“I see, is the girl checking out the boys?” asks the man. “Doesn’t a sweet girl like you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“What, aren’t all the lads chasing after you? Is no one poking you?”
I open the book and continue reading without the dictionary. Some moments later the man picks up the conversation again.
“Did you know that it’s forbidden to harpoon a mother whale, which is why the lads only butcher the males?”
He stubs out his cigar in the ashtray on the back of the seat.
“Unless it’s by accident,” he adds.
We drive past the military barracks and oil tanks of the American army and two armed soldiers standing on the road wave at us. The road twists on up the mountain and even more scree lies ahead. Finally a view of the capital across the strait opens up under a pink evening sky; perched on the peak of a barren mound of rock is a half-finished church dedicated to a poor author of psalms. The tower with its scaffolding can be seen all the way from Kjós.
I close the book.
On a side road down Mosfellsdalur, we meet a car and the coach driver suddenly slows down.
“Isn’t that our Nobel Prize winner?” a man is heard asking as the passengers stir and peer through the muddy windows.
“If that’s a four-door Buick Special model 1954, then it’s him all right,” says the driver. “Fantastic suspension and powerful heater,” he adds.
“Doesn’t he have a green Lincoln now?” asks another man.
The men aren’t so sure any more and even think they might have seen a woman at the wheel and children in the backseat.
By then I had been sitting on the bus and chewing dust for eight hours.
In the last hour:
Reykjavík, foggy, slight drizzle
I’m standing on the lot of the BSÍ coach terminal in Hafnarstræti and waiting for the driver to hand me my case along with my other parcels from the roof. Night is falling and the shops have closed, but I know that Snæbjörn Bookstore, which sells English books, is nearby. Feeling shivery after the journey, I adjust the scarf around my throat and button up my coat. My neighbour from the bus sidles up to me and tells me that it just so happens that he sits on the board of the Reykjavík Beauty Society along with some acquaintances of his, including the owner of the whales in the sea. The society’s objective is to embellish the city and promote good taste and decorum among the population, which is why, for a number of years now, it has been hosting a beauty contest. It was initially held in the Tivoli amusement park in Vatnsmýri, but has now actually been moved indoors.
“We can’t allow rain forecasts to postpone our contest every year. Apart from which the ladies caught colds outside.
“… No, the thing is,” I hear the man continue, “we’re looking for unattached maidens, sublimely endowed with both clean-limbedness and comeliness to take part in the competition. I can recognize beauty when I see it, and I would therefore like to invite you to participate in Miss Iceland.”
I size up the man.
“No, thank you.”
The man won’t give in.
“All your features curve and sway like an Icelandic summer’s day.”
He digs into his jacket pocket, pulls out a card and hands it to me. It contains his name and phone number. Tradesman, it says after his name.
“Should you change your mind.”
He ponders a moment.
“You’re darn pretty in those plaid slacks.”
Mokka
I walk away with my case and head towards a basement flat in Kjartansgata. The clock on the quadrilateral tower in Lækjartorg shows close to seven. On one of its sides is the picture of a smiling woman in a sleeveless pale-blue dress with a wide skirt, who is holding a box of Persil washing powder. In the square, two women in brown woollen coats sit on a wooden bench with iron armrests, while seagulls peck at some breadcrumbs nearby.
I walk up Bankastræti, which is lined with multi-coloured cars, American hot wheels with leather-upholstered seats. The guys are out prowling and blow their horns, with their elbows leaning out the windows, cigarettes dangling from their mouths and brilliantined hair, slowly accosting me, barely older than kids. There are even more bookshops than I had dared to imagine, I also pass a tobacconist’s, a men and women’s clothing store and Lárus G. Lúdvíksson’s shoe shop. To shake off the cars I turn up Skólavördustígur.
There’s Mokka, the café where all the Reykjavík poets hang out, known back home as those smartarse losers who live down south and lounge about in public places drinking coffee all day. I linger a moment outside the window, case in hand, and peer into the thick smoke; the interior is dark and I can’t make out any of the poets’ faces.
Kjartansgata
The doorbell is labelled Lýdur and Ísey and below this is a bell out of order sign. A pram is parked beside the basement door. The fence has fallen into disrepair and in front of the house is a patch of unkempt grass.
I knock. Ísey, my childhood friend, opens the door and smiles from ear to ear. She is wearing a green skirt, and her hair is cut short and held back by a headband.
She embraces me and drags me inside.
“I’ve been looking forward to you coming to town all summer,” she says.
A baby sits on a rug on the floor, banging two wooden blocks together.
She whisks her daughter off the mat and rushes over to me with her. The girl isn’t happy to let go of the blocks. Ísey pulls the dummy out of her mouth, kisses her wet cheek and introduces us. A
