Paradise Reclaimed (20 page)

The east wind kept hurling the rain against the windows in squalls. The girl stood rooted to the floor, and the pool at her feet kept on growing. And the cat kept on sleeping. But the man who had been embracing the girl did not return. Were his topboots lost? Were the men, not long in bed, difficult to rouse from their slumbers? That could surely not be a dead cat? thought the girl. Or was it all a dream, even her tracks on the floor? She went over to the sleeping cat and stroked it. The cat did no more than half-open its eyes, lift its head slightly, stretch itself, and yawn; and then fall asleep again. Perhaps it had thought that this strange girl was its dream; and so perhaps she was.

At long last she heard stealthy nocturnal footsteps on the stairs and out in the corridor. Then the door was opened with the kind of cautious care that makes the hinges squeak. In came an old woman with a bent, almost hunched, back, her face still numb with sleep and her wispy grey hair tied in tight plaits no thicker than ordinary twine. She was wearing a night-gown that was so loosely buttoned that one could see down the front how her breasts sagged as limply as empty purses; but she had put on her black pleated skirt before coming down to meet the visitor. Blinking, she looked at the soaked girl, offered her hand, and asked, “What brings you here, my girl?”

“Nothing,” said the girl. “I was having a word with Björn. I wanted to see him about something.”

“Are you not from Steinahlíðar?” asked the woman.

“Yes, I am from Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar,” said the girl.

“Poor thing,” said the old woman. “Was it not you who lost your father?”

“Yes,” said the girl, “he is with the Mormons.”

“Good heavens!” said the old woman. “Compared with that, it’s a blessing to be able to see your loved ones in the graveyard.”

“At least they don’t come back,” said the girl.

“It’s a little late to be visiting, little one,” said the woman. “We mustn’t keep my poor Björn up too late unnecessarily. Can’t you see that he’s an old man now, and nearly blind, and needs his sleep at nights?”

“I have never thought of Björn as old at all,” said the girl. “Some people say he gave me a son.”

“Yes, the things people can say about my Björn!” said the woman. “Are you dripping, my dear?”

“I’m in service on the other side of the river,” said the girl. “I waded across.”

“It’s nice when young people want to go into service,” said the woman. “But it’s terrible the loose living that goes on nowadays at night. Hadn’t you better be hurrying off home now, poor thing, so that you can get up in the morning? I’ll lend you my riding-cloak to put on. Would you like a lump of sugar? Unfortunately the fire under the kettle is out.”

25

Travel episode

When Björn of Leirur went to see the sheriff and complained about the fact that a foreign agent was moving round the country like a moor fire and buying up decent people on behalf of the Mormons, so that Iceland was in danger of depopulation, the sheriff said, “Decent people? What sort of people are they? Do you mean parish paupers or saga-heroes?”

“You remember the girl from Steinahlíðar who had a virgin birth?” said Björn. “The Mormons have managed to get their noses into that, of course. I am thinking of adopting the boy legally.”

“You will adopt precisely damn-all boys whom you have denied on oath, making a laughing stock of my office,” said the sheriff.

“That’s a lie, I never denied the boy on oath,” said Björn of Leirur. “On the other hand, there was nothing I could do if his mother insisted that it was a virgin birth.”

“Yes, I’m branded as an idiot,” said the sheriff, “for not sending you all to jail where you belong.”

“Just re-open the case as if nothing had happened,” said Björn. “I demand that the Hlíðar folk be restrained from leaving while the case is being investigated.”

“Have you considered what sort of a favour you are doing the taxpayers by interdicting parish paupers from emigrating?” said the sheriff. “I know of parish councils that thank God for the chance of being allowed to pay them their fares to America.”

“Well, I’ll take matters into my own hands, then,” said Björn of Leirur.

“That’s up to you, but don’t involve me in anything, and try to keep out of jail. And now let’s talk about something more congenial. Do you want some cognac?”

“What have you got?” asked Björn of Leirur.

“Napoleonic,” said the sheriff. “And getting down to something that is worth spending words on—we have had an offer of a trawler in England, a big ship, my lad. It goes on steam. In one single season it can catch as much as all the seamen in fifty fishing stations in Iceland put together. On a ship like that there’s no question of the men lying on their bunks all day long, reading about saga-heroes while they wait for better weather. In a few years’ time, fishing smacks and schooners will have become objects of public ridicule, and no one will know what a rowing-boat is. It just needs a final bit of drive for our company to be formed in Reykjavík. If a few sound fellows like you put up five hundred hundreds of land or so, in addition to cash, a certain foreigner is prepared to guarantee a bank-loan for us. After a year we would be ladling the gold from the sea.”

