Bragi Ólafsson - Pets

Armann is convinced that it is me. “Better late than never,” he says cheerfully but when it becomes apparent that it is not the person he expected, he refers to the proverb that some people never seem to turn up.

Jaime opens the door to Saebjorn, and one of the others stretches over to the stereo and turns down the volume. Saebjorn starts by asking Jaime why he didn’t phone him before coming and is very surprised to hear that I haven’t come home yet.

“Well, what is all this then?” Saebjorn asks once the door is closed; I can feel the pleasant fresh air that they have allowed to enter. I expect he means all the people he doesn’t know and the wine on the table and the cigarette smoke that I imagine is already very thick, since I’m beginning to breathe it in the bedroom. “Is there a party here and Emil isn’t even at home?”

“Excuse me, who are you?” Havard asks. He obviously doesn’t like my friend’s accusing tone.

“Who am I ?”

“Yes, who are you?”

“That depends on who is asking.”

“Oh, is that so! So who you are depends on who I am?”

“Come on!” Greta interrupts to prevent unnecessary ill feeling. “Can’t you just introduce yourselves?”

“My name is Havard Knutsson,” Havard says with cold formality.

“Armann Valur here.”

“Havard?” I hear Saebjorn say. It sounds like he recognizes the name.

“I’m Greta.”

“I spoke to you earlier,” Saebjorn says. He seems to be talking to Havard. “My name is Saebjorn, I called earlier.”

“OK, that wasn’t so difficult,” Havard answers.

“But what is going on here?” Saebjorn carries on asking. “Where is Emil? Why hasn’t he come home?”

“If only we knew,” Armann answers.

“We are all waiting for him,” Greta says, and Havard tries to explain why they are all here.

“I came here this afternoon, it must have been around. .”

“But how do you know him?” Saebjorn interrupts.

“How do we know each other? We are just old friends. But anyway, I came late this afternoon and knocked and there was nobody home. Then I looked in the window and saw that there was water boiling on the stove so I crawled in through the window and turned off the burner.”

“When was that?” Jaime asks.

“Around five or six o’clock.”

“And hasn’t he been back since?” Saebjorn asks.

It is beginning to sound like a murder interrogation. The difference is that the body is still breathing; it has followed the investigation from the start.

“We are just waiting for him,” Havard says. “I saw that he had just come home from abroad, the suitcases have been emptied and of course I thought that he had just nipped out. I mean, he can’t have gone far, he has just been delayed. I can’t see that it’s so unusual.”

“But I mean. .” Saebjorn is clearly not satisfied with the explanation he gets from my unknown friend here, but really he has no cause to disbelieve him. “Haven’t you tried to find him? Doesn’t he have his cell phone with him?”

“He left it here in the flat,” Greta answers. “It has been ringing all the time, hasn’t it?” I imagine that the question is addressed to Havard and that it is he who answers.

“I think everyone has been trying to contact him. Both of you, of course, then his mother and some Vigdis. Is she his fiancée?”

“Is she his fiancée!” Saebjorn is clearly still very suspicious of my friendship with Havard. “Wait a moment, aren’t you friends? Didn’t you say you were old friends?”

“Has that got anything to do with his fiancée?” Havard objects. “I have just come from Sweden where I have been living for several years; how am I to know what Emil’s fiancée is called?”

I can’t remember if I had told Saebjorn and Jaime that Havard was in Sweden; from what I can hear, they don’t seem to have any notion of who he is. On top of everything else it bothers me to hear them talking about Vigdis as my fiancée in front of Greta. From my point of view — however ridiculous it is in these circumstances — Vigdis and I aren’t engaged in any way, though she might think of us in those terms.

“Alright, alright,” Saebjorn says. “You just have to understand that I find it rather strange coming here and there is no Emil around.”

“Of course it is strange,” Havard agrees, no doubt glad that his presence in my home has finally been accepted. “Can’t you imagine how strange I thought it was to come here and there was no Emil, just boiling water?”

“But, I mean, the man returns from abroad today,” Saebjorn continues, “and when one comes to visit him there is nothing here but his luggage! And the wine he bought has been opened. . it’s his wine, isn’t it?”

“Actually I brought this bottle,” Greta says, but apart from the red wine, Saebjorn is quite right. Alcohol isn’t exactly the thing I regret most at this instant, though.

“It’s just as if he has misbehaved and run off to the woodshed,” Havard says and laughs, as if he is trying to relieve the tension in the room. “Just like his namesake at Kattholt.”

I can’t imagine that Saebjorn finds this comment very funny.

“Yes, or just like the ants that the elephant trod on,” Armann adds with a giggle.

“And how do you know each other?” Saebjorn asks, like he wants to get rid of every trace of doubt from his mind.

“We were with Emil on the way home,” Armann answers.

“We were on the same plane today,” Greta explains.

“I really just came to fetch my glasses and. . wait a minute, that’s right; he called me after he got here, so it’s at least clear that he came home.”

“Was that ever a question?” Havard asks, obviously annoyed with the linguist.

“So he called you?” Saebjorn asks.

“Most probably as soon as he got in,” Armann answers.

Greta offers Saebjorn a glass of red wine, and when he has accepted — rather sulkily it seems — Greta tells Armann to look at the table.

“Look, you have spilled ash over everything on the table,” she says.

“I?” Armann sounds surprised, almost as if he has been accused of some terrible crime.

“You miss the ashtray every time, I’ve noticed.”

It is difficult for me to tell whether Greta is joking or is seriously asking the culprit to wipe all the ash off the table. I’m not really worried about the books and the CDs anymore, not now that Jaime and Saebjorn have arrived.

“Armann doesn’t smoke,” Havard says. “He told me he never smokes.”

“You must clean up the table,” Greta says to Armann, but I don’t hear his reply because Jaime and Saebjorn drown out his voice — they’re discussing the rest of the things lying on the table: the books, videos, and music.

Amongst the books which I bought in London is a recent account of the fate of the whaler Essex . Though I don’t expect that it will be a likely subject of discussion in the living room, it is even more unlikely that Havard will try to show my friends the model ship and the original edition of Moby-Dick . Yet I don’t think it is wise to keep the book under my bed any longer. I close it, move it as far as I can down past my body, and push it behind the toy box, alongside the carved whaler.

5

“So you are all interested in music?” I hear Havard comment. I can just imagine that Jaime and Saebjorn have separated themselves from the others, though the living room doesn’t offer much space for privacy in the crowd that has gathered. They are probably discussing the things that I brought back. Somehow I would have thought that Saebjorn — or both of them, Saebjorn and Jaime — would try to find out more about me, but at the moment they don’t seem to be very worried.