The Sorrow of Angels

by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Philip Roughton

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction; Small Town & Rural

Synopsis

It is three weeks since the boy came to town, carrying a book of poetry to return to the old sea captain - the poetry that did for his friend Bár?ur. Three weeks, but already Bár?ur's ghost has faded. Snow falls so heavily that it binds heaven and earth together. As the villagers gather in the inn to drink schnapps and coffee while the boy reads to them from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Jens the postman stumbles in half dead, having almost frozen to his horse. On his next journey to the wide open fjords he is accompanied by the boy, and both must risk their lives for each other, and for an unusual item of mail. The Sorrow of Angels is a timeless literary masterpiece; in extraordinarily powerful language it brings the struggle between man and nature tangibly to life. It is the second novel in Stefánsson's epic and elemental trilogy, though all can be read independently.

Release date: August 1, 2013

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 246

Sample

Now it would be good to sleep until our dreams change to sky, a quiet, calm sky, an angel feather or two floating down, otherwise nothing but the bliss of the oblivious. Sleep, however, eludes the dead. When we close our staring eyes memories overtake us, not sleep. At first they come singly and even as beautiful as silver, but quickly turn into a dark, suffocating snowfall, and that’s the way it’s been for more than seventy years. Time passes, people die, the body sinks into the ground and we know no more. Otherwise there’s little of sky here, the mountains take it from us, as do the storms that these same mountains intensify, dark as the end, but sometimes when we catch a glimpse of the sky following a blizzard we believe we can see a white streak left by the angels, high above the clouds and mountains, above the mistakes and kisses of man, a white streak like a promise of great bliss. That promise fills us all with childish happiness and a long forgotten optimism stirs within us, but it also deepens despair and hopelessness. That’s the way it is, a great light creates deep shadows, great fortune contains great misfortune and human happiness seems condemned to stand at the point of a knife. Life is quite simple but a person is not; what we call the puzzles of life are our own complications and murky depths. Death has the answers, it says somewhere, and it frees ancient wisdom from its fetters; of course this is damned nonsense. What we know, what we have learned has not sprung from death but rather from a poem, despair and finally memories of happiness, as well as great betrayal. We do not possess wisdom, but what trembles within us takes its place, and is perhaps better. We’ve travelled far, further than anyone before us, our eyes are like raindrops, full of sky, pure air and nothing. So it’s safe for you to listen to us. But if you forget to live you end up like us, this hounded herd between life and death. So dead, so cold, so dead. Somewhere deep within the lands of the mind, of this consciousness that makes a person sublime and devilish, there still dwells a light that flickers and refuses to go out, refuses to give in to the heavy darkness and suffocating death. This light nourishes us and torments us, it persuades us to keep going instead of lying down like dumb beasts and waiting for what might never come. The light flickers, and thus we go on. Our movements may be uncertain, hesitant, but our goal is clear – to save the world. Save you and ourselves with these stories, these snippets from poems and dreams that sank long ago into oblivion. We’re in a leaky rowing boat with a rotten net, and we’re going to catch stars.

Somewhere within the murky snowfall and frost, evening is falling, and the April darkness squeezes between snowflakes that pile up on the man and the two horses. Everything is white with snow and ice, yet spring is on its way. They toil against the north wind, which is stronger than everything else in this country, the man leans forward on the horse, holds tightly to the other’s reins, they’re completely white and icy and are likely about to change into snow, the north wind intends to gather them before the arrival of spring. The horses trudge through the deep snow, the trailing one with an indistinct hump on its back, a trunk, stock-fish or two corpses and the darkness deepens, yet without turning pitch black, it’s April, despite everything, and they press on from the admirable or torpid obstinacy that characterises those who live on the border of the habitable world. It’s certainly always tempting to give up, and in fact many do so, let everyday life snow them over until they’re stuck, no further adventures, simply stop and let themselves be snowed over in the hope that sometime it will stop snowing and clear skies will return. But the horses and the rider continue to resist, press on despite the seeming existence of nothing in this world except for this weather, everything else is gone, such snowfall wipes out directions, the landscape, yet high mountains are hidden within the snow, the same ones that take a considerable portion of the sky from us, even on the best days when everything is blue and transparent, when there are birds, flowers, and possibly sunshine. They don’t even lift their heads when a house gable suddenly appears in front of them from out of the relentless snowstorm. Soon another gable appears. Then a third. And a fourth. But they fumble along as if no life, no warmth has anything to do with them any longer and nothing matters except for their mechanical movement, faint lights can even be glimpsed between the snowflakes, and lights are a message from life. The trio has come up to a large house, the mounted horse moves all the way up to the steps, lifts its right foreleg and scrapes vigorously at the lowest one, the man grunts something and the horse stops, then they wait. The lead horse is upright, tense, its ears perked, while the other hangs its head, as if thinking deeply, horses think many things and are the closest of all animals to philosophers.

