told him not to worry, it was nothing. Then he slapped the weakling on the back and stuck a cigarette in his mouth, as if to glue his lips together. The latter dragged out the cigarette, laughed wheezily while he got over his coughing fit, put the cigarette back between his lips, and lit it. Then he took out a leather wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out several kronur bills. He counted the money, returned it to his wallet, and put the wallet back into his pocket. The way he behaved suggested that he was in the habit of counting his money quite regularly. The newcomer stood up from his table, picked up his empty vodka glass, and walked up to the bar. The owner of the place, who had just poured steaming coffee into a cup for him, automatically brought out the vodka bottle, poured some into the empty glass, and asked if he needed milk or sugar in his coffee. He said no, turned around, and went up the table where the three men sat. He stood still for a little while, staring directly at the one who had just finished counting the money in his wallet. All three of the men stared back at him. Their expressions suggested that they had seen something unexpected; something was about to happen, and they would have to react.
11
After the meal, which turned out to be some kind of Cordon Bleu and not chicken as I had guessed, Armann fell asleep with his empty food tray in front of him. He had declined the flight attendant’s offer of coffee, finished off his red wine and one of the Cointreau bottles, and nodded off almost before he had swallowed it. The flight attendant suggested that I tip his seat back, so that he would be more comfortable. While I was adjusting Armann’s seat, the woman by the window asked me, with a slightly mocking expression on her face, if I was going to cover him up with a rug too. I smiled back and said I thought he was wrapped up well enough already. She looked as though she was going to try to fall asleep too, and when she had shut her eyes, with her head resting against the window of the plane, I imagined that she was tired after spending last night with her lover and was floating into sleep on those memories. Now, when it was nearly three o’clock and one hour into this three hour flight.
On the other hand, it was impossible to say what was going on in Armann’s mind. At first I thought of him having fallen asleep like a little child, but after further reflection I decided it was inappropriate; one would never see this kind of expression on a child’s face, even if its parents had poked it for fun or pulled its skin this way and that. Sleep would never disfigure a face so badly, except perhaps on a person who always slept alone and didn’t have to think day and night of looking good for a wife or lover. I smiled at this poor theory of mine—I began to wonder if I had been infected by my fellow passenger’s lively imagination—but I only needed to look over to the other side of the aisle to realize that there might be some truth in it. A middle-aged couple, who had asked me earlier to help them get their luggage down from the overhead bin, were asleep, and there was such a childlike, peaceful expression on the man’s face that it was impossible to imagine he had ever frowned, or looked depraved or lustful, even when he was enjoying intercourse with his wife.
“May I take the tray?” the flight attendant asked.
I was going to pass her the woman’s tray first. She seemed to be asleep, but then I saw she hadn’t touched the dessert, so I offered to lift Armann’s tray instead—he had clearly enjoyed all the food. But in order to get the tray off the table I had to be rather organized; he had put his glasses down in his unused coffee cup and his right hand—with three fingers gripping the tray, as if to prevent it from being thrown away—lay in his lap, heavy with sleep. I managed to loosen his fingers and move his hand without waking him. I couldn’t think where to put his glasses while I helped the flight attendant, so I pushed them into the pocket of my shirt and got rid of our used food trays.
Once the food trays have been removed, one feels that a very important stage has been reached. Besides having been fed and feeling comfortably full, the second stage of the journey has begun, or is about to at least, and then there’s not so long to wait until one can fill one’s lungs with, on the one hand, desperately wanted cigarette smoke and, on the other hand, cold fresh air, at least if one is on the way, as we were, to Iceland from abroad.
The flight attendant thanked me for helping her with the trays and offered me more coffee. I accepted and added what was left of the first liqueur bottle to it.
Vigdis came to mind. When I called her from the hotel the day before yesterday she said she would call me from Akureyri after I got home, though she wasn’t quite sure when. She was going to be at a meeting which could last all evening. She had asked me to buy her a jumper and some pants from a certain shop on Oxford Street; I didn’t find them, despite looking for an hour yesterday on my last trip to the shops. She had also told me to buy some special make of clothes for Halldor, my son, but I hadn’t had time to find them either. I bought a computer game instead, and I was already beginning to worry that it would be outdated by the time he came to visit me from Denmark in May or June. As I hadn’t bought anything for Vigdis I was going to get some perfume or sweets for her in the duty-free store and find some clothes for her later on Laugavegur; I wouldn’t see her before next weekend at the earliest anyway.
Armann and the woman by the window were both sleeping soundly. I was wide awake and stood up to go to the toilet, though I didn’t have any great need to go. One of the toilets was out of order—there was a hand-written sign—and I stood behind a young man who was waiting for the other one. The flight attendant, who had freed me of the food trays, was filling up the wine supplies on her trolley in the space beyond the toilets. She smiled at me and asked if I wanted more to drink with my coffee. I said no thank you, I had enough for the time being. Then I sensed that someone had joined the line, and, on turning around, I came eye to eye with the blonde from Hjalmholt. Before I turned back again she seemed to screw up her face, as if she had an itch or was trying to move her glasses further up her nose, although she wasn’t wearing any. The man in front of me was becoming impatient. He muttered something under his breath. The flight attendant thought he was talking to her, and he asked grumpily if she couldn’t find a plumber amongst the passengers. I turned to the girl.
“This is going to take some time,” I said cheerfully and tried not to let the man in front hear me.
“I’ve plenty of time,” she answered with a smile.
Of course people have enough time onboard airplanes; they have far too much time. I couldn’t think of anything more to say to improve on the clumsy remark I had made, but she came to my rescue by filling the silence:
“Can you imagine what went wrong in the other toilet?”
“I’m doing my best not to,” I said, rather pleased with myself for this answer. The fact that I was standing here in the aisle of the airplane talking to this beautiful woman, whom I had kept in the back of my mind for fifteen years, made me feel like I was in some kind of romantic comedy—the kind of film I usually try to avoid, though in this case I must admit that I wanted it to continue and reach a conclusion I had already started to hope for. “But I am beginning to wonder if something has happened in this one as well,” I added.
“They are dangerous places, these toilets,” the blonde said. “I think I’ll mess my pants in a minute.”
I didn’t quite know quite what to reply to this, if she really meant what she was saying.
“There is an even longer line at the other end of the plane,” she continued. “I don’t know what’s going on; maybe there was something in the food.”
“You can go before me,” I said, trying to sound as if I wasn’t doing her any special favor. “That’s if the person inside ever comes out.”
“Can I?” she said, gratefully, and just then a middle-aged woman came out of the toilet with a small child.
“No problem,” I said. “I can wait.”
She
