R. laughed when i told him i had no crayons. „never mind, girl, did you really think i was going to buy a screwdriver today?“ i actually had, but decided not to tell him that. „i mean, no way i would make a drawing just like that i can just draw a cow i think, or a cloud. man, it is so cold today, dont you think it´s cold, i am freezing here. I must turn the heater up higher. Are you cold? Are you allright? You are quiet.“ I started telling him about the tiles i had seen and wanted to feed him the numbers of the value of all the Klimt paintings, to have his mind digest them, but he interrupted me. „i dont like second world war stories. They depress me. I want to feel ok. Do second world war stories make you happy?“ i said that of course, they didnt. „That is good. They dont make me happy either.“ I tried to explain that it might be of interest to him, as it was a tale which did include a lot of math, he could add up the estimated value of each single painting, and then subtract the money Austria was prepared to pay. I could not let go of the thoughts i had had that afternoon, nor did i want to just step over it and go tell him another superficial story. It was too demanding. But he just kept on going, without even noticing that i was trying to connect to him, maybe even confide in him, to once, be myself around him. „And what we want here, is happy, light, and relaxation. Ok?“ I said ok. „well, if you are ok, then i am ok too. But i need a story that will warm me up nicely. It is so cold.“ He walked to the climate control and started punching the dial franticly. „how come you are not cold? This thing is not working at all.“
For an instance, i felt like answering in a different way than i did. I wanted to tell him that he should call his wife if he needed warming up.
„Have you ever been this cold?“ i said that i could not know how cold he was, as i was not. „i mean really cold, i can start to shatter my teeth here if it helps you to take the point. Give me a cold cold story. To warm me up. A Dickens one. All the poor people suffering next to the stove. You know, when they don´t have enough money to buy any more coals, and one of them gets very ill and nearly dies, or maybe he does, i can´t remember that part. But no made up fairytale. I want to know when you were cold and what you did. Go completely little house on the prairie on me.“ He went to his bed, slipped under the duvet, and shivered.
I said i had been to Iceland once, and asked him if that was cool enough.
believe the locals when they advise you not to visit Olavsvik.
i was in Iceland, early spring 2000. it was my second visit, and it was my birthday present to my boyfriend of the time. boyfriend had to play soccer the weekend i had picked out for us, and no, he was not a pro player, so it really was a lame excuse and therefor the end of our affair.
having booked the trip, and not being able to get a refund, i decided to go there. by my self. four days of Iceland could be nice, i reckoned, time to contemplate whilst enjoying the surreal landscapes i had come to love so much on my previous visit.
on that first trip i had done most of the usual touristy stuff: the geysers and the gulfoss waterfall, thingvalyr and thorsmork. now i wanted something special. and i remembered that Jules Verne had situated the beginning of his book "journey to the centre of the earth" in a cave of snaefellsjökull, the volcano near that town.
I had no idea where to go all by myself, so i decided that finding the entrance to that cave would be my mission.
on the plane i started talking to a man from Iceland who hated his country very much. he was a surgeon and lived in Canada. the solitude of Iceland had nearly driven him insane as a boy, he was so glad to be living in a much more populated country now. the birthday of one of his aunts forced him to go back to Iceland for the weekend. he said that he hated his family even more than he hated his old home. he asked me what i was going to do, if i would see the gletchers and the blue lagoon. i answered that i would do no such thing, my ventures would lead to Olavsvik. The surgeon was quiet for a couple of seconds and stared at me rather blankly. "you should not go to Olavsvik." he paused again, for some considerable time and then said: "the blue lagoon is so much nicer." and he was silent once more. i started asking him about the most blood ridden operation he ever had to perform and our conversation became a bit more lively again.
At the airport, i took a taxi to Reykjavik, wanting to experience the moonlike landscape all by myself. the female driver was about fifty years old, and told me interesting local news at about every second bend in the road. her hair was dyed red in a colour which seems to be an absolute favourite with many women over a certain age. it shone a very artificial crimson in the sunset. she pointed out the blue lagoon. "you should really go there, it is so nice and relaxing." i told her i had different plans, that i wanted to stay clear of all the holiday highlights, that i wanted to see the real Iceland, Olavsvik the prime destination. the taxi driver looked over her shoulder at me. "what do you want to go to Olavsvik for, there is nothing there." i explained the whole Jules Verne set up again, but she didn't seem convinced.
the next morning i met the surgeon again at the breakfast buffet of my hotel. i wished him luck with his aunt, and he said he hoped i would have a nice stay in Iceland and by the way had i considered thorsmork, it was such an enchanting Forrest. i didn't dare mention that i already had checked the post-bus schedule and was about to go to Olavsvik.
