Under the Glacier (11 page)

Embi: That’s precisely why I’m asking.

Jódínus Álfberg: My motto is strong packaging, clear addressing.

Embi: I’m asking about contents.

Jódínus Álfberg: If the packaging and addressing aren’t in order, I swipe the contents. That’s what all hauliers do.

Embi: It’s a pity we aren’t about equally drunk, to understand one another. All the same, I would like to call your attention to the fact that if you have transported a body up onto the glacier and buried it there, that is contrary to the law of the church.

Jódínus Álfberg: I’m an impoverished workingman.

Embi: Even so.

Jódínus Álfberg: Workingmen do nothing for nothing. It’s only posh people who do something for nothing.

Embi: In other words, you won’t talk except for money? Jódínus Álfberg: Just let me tell you, mate, that even though I’m an uneducated ordinary Icelander, I’m just as good as any bishop. What can you pay?

Embi: Must we always be making personal comparisons? We both know how I come out of that. I haven’t got a palisander kitchen. I don’t own any furniture except a bookcase I nailed together for myself out of boxwood. Period.

Jódínus Álfberg: You’re just a footslogging wretch, so I might just as well tell you the truth: there’s a body in the casket. There you are. A body. A woman’s body. A damned dead body. Go on, have a drink. Ha ha ha. Let’s get on first-name terms and drink to that, and enjoy ourselves. And I’ll recite the poem about the palisander.

Embi: No, for God’s sake.

The undersigned wasn’t nimble enough, however, to switch off the pocket recorder before the poet had managed to deliver the first stanza of the Palisander Lay:

Palisander wood’s just right
To make a kitchen look a sight;
’Cause I can turn the dark to light
By painting all the black zinc-white.

20

Provisional Summary

Pastor Jón Prímus called away “on official duties” somewhere up-country this afternoon. Evening. Your emissary has spent a few hours on the preparation of his report: organised his notes, marked up the tapes, jotted down some comments and explanations. As things stand, your emissary sees little advantage to be gained from prolonging his stay here. A draft description of the church and churchyard is attached. The condition of the parsonage, preservation of church property, and so on are matters that smack of the absurd in this place. For instance, the livestock here consists of nothing but the housekeeper’s calf. Food in any real sense of the term is not served in this home; in fact there is no home to speak of, either. The parish pastor makes his living as a jack-of-all-trades for the district.

To recapitulate further:

Christian observance
. As far as the undersigned can see, Christian observance is at a minimum in the district. In addition to the state of the church, there is the testimony of the parish clerk, Tumi Jónsen of Brún, albeit given with sympathy and complete loyalty towards pastor Jón; furthermore, there is the interview with the clergyman himself, both on marked spools. From this documentary evidence it will be clear that clerical duties are hardly performed at all in the parish unless ministers from outside are called in. Burials neglected. No services at Christmas, etc.

Marital status
. Inquiries as instructed brought to light the following regarding pastor Jón’s marital circumstances: was probably formally married, prefers to draw a veil over it, perhaps merely an empty formality, and no
consummatio
. The woman’s name—various derivations from the word
Úrsúla
, pastor Jón himself says the woman was called Úa. Happened, or rather didn’t happen, c. thirty-five years ago. Who performed the wedding ceremony, if it was performed, not clear. Does the undersigned have the authority to require from a parish pastor an account of a private affair that has never been a matter of controversy within the parish or outside it, but that would certainly be a case for the police if taken up officially? Bigamy can hardly enter into it. Pastor Jón’s unblemished life is common talk, together with the love and respect of the parishioners; probably unique. About the woman whom pastor JP has named his “bride” in the presence of the undersigned, the only information I have is that she is from one of those ancient fishing places farther down the coast to the east that are more akin to ghost stories than reality: in these places live princesses of unusual physical characteristics that arise from the fact that they are breast-fed by wet nurses (perhaps no cows on the farm); it’s said that these women walk after death, etc. Both the pastor’s housekeeper and the parish clerk TJ have in my hearing called the place Neðratraðkot. The present whereabouts of the “bride” no one knows exactly. Pastor Jón says that in his youth he made friends with an engineer of Icelandic origin who before long made a fortune in other continents and called himself Professor Doctor Godman Sýngmann (Mundi Mundason, alias Guðmundur Sigmundsson, says pastor Jón). NB: Wasn’t there something in the newspapers here a few years ago about an Icelander in Australia, or the Argentine, or California, who was supposed to have written six volumes about life on other planets—exobiology; privately published, I think, partly in Spanish and partly in English, places of publication rather far-off and a little peculiar, as I recall. The undersigned knows no one who has read this, but there is said to be a pamphlet available in our own language that contains a summary of this compatriot’s gospel; have unfortunately not seen it. (Could this possibly be yet another example of the man from a remote island? He is a brilliant man and educated at foreign universities. He manages to make money proliferate out of the destitution in the Far East and Polynesia. After that he settles in the most frenzied and frenetic capitals the world has ever known—Paris, Buenos Aires, New York, Los Angeles. Yet the islander in him continues to dominate his soul and each year he is drawn closer and closer to the hole in Snæfellsjökull into which Professor Doctor Otto Lidenbrock plunged in pursuit of Árni Saknússemm the alchemist.)

