Red Milk by Sjón

Author:Sjón
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16.

Reykjavík, September 22, 1959

My dear Hanna,

How is Royal Copenhagen? No, don’t tell me. I’d only be jealous if I heard about your life in the Babylon on Øresund and your days at the Rigshospitalet. The lurid covers of the Danish doctor-nurse romances in Sigfús Eymundsson’s bookshop tell me all I need to know about the pleasures in store for a pretty nursing auxiliary. Whereas in the Icelandic bank romances, which they must surely stock in Boghallen on Rådhuspladsen, you’ll be able to read about the heartbreak of a young bank clerk. It has in no way diminished since you were last here over a month ago.

Yes, you’re sorely missed here in Ingólfur Arnarson’s settlement. Who by? Me, of course. (Ingólfur died more than a thousand years ago.) If we were in a romantic poem I would say that the plants of the earth and the birds of the air, the fish in the sea and the beasts in the forest miss you too; the Reykjavík version being the dandelion, the blackbird, the haddock, and the cat. But our romantic poem is over. Don’t you think I’m taking it well? Given how much I miss you?

Et Digt er som en Kilde, der risler frem først længe efter at Regnen er faldet. (A poem is like a spring, which only trickles forth long after the rain has fallen.)

—Jóhann Sigurjónsson

Of course, I would never have been able to go abroad with you. (Even if you’d wanted me to.) We have favorable winds for our cause and the time is nigh when we’ll be able to step forth as a full-fledged modern nationalist party. It’s happening all over the world, in Europe and America. We’re constantly receiving messages of encouragement from well-wishers near and far. But since Axel’s betrayal, the work here in Iceland has largely fallen on my shoulders. My aspirations are for the cause above all else and I believed that his heart beat for it too. But the promise of thirteenth place on the list of candidates in the forthcoming city council elections turned out to be all it took to weaken his faith. (Wasn’t Judas the thirteenth man at the table?) The rest of us are set to resign from the Independence Party on December 20. (The anniversary of the day on which the last issue of Iceland, the journal of the old Nationalist Party, came out in the winter of 1938.) At the same time we will formally become a chapter of the NRP.

I have the apartment on Asparmelur to myself these days. Mother has moved out to Selfoss to be closer to Hördur now that he has a place at the Sólheimar Home for the Mentally Disabled. He will be well cared for there among the other “adult children” and this will hopefully give her more time to herself. She’s got a job on the cheese production line at the Flóamenn Dairy, which is said to be the most technologically advanced in the country. On clear days she can see her beloved Westman Islands rising from the sea on the horizon.

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