Bragi Ólafsson: Pets

This memory from Hjalmholt is still very clear, although I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. There I was sitting on the sofa between two classmates, probably drinking to pluck up enough courage to chat up some girls from my class, and gazing in adoration at this girl I had never seen before but who was, I think, a friend of the people who were throwing the party. It wasn’t just her appearance that made her seem exciting; she was even more memorable for having disappeared with a boy, whom I knew vaguely, into one of the children’s bedrooms slightly later in the evening. She reappeared half an hour later, red-cheeked and — making no attempt to cover up what she had been doing in the bedroom — with her fair hair tousled (and even prettier), clearly after some kind of “friendly combat,” as one of my classmates put it. But the boy, who had gone with her into the bedroom, didn’t come out again, and we found out shortly afterwards that he was fast asleep. My friends and I joked that she — the one who was now sitting just a few meters away from me on the plane, in jeans and a T-shirt — had completely done him in.

I never found out any more about this girl — she didn’t live in my district nor did she go to the same school as me — but each time I have caught sight of her since then, something begins to happen inside me, something disturbing; I somehow grow smaller and bigger at the same time. In other words: I have fancied her ever since she came out — tousled and flushed, much more mature and exciting than all the other girls — of the children’s bedroom. But it’s highly unlikely that she remembers me. She left the party soon after she had finished with the boy; she was too smart — too experienced and intelligent — to hang around with children, as I thought my classmates and I were at that time.

Without realizing it, I had begun to compare her beautiful profile (at least what I could see of it from my seat) with that of Vigdis, and, for a few seconds, I seemed to lose my senses; I couldn’t remember whether Vigdis had fair or dark hair.

4

The barmaid brought a glass of dark beer and put it on the table for him. She had large breasts, bigger than you would expect on a little body like hers. He gazed at them. He picked up his glass when she put it down on the table and moved it nearer, without taking his eyes off the girl, who turned around and walked back to the bar. Her behind was neat and small compared to her breasts. She took a magazine from the bar, walked behind the counter, and turned up the music. Then she sat down with it, crossed her legs, and began to turn the pages. He carried on looking at her. He lifted his beer glass, put it back down on the table, and dipped his finger in the thick froth. He licked the froth off his finger and groaned. It wasn’t easy to guess what emotions the groan was meant to express. The girl seemed to hear him despite the music; she looked at him casually and then turned back to her magazine. After a little while he lifted his glass again and took a long draught. Half the beer had disappeared when he put it down again, wiping the line of froth from his top lip with the back of his hand. When he had swallowed it, he let out a long, loud sounding “ah” and called out to the girl, asking if he could get something to eat here. She said he could; they had sandwiches and soup. He said he wasn’t going to have any soup but wouldn’t mind a sandwich; what choices did she have? She closed the magazine, stood up without saying a word and brought a menu which she put down on the table. He had finished his beer and passed her the glass in exchange for the menu. She asked if he wanted another one. He nodded and asked for a Jägermeister to go with it, and just some kind of toasted sandwich with ham and cheese. She could put other ingredients in it too, but not asparagus or whatever it was called.

When she had gone off with the glass and the menu, he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, tapped out one cigarette, and lit it. The girl brought him the beer and the Jägermeister and then disappeared into the kitchen. He had only had a sip of beer when she came out again with the sandwich, but his schnapps glass was empty. He had taken off his anorak and laid it on the next table. Underneath he was wearing a light yellow shirt and a dark, double-breasted jacket. The barmaid sat down again and carried on looking at her magazine. He gulped down the sandwich and finished off the beer. Just as he was asking the girl to bring him another one, the door opened and a young couple walked in. She was wearing a baggy parka and a dark brown furry hat, while he had on a long overcoat with a strange looking hood. He stood up and asked the girl for another Jägermeister to drink with the beer, then he disappeared into the men’s room.

The girl took the drinks to his table and met him as he came out of the toilet. He smiled at her but didn’t get a smile back. Then he put on his anorak, picked up the plastic bag, and peered into it to make sure that everything was still in place. He swallowed the schnapps, screwed up his face, as if he was in slight pain, and downed about half the beer in one gulp. He zipped up his anorak, took several steps in the direction of the outside door, looked back towards the kitchen, and then went out. An icy blast blew into the bar, and the door took a good thirty seconds to close again. An uncanny silence fell on the place; the couple at the table stared at the door in wonder, and when the girl came back in from the kitchen he had gone. The only signs of his presence were his half empty beer glass, cigarette stubs in the ashtray, bread crumbs on a plate, and a crumpled napkin.

He now stood with his plastic bag on Hverfisgata, just opposite the Danish Embassy, and looked around several times before he carried on down the street. He walked up Ingolfstraeti and turned down Bankastraeti. The sun began to shine when he got near Laekjargata but had disappeared again behind a cloud by the time he reached the taxi stop below the little old houses of Bernhoftstorfa. He pushed down his hood and squeezed into the first taxi. He didn’t answer when the taxi driver commented on how cold the weather had been that month but asked to be driven up to Breidholt, to Sudurholar; probably it was Sudurholar. He would recognize the place when they got there.

5

Armann Valur nudged me with his elbow and placed the open flight magazine on my table, beside the tape player. The German model Claudia Schiffer gazed up at me from the page. I removed one earphone so I could hear what Armann was trying to say. He kept his eyes fixed on the magazine as he tapped the picture of Claudia with his finger. Then, lowering his voice as if he didn’t want the woman by the window to hear, he said:

“She’s not bad, this one.”

I said no in agreement, waited a few seconds before I put the earphone back in place, and sat up straight in my seat, as if to state that I wanted to be left alone. A new track was playing when I started listening again and, as I tend to do when I listen to music, I tried to harmonize it with Claudia’s face, which was still gazing at me from the magazine. I could easily imagine the slow, relaxed drum beats of Miles’s music being used as background music in a photo studio in Europe while some model shifted positions or pouted and ran her fingers through her golden locks. Vigdis came to mind. At this moment, she was probably changing sheets in the hotel just by the church, and was no doubt wondering if I would call her as soon as I got home, as I had promised. I hadn’t made up my mind if I was going to call her straight away or relax and listen to one or two records in the living room first. The only thing I was sure of was that I was looking forward to coming home to my own flat; unpacking the CDs, books, and videos which I had bought; and arranging the wine bottles, cigars, and cigarettes from the duty-free store on the table in the living room. I decided to postpone answering the questions that popped up in my mind: whether Vigdis and I were really in love, or if the exciting feeling I experienced when I imagined her, in a short black skirt, changing sheets in the hotel up north, had anything to do with her personally, or if this imaginary figure could be anyone, even the blonde from Hjalmholt.