Under the Glacier (21 page)

She explained as if it were of no importance that she had not heard of “this” until in Paris the day before yesterday, the day of the funeral. Of course James cabled everyone except me, she said, and went on: I was never popular with butlers in that blessed household. I got a telegram from old Mowitz and the rest in London. Some come late, but come nonetheless.

That apart, the undersigned refers to the comments by local people about these women, particularly to what Tumi Jónsen the parish clerk declared here in this report, chapters 8‒11 (concerning women who do not sleep, etc.); and also remarks by pastor J. Prímus along the same lines. And though the woman yawned once as she took up her knitting it doesn’t refute the fact that long journeys by day and night have little effect on such women. I felt the woman grow larger on the sofa as she sat there knitting, having given a receipt for the fish. She was perhaps almost 180 cm tall. Of her other measurements I cannot speak.
Vollschlank
was sometimes used of women one cannot describe except in German; it means not fat, much less thin. She was certainly broad in the shoulder, and the “dowager’s hump” had perhaps begun to protrude a little; but the neck is still so youthful that there is no dewlap under the chin. On the other hand, such women quickly become bosomy if they don’t go in for sport; doesn’t have to stem from indolence. She was wearing a coat of light-blue velvet, very loose-fitting (such as younger women sometimes wear when they are expecting), which reached down to the hem of a beige dress; she was wearing pale suede boots. This woman wore no jewellery of any kind.

The undersigned produced his report to see where matters stood, then chose a special opening under the heading of
Unexpected Conversations
, which might well prove to be outside the official brief from the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs.

Embi: It so happens that the bishop has sent me here to this parish to make some inquiries about a trifling matter. There is something I would like to ask you about. But I would point out that you do not need to answer me at all if you don’t wish to, and you can be as evasive as you like; nor do you have to tell the truth in reply to my questions, and you may use
reservatio
mentis
as much as you like, though I hope you do not know what that is. It is our task in the south to find the truth.

Woman: I have never concealed anything that mattered. On the other hand I am not a stranger to the Jesuits. Question away as you please, my dear.

Embi: What is your name, if I may ask?

Woman: My name is Guðrún Sæmundsdóttir from Neðratraðkot, and I am the daughter of the couple there.

Embi: Well I must say you rather took me aback there, madam. But there’s nothing to be done about that. One asks and asks and always the answers become more incomprehensible than the question. In the end one becomes an idiot.

Woman: Go ahead, my dear.

Embi: The bishop wants to hear about status.

Woman: Status, what’s that?

Embi: What you are.

Woman: I am the pastor’s wife here.

Embi: I didn’t know there was a pastor’s wife here. I thought the pastor lived alone—apart from Miss Hnallþóra.

Woman: I am his wife.

Embi: But been away rather a long time, isn’t that so?

Woman: Thirty-five years. That’s not a very long moment of time.

Embi: When you signed the receipt for the fish just now, it looked as if you wrote some strange name or other.

Woman: Sometimes before I know it I write that name when I take delivery of fish. I was once in a Spanish convent and took delivery of fish at the gate and was called Elena.

Embi: I see, so you were a nun.

Woman: It so happened that I had been in charge of a bordello in Buenos Aires for a few years. But I have always found pleasures boring, so I entered a convent. About the time I had finished
el noviciado
and was to take the veil, my father-confessor, who was impotent, discovered that I couldn’t be a virgin. You see, I had forgotten to mention that I was a married woman and a pastor’s wife up north in Iceland.

Embi: I don’t suppose you knew a girl called Úa?

God help you, my boy, said the woman. Who put that into your head?

But as I sit there engrossed in my papers and at a loss for an answer, all of a sudden a woman I did not recognise started laughing. When I looked up the laughter had stopped.

Who was that laughing? I asked.

Woman: When I had gone out into life, before I knew it I started to be called Úa.