Luxury house of choice Oriental wood
. As an example of the above incongruity, which is innate in people from remote islands and consists of being unequal in size and shape to all other objects around them, I take the liberty of citing the luxury house that Prof. Dr. Godman Sýngmann has had built at an angle to the church (illustration attached). The house has been empty for three years, in the care of one Jódínus Álfberg. Regarding this building it can be stated that neither the parish pastor nor anyone else is aware of any permission having been obtained for such an edifice on glebe-land belonging to the church. Pastor Jón, however, has a vague recollection of having long ago given an old friend of his some sort of promise that he could pitch his tent here. At the time of writing, the owner of the building is said to be not far away, fishing for sea trout. The undersigned considers this house to be no concern of his or his mission. The church authorities would do better to go to law to get a decision on whether this oft-mentioned house is legal or not, and thereafter make arrangements accordingly.

Pastor Jón Prímus’s doctrine
. This clergyman’s doctrine is on the accompanying tapes. But it isn’t the whole story by any means. Regrettably the tapes are rather uncommunicative. Even though your emissary has tried to question the pastor about his innermost attitude towards the confessions of faith—to no avail. As far as I can see, however, some of the pastor’s ideas possibly touch lightly upon Christian theology in places—but where are the ideas that don’t? I lack the learning to analyse the mode of thinking that emerges in these tapes. I try in my questioning to take my cue from the confessions of the faith whose servant I am. Even though the undersigned considers himself a liberal in the theological profession, I would not unreservedly want to classify pastor Jón’s way of thinking as liberalism, as Protestants interpret that concept. I doubt if pastor Jón is even a Únitarian as understood by the church—let alone anything more.

Towards the end of our conversation in the churchyard today I got the impression that pastor Jón thinks that all gods that men worship are equally good. In the Bhagavad Gita, which pastor Jón cites, Krishna is reported as saying, as I recall: You are free to address your prayers to any god at all; but the one who answers the prayers, I am he. Is this what pastor Jón means when he says that all gods are equally good except the god that answers the prayers, because he is nowhere? Neither of these two standpoints can be accommodated within the framework of our confession of faith. The god who speaks through Krishna’s words isn’t particularly pleasant, either, because he alone controls the card-game and the other gods are only dummies and he is the one who declares on their cards. At any rate this god is rather far removed from the seventy-year-old grand-father with the large beard who came to breakfast with farmer Abraham of Ur accompanied by two angels, his attendants, and settled in with him, and whom the Jews inherited and thereafter the pope and finally the Saxons. When Krishna says he is the one god who answers prayers, then this actually is just our orthodox god of the catechism, the one who says: I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Pastor Jón says, on the other hand, Thou shalt have all other gods before the Lord thy God. What is the answer to that?

But theology apart, people here at Glacier joke about the fact that whenever pastor Jón travels from farm to farm in February he is pursued by herds of free-range horses and flocks of snow buntings and even ravens, because he keeps these creatures in food. The ethical code that moulds pastor Jón’s behaviour is to be found, perhaps, in the compassion theology of the twelfth century.

Concerning a funeral on Snæfellsjökull
. Whether this funeral took place behind the church’s back or to some extent with its connivance, the parish pastor has nothing to say. The parish clerk, Mr. Tumi Jónsen of Brún, ignores the question. From the parish clerk’s daughter, a middle-aged widow, was obtained the name and address of a man who is said to have gone up onto the glacier on behalf of Prof. Dr. Sýngmann, whom the people at Brún call the Angler. Concerning secret deaths at Glacier at the time when this journey is supposed to have been made—no news. Everyone got into the ground who had business there that summer according to the law as usual, though pastor Jón often passes on to others the task of officiating at the funerals of his parishioners, as was said before; for that matter the people here are not perhaps suited for long funeral sermons, although in other respects they are healthy and long-lived.