i walked to the busstation and set course to my destination. The bus left at 8 something in the morning, would arrive at Olavsvik at 11 and would return there at five in the afternoon to drive back to Reykjavik. There were not too many people in the bus. only two tourists, good. they were Germans and they had ski´s with them. There was a group of women who chatted to one another, and a father with his retarded son. the bus drove on and on, past plains which looked like sceneries of a John Ford western, drove down a tunnel connecting the two peninsulas. at every stop someone would get off the bus, and at every stop the outside world became more desolate. Perfect! this was the true Iceland. At the last stop before Olavsvik the Germans got off, and indeed, it had started to snow. we went down another tunnel. the retarded boy started to make gurgling noises, louder and louder. his whines became a long scream. the father made some gurgling noises back, probably to soothe the boy, but it had no real effect. more tunnels followed, and every time the shrieks of the boy gained volume. the landscape changed, the weather recovered and the boy got a can of dr. pepper from his father and finally calmed down. half an hour later i was where i wanted to be and got off the bus. the boy waved at me from his window seat. i half-heartedly waved back.
i had six hours to find the cave, sturdy and warm walking boots, a thermos flask of tea, and sandwiches. i looked at the town. there were three buildings on the side of the road. one was a gas station annex fast food restaurant which also rented out videos. the second house was a toy shop, but it was closed till 1.30 p.m.. the last house was empty. the three houses had their backs to the ocean. dark blue was the water, seagulls flew over it. no path lead to the water, there was no shore. there was just the road the bus had driven on, a cliff, and the ocean. on the other side of the road i counted about 15 houses. two streets. it were prefab houses, each looked exactly like the other. every one of them had a dish-antenna. They all had the same gates around them. the windows had shutters, and most of these windows were shut. A man walked passed me. He went to the car in front of his home, got in, and drove to the gas-station where he parked his car, locked it, and went in. I panted upto the end of the road. i needed to find the route to the cave. there was a meadow full of sheep shit, which seemed to have a trail, so i started following it. it became broader, and could, with some imagination be called a path. this made me enthusiastic; it must be the right track to the Jules Verne cave! the path went uphill rather steeply, and became more and more like a gravel road. I picked up a round stone. Maybe there was an amathyst hidden in it. I climbed up, the road got steeper. it wound itself around a hill, now being parallel to the road where the bus had been. i saw the ocean again from above, and noticed that there were even more seagulls here. They shrieked as i walked by. Some of them flew up for a little while, to land a few inches from where they had lifted off. about five hundred meters further ahead i saw a road-sign. it was bright fluorescent yellow and it had a lot of Icelandic words written on it. every fourth or fifth word was followed by an exclamation mark. i got a bit of a goofy feeling, but decided i would walk on a bit more, the road was really wide, there was no snow on this hill, so the chance of being hit by an avalanche was really minimal. after 50 meters or so i turned back: not only was there more than just a flock of seagulls in front of me, it was a whole nation of those birds. they were scary enough by themselves. the real problem was the stench of rotten fish. it all of a sudden penetrated me so thickly that i nearly vomited. it was physically impossible to go on.
i returned to the village, to find out that just a bit more than an hour had passed. i looked at a map of the area at the gas-station, in the hope to find another road. this was the only road. there was no where else to go. i would have to wait for the bus to return. so i sat down in the fast food restaurant. it was quite crowded in the place, it being a Saturday noon time. i sat at a table near the window overlooking the road and the fifteen houses. everybody stared at me. i ordered a tea and some French fries. after i had gotten them, the people returned to their conversations or to their pinball game. t i had no book with me, all the magazines the gas-station sold where in Icelandic and the toy shop next door was only due to open in another hour and a half.
i bought a gossip magazine, so that i could at least look at the pictures. i kept looking at the clock, waiting for the toyshop to open, so that i could at least kill 20 minutes there, if i tried really hard.
just after one thirty, i went to the toystore. it also had household equipment and it sold paint, nails, and hammers. every item in the store was still in its original wrapping. none of the items was from after 1984. it felt like a museum of unwanted belongings. i found a stationary section and bought a little booklet and a pen. the pen was bright orange, and so was, as it turned out, the ink.
after my shopping spree i walked passed the two streets of Olavsvik once more, and even took a stroll over the meadow. i sat down on a rock, and had some tea, so as to at least have a bit of a feel of adventure. this is when i took the photograph.
after that, i came to the conclusion it was best to return to the gas-station. there was nothing else to decide.
inside it was even more crowded than before, it were mainly men. they all stared at me again. i somehow managed to get back to my spot at the window and ordered another tea and another portion of French fries. i convinced myself that this would be an excellent time to write my good-bye letter to the ex boyfriend, thus spending my time at least a little bit useful. so i wrote the letter with the bright orange ink.