In fact there was nothing in this woman’s demeanour that aroused sensuality. Without doubt she was like any other ageing woman if one began to think about “life,” and indeed it was not until she had drawn attention to it herself that I remembered that everyone is part of the enigma of time.

Embi: “Úa”—what does that mean?

Woman: It is easily understood in France. Also in Buenos Aires. On the other hand, I have heard that the name is bad in Denmark. It is pronounced with the stress on the
ú
; then a short
a. Ooh-a
. Some people never learn to pronounce it nor to decline it. In the United States they think it is a South Sea Islands language. One man in Los Angeles offered a thousand dollars for it for his daughter who had still not been conceived—and got it. Yes—that girl, she is now dead. It is a word from the language of the eiderducks at home, úa-úa; they taught me to understand life.

Embi: I gather from various things you say that you are the woman who three years ago was said to have died abroad?

Woman: Yes, I died that year, the year I lost my Úa.

Embi: So you have lost children, madam? Accidents?

Woman: We do not know that, my young friend. Are there ever accidents where God is concerned?

Embi: Doesn’t it take quite a lot to be able to ask such a question in all seriousness, madam?

That is true, said the woman. Thank God that accidents happen. Then one first gets to know God. No, my children didn’t die. It was only I who died and moved into another house—the other house.

The woman looked up and laughed another woman’s shrill, automatic laughter.

Embi: You laugh?

Woman: The woman in the other house laughs.

Embi: Perhaps we’ll turn to something else with your permission, madam. Hmm. What do you say about the notion that your soul was conjured into a fish three years ago and preserved up on the glacier until this evening?

The woman stopped knitting and answered in amazement: God bless you and keep you, you poor man.

Embi: Thank you. But I don’t know if there is any point in noting that reply.

The woman went on looking at me for a while and was obviously nonplussed. She said: Aren’t you just a tiny bit limited, my little one?

Embi: It is only asses who are ever employed to make official reports. If I weren’t one, no one would have asked me to do this kind of thing. I hope you forgive me.

Comprendo
, said the woman.

I looked out of the door and saw that the ice was nearly melted from the fish and there was a pool on the veranda. As a matter of fact, I was surprised that the woman hadn’t been still more astonished. It was obvious that this woman was very experienced and that it wasn’t easy to surprise her with anything, least of all with metaphysics. I made for safer ground and asked casually: What are you going to do with this fish?

Woman: Come and have some salmon tomorrow.

And then the woman from the other house laughed unnaturally heartily for a little.

Guðrún Sæmundsdóttir put on her spectacles because she had dropped a stitch. She picked up the stitch and continued the row she was on.

There is a strange restfulness in being close to a woman who is knitting. Could it be because by knitting, women succeed in suppressing their own inner tensions? At first I had thought it was a pullover but now it looked as if it had a thumb.

Embi: So you knit mittens, madam?

Woman: Yes, I knit sea-mittens.

Embi: Why?

Woman: How very immature you are, my dear. Why do I knit sea-mittens, what a question! Because I am a knitter, of course—what do you think, my love?

Embi: I am wondering for whom you are knitting sea-mittens.

Woman: I have introduced sea-mittens to Peru.

Embi: To Peru, I see. You are the first Icelander in my life I have heard pronouncing the word Peru correctly—with the stress on the second syllable. It would be fun to hear a little bit about the country you pronounce so well, and which deserves sea-mittens.

Woman: Yes, although you know everything, you young men, you perhaps don’t know that Peru is the biggest fishing nation in the world.

Embi: The Icelanders are peripheral people and never see what is central in anything.

Woman: In Peru there are a thousand times more seamen than in Iceland. But they had never seen sea-mittens before I arrived. Since then I always send between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pairs of sea-mittens to Lima every year.

Embi: Is there always a market for sea-mittens out there in the south?

Woman: They are mostly used as gifts for tombolas. The remainder is stolen in Paris. But I have also crocheted and knitted many a mantilla for dark-eyed girls to put on when they go to church to kiss the Redeemer and to take off when they meet a man.

