Jón Gnarr - The Indian

I feel a little better after praying. I sit up and hold tight to my mast. The sail! The damned sail is carrying me out to sea.

I reach up high and tear it down. The raft is steady. I scan the sea around the raft.

Suddenly I hear splashing behind me. I scream and look back. Something disappears into the sea. Sharks! They’ve started to attack.

— Help! Help!

I scream in the direction of Reykjavík and over towards Kjalarnes and I wave my ripped sheet.

— Help!

Suddenly a face comes to the surface. It startles me so much that I fall on my butt. A seal. He looks at me, his searching eyes staring in disbelief. He’s so close I can see his whiskers. He’s not afraid of the sharks.

We stare at each other for a moment. I expect to see him tossed into the air at any given moment, sandwiched between the jaws of a great white shark. But nothing happens. Then he dives again. I see his shadow as he swims just below the surface. Or is that a shark?

I look very carefully around. I see, much to my relief, that there’s a large rubber boat on its way towards me. The boat approaches at high speed; there’s foam on the prow.

Rescue! It heads for me. Those damn sharks won’t get this meal. Serves them right. I wipe away my tears and clamber to my feet. I’m not going to let anyone see that I was afraid of something.

I stand tall on the raft and smile happily to the police officers on the boat like a skipper with a clear conscience smiling to the agents at Border Control.

— Good morning, I say, cheerfully, once the rubber boat is flush against the side of the raft.

The policemen don’t return my greeting.

— Get into the boat, says one.

I tumble into the rubber boat. I try to make out that I am perfectly happy and that all this is unnecessary officiousness.

— Where are you coming from?

— From Kjalarnes, I reply, proudly.

The police signals the driver and we head to Kjalarnes. Then he talks on the radio.

— Station?

Crackle and hiss. A woman answers.

— Yes?

— We’ve found the boy. He’s fine.

Crackle and a little pause.

— Good. Where is he?

— Kjalarnes. We’re taking him there.

Crackle and buzz.

— Take down his name for the report.

— Yes. Over and out.

He puts the radio back in his waistband.

— I saw a seal here earlier, I say, to say something.

They put me out on the beach at Móum where my voyage began. Before they say goodbye to me, they write down my name and address. Then they go.

The day after, there’s news about me on the back page of the Times :

“Alone on a Suicide Raft!”

I cut out the article. That’s stupid, calling it a suicide raft. They’d never do that to Thor Heyerdahl. And his raft even got stranded on rocks and broke into pieces. My raft didn’t break at all. Only one of its barrels came loose.

Mom recently bought a turntable for the living room. It’s tall, with a plastic lid. It also has a radio and a tape recorder. It’s called Crown.

Combined turntables are not as good as turntables that are on their own. Gummi has a Marantz. That’s got a record player at the top and a cassette player and radio below. His turntable also has a diamond needle. The unit has an amplifier and something called an equalizer, which helps you manage the sound better. I can’t hear any difference.

Mom and Dad don’t own many albums. I’ve listened to them all. I like Þórbergur Þórðarson’s albums the best. I enjoy hearing Þórbergur talk and tell stories about the south from when he was little. Golden Slopes is boring, though. Dad owns an album called Buttercups . That’s very boring.

Buttercups is a long poem by Jóhannes úr Kötlum. Dad has all of his poetry books. I sometimes read them. “Star Steed” is my favorite poem.

Dad also has a book by Stein Steinarr. I think he’s often entertaining. Some of his poems are very funny. I have to learn poetry at school. But those are extraordinarily long and boring poems from a book called School Poetry . It’s an overview of all the poets. We only ever learn poems by men with muttonchops who are long dead.

Most of the poems are about something I don’t understand. One begins like this: “Swollen was the air, heavy the sea, / spring thick and drowsy. / And Eggert Ólafsson it was / who pushed on past cold Skor.” I know the whole poem by heart. I had to learn it for school. All the same, I don’t know anything about this Eggert.

I also know “Hiking” by Tómas Guðmundsson and can recite the whole thing faster than anyone else. I had to learn it last year. It’s a good poem. It’s about someone who is hiking and is very tired. I know what that feels like.

My favorite album is 50 Years of The Reykjavík Theater Company . It’s a recording of all kinds of plays. One called God’s Millpond is quite good. There’s also a play about Mount Eyvind. That one’s pretty boring. My favorite play on the album is The Pigeon Banquet by Halldor Laxness. It’s a funny play about an old couple who have so much money they throw it in the toilet. I can listen to it again and again and always laugh as much each time. I find it funny the way the actors speak. I’ve twice been to the theater for something other than children’s plays. Kristján Þór and I went to a play by Dario Fo called Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay . That was good. And I went with my parents to see The Prodigy .

Mom says I’m similar to Þórbergur. I’ve been toying with the idea that maybe he’s my dad. We’re very alike, not only in appearance but also in the way we are. Þórbergur had red hair and glasses. After the play, I went straight to the library, borrowed The Prodigy , and read it. I also read Hymn of the Flower . I wasn’t as impressed with that. It’s really a girl’s book. But The Prodigy is the best book I’ve read. Apart from that, I’ve not read many adult books. When I was in the countryside, I read Anna from Stóruborg . That was very funny. What’s more, Mom once took me and showed me Paradise Cave. We couldn’t climb up to it because it was really windy. But it was nice to see it. And I read The Good Soldier Š vejk . Dad lent it to me. That was incredibly enjoyable. Otherwise, I’ve only read books for children and young adults. I think I’ve read all the books in the library. I’ve even, I’ll admit, read a whole bunch of girls’ books just to have something to read. I think adventure books are amazing, especially about Indians. And I also enjoyed The Hardy Boys Trio and Bob Morane . My favorite book was still The Windbag Bellows . It’s about a boy who’s always pulling pranks, a bit like me. Now I mostly read young adult books: Katamaran, Winter War, others like those.

I don’t listen to music much. There’s no music at home, except a Christmas album by Mahalia Jackson, which no one enjoys. Sometimes I listen to a Sven Ingvars album that belonged to Anna Stínu. I enjoy some of the songs. I can understand the lyrics because I know Danish. I don’t really understand English.

I inadvertently ruined the record player one time when I was playing Action Man.

My mom bought a big portable cassette player for the car. It has tons of good songs on it: “By the Rivers of Babylon” by Boney M, “Boat On the River” by Styx, and “Coward of the County” by Kenny Rogers. “Coward of the County” is Mom’s favorite song. She sings it at home sometimes. When we go for a ride we play it and sing along together. I like doing that, but I’d never let anyone know. It’s stupid. If I saw someone singing with his mother I’d make fun of him. Mom also has a sly fascination with Meatloaf. If he’s on TV she always turns and looks at him.