Björn of Leirur protested that all the stuffing had gone out of him now, and that he suffered from nightmares: “It’s all up with me. And anyway I don’t understand big business. All I understand is how to accept nice shiny guineas from the Scots for horses and sheep on the hoof. As you know,” he went on, “it has always been my ideal to restore gold in Iceland. Some of my happiest moments in life have been spent in counting out genuine money into the hands of farmers and seeing their eyebrows shoot up. Very few of those with whom I had dealings knew the stuff. Some of them said to me that they thought gold only existed in ballads. One man said to me that modern gold was all counterfeit; all the genuine gold in the world had been sunk to the bottom of the Rhine in the days of the
Edda,
he said. Those are the kind of people with whom I can do business, not the big boys in Reykjavík, and least of all with foreign bankers.”

The sheriff offered to lend him English statistics about trawler profits, but Björn of Leirur said he was too weak in the eyes now to read statistics and too weak in the head to do sums. The sheriff brought out the statistics nonetheless and read out some figures to the agent and explained them to him.

“Yes, that may well apply to the English,” said Björn of Leirur. “But there’s a difference between Peter and Paul. I don’t know how to look after my money once it’s put into a trawler.”

“Trawlers are trawlers,” said the sheriff. “And fish have still got little enough sense to go into the net without pausing to ask whether it belongs to Björn of Leirur or to the English. I don’t see why foreigners should scoop up all the fish around Iceland’s shores while we ourselves sit on dry land and read thrillers and wait for good weather; or how a progressive chap like yourself can carry on fleecing these peasants who are stuck here hemmed in between river and seashore. For my own part I confess that I shudder at being called sheriff over these people. It is as ludicrous to administer justice to destitute people as it is to fleece them. Now’s the chance for us two, you and me, to give the English a roasting.”

In the end they both started doing sums. They did all sorts of sums for the rest of the day, and restored Iceland’s national economy on paper and consigned decent parish paupers and saga-heroes to America to ease the burden on the taxpayers. It was not surprising that the Mormons were forgotten during this game.

“Since you cannot be induced to grant interdicts against slave-traders from Mormony, I’ll have a word myself with my lowland tenants down here. I’m not used to letting any shrimp of a sheriff trip me up,” said Björn of Leirur eventually, when he had mounted his pony that evening.

“Keep out of jail, and come and see me again,” said the sheriff in parting.

And now to tell of the encounter at the Jökulsá.

Early next morning a small and rather unwarlike company could be seen plodding along the main track westwards from Steinahlíðar. In the van was Þjóðrekur the Mormon, barefooted and leading an old pack-pony laden with the sort of bits and pieces that do not deserve any elaborate description in a book. Behind him trailed the family which the Mormons had confiscated: the wife, her daughter and the boy Víkingur who, in the bishop’s opinion, had not had a haircut since the first day of summer. Nor should it be entirely overlooked that Bishop Þjóðrekur, in addition to carrying his boots and hat slung over his shoulder and walking barefoot, as was said previously, also carried in his arms the little boy who had created such a mystery in the district; and now over the bishop’s shoulder the child opened his hand towards the mountains which were taking leave of these people.

“It’s as if he wants to take these mountains with him,” said his mother, and laughed.

“He will get better mountains instead, like Sierra Benida where the sun rises over those who think correctly,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur. “Not to mention Mount Timpanogus, which is named after a red lady and has poplar aspens.”

“Where is the company bound for, if one may ask?” said passers-by, stopping in the middle of the main track and eyeing these people who from their lack of ponies did not seem destined for fame, even though one of them was a fresh-complexioned young woman in the full bloom of youth.

“If you were sent to ask, my lad,” replied Bishop Þjóðrekur, “then we are on the way to paradise on earth, which wicked men lost but good men found again.”

The ferryman and his wife gave the travellers curds and then coffee and cream on top of that, which they said was wholesome; and they gave them this piece of news: “There were some men around this morning, some of them people of no little account and with horses to match. People like that never deign to ask for a ferry when they come to glacier-rivers. And there was certainly nothing very threadbare about their leader.”

“Is that any of my business?” said Bishop Þjóðrekur.

“Not unless they were wanting to have a word with you.”

“Were they perhaps thinking of beating me up?” said the bishop.

“I don’t know,” said the ferryman. “But you are welcome to shelter here until the sheriff has been fetched.”

“I never laugh as loudly as when I hear sheriffs mentioned,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur, but he did not laugh, for it was an art he had never learned.

When they came down to the ferry they caught sight of mounted men on the sands on the far side of the river. They seemed to be waiting for something, and kept a close watch on Þjóðrekur and his companions. One of them put a telescope to his eye.

The ferryman’s wife drew the girl aside as she bade her farewell at the edge of the home-field.

“You can see him standing there with the telescope, ready to snatch the child when you step ashore on the other side. Remember what I said to you the year before last: make the old devil pay. Don’t let him have the boy except for a really large sum, cash down.”

“Just take it nice and steady, lad,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur to the ferryman. He seated himself carefully on the grass and put on his topboots. Then he put on his hat just as it was, wrapped in its transparent covering. Then they carried their baggage and the pack-saddle on to the boat, and let the pony swim across unencumbered.

