Bragi Ólafsson: Pets

The woman directed him out into the hall. While he followed her, he praised the child for his attractive bedroom, or were there perhaps two children, he had noticed that there were bunks in the room. At least they were animal lovers, it was years since he had seen a budgie in a cage. She didn’t reply, just waited by the hall door with her arms crossed. He walked into the hall, and when he bent over his shoes he seemed to remember something suddenly. He straightened up and asked the woman if he could make one phone call, he needed to see if another friend of his was at home before he set off again in the taxi. She sighed impatiently, said something about it being quite sufficient that he had been allowed to use the toilet, she wasn’t sure that it was normal allowing some stranger to come in, he must be able to understand that. He said he did, of course she should never open the door to a stranger, but, as he and Rikki were such good friends, she could trust him one hundred percent. It was obvious from the expression on the woman’s face that she didn’t quite know how she should react to this last comment, but after thinking a little, staring worriedly at the floor, and puffing as if she was exhaling cigarette smoke, she gave in and said he could make one call, but it had to be short. She was busy, had no time for this. He thanked her.

As he picked up the receiver, he called out to her that he just had to dial information first; he wasn’t quite sure of the number. When he got through to the operator, he asked for the number of Emil S. Halldorsson, Grettisgata something or other, he wasn’t quite sure what the number was. While he was pressing the numbers that he had been given, there was a loud knock on the front door and the woman went to answer it, swearing under her breath that there was no peace here at home, during lunchtime in the middle of the week. The cab driver stood on the doorstep and asked the woman politely if his passenger was by any chance still inside. She said he was coming, he was just making a phone call.

He had let the phone ring for a good while without getting any reply, and when he came back and saw the taxi driver in the doorway, he smiled and said well, well, so he had come to fetch him. The driver said he had just wanted to check if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. While he put on his shoes he thanked the woman warmly, he had expected such kindness from the wife of his friend Hinrik, who was such a fine fellow. His last words were that no one had answered at his friend’s house, he was no doubt working, just like poor old Rikki, and then he followed the driver down to the parking lot. Once inside the car, he said he wanted to go down to Austurstraeti, where the driver would be rid of him. He wouldn’t have to worry about him any more, at least not for the rest of that day. He took the leather-bound book out of the plastic bag and was busy turning over the pages as the taxi drove out of the car park and along the road.

9

Probably half an hour had passed since take-off. The woman in the window seat asked the flight attendant for two little bottles of white wine and said no thank you when she was offered a liqueur to have with her coffee later. I had made up my mind not to drink anything on the way; I was going to wait until the evening when my friends, Saebjorn and Jaime, were going to drop in. Those plans were altered when Armann ordered four little bottles of red wine and told the flight attendant to put two of them on my table. I didn’t want to decline his offer, and after a few minutes’ thought — which involved changing my plans for the rest of the day — I decided to take an active part in the wine purchasing by ordering four miniature bottles of Cointreau to have with our coffee; two for me and two for Armann. He seemed really pleased at that. But later it became apparent that the red wine was free — part of the service, Armann said with a smug smile, rephrasing the information he’d been given by the flight attendant — while I needed to pay for the liqueurs with my credit card, which I had to fetch from the overhead bin. While I was standing up, Armann turned to the woman in the window seat and asked her if we couldn’t offer her a liqueur with her coffee. By using the word we he had made us into comrades. She thanked Armann for the offer but no, she wasn’t very partial to strong drinks. Armann seemed almost offended when she declined; he repeated what she had said, “not partial to strong drinks,” and when I sat down again I heard him mumble something to the effect that it was her choice.

“These bottles don’t hold much,” he observed and lifted one of the red wine bottles up to eye-level. “Perhaps it’s about one glassful. Maybe slightly more.”

I replied that he was probably right but didn’t want to say any more, in case he was going to start another discussion like the one on heat and cold. Armann opened the bottle he was holding, poured the contents into his glass, and then put his hand into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a paperback. I couldn’t imagine him shutting himself off in a book and, of course, that was not quite what he had in mind. He opened the book and while he turned the pages (rather roughly for my liking) he said he wanted to show me something. He had bought this book in Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road and discovered, afterwards really, that it was exactly what he had been looking for.

“That was lucky,” I said and poured red wine into my glass.

“Yes, you could definitely say that,” Armann answered. “It’s always a pleasure when life takes one by surprise. It doesn’t happen that often, does it?”

He pulled his glasses case out of his jacket pocket. Like the Opal box, it appeared to have been sat on. However, I was rather surprised at how modern the shape of the frames were, and I noticed that the woman by the window watched Armann’s clumsy movements — he put on his glasses and replaced the case in his pocket — with a smile. He seemed to be having trouble finding what he was going to show me, and the woman, who had taken out Harper’s Bazaar from her bag, appeared to be rather shocked at the way Armann thumbed his way back and forth through his book. She, on the other hand, turned the pages so carefully that I imagined she had bought the magazine for someone else at home and wanted it to look untouched.

I asked Armann what the title of the book was.

“It’s a really remarkable volume,” he said, but was too engrossed in turning the pages to answer my question. I hadn’t noticed what was on the cover but from the little diagrams — some kind of calculations with words instead of numbers — I guessed that it was of a scientific nature, no doubt some complicated, advanced grammatical text.

Although I didn’t expect to have peace for long, I used the opportunity to replace my headphones and switched on Miles again. The fair-haired girl in the T-shirt was resting her bare elbow on the armrest, her head leaning to one side as she gazed along the aisle. She had her index finger on her cheek and let her fourth finger play with her lips as if she was deep in thought over what she saw. I couldn’t see if she was drinking anything but imagined she had white wine like the woman beside Armann. I thought it was very likely that she was traveling alone; I hadn’t seen her talk to anyone except the flight attendant and the person on the other side of the aisle.

I looked at her for quite a while and began to wonder how long I could carry on gazing without her being aware of me. No doubt, she knew already. I think I always notice when someone is watching me; it doesn’t matter whether the person is sitting beside me or is further away.

All at once I felt Armann nudge me gently with his elbow. At the same moment the fair-haired girl turned round, as if she had heard something further back in the plane. Our eyes met for a moment. She had clearly begun to smell the food, which I also smelled now as the trolley came nearer, but, though our gazes had met, it was impossible to say if she had noticed me.