The waiter turned on the tv. it was a was ten past two. two and a half more hours, then i could go out and wait for the bus for fifteen minutes. the whole crowd started talking animatedly and cheering the screen. there was someone singing. some comments, and then a jury vote. Then a guy playing the piano and singing to it. this was the national song contest, deciding who would go to the eurovision song contest. the songs went on and on, there must have been i don´t know how many songs, each and every one in Icelandic, long discussions between the members of the jury, and some kind of tele-voting as well. I thought that maybe the villagers were watching together because one of theirs was taking part in the contest, but they responded the same to every song. every half our or so the waiter came to my table and made me order another cup of tea. or something else. but i was not hungry, so i settled for the tea. the people in the restaurant stared at the screen and sometimes stared at me. i feigned to be completely taken up by my writing the letter. at half past four i couldn't take it anymore, and went out. the toystore had closed by then. i just sat on a bench at the side of the road and counted the minutes until the bus finally arrived. the whole journey back i was the only passenger.
i went to bed, completely exhausted. the next day at breakfast i did not encounter the surgeon anymore, he must have stayed at his aunts place. that afternoon i took the bus to a safe expedition, i went to the blue lagoon.
R. shivered a little, as if to make a point of still being cold. He was still under the duvet, he had wrapped it precisely around him, it made him look like a mummy. It was very warm in the room. I went over to the desk to make myself some tea. I asked him if he wanted some too. He was silent and nodded. Whilst i was making the tea, neither of us said a word. But he scrupulously watched my every move. Before i could think i blurted out if he got off on watching me making the tea for us. „Why would you think that? You asked me if i wanted some, and i just said yes. You are still here, though your job is done for today, you could go to your room and have some there. If i wanted to make you out, I would have, right? Are you having second thoughts about the deal?“ I nearly started to sob. I felt so embarrassed. Here i was in this room, with this man who would not share one private thought, gushing out mine, on demand. „Have i crossed you, i didn't mean to annoy you. It´s just so hard travelling all the time, and you seemed so right to lighten things up a little, but if it is too much you just say it. I don´t want to kiss you, i think i made that clear by now. I thought it would be fun for you too, travelling to places, you hardly make any money as it is with your movie thing. Could inspire you for some documentaries, the places i take you to. I want nothing but a little distraction, why do women always think i want more of them, is it my money? There are so many guys richer than me. Or do yóu want to be physical, is that it, am i insulting you by not making a pass, i really dont get it.“
I just stared at my teacup. I noticed that at the bottom the dried out liquid had formed the shape of a whale. I showed him the cup and said: „ A whale“. „Dear girl you have one twisted mind working for you there. Better watch out you dont jump into that cup with your imagination, and someone cleanses the stain away before you are ready to get back into the real world.“
He sniggered. Then he sighed.
„Do i strike you as simply logical?“
„Well, yes.“
„So why would i like hanging out with you then?“
„We are not hanging out. You pay me. I cannot ask you any questions.“
„Go ahead. Ask me one, ask anything.“
I asked him why he really wanted me to go along.
„I told you before. I just hate travelling all by myself. I sometimes would get so lonely my brain felt like it was eating me up all those thoughts that just pop up from out of the blue, hitting you like crazy, they go on and on. They melt my mind into a complete chaos. You know what i mean, it gets so bad, that you can feel the pain of the brain? The thinking. The staring at the wall. Being here. Or there or wherever. It really hurt. Sometimes I would just take painkillers to fake to make it stop. Moments like those, I have to shut down. At some point I just started doing the equations, it helped. The numbers always soothe me. And you do too. You are so funny. So lost. I never thought you would do it, you know, come along. Tell me stories. I thought you would freak out in sheer fear. And then i reckoned i see how long you stick to it. And you do. That really amazes me. Now you tell me: is it the money, do you need the cash so desperately that you go along?“
His question somehow took me by surprise. I could not think of any valid reason why i joined him on his travels.
I still had my teacup in my hands. I told him that some people use the tea stains to predict the future. But that i thought that with his logical mind he would probably not go for that. “You are absolutely right. Now, when you leave, can you turn the heater off, i am warm enough.“
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