Finally the door opens and someone steps out onto the landing, his eyes squinting into the obtrusive snowfall, his face drawn against the ice-cold wind, the weather controls everything here, it models our lives like clay. Who’s there? he asks loudly and looks down, the blowing snow sunders his line of sight, but neither the rider nor the horses reply, they just stare back and wait, including the horse standing behind with the hump on its back. The person on the landing shuts the door, feels his way down the steps, stops just over halfway down, thrusts out his chin to see better before the rider finally makes a hoarse and rattling sound, as if clearing ice and muck from his language, opens his mouth and asks: Who the Hell are you?

The boy steps back, up one step, I really don’t know, he replies with the sincerity that he hasn’t yet lost, and which makes him a fool or a sage: No-one special, I suppose.

Who’s out there? asks Kolbeinn, the old skipper, who sits hunched over his empty coffee cup and directs the broken mirrors of his soul towards the boy, who has re-entered and wants more than anything to say nothing, but still blurts out, Postman Jens on an ice horse, he wants to talk to Helga, before hurrying past the skipper, who sits in his eternal darkness.

The boy quickly ascends the interior staircase, rushes into the corridor and clears the steps to the garret in three leaps. Gives himself entirely to the race, shoots like a phantom up through the opening and then stands panting in the garret, completely motionless, while his eyes become accustomed to the change of light. It’s nearly dark there; a little oil lamp stands on the floor and a bathtub appears against a window full of snow and evening, shadows flicker about the ceiling and it’s as if he’s in a dream. He discerns Geirþrúður’s coal-black hair, white shoulder, high cheekbones, half a breast and drops of water on her skin. He spies Helga next to the bathtub, with one hand on her hip, a lock of hair has come loose and falls across her forehead, he’s never seen her so carefree before. The boy jerks his head as if to wake himself, turns around abruptly and looks the other way, even though there’s nothing special to see besides darkness and emptiness, which is where a living eye should never look. Postman Jens, he says, and tries not to let his heartbeat disturb his voice, which is of course entirely hopeless: Postman Jens has come, and he’s asking for Helga. It’s perfectly safe for you to turn around, or am I so ugly? says Geirþrúður. Stop tormenting the boy, says Helga. What can it hurt him to see an old woman naked? says Geirþrúður, and the boy hears her stand up from the bath. People get in the bathtub, think something, bathe themselves and then stand up from the bathwater, all of this is rather ordinary, but even the most ordinary thing in this world can conceal considerable danger.

Helga: It’s safe for you to turn around now.

Geirþrúður has wrapped a large towel around herself but her shoulders are still bare and her December-dark hair is wet and wild and possibly blacker than it’s ever been. The sky is old, not you, says the boy, and then Geirþrúður laughs quietly, deep laughter, and says, you’ll be dangerous, boy, if you lose your innocence.

*

Kolbeinn grunts when he hears Helga and the boy approaching, contorts his face, which is covered with lines and deep grooves from the lashes of life and his right hand moves slowly across the table, feels its way forward like a weak-sighted dog, pushes aside the empty coffee cup and glides over the cover of a book before his expression slackens suddenly, fiction doesn’t make us modest, but sincere, that’s its nature and that’s why it can be an important power. Kolbeinn’s expression hardens when the boy and Helga enter the Café, but he continues to rest his hand on the book, Othello, in the translation of Matthías Jochumsson. “Be still, hands! Both you, my men and the rest; were it my task to fight, I could perform it without prompting.”1Helga had thrown on a thick, blue shawl; she and the boy walk past Kolbeinn, who pretends not to be interested in anything, and then they’re outside. Helga looks down at Jens and the horses, all three nearly unrecognisable, white and icy. Why don’t you come in, man? she asks, somewhat sharply. Jens looks up at her and says apologetically: To tell the truth, I’m frozen to the horse.

