-cities where he is famous don’t exist.”

I said nothing. She dried her eyes, but the tears continued to come in showers just the same.

“Will you take me to him?” she said at last. “I won’t survive the night unless I talk to him.”

“He is sleeping at the Governor’s house,” I said. “Haven’t I just been telling you?”

“Oh, I know perfectly well he’s lying up in that horrid old byre-loft,” she said. “But you can take me there nevertheless. You know everything, anyway.”

“Know what?” I said. “I don’t know a single thing. But you must at least realize that since he didn’t make any appointment with you, he doesn’t expect to meet you tonight.”

“You’re just the same beastly pig you’ve always been and I should have known!” said the girl; she had stopped sobbing for a moment, and her face had even hardened a little. Then she said, “As if I didn’t know that he was making a fool of me! He’s making a fool of all of us. I don’t really know whether he himself has made up all these stories; but at least he’s been clever at finding plenty of disciples and other runners to spread them around. And he’s not bashful about making us do the paying.”

“Oh, I don’t believe your father would spend money on things other than those he thinks he can get something out of,” I said.

“That’s just like you!” she said. “Actually, I don’t care a rap about singing any more. I don’t even know what singing is. I don’t care whether he sings well or badly. I was just a little girl who loved adventure stories, and I swallowed all the descriptions of those huge concert-halls where the people held their breath when he opened his mouth; and these great hotels where everyone bowed to him; and those bank deposits which kept piling up. No sooner had he arrived in the country than I felt I was beginning to float on air, and our little country which is known only as a
colony of an even less-renowned country – God knows, one was almost becoming part of the world itself. When I walked by his side here in Löngustétt, I was raised above the life we live here; and he would pull out gold coins from his pockets for anyone who wanted them. But now I’ve long since stopped caring about all that; I don’t care if all his gold coins were counterfeit.”

“What has happened?” I asked.

“Happened?” she said. “Nothing has happened. I just love him. I wrote to him that even though he were a labourer in a country no one knows and is called Jutland and isn’t even a country, yes, even though he had a wife and children there, I was ready at any time to give him everything he wanted. He is the only man I have ever fallen for, and no other man except him can ever have me. And you can tell him that from me since you won’t take me to him; I had to tell it to somebody!”