Bragi Ólafsson - Pets

I was on my way home from the supermarket when the accident involving Moby and Dick occurred. We had visited one of the local pubs at lunchtime — our favorite, on the main street of the area, its walls were lined with books — and Havard had gone home before me, he couldn’t be bothered to help buy something for supper. In view of what was happening while I was in the shop, it was rather unfortunate that I bought guinea pig food — a bag of dry food enriched with vitamins — on that occasion.

I had given Havard the key to the house and had to ring the doorbell several times before he answered. When he finally heard the bell, he came running to the door and, with a look of despair in his eyes, pushed me towards the back garden. I remember being quite sure that he had broken the flower pot, which he had just missed so often while playing basketball in the garden. I always had the feeling that he made the guinea pig and rabbit nervous by bouncing that ball around. But on this occasion it was they — that is Moby and Dick — who made life more miserable (strange though it may seem) for Havard. When I reached the back garden, still holding on to the shopping bags, I saw them lying on the dirty, wet paving stones as if they were frozen; they looked all grey and exceedingly pathetic.

I remember Havard crouching down in front of the animals and groaning, “I don’t know how it happened,” but, by putting two and two together, I could see just as well as he could what had happened. I thought that the bag of cement, which Orn admitted he should have gotten rid of long ago, had been closed, and, when I asked Havard if he had opened it, he said no and claimed that either Moby or Dick had opened it. Still, one way or another they had both climbed inside the bag and were nosing about inquisitively in the grey cement when Havard came home and looked out of the window. He said that he had run out into the garden like a shot and grabbed the animals out of the bag. At first he had tried to brush the cement off them, but when he saw that that didn’t clean their fur properly, he had pulled out the hose that was lying curled up in the corner by the kitchen door and turned on the tap. He said he hadn’t had any doubts, as he hosed down the animals, that he was doing the right thing. He had tried to reduce the force of the water by narrowing the opening with his thumb, spreading the water over a wider area. When he put the hose down and bent to look at the animals, it didn’t take him long — maybe two or three minutes — to realize that things weren’t quite as they should have been. Not that it was a new experience for Havard; his life had probably never been as it was meant to be.

He said he had not timed it, naturally, but he guessed that the cement had only taken about four or five minutes to harden around the soft fur of the poor animals. It was, however, more difficult to say precisely when they had stopped breathing. I remember the first thought that came into my mind was that they had been walled up alive like the Canterville ghost. Of course there was no denying that the accident was tragicomic, and now, looking back on it — with Havard here, in person, in my living room, treating Armann Valur to my purchases from the duty-free store — I thought for the second time today that what doesn’t kill a man makes him stronger.

These words are no doubt appropriate in certain circumstances, but it would be necessary to rearrange them so that they make sense in this case.

When we sat down to accept what had happened and take stock of the situation, Havard suggested that we buy replacements. It must be possible to find another albino guinea pig and another light brown rabbit in a city as large as London, and it wasn’t entirely certain that Osk and Orn would ever see the difference. For some reason I found the idea rather distasteful. It was horrible to think of Osk coming home and noticing that the rabbit and guinea pig in the garden were not the same animals she had left when she went off on holiday. And Havard and I would pretend that nothing had changed. “Is that Moby?” Osk would ask, really perplexed, and we would coolly say that it was, as if we were rather surprised that she should ask such a question. “But Moby had a tear in its ear,” she was likely to say next, and we would look as if we didn’t understand what she was talking about; the ear had probably healed while she was in Europe. She had been away for a rather long time. Then she would look puzzled and think that Dick was a slightly darker color than she remembered and the guinea pig looked thinner; hadn’t we given it enough to eat? After discussing these strange changes in the animals — which we naturally weren’t aware of — we would sit down and have some tea or coffee and Osk’s suspicions would remain unsolved, something beyond our human understanding, perhaps supernatural.

But, of course, I had the task of explaining what had happened when Osk came home about four weeks later. Havard had been gone for a while by then, and he had added to my worries by causing another accident (if it could be called an accident). What I considered even more serious was the fact that he had taken the whale boat and the book. What he did to Moby and Dick could have happened to anyone — or almost anyone — and I decided to tell Osk, and later Orn, the truth about the accident. Havard had only meant to help the unfortunate animals, no doubt I would have reacted in just the same way and grabbed hold of the hose. But it was certainly a more unpleasant ordeal having to relate the fate that befell Ahab. The story of the rodents seemed trivial in comparison; at least these types of animals are easier to replace.

I pause for a moment over the word supernatural . Here I am lying under my own bed, recalling the ridiculous death of several animals which my companion and I were paid to look after five years ago, and now this Havard, whom I thought had cleared out of my life and was under careful supervision in an institution abroad, is back to haunt me, standing just a partition’s width away in the living room. Am I imagining all this? Am I all right? Is something strange going on in my brain, just as I imagined a few hours ago was the case with Armann Valur? Am I experiencing what I felt earlier today, that I don’t really belong here, that this isn’t my own home?

Is the eccentric up there playing with me?

All I need to do is shake my head to get rid of these speculations. Not even that, because as soon as the phone starts ringing in the next room they disappear.

“This phone won’t leave us in peace!” Havard barks. “It’s all going to end in a mess!”

That is just what I’m beginning to be afraid of too.

11

I have no difficulty hearing what Havard says on the phone. Before answering, he turns down the Elvis in the living room; he is standing with the receiver no more than a meter away from the bed. I thought he was going to come into the bedroom or the bathroom, but he stopped in the hall; I can see his shoes from where I am lying.

“No, he just isn’t at home, not at this moment but I’m expecting him to turn up any minute now. Greta? Your name is Greta. I’ll do that.”

I hadn’t expected her to call so soon. My watch is in the living room, so I don’t know exactly what the time is, but, since I came home in the taxi at six o’clock, I can’t imagine that it is later than seven-thirty or eight.

“Yes,” Havard carries on, “I am. . at least we are old mates. Do I know where? No, I’m not sure, he has just come home from abroad and he must have nipped out. He wasn’t here when I arrived. It was open. Oh, really? So he hasn’t come to you? This evening? You were going to meet him this evening? You aren’t Vigdis? No, of course not. What? Vigdis? No, I just thought that. . No, you’re called Greta, you told me just now. I’m Havard.”