Conversation with “the Tycoon’s” handyman
. This afternoon your emissary had a word with the man the widow Jósefína Jónsen had mentioned, the poet Jódínus Álfberg. This man appears to be the big noise in the district and drives a vehicle that weighs twelve tons and has eighteen wheels and wears out the roads at the rate of thirty-five thousand ordinary cars. This man seems to have a more than usually sensitive conscience and is mortally ashamed of three crimes that he loses no opportunity of justifying to himself and others, namely:

1. being a workingman

2. being a common man, and

3. being an Icelander.

Jódínus Álfberg himself, however, is pleased to call himself a poet. He has composed a Palisander Lay. He claims to be the representative of the oft-mentioned Sýngmann, whom he calls the Tycoon. He said he was paid for keeping silent, but since he was a wage earner he would also accept payment for talking. When we parted he said these words to me: There is a body in the casket; but since he got no payment, it is just as likely that he was not stating fact.

Consider that the investigation of this matter is the responsibility of other parties than the bishop’s emissary. Beneath the dignity of the bishop’s office to concern itself with gossip. Suggest that the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs refer the case to the Ministry of Justice with appropriate report; they for their part can then call for a police investigation on their own behalf if deemed necessary.

Finally, the undersigned can see no reason for a much longer stay in the area since, as was said before, ordinary facilities for receiving visitors are not available in this parsonage. Further activity, such as sniffing around for dead people on glaciers, might be a job for the police or the Scout movement, but is an unworthy task for the spiritual authorities of the country. Furthermore, I understand that I was only scheduled to spend this one day here in the west to complete my mission. The scheduled bus leaves tomorrow morning at 1145.

21

De Pisteria

Boiled fish? Twice today your emissary thinks he has noticed a smell of fish wafting out of the “old farmhouse,” that part of the house whose walls are still made of turf. This smell arouses the hunger of a visitor who has not been invited to table by his hosts all day. Can it be that the woman eats fish on the sly? Fairy fish?

Late in the evening, just when your emissary has arranged the items of his report and summarised the material (see previous chapter), Miss Hnallþóra is at the door of the guest-chamber saying, May I offer you a little cup of coffee?

It’s hard to give up hope that perhaps there might be fish as well, or even just a piece of bread. The undersigned follows the woman to the spare room. Alas no fish. The table was gigantic, as if giants had been working at it. Here stood that table loaded with an abundance of all dainties as in the
Saga of
the Virgin Mary
—with the exception of the one dainty: proper food. A table of such plenty provokes by its very presence the same kind of hunger-nausea in a starving man as the roots of moss-campion and seathrift doubtless did during the famines in Iceland in olden times. Add to that the smell of “chicory” (dandelion root) being boiled as a substitute for coffee out in the kitchen. Still, it’s obvious how much the use of gaudy colouring on the sweet-cakes has been reduced since last night. Not only were the cakes drier and neater than before, but democratic tea-cakes were beginning to play a reasonable part, such as for instance so-called Jew-biscuits, which are rather pretty in shape, about the same thickness as oysters, and with a colourless blob of egg-white and sugar on top—it reminds one of something dried up, which there is no need to mention. Likewise there were now numerous doughnuts, which had not been seen yesterday, and so coarse, almost obscene, that it nearly shocked one’s sense of decency and called to mind the doughnut-mother in China who according to the newspapers is nearly half a metre in length and proportionate in girth and stuffed three times up herself. In all, six new sorts of cakes had been added to the collection since last night. And though a detailed description of such a banquet does not directly concern this report, I cannot but emphasise the crucial change that has taken place since last night, in that a new sensation has now overthrown the war-cakes—foreign wafer-biscuits coated with melted chocolate. These are Prince Polo biscuits of the kind the undersigned was offered this morning at the parish clerk’s, specially manufactured in Poland for the Icelanders. Concerning this foodstuff I refer to Tumi Jónsen the parish clerk. In itself it is no small compliment to the morals of a nation to point out that when it had become wealthy and no longer knew how rich it was, it did not copy the example of other prosperous nations by eating many kinds of steaks and pâtés on weekdays and spiced peacock on Sundays, washed down with piment and claret; instead, Prince Polo biscuits were all that the nation indulged in as a sweetener after the centuries of black pudding and whale meat.