Bragi Ólafsson: Pets

Armann didn’t seem to have understood that I wanted to be left alone. I had shut my eyes and was trying to look as though I was concentrating on the music in the headphones, but it didn’t seem to make any impact on my neighbor; he nudged me again and wanted me to look back at the magazine. On the right-hand page, beside the conclusion of the interview with Claudia, there was an ad showing all kinds of Icelandic products that were ideal to buy for friends and business colleagues abroad: for example Icelandic sweaters, Black Death, cheese, smoked lamb, and, last but not least, Opal lozenges, which was exactly what Armann was trying to draw my attention to. I nodded and wondered whether my fellow passenger — despite his linguistical education — had different values and manners than other people, or if he had suffered some kind of mental breakdown recently. Perhaps his studies had made him strange. I was thankful that at least he didn’t smell of alcohol or sweat, as I had feared, but what I found strangest of all was that he didn’t seem interested in talking to me. Instead he was trying to get my attention by pointing to something that he obviously wanted me to share with him.

I saw that the woman by the window was watching us and noticed that she had a reddish-purple mark on her neck. It’s a hickey, I said to myself. I saw her as an educated woman of around forty who was on the way home after spending a few days with her foreign lover, and who felt no need to cover up the hickey on her neck; on the contrary, she was very happy with it. She would gladly have paid tax on it, if demanded. I tried to imagine her lover, and pictured an Italian or a Greek, a well-built, stocky man in an expensive black suit and a white shirt, with an open neck, revealing the shiny dark hairs on his chest. In other words: the complete opposite of the man who sat between us, and who was, at this moment, probably considering what goods the world of aviation (if one can use such prosaic terms) was offering and if it was necessary (seen from a more general point of view) to conduct all that commerce in the air. I was quite sure that if I gave him the chance the floodgates would burst open and I wouldn’t be left in peace for the rest of the trip.

“Maybe this is something one should try,” he said. “They are those giant sized packs, much bigger than these here,” he added, shaking the half-full box of Opals he had fished up out of his coat pocket with some difficulty — the seat belt was still fastened over his stomach. He didn’t offer me a lozenge this time, just helped himself to one and began to tap the box with his index finger while he examined the catalogue more closely.

I tried to imagine what kind of music this overdressed Opal eater listened to at home and came to the conclusion that some sort of learned silence reigned there, broken, at the most, by the evening news and the occasional program on very abstract subject matters. Probably he had never heard anything like the music that was now playing in my headphones: “On the Corner,” from 1972 when Armann was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old and, no doubt, still a student. I had started to put together a program of music that I would listen to when I got home and emptied my bags. “Lonely Fire” from Big Fun was number one on that list.

6

While the car waited at the traffic lights at the corner of Laekjargata and Hverfisgata, he took a thick old leather-bound book out of the plastic bag, opened it, and gazed at the first page for a few moments. When he closed the book again he stroked it with his hand, put it down on the car seat, and knocked on the hard cover twice with his knuckles. Then he opened up the plastic bag and examined a beautifully carved sailing ship that was wedged into an open wooden box.

Once they reached Saebraut he asked the taxi driver to stop at a store, where he could buy cigarettes. The driver didn’t make any comment, just stopped at a drive-in store a little later. While he waited for the cigarettes he put the book back in the plastic bag beside the ship, closed the bag carefully, and put it down on the seat.

They set off again along Saebraut in the direction of Breidholt. When they were about to turn into Vesturberg he stopped the driver and told him to carry on until they reached a certain block of flats in the Sudurholar area. He explained to him that he was going to check if his friend was at home and he wanted the driver to wait. The driver asked him to leave the plastic bag in the car. He asked the driver if he didn’t trust him and the latter replied that that wasn’t the issue, no one got out of his car without paying. He said OK but how could he trust the driver, he could just drive away, maybe his wallet was in the bag — besides the contents of the bag were worth more than a taxi fare, considerably more. The driver kept silent. He lifted the bag and gave it a shake, as if he was demonstrating that it was a token of mutual trust, then he put it down on the seat again and got out of the car.

He ran up the steps which led to the balconies on the second floor, a sort of outdoor staircase, from which one had access to the flats in the building. He stopped for a moment outside the second door from the end but didn’t knock, then he went on to the furthest apartment and rang the bell. A young woman came to the door. She was wearing a long black T-shirt and tight leggings. He said good morning and asked if Hinrik, his old pal Rikki, was at home. The woman ran her eyes up his body and shook her head, he was at work. Then he asked if Rikki was no longer playing in a band, he had expected him to be at home in the morning, but the woman repeated that he was at work, he only played on weekends now. She was getting cold standing in the doorway and was about to shut the door. He stopped her by putting his palm up in the air, gave a quick glance back towards the taxi in the parking lot below, and asked if he could use her toilet. He explained that he was in a taxi and needed to pee before he set off again. The woman looked him straight in the face, then lowered her gaze and looked away before she asked how he knew Hinrik, she wasn’t used to letting strangers in. He said then that they were old friends, he had even come here before, maybe she didn’t remember him but he had been there just the same, though it could have been before she met Hinrik. She repeated that she didn’t like letting strangers in but gave in when he pointed to the taxi waiting for him. He was on his way back downtown.

She stepped back into the hall to let him pass, and he nodded, stepped in, and offered to take off his shoes. She told him not to bother, it wasn’t necessary, but he said he didn’t want to leave dirty footprints. She told him where to find the toilet, he had to go along the corridor there and it was the middle door.

He disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. Then he raised the toilet seat and looked in the mirror above the sink. He ran his fingers through his thick hair and noticed that the mirror was the door to a cupboard. He opened the cupboard and looked at the selection of perfume, aftershave, toothbrushes, and medicine. He took out a plastic container of codeine, flicked off the lid, sniffed the contents and stuffed four pills into the breast pocket of his jacket. He ran his finger over other pill jars in the cupboard and before he closed the door he shook a little aftershave into his hand and patted it on to his cheeks and neck. Next he unzipped the fly of his pants, pulled out his penis, and let the dark stream pour straight down like a waterfall into the toilet bowl. He said out loud that was good, as always; there wasn’t much that could compete with it. Then in a lower voice, almost whispering, he added: “Especially in strange houses.”

7