shopping list for next week. A moment’s quiet in the house. Outside on the terrace a squirrel has just climbed down from a tree and scampered across the path with an acorn in its mouth.
It was a cold autumn day and leaves were blowing along the street outside—Skindergade, if I remember right, Universitets Café—and I closed the door for you because you had your hands full of sheet music and had dropped a brown glove as you came in. I remember stooping to pick up the glove and dusting down my white waiter’s apron before showing you to a table. You didn’t take off your coat, which was brown with a fur collar, because you seemed chilled, but ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich, asking as I turned away:
“You’re not Icelandic, are you?”
Though I’d been looking you over, I’d never have guessed that we were compatriots. There was no telling from your accent that you were Icelandic—your Danish was impeccable—and from your appearance, the brown eyes and dark wavy hair, you might have been from the south—Spain, Italy, Greece. I’d been covertly watching you, lurking by the kitchen door and gazing at the back of your neck and your right cheek when you turned your head to look at the book you’d opened on the table in front of you. It grew dark outside and shortly afterwards the pattering of rain began. When the gray light illuminated your cheek, I felt as if I were looking at a statue.
“You’re not Icelandic, are you?”
I was taken aback. I had little contact with the other Icelanders here. Most young men my age had come to study, they were the sons of rich families or scholarship boys. I had nothing in common with them. I was neither and had come to Copenhagen with no firm plans, hoping for the best, empty-handed after earning my passage as a fisherman for almost a year. My family didn’t have much, though I never lacked for anything when I was growing up. Yet as I stood in the kitchen doorway I felt I had to make excuses for my situation. Perhaps I should say it differently: I felt I had to invent a suitable explanation to account for my being a waiter. But you didn’t ask any questions and it wasn’t until later, when I couldn’t help myself, that I told you I was studying at the Commercial College in Copenhagen.
I’m still surprised at how inferior I felt when I stood there. I had always found it easy to attract women, but you were different. They were mostly working girls, fun-loving but uneducated— like me. But you, you were from a different world. And yet I found myself falling towards you.
I was only nine when I started working on the boats. I’d begged my father to take me with him when I was younger but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. I was always restless, always eager to be on the move. “He’s a born fisherman,” my uncle used to say, and I was proud. But I never had any aspirations to own a boat myself, I didn’t want to have to worry about the responsibility.
When we met, I had just spent several days working on a picture of an eagle. I had paint on my fingers and you asked me what I’d been up to. You seemed interested when I mentioned the birds and asked when I had first started drawing them. I told you how once when I was a boy I had seen an eagle swoop in from the sea and circle over a flock of eider ducks that dived to escape him. I told you how the eagle waited while the ducks popped their heads up for air and then dived again and again. He waited patiently until they tired. Then he dropped, wings aloft, talons driving down, and took one as it dived. As I watched him flapping away down the fjord, I was rooted to the spot. The shadow of his wings on the flat surface of the sea. Death in his talons.
You listened in silence.
I stood by the window in your room, looking out at the empty streets. Saturday morning. Footsteps on the floor upstairs: the neighbors were awake. I had lit the stove but my breath still formed mist in the air after the chill of the night.
It was a cold autumn day and leaves were blowing along the street outside—Skindergade, if I remember right, Universitets Café—and I closed the door for you because you had your hands full of sheet music and had dropped a brown glove as you came in. I remember stooping to pick up the glove and dusting down my white waiter’s apron before showing you to a table. You didn’t take off your coat, which was brown with a fur collar, because you seemed chilled, but ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich, asking as I turned away:
“You’re not Icelandic, are you?”
Though I’d been looking you over, I’d never have guessed that we were compatriots. There was no telling from your accent that you were Icelandic—your Danish was impeccable—and from your appearance, the brown eyes and dark wavy hair, you might have been from the south—Spain, Italy, Greece. I’d been covertly watching you, lurking by the kitchen door and gazing at the back of your neck and your right cheek when you turned your head to look at the book you’d opened on the table in front of you. It grew dark outside and shortly afterwards the pattering of rain began. When the gray light illuminated your cheek, I felt as if I were looking at a statue.
“You’re not Icelandic, are you?”
I was taken aback. I had little contact with the other Icelanders here. Most young men my age had come to study, they were the sons of rich families or scholarship boys. I had nothing in common with them. I was neither and had come to Copenhagen with no firm plans, hoping for the best, empty-handed after earning my passage as a fisherman for almost a year. My family didn’t have much, though I never lacked for anything when I was growing up. Yet as I stood in the kitchen doorway I felt I had to make excuses for my situation. Perhaps I should say it differently: I felt I had to invent a suitable explanation to account for my being a waiter. But you didn’t ask any questions and it wasn’t until later, when I couldn’t help myself, that I told you I was studying at the Commercial College in Copenhagen.
I’m still surprised at how inferior I felt when I stood there. I had always found it easy to attract women, but you were different. They were mostly working girls, fun-loving but uneducated— like me. But you, you were from a different world. And yet I found myself falling towards you.
I was only nine when I started working on the boats. I’d begged my father to take me with him when I was younger but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. I was always restless, always eager to be on the move. “He’s a born fisherman,” my uncle used to say, and I was proud. But I never had any aspirations to own a boat myself, I didn’t want to have to worry about the responsibility.
When we met, I had just spent several days working on a picture of an eagle. I had paint on my fingers and you asked me what I’d been up to. You seemed interested when I mentioned the birds and asked when I had first started drawing them. I told you how once when I was a boy I had seen an eagle swoop in from the sea and circle over a flock of eider ducks that dived to escape him. I told you how the eagle waited while the ducks popped their heads up for air and then dived again and again. He waited patiently until they tired. Then he dropped, wings aloft, talons driving down, and took one as it dived. As I watched him flapping away down the fjord, I was rooted to the spot. The shadow of his wings on the flat surface of the sea. Death in his talons.
You listened in silence.
I stood by the window in your room, looking out at the empty streets. Saturday morning. Footsteps on the floor upstairs: the neighbors were awake. I had lit the stove but my breath still formed mist in the air after the chill of the night.
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