Jens generally chooses his words carefully, and is, what’s more, particularly reticent just after finishing a long and difficult winter delivery trip; what’s a person supposed to do with words in a blizzard anyway, up on a stormy heath and all directions lost? And when he says that he’s frozen to the horse, he means it; then the words are completely transparent and hide no meanings, no shadows, as words are wont to do. I’m frozen fast to the horse: which means that the last large stream that he crossed, around three hours ago, concealed its depth in the darkness of the storm; Jens was soaked from his knees down yet the horse is tall, the April frost clamped around them in a second, horse and man froze together so tightly that Jens couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t dismount and had to let the horse scrape at the lowest step in order to announce their arrival.

Helga and the boy have to work hard to pull Jens off the horse and then assist him up the steps, which is no easy task, the man is big, around a hundred kilos, no doubt; Helga’s thick shawl has turned white with snow by the time they manage to get Jens off the horse, and there are still the steps. Jens snorts angrily; the frost has deprived him of his virility and transformed him into a helpless old man. They plod up the steps. Helga once wrestled down a drunk fisherman in the Café, a man of above-average size, and then threw him out like a piece of rubbish; Jens thus transfers most of his weight automatically to her; who is this kid, by the way? There doesn’t seem to be much to him, he could break beneath snowflakes, let alone a heavy arm. The horses, Jens mutters on the fifth step; yes yes, replies Helga simply. I was frozen fast to the horse and can’t walk unsupported, says Jens to Kolbeinn as Helga and the boy half carry, half drag him in. Take the trunks off the horse, says Helga to the boy, I’ll handle Jens myself from here on; then take the horses to Jóhann, you should know the way, and then let Skúli know that Jens is here. Can this one manage the trunks and the horses? asks Jens doubtfully, glancing sidelong at the boy; he’s more useful than he looks, is Helga’s only reply, and the boy carries the trunk into the house with difficulty, dresses warmly and heads out into the darkening night and gloomy weather with two exhausted horses.

