Bragi Ólafsson: The Ambassador

And both Jónas and Brynjólfur smile at their teacher.

“The question is this,” continues Armann Valur. “What nickname do the island boys have for the puffins they kill? And do they use their stately animal, the puffin. .?” He hesitates a few moments while he works out how to continue. “This question has two parts: What is the nickname the Westman Islanders have for the puffin, and do they use it — that is to say, the bird, once they have stuffed it — to promote their islands abroad? I must admit this is a complicated question, but we are at the Grammar School in Reykjavík, where things tend to be complicated.”

Jónas looks thoughtful. Armann Valur reiterates to Brynjólfur that he isn’t allowed to help his companion, and then Jónas answers:

“‘Professor.’ They call the puffins ‘professor.’ And yes, one could say that the stuffed puffin is a kind of ambassador for the people who live on the island.”

Armann looks at his pupil. He takes off his glasses, breathes on the inside of the glass and puts them back on. “Perhaps ‘provost.’ But ‘professor’. . I’m not of the opinion that professor is a better name for this strange bird. This wonderbird.”

“I’d be fine with provost,” says Jónas.

“Yes, no, well, we should think a little about ‘professor.’ Let us — those of us who are gathered here in this room at the Grammar School in Reykjavík — decide that the island boys’ stuffed puffin is called ‘Professor.’ That’s quite logical, since those island boys and girls are a well-educated bunch.” Armann Valur clears his throat and traces his index finger in the air to summon his pupils’ attention. Then he starts speaking as though he’s giving a lecture: “In the Vestmannaeyjar everyone has a university degree. The young as much as the old. At any given moment one-quarter of the residents have doctorates in this and that from the university on the mainland. It may be that they call their bird provost when it’s alive and on the run from the pocket nets of the over-educated islanders. But when it’s stuffed, that black-and-white bird of wisdom — which is the type of bird we are now considering — is better called professor. It is a professor of taxidermy, to be precise: it has studied its own stuffing. After all, it knows all about the straw which is packed in its head as soon as its brain has been removed. It yearns for its eternal existence on a plinth of lava; every movement of its wings, every single take-off, it is always aiming to achieve its fate as soon as possible.”

A pupil towards the end of the middle row raises his hand to ask for permission to speak but Armann Valur continues without stopping:

“You have to find out for yourself,” he says, and then directs his words straight to Jónas, who is busily taking notes on a sheet of paper while obviously having difficultly holding in his laughter. “I notice that you are taking notes, Jónas. That is good. Notes can find you in surprising places — they’re not tied down the way they would be when they’re written into paragraphs.” He hesitates and weighs his words. “Because we are not simply written words. Við erum ekki. . ‘We are not the stuffed men,’ to quote the poet. To mis quote the poet. We don’t get an eternal life on a plinth of lava.” He glances around, clears his throat again and turns back quickly to tell Jónas, “You will have a career in the diplomatic service.”

Jónas has a questioning look in his eyes.

“One day you’ll be a representative for our people. And possibly for the Vestmannaeyjar too.”

Jónas Hallmundsson is the Icelandic teacher Armann Valur’s favorite student, as is evident from the way his classmates react to this declaration: they, especially the boys, are irritated. Besides, Árman has a closer relationship with Jónas than he has with his other pupils.

Armann had once invited Jónas to his place, to his apartment on Rauðarárstígur. One afternoon immediately after final exams at the end of Jónas’s second year at the school they had met by chance on the upper part of Laugavegur, and after talking together and realizing that Jónas’s uncle, Jón Magnússon, was Armann’s former classmate and an acquaintance, Armann seized the opportunity to invite Jónas home to see photographs of the old friends when they were at Grammar School. And to make sure that his young pupil accepted the offer, Armann said he wanted to give him a small volume of poetry written by another friend of his; he was sure Jónas enjoyed poetry.

This was true, though Jónas barely indicated it — it was almost as if he wanted to hide his interest.

The host’s generosity exceeded what Jónas considered appropriate for a teacher to his pupil. After Armann had offered him a pilsner (which he stored on the windowsill), showed him some photographs from a drinking party (with the face of Jónas’s uncle, Jón Magnússon, smack in the middle of them), and given him a faded photocopied booklet of poems by Jónatan Jóhannsson (whose nickname was Jójó), he absolutely insisted that Jónas let him buy them a meal at Matstofa Austurbæjar, a cheap and cheerful diner close to the corner of Snorrabraut and Laugavegur. Jónas had to use considerable skill in turning down the invitation, but Armann reacted with no less cunning by making his guest promise that he could invite him to Matstofa some other time — he considered it an honor and felt that, in the natural course of mentoring his promising pupil, they ought to share a meal. They kept that promise, but not until much later, about a year after Jónas had graduated from the school, when he met Armann in the Lindargata liquor store one Friday and went with him to Hressingarskálinn, where they had coffee (with measures of schnapps) and Danishes.

Jónas later told his cousin Sturla Jón about that afternoon over coffee at Hressingarskálinn, after Jónas had stopped in to visit Sturla at the Útvegsbanki one lunchtime. The conversation had remained with Sturla Jón; he would remember it every time he went into the McDonalds that was later installed in the building which formerly housed Hressingarskálinn.

“And you, Brynjólfur Madsen,” says Armann Valur after he’d informed them all that Jónas had reached the final. “I’m going to ask you the next question, since you’re sitting beside Jónas. What are the letter markings those Islanders put on their ships?” There is no doubt that Armann Valur gets some satisfaction out of pronouncing the name “Madsen,” though the way he exaggerates the Danish sound of it is entirely at odds with the bearer of the name. But before Brynjólfur can answer, Armann jumps in with a sudden gesture, saying “Forgive me, Brynjólfur, but I believe it’s better to ask your colleague Völundur Ermenreksson this question.” He turns to a boy who had been trying to join in the quiz a moment ago and says, “Völundur Ermenreksson, you should be able to tell me what letters they use on the prow of their fleet, the Westman Islanders.”

He has barely spoken when the school bell rings.

Armann Valur, who stopped teaching at the Grammar School in Reykjavík the year after Jónas graduated, went on to teach Icelandic to Sturla Jón at the university, where Sturla began studying the same year he stopped working at the bank. And that same winter, in April 1978, Jónas Hallmundsson took his own life. It happened the same day — possibly the same hour — that Sturla Jón bought himself a used (and very badly treated) copy of a record by the English electric folk band Steeleye Span, All Around My Hat, in a collector’s shop on Laugavegur.

Even though one could say, without hesitation, that those two contemporaries and cousins, Sturla and Jónas, had been brought up almost as brothers until they were twelve or thirteen years old, Jónas’s suicide didn’t effect Sturla the way he felt it should have, given that Jónas was a close relative. During their high school years they began to grow apart, and even though they had common interests in their formative years, not least an enthusiasm for poetry and politics, other aspects of their personalities began to clash, which led to a greater and greater rift between them. This rift was deep and difficult to overlook in the eyes of their fathers, the brothers Jón and Hallmundur, on account of the friendship and close relationship they had shared since childhood. The insurmountable gap was formalized when they each registered for graduate study: Jón at the Grammar School in Reykjavík and Sturla in the Icelandic Business School.