P.S. I read the Sylvia Plath poem you sent me and it changed everything, I’m not the same person as I was before because it was about me. It was so strange and beautiful, thank you for translating it for me; I haven’t been able to think of anything else.
Nebula
I’ve written to the editors of three newspapers in Iceland to ask them if I can send them travel pieces. I would preferably need to be paid in advance. When we’re on the point of giving up on the idea of the trip, three things happen: I get an answer from the editor of Alþýdublad who is willing to pay for my articles and give me a small advance. Then I also get a letter from a Danish editor who wants to publish a short story I had sent him and which Jón John’s colleague at the bar had read over for me. The letter said the structure was unusual and reminiscent of nebula. But there is a system “i galskabet”, method in your madness, he writes. The letter is accompanied by a cheque. I fetch the bike and cycle straight to the station to buy two train tickets. One way.
But the greatest difference to the travel fund came from the contents of Dad’s letter.
Hekla dear,
The summer has been its usual self. Neither dry nor raining at the right time. You write to say you’re thinking of taking a journey down south. Won’t you be needing some pocket money then? Enclosed is a stamped letter that your mother had in her belongings and which is from a pile of letters handed down by her great-grandfather. It’s a reply from a royal official to a letter of complaint her great-grandfather had written about a magistrate’s unauthorized expropriation of eggs from his land. It occurred to me, Hekla dear, that you might be able to make some money out of it. Stamps are considered more valuable if they are still on the envelope. That’s all I have to say but hope that your trip down south will be educational and satisfactory.
Hotel Beach
We step off the train late at night. It’s still dark so we sit on a bench in the waiting room of the station, waiting for the fireball to rise above the curved horizon and the world to assume a form. Then we take our cases and walk down to the beach and lie in the sand. And fall asleep.
I awake with sand in my hair, shell fragments in the hollows of my knees and heat on my eyelids; a white light fills every corner of the world. I taste salt on my lips. A man comes running over with two parasols and plants them in the sand beside us.
I fall asleep again.
When I open my eyes, I see D.J. Johnsson standing dead still on the edge of the shore, staring straight out at the sea. He still has on the same white suit he was wearing when we started our journey five days ago; his trousers rolled up. I see him wading out into the water and walk over to him, bend and plant my hands in the water, which gushes between my fingers, leaving them salted. Then I turn again. The beach gradually fills with people; children dig holes in the sand and women massage their men with oil. They have baskets from which they pull out towels and sun hats.
The heat hits me.
I’ve no experience of such high temperatures, apart from one day seven years ago at the peak of the harvest when there was a heat wave in Dalir and temperatures hit 26°. My father undid one button of his flannel shirt: a line at the bottom of his neck marked the beginning of his snow-white torso.
I lose sight of D.J. Johnsson, but suddenly he’s standing beside me holding two ice pops.
“Let’s go,” he says.
I notice that men aren’t just looking at me, but also at my friend. And he at them.
“Don’t say anything and don’t look back,” he says as he stretches out his hand and hoists me to my feet.
My dear Ísey,
I have some news to give you. Jón John and I are going on a trip. After the rainiest summer in the city in human memory, we decided to move south. We gave up our jobs and flat, I sold my electric typewriter for a pittance to an Icelandic Nordic Studies student and we packed two small suitcases. I’d never stepped onto a train before and experienced the world in movement while I sat still. Don’t be shocked, Ísey dear, but Jón John and I got married in the city hall before we set off. So I am now a married woman. It was a beautiful but short ceremony. We bought two golden rings. Jón John was wearing a white suit and I the Northern Lights dress which he’d sewn for me last year, but which I hadn’t had a chance to wear. The best men were Jón John’s friend who is a teacher and Mette who worked with me at the Smørrebrød department. We bought a marzipan tart and Mette brought some sweet white wine and we sat down on a park bench and drank it. Don’t worry, Jón John understands me and my need to write, and we take care of each other. I’m strong and he is vulnerable, but he protects me in his own way.
Your friend,
HEKLA
This is where we’ll stop
The train is still on the track in the middle of a valley and then slowly crawls into the station. My husband tells me that the train station is named after a freedom fighter who was executed.
This
