Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness

Author:Halldór Laxness
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781400034413
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1968-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

25

Banquet of Dried Halibut

Pastor Jón Prímus has a word with the overnight guest that evening as he sits on the edge of his bed, still glancing through his notes:

Some southerners gave me dried halibut; would you like some of that? says the parish pastor.

Strange to say “that” about dried halibut. Certainly, Icelandic doesn’t have a partitive article like French, but it would have been politer and better Icelandic to have said for example: I was given fish; may I offer you some of it?

Pastor Jón Prímus: It costs £10 a kilo, they were saying—the most expensive food in the world apart from mammoth meat from the tundras.

He took me into the spare room, which resounded with emptiness since the drawers from the furniture had been used as firewood during the spring of the great snows. Then he handed me a strip of this fine white dried fish.

Embi: I feel one could well have used a stronger word than “that” about a delicacy that costs £10 a kilo.

We chewed the dried halibut lustily.

Pastor Jón: I hope there’s room for quality fish like this in the report.

Embi: It’s an open question whether the reporter’s diet has any place in a report. Luke recorded the Acts of the Apostles, but it doesn’t say what he had to eat the while.

Pastor Jón: More’s the pity.

We sat on backless wooden benches on either side of the deal table on which Miss Hnallþóra would spread a cloth when she served coffee and cakes. Luckily it isn’t the custom to eat dried fish off a tablecloth; dried fish lies to the north of cutlery in space and belongs to the Stone Age, or at least the Middle Ages, in time. Nor could Miss Hnallþóra restrain herself when she came into the room and saw these goings-on.

Miss Hnallþóra: May God in Heaven help and forgive the parish pastor for offering a decent man fish, and him from the south, yes the same as a bishop! And now the doctor-professor is here as well, perhaps he too is to be made to gnaw at some rock-hard dried fish! This is the absolute limit! If he bangs on the door I’m not even going to answer it; wouldn’t dream of it unless I had at least thirty-five sorts. And may I add that there’s a stray ewe that has started guzzling the dandelions and buttercups out on the paving; she has lost her lamb, and the professor has started pacing up and down the homefield and frightening my calf, in addition to all the Danish saviours of mankind who are here already.

Pastor Jón: There have mercifully always been sheep present whenever mankind was saved, Hnallþóra dear.

Miss Hnallþóra: Speaking for myself, if professors and doctors are going to come here on top of bishops and saviours, and the wretch of a calf dies, then I’ll lock up the farmhouse and no one will get anything from me alive or dead—so now you know, pastor Jón!

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