Viktor Ingolfsson - The Flatey Enigma

“Not the most comfortable place to sleep,” Kjartan said when Hogni had settled down.

“The man’s tired,” Grimur answered, “and he likes to have a lie down on sea trips. The working hours in the hunting season are long, and he isn’t used to hard labor. He’s a boarder at my wife Imba’s place and pays for it by working for me in the summer.”

“Is he a bachelor then?”

“He’s a widower; his wife died a few years ago. He sleeps in the school building and has two meals a day at our place.”

The boat sailed smoothly along its journey. Grimur kept a sharp eye on the course he was steering because in many places their sailing path was strewn with rocks and reefs.

Kjartan felt he needed to keep the conversation going, without quite knowing where to start. He gazed across the bay. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be islands big and small.

“I’ve never been to Breidafjordur before,” he said. And then, just for the sake of it, he added: “It must be true what they say then, that the islands in this fjord are countless?”

Grimur smiled and seemed to be willing to participate in the conversation. “They’re certainly not easy to count with any exactitude,” he answered, “and first you’ve got to decide on what you call an island. If we define an island as a piece of land that’s surrounded by sea at high tide and has some vegetation on it, then maybe we can count them. By that criteria, there are about three thousand islands that have been counted in the whole fjord. But then you’ve got the barren skerries that no one’s been able to count with any certainty, so they can be considered to be countless.”

Kjartan nodded, trying to strike an interested air.

Grimur pointed at an island that rose high out of the sea: “That’s Hergilsey, which was recently abandoned by the last farmer. It’s named after Hergil Hnapprass. Have you read Gisli’s saga?”

“Yes, but not recently,” Kjartan answered.

“Hergil’s son was Ingjaldur, a farmer in Hergilsey. The story goes that he sheltered the outlawed Gisli Sursson. When Borkur Digri was going to kill Ingjaldur to punish him for hiding the convict, Ingjaldur the old uttered the following words…”

Grimur took a deep breath, altered his voice, and declaimed: “ My clothes are rags anyway, so little do I care if I won’t be able to wear them down any further.”

Grimur grinned and then added: “The people of Breidafjordur weren’t bothered by trivialities.”

Kjartan nodded and attempted a smile.

Grimur carried on pointing at the islands as they sailed, naming them and recounting their histories. To the west there was the skerry of Oddbjarnarsker, which had important fishing grounds that the poor traveled to in the days of the famine to survive. Then there were the isles of Skeley, Langey, Feigsey, and Syrey. Each place name had its own story.

Hogni woke up from his nap, moved over to them, and contributed his own anecdotes. As Flatey appeared on the horizon, he said, “One Christmastime, just before the turn of the century, a ship was sailing from the mainland with wood cuttings they were supposed to sell in Flatey as firewood. There were six men on board, but they ran into bad weather and got lost on the way. They finally reached the island of Feigsey, but the boat was wrecked.”

Hogni pointed Feigsey out to Kjartan and then continued: “The men were there for days on end, cold and without any food, but they could see people walking between the houses in Flatey when there was light during the day. Finally, their shouts were heard and they were rescued. They all survived the ordeal, which was quite a feat, because they’d had no food apart from a small ration of butter. A few decades ago a foreign freighter sank in the fjord here. It was carrying a cargo of telephone poles and barrels of thick motor lubricant. A rescue was launched, and some of the goods floated to shore. The men didn’t really like the taste of what they took to be foreign butter, but it seemed to last forever.”

Grimur laughed loudly at the story, even though he had definitely heard it often before and, in fact, had been one of the men who had tasted the motor grease.

Their chatter made time pass quickly, and they soon neared their destination.

As they drew closer, Kjartan was surprised to see how many houses there were on Flatey. First the church appeared, shimmering in a haze, since it stood at the top of the island, painted in white with a red roof. Then the village gradually started to take shape. The sun glared on the multicolored gables of the houses, and in many places laundry flapped on clotheslines.

Grimur slowed down the engine as they passed a small isle with high bird cliffs covered in white shells on its northern side but a well-sheltered bay that faced Flatey on its southern side. The strait between the island was no more than a hundred meters wide.

“We call that islet Hafnarey,” Grimur announced. “Scientists say it’s an ancient volcanic crater.” He still needed to raise his voice because the screeching of the birds had now taken over from the noise produced by the boat’s engine.

They sailed slowly into the strait and approached a small, dilapidated concrete pier below the village. Some kids were watching them with natural interest.

“This is called Eyjolfur’s pier. The new pier is over by the fish factory at the southern end of the island,” said Grimur. He steered the boat toward the mooring buoy floating in the strait and grabbed it with a short hook as they passed it. Hogni tied the boat’s stern to the anchored buoy and then moved to the bow to be ready for when they reached the pier. Kjartan sat on the thwart beside the casket and felt an urge to help them, but the crew seemed to be doing a good job and he would have undoubtedly just been in their way. Hogni hopped onto the step below the pier with the rope and held the boat while Kjartan and Grimur clambered out after him. Hogni then released the hawser and allowed the anchored buoy to drag the boat away from the pier again.

He scolded the children as he tightened the knot: “I strictly forbid you to go on that boat.” Then, to drive the point home, he added, “District Officer Grimur will stick you in that casket if you disobey!”

The kids recoiled slightly at the sound of this threat and stuck their heads together. A short and stocky man, dressed in dark Sunday clothes with a black hat and silver walking stick poised in his hand, elbowed his way through the throng of children and greeted Kjartan.

“Thormodur Krakur, I’m the deacon and the island’s eiderdown tradesman,” he introduced himself in a loud voice, tilting on his toes and rocking to and fro.

“I’m Kjartan…the district magistrate’s assistant,” the new arrival said, hesitantly.

Thormodur Krakur bowed deeply. “Welcome to the district of Flatey, my good sir and officer. This is hardly the most felicitous of occasions, of course, but we islanders always welcome visitors from our most distinguished magistrature.”

“Thank you,” said Kjartan, transfixed by the medal that dangled from a threadbare ribbon on the deacon’s lapel.

Thormodur Krakur continued with his speech but lowered his voice now: “The church will, of course, be open for you when you return with the deceased. I’ll come down with a handcart to transport the casket when you arrive. Our pastor will find some appropriate words.”

“Yes…thank you,” said Kjartan. He hadn’t really thought about that aspect of the job. The district magistrate had only instructed him to collect the body from the island and to send it on the mail boat to Reykjavik, which was expected in two days’ time, and then write a report. After that his job was supposed to be done.

“But wouldn’t it be possible to get a car for the casket?” Kjartan asked.