That night the record player was thankfully off at Gómorra. On the stage a band played a lethargic funereal jazz. The band members were clad in black from head to toe, wearing black hoods over their heads. They took turns drumming, playing the trumpet, accordion, keyboards, violin, even shaking heavy chains. They were so identical to one another because of their clothing that you could not keep track of them as they switched instruments. Garún slumped over the table, trying to listen to the music. Her beer tasted stale and sour. She was starting to lose even her appetite for drinking.
A slurring vagrant spouting obscenities was more often than not the only person actively holding a conversation at the bar. Without fail the man would always introduce himself to Garún as Jón-not-reverend-Jón. Every night he told a different tragic story from his own life. From the sound of it. Jón-not-reverend-Jón seemed to have packed more suffering and hardship into each year of his life than the average person could possibly manage. Looking at his weathered cheeks and tattered clothes, it was easy to believe him.
If Garún somehow drew his attention then he usually started cursing her for being a blendingur, talking about how her interdimensional presence made him exceptionally uncomfortable, which she found hilarious coming from a hobo reeking of piss. After that he usually diverted into ranting about various other races – náskárar, marbendlar, huldufólk. If it wasn’t human, it couldn’t be trusted. Garún didn’t know why she indulged him. Possibly because it was better than the silence. It was too quiet here. When Jón-not-reverend-Jón wore himself out, she moved in with her response. It was almost sad watching him losing his grip on his vile world-view. It was just a front – something for him to latch on to, to hate. They were no different from him in this sense. It felt good to break down his pathetic rants. It fed the fire burning within her. It gave her some kind of twisted hope. If Jón-not-reverend-Jón, a broken wreck of a human being, filled with nothing but moonshine and resentment, could be changed, then, well – maybe – there was hope for the rest of the Hrímlanders as well.
After his usual epistle of hate, the bum ranted about how life had mistreated him and kept him down, that nobody had ever shown him a shred of kindness, which is why he had to drink so much. She kept quiet while he gushed out his life’s sorrows, and bit her tongue while he ranted yet again about the deceitfulness of huldufólk and the unnatural violation that was the blendingur. It reminded her of when she was a child and went to church with her mother, where she had to sit under sermons that condemned her in a new way every week. She’d endured worse.
All her life she’d heard the same story. That she was unnatural. That she carried the worst of both worlds. That she shouldn’t exist. The Forgotten Downtown had drained her strength. The fire burning in her heart now felt too much like a bloody cavity. A tender, sore wound. She avoided thinking about Jón Fjarðaskáld. If the funeral was over yet. She had seen what the newspapers were saying about him and the protest. The Crown painted him as a degenerate, a man of violence and an alcoholic. The rest of them were called degenerates and delinquents, rioters without a purpose beyond that of violence. The Commonwealth had taken him and others away from this world and now she was hiding here in the dark, hidden from sight on the blurred edge of reality. It made her feel trapped. It made her sick.
When she spoke to Jón-not-reverend-Jón she pretended she was talking to the late poet. As if this Jón was just a misguided friend who needed some help and perspective. It felt hollow. But even that was better than nothing.
“Why do you think you can’t get any work in the city, Jón?’ she asked him. “Because the huldufólk are taking the available jobs?’
He nodded in agreement and was about to interject, but she didn’t give him an opening.
“Think – who is the biggest employer in Reykjavík? The Crown. Kalmar has been building almost non-stop for the last couple of decades and they only hire humans. Do you know why? Because it’s according to the law. Hiring non-citizens, people with no official status within the government system – which are mostly blendingar, marbendlar, náskárar and a lot of huldufólk – is illegal. So what’s left behind?’
She noticed other people glancing at their conversation. She wasn’t sure if it was an interest of ill-intent or not. People had lost all hope here. Maybe she could spark something in them. Kick these outcasts out of their apathetic slump and get them to do something.
“Humans. Kalmar only hires humans. When you blame the huldufólk for your troubles you’re putting ammunition into the hands of your oppressors, Jón-not-reverend-Jón. You’re giving them the fuel they need to keep their empire running.”
This shut him up for some time. She was certain not a word had seeped into his thick, groggy skull, but maybe she had reached someone else there. Rökkurvík was not a place where you would find allies of Kalmar. And she needed all the backup she could possibly find. She ordered another beer. She was halfway through it when Jón-not-reverend-Jón started mumbling again.
“It’s not for an honest man such as myself to work these days,” he said in a self-pitying tone. “What little I manage to scrounge together is stolen by scum like you, and if not you, the fucking huldufólk. And if you manage to keep the rabble away, the Crown takes every ten krónur you manage to acquire, as greedy as huldukóngar in
