Salka Valka

by Halldór Laxness

Genres: General Fiction; Coming of Age; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A fresh translation of Nobel Prize–winning author Halldór Laxness's modernist masterpiece, Salka Valka.



A feminist coming of age tale, an elegy to the plight of the working class and the corrosive effects of social and economic inequality, and a poetic window into the arrival of modernity in a tiny industrial town, Salka Valka is a novel of epic proportions, living and breathing with its expansive cast of characters, filled with tenderness, humor, and remarkable pathos.



On a mid-winter night, an eleven-year-old Salvör and her unmarried mother Sigurlína disembark at the remote, run-down fishing village of Óseyri, where life is "lived in fish and consists of fish." The two women struggle to make their way amidst the domineering, salt-worn men of the town and their unsolicited attention, and, after Sigurlína's untimely death, Salvör pays for her funeral and walks home alone, precipitating her coming of age as a daring, strong-willed young woman who chops off her hair, earns her own wages, educates herself through political and philosophical texts, and, most significantly, becomes an advocate for the town's working class, ultimately organizing a local chapter of the seamen's union.

Release date: May 17, 2022

Publisher: Archipelago

Print pages: 630

Sample

Chapter 1
 
The coastal steamer attends faithfully to its course, slipping down the middle of the fjord between the mountains, taking its bearings from the stars and peaks and arriving on schedule at Óseyri in Axlarfjörður, its horn blasting through the blowing snow.  In the first-class smokers’ lounge, two smartly-dressed travelers from Reykjavík are discussing the village’s faint gleams of light.  Their conversation goes something like this:
 
“When sailing on such a cold and bleak winter’s night along these shores, you get the impression that nothing in the world could be more insignificant and meaningless than such a small village under such high mountains.  How do people live in such a place?  And how do they die?  What do they say to each other when they wake in the morning?  How do they look at each other on Sundays?  And what does the priest feel when he steps into the pulpit at Christmas and Easter?  I don’t mean what does he say, but what, in all honesty, does he think?  Does he see how pointless it all is?  And what do the merchant’s daughters think about before going to sleep?  Yes, what sorts of joys and what sorts of sorrows in fact thrive around those dim glimmers from their little oil lamps?  I’m certain that in such places, people’s conviction of the futility of existence is reflected in each other’s eyes.  Surely, everyone must admit that it’s absolutely useless to live in such a place, there being no low ground here except for that little valley, which apparently owes its bottom entirely to the river’s sediments.  All culture, all human contentment, are created on level ground.  In a place that’s impossible to escape, and where there’s never any hope of meeting strangers, nothing can ever be expected, either.  What would happen, for instance, if the priest’s son stopped fancying the merchant’s daughter?  Yes, what would happen?  I’m just asking.”
 
But now a boat is launched from shore and several hoarse, gruff men with beards and moustaches seize their chance to come alongside the steamer.
 
“Down with the mail and passengers!” they roar, as if fomenting a frightful revolt.
 
A traveling salesman from the south pushes his otter-fur hat down over his ears, buttons up his coat, and carefully climbs down the rope ladder into the boat.  A mailbag, half full, is handed down to the boatmen.  Nothing more?
 
“Yes!” someone calls from the deck above.  “We’ve got a woman with a girl here in third class.  She says she’s going ashore.  Don’t leave without them.  They’re on their way now.”
 
“Well, we don’t have any orders from the merchant Jóhann Bogesen about waiting here all night for some wretch of a woman.  The passengers ought to be ready,” complained the head boatman.
 
From deck came the reply:  “We couldn’t get the woman out of her bunk any sooner.  Seasickness has left her dizzy and cramping.”
 
“Well, it’s none of our concern how seasick she’s been.  We have no orders from Jóhann Bogesen about that.”
 
Despite no one being able to cite any orders from Jóhann Bogesen, the woman appeared a few moments later, along with her child.  The child was bundled quite well in woolen wraps, while the woman herself was pathetically ill-equipped for winter journeys at these northern latitudes, wearing an old, faded, ready-made coat that was far too small for her, dirty cotton stockings and shabby boots that would normally have been laced up to mid-calf, except that now one of the laces was broken, leaving half the shaft hanging loosely against her leg.  Around her head she had tied a paltry cloth.  In one hand she held the hand of her child, and in the other a small sack containing her worldly possessions.
 
She stared fearfully at the boat as it bobbed up and down in the swell.
 
“Down with you, woman!” said the men.
 
“God help us, Salka, if we’re supposed to go down there.”
 
“Well, it’s pointless hanging about there like shark bait in the shade,” said the men.
 
One of the steamer’s crewmembers gave the child a hand in starting down the rope ladder, and a boatman climbed halfway up it and helped her descend into the boat.
 
“Mama, I made it,” said the child.  “It was terribly fun!”
 
Then they passed the woman down in the same manner.  She was heavy and broad-waisted, with stocky legs and beefy loins; in short, quite a corpulent woman.  Her face was gray and peaked from her discomfort and vomiting, while her hands were all red and swollen, like pickled meat, freshly boiled.
 