Jens has changed into dry clothing, his feet have warmed up, he’s consumed an enormous quantity of curds diluted with milk, smoked lamb meat, drunk four cups of coffee by the time the boy returns with Skúli, the editor; the horses have been taken to Jóhann, Geirþrúður’s secretary, who lives alone, is always alone, which is of course understandable since people are so apt to let one down. Skúli is tall and slim, often resembling a taut string, he accepts a cup of coffee but refuses a beer by shaking his head, sits down opposite Jens and arranges his paper and pen, his long fingers very impatient. Kolbeinn strokes Othello as if absentmindedly and waits for Skúli to start interrogating Jens, giving them the chance to hear the news that the editor will print in the next edition of The Will of the People, which is published once a week, four pages packed with details about fish, the weather, death, leprosy, growth of the grass, foreign cannons. There’s ample need to have existence freshened up with tidings from the world, the winds have been hostile, unusually few ships have come so far this April, and we thirst for news after the long winter. Jens, of course, is no ship that the sun has shone on in foreign lands, but he is the thread that connects us to the outside world during the long winter months, when our only company is the stars, the darkness between them and the white moon. Three to four times a year Jens goes all the way to Reykjavík to fetch the mail, when he replaces the postman for the South, but otherwise he travels from the Dalir district, where he lives on a small farm, surrounded by gentle mountains and the summer-green countryside, along with his father and sister, who was born with such clear skies in her head that there was little space left for thoughts, although no sins took root there either. Jens’ postal route is likely the most rugged in the country, costing two postmen their lives in the last forty years, Valdimar and Páll, storms claimed them both on a heath in the month of January fifteen years apart. Valdimar was found soon after, frozen solid, not far from a newly built mountain refuge, but Páll not until spring, after most of the snow had melted. The post itself, the letters, newspapers, was fortunately undamaged in the trusty canvas-lined trunks and in the bags that hung over the men’s dead shoulders. Valdimar’s horses were both found alive, but were in such bad condition from the cold that they were put down on the spot. Valdimar’s body was intact, for the most part, whereas ravens and foxes had gotten to Páll and his horses. The postman for the South transmits to Jens the news that he hears in Reykjavík, Jens delivers it to us, besides everything else that he learns of on his route; this person died, that one had a bastard child, Gröndal was drunk down on the beach, fickle, changeable weather in the South, a thirty-ell long whale beached in Eastern Hornafjörður, the Fljótsdalur Valley Cooperative Society is drawing up plans for a steamboat service on the Lagarfljót River and has ordered a steamboat from Newcastle, which is in England, adds Jens. As if I didn’t know that, replies Skúli brusquely, without looking up; he questions Jens and writes so rapidly that the paper nearly ignites. The boy observes how the editor proceeds, how he formulates his questions, even tries to look over his shoulder, to see whether there’s much difference between what the postman says and what’s put down on paper. Skúli is engrossed, so focused that he hardly notices the boy, yet twice looks up, half annoyed, when he comes unnecessarily near. Time is pressing, Jens has finished eating, filling his big body with curds, smoked lamb, English cake, coffee, warm as Heaven, black as Hell; the time has come for his first beer and first shot of liquor, which Helga brings him. Liquor has the tendency to change our ideas about significance, birdsong becomes more important than the world’s newspapers, a boy with fragile eyes more precious than gold and a girl with dimples more influential than the entire British navy. Of course Jens says nothing about birdsong or dimples; that he would never do, yet after three beers, one shot, he’s a poor informant for Skúli. He becomes rather complacent, loses interest in momentous events, major news, troop movements, whether the governor of the country sits or stands or appoints his young and inexperienced son-in-law as pastor at þingvellir. Did he do that? asks Skúli, hotly, my poor fellow, what does such a thing matter now, it all turns out the same anyway, they’re all the same on the loo, says Jens, on his third beer, before telling Kolbeinn new stories about Páll, who roams the heaths in search of the eyes stolen by ravens and foxes, tells them to please the old man, has personally never seen a ghost but the living are certainly bother enough, he says, taking a drink. Skúli gathers his papers and stands up. Won’t you have a look at these? asks Jens, he has thick blonde hair and would be good-looking if it weren’t for his huge nose, he hurriedly pulls two envelopes from his bag and hands them to Skúli; certificates or declarations from two farmers, stating that Jens couldn’t have traversed the mountains any quicker due to storms and snow and is therefore behind schedule, to the vexation of many, Skúli among them. It’s unnecessary, replies the editor curtly, nodding to Helga, not bothering to look at the boy and Kolbeinn, although he hesitates and nearly gives a start when he sees Geirþrúður appear at the door behind the counter, she hasn’t bothered to put up her hair, black as night, it flows over her shoulders, over the green dress that suits her so well that Skúli hardly thinks of anything else on the way home; he plods through the gloom with his mind full of black hair and a green dress, and lust like a storm around him.

The night is dark and very silent in the winter. We hear fishes sigh at the bottom of the sea, and those who climb mountains or traverse high heaths can listen to the music of the stars. The old folks, who possessed the wisdom of experience, said that there was nothing up there but exposed terrain and mortal danger. We perish if we don’t heed experience, but rot if we pay it too much attention. In one place it says that this music wakens in you either despair or divinity. Setting out for the mountains on still nights, sombre as Hell, in search of madness or bliss, is perhaps the same as living for something. But there aren’t many who undertake such journeys; you wear out valuable shoes and the nocturnal vigil makes you incapable of taking on the day’s tasks, and who is to do your work if you are unable to? The struggle for life and dreams don’t go together, poetry and salt fish are irreconcilable, and no-one eats his own dreams.

That’s how we live.

Man dies if you take his bread from him, but he withers without dreams. What matters is rarely complicated, yet we still need to die to come to an equally obvious conclusion.

