The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness

Author:Halldór Laxness
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307389343
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-10-14T23:00:00+00:00

24

DER ERLKÖNIG

That summer, things began to look up a little for me. For many years I had not dared to open my mouth to sing within earshot of anyone else for fear of the sound that might come out. But when I was away on errands far from any company, either down at Skerjafjörur or at Sogin, the pressure of the melodies building up inside me forced me to utter bursts of sound; and that summer, my throat began to produce noises something like the note I was trying to achieve. After that I seized every possible opportunity of exercising my voice whenever I found solitude.

It so happened one day that I caught sight of our Pastor Johann, now in his eighties, hobbling up to the churchyard, almost bent double now, behind the coffin of some stranger. So I joined him, as I had done when I was small. Unbidden, I sang Just as the One True Flower over the coffin, nearly the whole psalm, if I remember rightly. When I had finished singing and Pastor Johann had scattered earth over the coffin, he came over to me, much moved, and took me by the hand and said:

“You are now such a big, tall man, my dear Álfgrímur, that I cannot bring myself to give you ten aurar. Instead, I am going to pray to God to be with you, always.”

“Thank you,” I said, although I would really much rather have had the ten aurar. “But I can hardly believe that I deserve God’s presence for that caterwauling. Actually I was beginning to think that I would never be able to croak another note again.”

Then Pastor Johann said, “Some voices never manage to break properly. But in all good men there lurks a true note, I won’t say like a mouse in a trap, but rather like a mouse between wall and wainscoting. But it is a special grace if God allows them to sing the note that they hear. I am old now, and my voice has never recovered from breaking; I have never had the good fortune to sing the note I hear inside me. But that note is just as true for all that.”

It was little wonder that I was thinking about singing that summer, when my voice was coming back; and very understandable that I was so elated at knowing that the great singer himself was now in the country. And on his friendly invitation, and in the hope of hearing Der Erlkönig at least, perhaps, I was not long in taking advantage of the kindness. I smeared sheep-leg grease on my footwear and tried to subdue with water the tuft of hair on the top of my head, and set off for town. I did not stop until I reached the lobby of the Hotel d’Islande; I went over to the hotel-keeper, who was sitting behind the reception desk, and bade him good day.

After a long pause he looked up and glanced at me over his spectacles, but he went on leafing through his papers and did not reply to my greeting.

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