Mother and daughter were seated on a thwart opposite one of the rowers.  The woman held her sack snug in her lap, to keep it from getting wet.  It was just an ordinary, hundred-pound gunny sack that appeared to contain a small coffer and perhaps a few scraps of clothing.  The waves rose and fell, the empty boat rocked mercilessly and the woman stared fearfully into the darkness, while the girl at her side felt safe as could be.  As the boat rose on the next wave, the girl asked her mother:  “Mama, why are we going ashore here?  Why aren’t we continuing south?”
 
The woman clung desperately to the thwart as the boat slid into the next trough, turned her anguished face away from the spray and blowing snow, and finally replied:  “We’ll try staying here for a while before going south in the spring.”
 
“Why aren’t we going south straightaway, as you said?  I’d been so looking forward to going to Reykjavik.”
 
At a glance, the most peculiar thing about this girl was her deep voice, which sounded almost like a man’s.  She had the nervous habit of screwing up her eyes and mouth, both when she spoke and when she said nothing.  She would occasionally toss her head and could never keep her legs and feet still; her whole body roiled with unruly vitality.
 
“Ever since we left, I’ve been looking forward to coming to Reykjavík and seeing those big painted houses and those pretty rooms with pictures on the walls, as you spoke of, Mama.  I want to live in such a room.  And everyone in their Sunday best, Mama, always.  Or maybe it isn’t true, then?”
 
Yes, it’s true, but we can’t go any farther just now, Salka dear.  I’m so unwell.  We’ll stay here for the winter, and try to find something to occupy us.  Then in the spring, we’ll go south to all the fine weather.”
 
“So the weather is always fine in the south?  No, Mama, we should go on now.  It’s only five more days….”
 
“I’m so unwell.  And it will make no difference to us if we wait here until the spring.  I know that we’ll make it together, as we’ve always done.  Don’t be angry with your mother, even if she’s unable to go to Reykjavík straightaway with her darling Salka.  We must always be good friends.”
 
“Yes, Mama, but it’s still a terrible pity.”
 
Then the rower opposite them spoke up, looking at the girl:  “We must walk in the
 
ways of God.”
 
The girl looked at him in the dull glow of the lantern in the stern, scowled and said nothing.  And at this pious declaration, the two travelers’ talk about their destination came to an end.  When it seemed to the rower that his remark had fallen on deaf ears, it was as if he felt he ought to find some excuse for having stuck his nose into the private affairs of his passengers.
 
“Well, that’s not to say that I’m recommending this poor little village to strangers.  For I do not declare of my own accord, but rather, by the wisdom of the Word, that it is our dear Lord who determines where we lay down to sleep at night.  It is true; this village is rather pathetic.  I have now been here, either in the valley or the village, for forty-seven years, and in that time, nothing has ever happened.  Yet God has not forgotten us.  He has sent us the blessed Salvation Army of our Lord Jesus Christ to give us the opportunity to rejoice in our Redeemer.  Before, we had only the dean, but he is old and frail now.  And no matter how miserable and useless life may seem to be in a place such as this, it is impossible to deny that wherever souls bend their knees before the cross of Jesus Christ, there we find a true Canaan of God’s glory.  I don’t suppose you’re already saved?”
 
The woman thought things over for several moments as the boat continued splashing uncomfortably through the choppy waves of the inner fjord, before answering:  “No, but I hope that God will help me and show me the mercy of bringing me work, so that I can provide for myself and my girl.  You don’t suppose there’s any work to be had here in the village for a time?”
 
“What’s your name?”  the man asked.
 
“It’s Sigurlína.”
 
The man was silent for a few moments, as if weighing the possibility of a woman with such a name finding work there.
 
“What a pesky storm this is,” said the man.
 
“Hey, Mama,” said the girl.  “I’m sure I would have eaten more soup if we’d had more time.  And more salt meat.”
 
“She’s uppity enough, the girl,” said the man.  “Might I ask, are you a widow?”
 
“No.”
 
“Might I ask, why aren’t you continuing to Reykjavík, then?”
 
“I’m hoping that God is here in Óseyri in Axlarfjörður, no less than in Reykjavík,” said the woman, thereby beating the man at his own game.
 
“Do you have any kin here?”
 
“No, but I’m hoping I can find somewhere to stay tonight.  I can pay, you see.”
 
“You ought to be saved,” the man said.  “By the way, I don’t know whether the Army takes in women.”
 
They were only a few oar-strokes away from land.
 
“Would you please be so helpful as to point me the way to the Army?”
 
“I suppose I could bring you there,” said the man, “after we’re done unloading the steamer.”
 
The traveling salesman from first class made a few witty remarks as he stepped onto the quay, and then strode off and disappeared.  The woman, however, waited at the end of the quay, holding her sack in one hand and her child’s hand in the other, until the rower was ready to bring her to the Salvation Army headquarters.  Never has a more insignificant woman stepped ashore in a more insignificant village.  Finally, he signaled to them to follow him.