Bragi Ólafsson: Pets

The air in the flat is stale, which is not surprising as the windows haven’t been opened for two weeks. I push the bedroom window wide open, but I only open the kitchen window a crack. When the cold, fresh air spreads through the flat I feel it’s good to be back home. I tell myself that this is my place. I have been put here, whether it was organized according to a whim of the fellow up above or resulted from a mixture of my own decisions and the unavoidable incidents which, nearly every day, give life just as much color as, for instance, music, sex, films, and books do. This is my home: my everyday world. Then, all at once, I get the feeling that my thoughts are complete nonsense. A peculiar sensation tells me that I should not take for granted the fact that I live here, that this flat is my home rather than someone else’s, even though I have lived here alone for nearly two years and haven’t made any plans to move in the near future. After a while I manage to shake off this uncanny feeling. This is my home. And I am just about to put “Lonely Fire” from Big Fun on the turntable.

2

When he kicked open the gate it sounded as if it was going to break. When he got out in the street he stopped and looked in both directions. It was very cold; he pulled the hood further down over his head. He spun around when he heard the man in the garden next door, a middle-aged man with a knitted cap on his head, kicking the snow off his boots before going into his house. Then he walked west along Grettisgata, towards the center of town. Four cars came down Frakkastigur, one after another, and turned into Grettisgata. The last one skidded when it rounded the corner and managed to stop just before the rear of it crashed into the wall of a house. He began to walk faster but had to watch his step because the soles of his shoes were so slippery; they were his best shoes, with narrow pointed toes which poked out from under the threadbare bottoms of his long jeans.

At the corner of Klapparstigur and Grettisgata he saw a group of school children standing in front of an antique shop window on the other side of the street. He stopped at the corner for a few seconds, gazed at the children, and banged the heels of his shoes together to get rid of the snow that had collected on them. Then he set off down Klapparstigur, and, after a few steps, he slipped on the icy pavement and nearly landed on his back. He paused, looked around, and then carried on. The traffic on the main street, Laugavegur, seemed to be moving very slowly. Three young girls stood on the corner waiting to cross the road. He, on the other hand, just squeezed out between two cars, slid over the icy road, and mounted the pavement on the other side of Klapparstigur. Then he disappeared into a little bar.

From the outside no one would have guessed that there was any trade going on in there; it looked more like a fisherman’s hut or a dilapidated country cottage. Even the name on the sign outside had worn off, if there had been any name there at all.

There was no one inside apart from one member of the staff — a girl of about twenty who was standing in front of a blackboard that was fixed on the wall to the left of the bar. She was writing the day’s menu and seemed to be deciding what would be on it as she went along. He walked over to a table in the corner, beside the window, and let go of a worn plastic bag before he sat down. The girl stopped writing on the blackboard and turned around to see who had come in. Then she seemed to get an idea; she started writing again. It was warm inside the bar. The smell of food hung in the air.

3

At the bar in Heathrow I had been musing about the flight home, what we would eat on board and so on. I hoped I wouldn’t end up beside a chatterbox or someone who was forever getting up to go to the toilet or talk to other passengers. The last time I flew I sat beside a young man who had tried, without luck, to get me interested in his business (wholesale trade in sportswear and equipment for some peculiar fringe sports) and then rushed back and forth along the aisle, as if that three hour flight was some sort of family or general gathering: Icelanders meeting up after being away from their native soil for at least a week. Really it’s no small risk one takes, boarding an airplane. For three hours (not to mention on longer trips) one is locked in a tight, uncomfortable space, way above any civilization, with unpredictable people, who could drink themselves senseless or spill their food and drink over you — and the only place of salvation is the toilet.

I was looking forward to relaxing on board, reading the newspaper I had bought in the airport and perhaps dozing off after the meal. But those plans were to be completely disrupted. I hadn’t even sat down in my aisle seat when the man in the middle seat — a rather scruffy fellow of about sixty with a mop of grey hair that was tobacco-colored in patches, who looked like he might smell of alcohol or sweat — made it obvious with his friendly smile that we would enjoy a good chat on the way. While I waited for my turn to put my hand luggage and jacket up in the locker, he offered me an Opal lozenge from a battered box which looked as if it had gotten wet or been sat on. I declined his offer and made an effort to smile and show the appropriate amount of gratitude when he insisted that I take one.

“They are always the same, these air trips,” he said when I sat down. I got the feeling that he had been preparing this sentence while I was busy fitting my belongings into the locker. His use of the term air trips indicated that he was trying to avoid using the word flight in the plural — something that I have always felt was wrong, though I don’t know why. When he introduced himself as a linguist a little later — more correctly Armann Valur, linguist and prospective pensioner (this latter title was added more as a joke) — I was rather pleased with myself; I had immediately thought that he had something to do with languages. The power of the subconscious or good intuition, I told myself, smirking at my misfortune in meeting a hulk of a linguist before the pilot had even gotten around to announcing take-off.

I introduced myself to the fellow but got the feeling that he didn’t take much notice of my name. I didn’t fasten my safety belt straight away, as I half expected him to stand up and take off his dark blue overcoat. He was wearing a suit and a jumper underneath. I took the flight magazine out of the seat pocket and found an article that I could pretend to be engrossed in for a while. It was about the world’s most northern golf course, at Akureyri, where Vigdis is staying at the moment. But, just as I feared, I got no peace; the man beside me pointed at the flight attendant who was approaching down the aisle and reminded me to fasten my seatbelt. The “dears” are coming to make sure everyone is strapped in. I expected him to carry on talking, but when he paused I used the opportunity to get my portable tape player out of my bag in the locker. I was back in my seat with my belt fastened before the flight attendant walked past with a smile and checked (in a rather unconvincing manner) that the belts were fastened. I was quite sure that she was laughing to herself about the overdressed fellow beside me.

From the corner of my eye I saw that the woman in the window seat was slyly watching him — a dark haired woman in her forties, clearly well-educated and likely, I thought, to see the comical elements in the linguist’s appearance. I, on the other hand, had put a tape into my portable player (remixes of several Miles Davis recordings) and was busy rewinding with my headphones already in place. I gazed along the aisle while I waited for the tape to rewind. All at once I noticed a young, fair-haired woman who was sitting several rows in front of me. I felt as if I recognized her, and when she turned her head towards the person on the other side of the aisle — she had obviously been asked a question — I remembered who she was. I didn’t know her name but I had first seen her fifteen years ago, at a high school party in Hjalmholt. Her unconventionally beautiful face had caught my eye, not to mention her almost perfect body, which seemed just the same today.