Free Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson Page A

a time he forgets everything but the effort to punch frost and snow from the sail, except for the fight for life, but when he next looks over, Bárður has crawled into the bow and lain down there. The boy totters, half-crawls, and pushes Einar to one side so he can get to Bárður, Einar shouts in his ear, do you want us all to be killed, you damned piss-pup! Because the man who doesn’t do his job puts everyone in danger, but so what, there lies Bárður, has drawn his knees up to his chest and hooked his arms around them. The boy crouches next to him and calls out, Bárður! He calls the name that means more than all the other names in the world combined, more than a boat with two hundred fish, comes so close that he breathes on Bárður’s brown eyes. Bárður looks back at him, completely expressionless because the cold has paralyzed the muscles in his face, but still he looks. The boy’s collar is grabbed. Einar pulls him up roughly, the boy looks across the boat, Pétur and Árni shout at them but he hears nothing, the only thing that can be heard is the din of the wind. The boy looks at Einar and then strikes at him with ice-cold fury, hits him on the chin. Einar jerks back at the blow, but no less at the fury that makes the boy unrecognizable, he falls to his knees, rips off his waterproof, tries futilely to put it on Bárður, rubs Bárður’s face, punches his shoulders and breathes on his eyes because life is there, he shouts, he punches more, and he rubs harder but it makes no difference, it is useless, Bárður has stopped looking, there is no longer any expression in his eyes. The boy has taken off his mittens and rubs the cold face of his friend, stares into his eyes, breathes on them, whispers, says something, strokes his cheeks, he slaps them and he shouts and waits and whispers but nothing happens, the connection between them has broken, the cold has claimed Bárður. The boy looks over his shoulder, at the four men fighting for their lives, fighting united, looks back at Bárður who is alone, nothing can touch him anymore, except the cold. Nothing is sweet to me, without thee.

V
    It is ridiculously good to have solid ground beneath one’s feet. Then you haven’t drowned and can have something to eat after twelve hours on the Polar Sea within the gales and ragged snowfall. Eat many slices of rye bread with a mound of butter and pâté and drink pitch-black coffee with brown sugar. It doesn’t get much better than that. The hunger having started to gnaw at the men’s insides, the exhaustion quivering in their muscles, at such a moment coffee and rye bread are Heaven itself. And then, when the catch has been worked, fresh-boiled fish with suet gravy. Happiness is having something to eat, to have escaped the storm, come through the breakers that roar just beyond the land, to hit them at precisely the right second required to sail through them, otherwise the surf topples the boat or fills it and then six men who cannot swim are in the sea with two hundred dead fish, the catch destroyed and a considerable likelihood that the men are drowned, but Pétur is a genius, he knows the moment, they slide through and have escaped.
    Gvendur and Einar jump overboard, land in the knee-deep sea, Guðmundur and one of his crew splash out to meet them. They did not row, Guðmundur decided not to go at the last minute, the very last, two of his crew sat in their waterproofs in the boat, the others had started to push when Guðmundur called it off, there was a play of colors out on the horizon that he did not like. And those on shore do not passively watch the boats land but instead lend a hand, there is a law beyond man-made laws because here it is a question of life and death, and most choose the former. Life also has an advantage over death in the way you have some idea of what you’re dealing with, death on the other hand is the great uncertainty, and there is little more antipathetic to human beings than