Heaven and Hell Read Free Page A

when he realizes that he has started thinking about Sesselja reading these words, thinking about him, he opens to another page of the paper and reads: SIX MEN DROWNED IN FAXAFLÓI BAY . They were on their way from Akranes to Reykjavík in a sixereen.
    Faxaflói Bay is wide.
    How wide?
    So wide that life cannot cross it.
    Then it is evening.
    They eat boiled fish with liver.
    Einar and Gvendur tell the news from the fishing huts, the thirty to forty buildings huddled in small groups on the gravel bank above the broad beach. It is Einar who speaks, Gvendur grunts every now and then and laughs when he thinks it appropriate. Forty huts, four to five hundred fishermen, a mass of humanity. We wrestled, Einar says, hooked our fingers together and pulled, Einar says, damn straight, Einar says, and this one’s sick, goddamn intestinal complaint, will hardly survive the winter, this one’s a shitty mess, this one’s going to America in the spring. Einar’s beard is nearly as black as Pétur’s and reaches down to his chest, he scarcely has need of a scarf, and he speaks and tells of things, Andrea and Pétur listen. Bárður and the boy lie head-to-toe on the bed, they read, close their ears, look up briefly when a ship sails into the fjord and in the direction of the Village, no doubt a Norwegian steam-powered whaling ship, it sails in with a rumble and a racket, as if complaining about its lot. And the goddamn merchants have raised the price of salt, Einar says, suddenly remembers the most important news and stops telling about Jónas, who has composed ninety-two verses about one of the custodians, some of them quite lewd but so well composed that Einar can’t help but recite them twice, Pétur laughs but not Andrea, men seem generally inclined toward the coarser things in this world, whatever unveils itself in a rush, entirely, while women desire whatever needs to be chased, whatever reveals itself slowly. Raise the price of salt?! Pétur exclaims. Yes, those villains! Einar shouts, and his face darkens with anger. Soon we’ll be better off selling the fish wet, straight from the sea, as soon as they’re caught, Pétur says thoughtfully. Yes, Andrea says, because they want it that way, and that’s why they raise the price. Pétur stares at nothing and feels melancholy spreading through his mind and consciousness without fully realizing its cause. If they stop salting the fish then it’s finished for the stack out in the salting house, then where are Andrea and I supposed to go, he thinks, why does everything need to change, it’s not fair. Andrea has got to her feet, starts to tidy after the coffee, the boy looks up momentarily from Eiríkur’s travel diary, they catch each other’s eye, as sometimes happens, Bárður sunk in Milton’s Paradise Lost , which Jón Þorláksson translated long before our day. The stove heats the loft, it’s cozy here, the evening condenses against the windows, the wind strokes the rooftop, Gvendur and Einar chew tobacco, rock in their seats, sigh well and mmm hmm alternately, the paraffin lamp gives a good light and makes the evening outside darker than it is, the more light, the more darkness, that’s the way of the world. Pétur stands up, clears his throat and spits, spits out his melancholy, and says, we’ll bait the lines when Árni gets here, then he goes down to make hasps and packsaddles and buckles, furious that the men aren’t working. Dammit, to see grown men and tools lying around, reading useless books, what a waste of light and time, he says, it’s only his head protruding from the floor. The boy looks up from Eiríkur at the black head poking out of the floor like a messenger from Hell. Einar nods, gives Bárður and the boy a sharp look, stands up, spits red, goes down after his skipper, who says to Einar, but loud enough for it to be heard upstairs, everything declines, and in a certain way he is correct, because we are all born to die. But now they’re waiting for