Viktor Ingolfsson - The Flatey Enigma

Grimur looked at his plate and frowned. “The worst thing about this seal meat is that the fat cools off and hardens if you get carried away in conversation,” he said and stood up. “But all you have to do is stick the plate on the stove to liven it up a bit again.” He vanished into the kitchen with the plate in his hand.

Hogni was full and stared inquisitively at Kjartan.

“Where are you from exactly?” he asked.

“I’m just from Reykjavik, from the east side,” Kjartan answered politely.

“On both sides of the family?”

“Yes, Reykjavik on both sides.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“So you started studying law a bit late then?”

“Yes.”

“What delayed you? Lack of money, maybe?”

“You could say that.”

“So I guess you must have worked to finance your studies before you started then?”

“You could say that.”

“Where did you work?”

Kjartan hesitated before answering but was interrupted by Grimur, who returned with his plate and the melted fat simmering on the meat. “This is delicious,” he said, smacking his lips. “Doesn’t that soup go down nicely?” he asked Kjartan.

“Yes, thanks.”

“That’s good. You’re welcome to stay in our loft until you’ve finished your business here. My sweet Imba will make sure you don’t die of hunger.”

“…This miscellany of episodes and sagas was characteristic of Icelandic literature in the fourteenth century. The objective was to collect related material from various sources in one book, and to compile and join stories about the same kings with the aim of forming a precise narrative, which was, broadly speaking, chronological, even though the style could vary somewhat. The intention was more on collecting as much narrative material as possible than creating a structured whole. One could therefore say that the Flatey Book is slightly chaotic when compared to Snorri Sturluson’s Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, which deals with similar material. But thanks to this mania for collecting material, the Flatey Book contains many elements that cannot be found on vellum elsewhere, with countless episodes and verses. Olaf Tryggvason’s saga is followed by Helgi’s saga, Sverrir Sigurdsson’s saga, Hakon the Elderly’s saga, and other tales. At the end of the book there is a set of annals that stretch from the origins of creation to the times in which the book was written…”

Lunch was now over in Flatey’s district officer’s home, and his wife placed a pot of coffee on the table. The men poured the boiling coffee into their empty glasses of water and snorted snuff. Kjartan also poured some coffee into his glass but declined Ingibjorg’s offer of sugar and milk. The men sipped the hot coffee, sighed, and burped.

“I met a guy once who told me that coffee was God’s gift to man to compensate for a long day’s work,” said Hogni. “But I’ve always felt that there’s no need for the good Lord to compensate man for the privilege of being able to work for his livelihood. But a drop of coffee is invigorating, and thank God for that.”

Kjartan nodded approvingly.

“Now we’re ready for anything,” said Grimur, patting his potbelly and finishing the coffee in his glass. “Ghosts and specters won’t bother you if you’re on a full stomach,” he added.

Hogni laughed and said, “We call this the district officer’s wisdom, and it’s completely unproven.”

Then they wandered outside, and the men grabbed two shovels from Grimur’s barn. Kjartan asked why.

“You don’t pick up a winter-old corpse with your bare hands. Not straight after lunch,” Grimur answered, wiping a film of manure off the blade of the shovel with a tuft of grass he pulled up by the barn wall.

Kjartan followed the men, who walked off with the shovels on their shoulders, down to the village and across to the pier. Hogni pulled the boat to the ledge, and they stepped on board. Grimur untied the moorings, turned on the engine, and headed off to the west of the island.

The district officer pointed out the Flatey lighthouse to Kjartan on a skerry a short distance away, and the croft of Ystakot soon appeared to the west of the tip of the island, half buried in the slope, just above sea level. A small, fenced-off patch of garden had newly been dug, and several neat-looking beds of dark brown soil could be seen. A young boy sat watching them on a rock on the shore.

“That’s little Nonni,” said Grimur. “He’s just as peculiar as his dad and grandpa. He was in your school this winter, Hogni, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, and the kid can learn, but he only wants to do one thing at a time. He could spend days on end hunched over just one page of a botany book and then wouldn’t talk about anything else. Then the next week it would be astronomy. He’s become reasonably literate, though, and he’s not bad at math either.”

Hogni gazed back at the land and then continued: “Valdi, little Nonni’s dad, is also one hell of an eccentric. He’s always scribbling worthless notes into a copybook. Details about the weather, who comes or goes on the mail boat, who attended mass and who didn’t. And I think the old man, Jon Ferdinand, is going senile. He’s also half deaf. Valdi’s wife, Thora, has given up on them all. She works as a cook for a team of roadworks men on the mainland and never comes home. She just sends them money to buy some milk for little Nonni and some clothes.”

Kjartan noticed that the boy was holding some glistening object to his eyes and that he watched their boat for a while until he suddenly stood up, ran to the croft, and disappeared inside.

Next the new pier and fish factory came into view. Three open motorboats were moored there, as well as a bigger boat with a pilot house. The smallest boat was black, and the others were painted white.

“Those fishing men haven’t been able to catch anything recently,” said Grimur. “They obviously didn’t feel like going out this morning.”

“They can’t afford the fuel,” said Hogni. “I can’t imagine the co-op giving them more of an overdraft.”

“They should use their sail then,” said Grimur. “The Ystakot clan still know how to do it. They can raise the sail if they can’t afford the fuel for the engine. Their boat is that black one there. It’s called Raven.”

“Yeah, they sure know how to sail, those people,” said Hogni. “Old Jon Ferdinand was one of the most reliable foremen in Breidafjordur when he was still at the top of his game in the olden days. There weren’t many who could steer sails better than he could. He could play ducks and drakes with those boats when the winds were good. They once sent him on a sailing boat to collect laborers in Kroksfjardarnes. He had strong southeasterly winds in his sails on the way back and reached Flatey in only four hours. Even if the currents were with him, I don’t think there are many people would have been able to handle it the way he did.”

They soon reached Flatey’s outermost reef and started to sail south toward a cluster of barely visible islands in the distance.

Kjartan dreaded reaching their destination. He had seen a dead person before, but it remained an uncomfortable memory. The task that awaited them was probably even grimmer. He nevertheless tried to feign interest as Grimur pointed out landmarks to him on their way-islands, skerries, and mountains in the distance, as well as the Svefneyjar islands behind them and Mount Klofningur on the mainland ahead.

As they approached Ketilsey, a great black-backed gull flew up and squawked. The sea splashed against the rocks as seals plunged into the ocean.

“They have this agreement between them,” said Grimur. “The black-backed gull wakes up the seals when they’re sleeping on the reefs. In return he’ll get a good piece of the catch when the seal is fishing. His favorite part is the liver.”