Free The Journey Home: A Novel by Olaf Olafsson

nothing is missing in this magnificent
étui
, making sure that the aftershave has not evaporated or the razor blade lost its bite. He caresses and polishes everything, and asks the busboys and porters to take great care of it when they are carrying it from the car to the train or up to his hotel room.
    No, they couldn’t even begin to compare with this, the little cases brought on board by the gentlemen. Goodness, what airs and graces they put on when they came in to dinner, looking so dapper and smart, their wives wearing the sort of distant expressions they had no doubt seen on Audrey Hep-burn or Vivien Leigh at the cinema.
    The duckling wasn’t bad, but I was thinking of snipe and plover when the waiter offered me coffee. I thought I could hear the plover singing softly outside my bedroom window at Kopasker and see the snipe springing up from the marsh down by the road with its unnerving squawk.
    “Kaffe?” asked the waiter, who was Danish.
    I nodded and realized all of a sudden that it was too late to turn back.
    The doctor of Old Icelandic talked nonstop. He said he was going to write a book about the voyages of the Vikings when the time was right.
    “And the waves,” he said. “The white-foaming waves and the sunbeams like splayed fingers.”
    I listened in silence, but couldn’t see any white-foaming waves, as the sea had been like a mirror since we sailed from Leith, the breeze gentle on my cheek. The houses on land grew smaller, the gulls bid us farewell and the watery waste took over. Three nights. In three nights’ time I would be there. And what was I going to say? What explanation was I going to give?
    “I’ve discovered the identity of the author of
Egil’s Saga,”
announced the doctor.
    “Really?”
    “I’ve been invited to give a lecture on the subject at the University of Iceland. I’ll have to see whether I have time.”
    Why was I doing this? I put on my sunglasses, as the sky was now cloudless and the glare hurt my eyes. Why was I making this journey?
    “Everyone’s asking who you are,” I heard the doctor say. “I said I didn’t know. ‘Never heard of her,’ I said. You live in England, don’t you?”
    I made my excuses and went below. Nosiness. This Icelandic nosiness. Anthony should never have booked me into this suite. It only attracts attention. I know he meant well, but I do so want to be left alone.
    “Who is she? Does she live in England? Asdis Jonsdottir— do you know her at all, boys? Have you ever heard of her?”
    I locked the door behind me once I reached my cabin. I closed my eyes, yet was afraid to fall asleep as my picture had appeared to me twice in a dream the previous night. My cheek and arm were visible, but he wasn’t there. When I woke up I had to wait for my heart to stop pounding before going into the bathroom to dry off the sweat.
    “Who is she? Does she live in England?”
    It was going to be a long journey.
    I have brought along a few books, photographs and old letters which I mean to reread during the journey.
    When I’d escaped from the doctor and reached the safe refuge of my cabin, I opened the little book that Father had given me the evening I sailed for England.
Help Yourself,
it is called, with the subtitle:
Advice for young people, illustrated with
true examples and supported with arguments from the lives of good men.
Published in Reykjavik, 1892, compiled by Samuel Smiles and translated by Olafur Olafsson, the vicar of Guttormshagi. I remember this book lying on his table in the dispensary when I was a child. I suspect he used to turn to it for comfort sometimes when times were hard.
    “Here, Disa,” he added after saying good-bye. (I can still remember how tightly he hugged me and how long he held me.) “Here, Disa. Put this book in your pocket. It might come in useful.”
    He and Joka stood on the dock as the ship sailed out of the bay. He seemed so small, even before I went up the gangway. Sometimes, especially if I haven’t had