Embi: Isn’t it rather a depressing job to knit sea-mittens that are stolen in Paris before they reach the tombola in Lima?

Woman: Oh, it’s so sweet talking to you, my love. It really wakes me up. And that’s because you talk so ironically. Almost like a Frenchman. I have never known how to talk ironically.

Embi: If I am to tell you what I think, I think that people don’t start knitting sea-mittens except from boredom, and great boredom at that.

Woman: Work is God’s glory, my grandmother used to say. Sea-mittens or mantillas, does it make any difference? I have always been ready to give my last penny to be allowed to work.

Embi: There are some who say that it is only the rich who can afford to be poor.

Woman: Nothing is boring except having fun.

Embi: You no doubt have some social system or other ready to hand, where people pay to be allowed to knit sea-mittens but get paid by the hour for going to dances and the cinema, or out riding?

Woman: Social system? What’s that again?

Embi: The State—

Woman: Ah, the State;
comprendo
. You mean the club? Embi: Not necessarily the club, much rather the offices; and then all those who are dependent on the offices.

Woman: The offices, ah yes, now I know what you mean. Sure, sure, I know them all right. That’s where people sit in a waiting room with their little concerns and a little image of the Redeemer on a cord round their necks in the belief that there is someone in the innermost office. No, that wasn’t what I meant, and I have nothing ready to hand to put in its place.

Embi: Are you also an anarchist, madam?

Woman: Oh no, I don’t think so. We only knew my poor dead Albenes and those fellows. Mundi sometimes sold them patents for the navy. They made people believe there was someone in the innermost office. So the people waited all day and gave their Redeemer a little kiss every now and again in gratitude for the authorities being so obliging and
muy bien
, and were told to come back tomorrow. But Albenes and the others were just up in the mountains at the time, shooting peasants for fun like all great men; or else they were lying around in the brothels.

Embi: Is that not a little exaggerated, madam? I’m in considerable doubt whether I ought to put this on record.

Woman: Oh, I think I know what I’m talking about, I who was in charge of one of these
casas
of theirs for years. We sometimes got such
casas
from the navy as payment for the patents. It’s better to knit sea-mittens.

39

An Account of
G. Sýngmannsdóttir

This has become rather complicated. It keeps adding to itself, however small the questions. It will be a big task to edit this and get it into shape as a report. The woman leads me round in circles, and no doubt there are many still to come. Perhaps there will be no end to it, and morning on the way.

Embi: Can you remember where we started?

Woman: Did we start on something, my sweet? I didn’t notice.

Embi: There is really only the one matter that troubles the bishop concerning you. The rest is incidental.

Woman: Yes, I have known many bishops. Some of them were very nice people. But the eminent sometimes think that life is simpler than it really is.

Embi: First I noted that you are the pastor’s wife at Glacier. But then all at once you are in charge of a bordello in Buenos Aires. In the same breath become a nun in South America, Saint Helena. And lost children in accidents in North America. Now a knitter—did you say sea-mittens, isn’t that pushing it a bit far, madam? And your name is Guðrún Sæmundsdóttir from Neðratraðkot! Let’s hope the name is entered in the parish registers. But first of all I want to ask: does such a woman not have responsibilities and duties?

Woman: Such as?

Embi: Well, for instance, why did the pastor’s wife not remain with the pastor?

Woman: I think bishops would probably find most other things easier to understand than that.

Embi: May I call your attention to the fact that we are Lutheran here.

Woman: I am a Catholic.

Embi: Orthodox?

Woman: Yes, orthodox.

Embi: Have you not been excommunicated?

Woman: I entered into Christian marriage and have never been divorced. I have always had my husband whom I have loved and respected and no other man.

Embi: What about the American who had children with you?

Woman: Americans are children. Children believe in guns and gunmen. One hundred forty-seven gunshots in children’s television a week. In children’s films there have to be child murders. Have you noticed that if you cut the Cross diagonally in two at the middle, you have two guns, one for each hand? They are adorable children.