The nights are never as quiet down in the low-lying areas, the music of the stars is lost somewhere along the way. But they can still be quite silent here in the Village, no-one out and about except perhaps the night watchman, doing his rounds between unreliable streetlamps, making sure they don’t smoke and are lit only when necessary. And now night lies over the Village, dispensing dreams, nightmares, solitude. The boy sleeps soundly in his room, has curled up beneath his quilt. Never before has he had his own space to sleep until Bárður’s death brought him to this house three weeks ago, and at first he had difficulty falling asleep in the silence; no breathing close by, half-stifled coughs, snoring, the sound of someone tossing and turning in bed, farting, sighing in the depths of sleep. Here it’s he who decides when to extinguish the light and can therefore read as long as he likes; it’s a dizzying freedom. I’m extinguishing the lamp now, said the farmer, when he felt they’d stayed up long enough in the family room, and then the darkness clutched them. He who stays up too late is poorly fit for the next day’s work, but he who doesn’t follow his dreams loses his heart.

And day breaks slowly.

Stars and moon vanish and soon day comes flooding in, this blue water of the sky. The delightful light that helps us navigate the world. Yet the light is not expansive, extending from the surface of the Earth only several dozen kilometres into the sky, where the night of the universe takes over. It’s most likely the same way with life, this blue lake, behind which waits the ocean of death.

I miss you lads and somehow I find it harder to live now, writes Andrea from the fishing huts. She’d sat down on their bunk in the garret, used her knees and the English-language textbook for a desk. They were at sea: Pétur, Árni, Gvendur, Einar, and two itinerant fishermen brought in to replace the boy who lived and the man who died. The sea breathed heavily somewhere out in the snowfall that filled the world, and swallowed everything. Andrea couldn’t even see the other fishing hut, nor did she give a damn. Yet the breath of the sea could be heard clearly through the storm, the heavy aspiration of a senseless creature, this treasure chest and grave of thousands. They rowed away early in the morning and were perhaps waiting over their lines as she wrote her letter, Pétur with fear in his veins, because everything seemed to be leaving life, I miss you lads, she writes. Sometimes, though, I wish that I’d never met you, yet little better has ever happened to me. I don’t know what to do. But I feel as if I should and need to make a decision about my life. I’ve never done so before. I’ve just lived, and I don’t know of anyone whom I can ask for advice. Pétur and I barely ever speak, which could hardly be comfortable for the others, except maybe Einar. He’s a vermin. Sometimes he stares at me as if he were a bull and I a cow. Oh, why am I writing you such things, you’re far too young, and have enough of your own to deal with. And my scrawls are hardly legible. I think I’ll tear up this letter, and then burn it.

I miss; days have passed.

The distance between Bárður and life grows relentlessly every day, every night, because time can be a rotten bastard, bringing us everything only to take it away again.

The boy is awake, sits up in bed, stares out into the semi-darkness, the dreams of the night evaporate from him slowly, vanish, turn to nothing. It’s approaching six o’clock; perhaps Helga had knocked lightly on the door, awakening him instantly. Nearly three weeks since he arrived here with deadly poetry on his back. Of what other use is poetry unless it has the power to change fate? There are books that entertain you but don’t stir your deepest thoughts. Then there are others that cause you to question, that give you hope, broaden the world and possibly introduce you to precipices. Some books are essential, others diversions.

Three weeks.

Or thereabouts.

A room as large as the family room in the countryside, where eight to ten people worked and slept together; here he’s alone with all this space. It’s like having an entire valley for oneself, a solar system next to life, he probably doesn’t deserve it. But fate deals out fortune or misfortune, fairness has nothing to do with it, and then it’s a person’s job to try to change what needs to be changed.

You’ll have the bedroom, Geirþrúður had said, and here he is, sitting confused between sleep and waking, half waiting for everything to disappear: the room, the house, the books on the bedside table, the letter from Andrea, no, she didn’t burn it, the fishing-station postman stopped by the huts shortly after she finished writing it, constantly in doubt as to whether she should burn the letter or not, sort of let the postman have it inadvertently, changed her mind immediately and ran out to demand it back but he was gone, swallowed up by snowflakes, gulped down by the whiteness.

*

Afternoon and evening can be quite tranquil in this house, except when the Café is occupied; the stream of patrons had been rather heavy half a month ago, when the clouds lifted for two days and sailors from the ships poured into the Village. Then the boy served beer, toddies, shots, received taunting remarks in re. . .