No sooner had they pushed out the boat than those who lay in wait on the other side rode down to the landing-point opposite. Some of them dismounted, others remained on their horses. They exchanged sardonic witticisms and laughed uproariously. There was no sign of any weapons, but on the other hand Björn of Leirur had put on his topboots and was standing in them on the other bank. He was trying to focus the telescope but his pony would not let him; it kept on tugging at the reins Björn was holding, pawed the ground and chewed the bit, snorted and tried to rub its bridle off against its legs or against its master’s shoulder.

When it was obvious that Bishop Þjóðrekur was determined to put out into the river, the ferryman disposed his passengers in the skiff, with the women in the stern and the boy Víkingur on the thwart by his side; in the bows sat the bishop, with the child wrapped in a blanket asleep in his arms. The river was shallow on the near side but deepened gradually into a fast-running channel the closer one went to the other side. The ferryman’s technique was to row upstream first of all where the water was shallow and sluggish, and then let the current carry the boat downstream while he steered for the landing-place with an oar. Bishop Þjóðrekur, however, now asked the ferryman to head straight towards the men, “For I need to have a word with them,” he said, “before we enter the channel.”

The ferryman replied, “If we head straight across river we shall enter the current just where it swings out into the middle of the river, and then we could either be swept back to this bank or else be driven on to a sandbar.”

“Be that as it may,” said the bishop. “I want to have a word with these men from out on the river rather than be driven helplessly ashore at their feet.”

“I cannot vouch for this old hulk, she only hangs together from sheer habit, and she could come apart if we deviate from the course I have steered her for a generation. She can’t stand the strain of the current from any other direction than the one she is used to.”

“Have no fear, lad. I am the bishop,” said Þjóðrekur.

The ferryman steered the boat in the direction the bishop had indicated. When they reached the point where the current began to grow stronger, Þjóðrekur told the ferryman to hold the boat on the oars. Then he called over to the men on the far bank: “Are you waiting for anything, good people, or were you wanting to have a word with us?”

“This is a public ferry,” said Björn of Leirur.

“It does not seem to me proper for men with such fine horses to crowd into this little tub,” said the bishop. “Why don’t you ford the river on horseback? Who are you, anyway?”

“The agent at Leirur,” came the reply.

“Oh, that doesn’t cut so very much ice,” said Bishop Þjóðrekur.

“I know who you are,” Björn of Leirur went on. “And let me tell you that we don’t need to ask a crazy Mormon how to conduct our journeys here in the south.”

Bishop Þjóðrekur replied, “Since you call me a crazy Mormon, then my opinions challenge your opinions to a duel. Which of us has the more correct opinions will be proved by seeing which of us is better off when the ultimate reckoning comes.”

Now Björn of Leirur was getting really roused.

“I have no opinions at all, luckily—before seven o’clock at night,” he said. “Then I know whether I want beefsteak or salted meat,” he shouted, and all the champions on the riverbank laughed. “And now stop hanging about in the middle of the river, the child will catch cold.”

“What’s this child to you?” said the Mormon.

“I’ve come here to fetch it. I’m going to adopt it.”

“Who gave you the documents for that?” asked the Mormon.

“The Government authorities are on my side,” said Björn.

“If you mean sheriffs, my friend, they can eat their own dirt,” said the Mormon. “My documents are from King Kristian Wilhelmsson himself.”

Þjóðrekur now asked the ferryman to let the boat drift downstream, but to be careful to keep the channel between themselves and the champions standing on the bank.

Björn and his men mounted and moved off to keep abreast of the boat. The river deepened and broadened, with a steady current, and both banks fell away. The boat was no longer familiar with the river when she left her customary course, and now began to creak rather ominously. The women began to feel dizzy. Steinar’s wife pushed her hood back, raised her eyes to Heaven and began to sing the hymn, “Praise the Lord, the merciful King of Heaven.” The agent shouted from the bank, and could only just be heard above the noise of wind and water. He said that although the Mormon was evil and damned, he trusted the ferryman, his friend and compatriot, not to take part in murdering the child.

“I can’t hear what you’re saying,” said the ferryman.

“Come closer,” said Björn.

“If you frighten me away from the bank by threatening my passengers, I cannot vouch for their lives. There is a strong current here, the boat is leaking, and the oars are rotted.”

“Try to come back into earshot again,” said Björn of Leirur. “My eyesight is failing, but isn’t there a fair-haired young girl in the boat with you, red-cheeked and well-built? I want to speak to her if she agrees.”

“Have you anything still to discuss with this man?” asked the bishop.

The girl asked to be rowed closer to the bank, in case this man should have anything important to say to her. “What he says is up to him,” she said.

“I have come here with many horses and followers and plenty of money,” shouted Björn of Leirur. “Everything except good eyesight. Will you ride away with me? I am going somewhere I can get my sight back. I shall bring the boy up and provide for him. He will have all the education he can cope with. I shall make as much of a man of him as can be done for anyone in this country. When I saw him this summer in the uplands I said to myself: this boy and his mother as well shall be mine before the summer is out.”