Far Afield by Susanna Kaysen

desire to get out of the store arose in Jonathan. Surely he had overstayed his welcome, if he’d ever had one. On the dock and in the post office, Jonathan had watched people taking leave of each other, so he had an idea of how to do it. First, take hands out of pockets; second, say “So, so, so”; third, look at the floor—or ground; then, another “So, so, so,” accompanied by reinsertion of hands in pockets. The point of no return was signaled by the phrase “I reckon so,” addressed to the clouds and, if the other person were older or in some way venerable, repeated with nods and, rarely, a smile. But this was only one side of a streamlined version; when you got two people going, it could take up to twenty minutes, what with comments on the weather and the trading of “So, so, so,” until both parties were satisfied. Still, there was nothing for it but to launch in.
    “So, so, so,” he ventured.
    To which Sigurd in instinctive response said, “So, so, so.”
    Jonathan took his hands out of his pockets (which he had omitted to do at the start) and put forth another “So, so, so.”
    Going for the long version, Sigurd said, “Good weather.”
    “Today,” said Jonathan. An inspired response, he was sure. He was still waiting for Faroese weather to turn on him; so far, soggy weeks in Tórshavn notwithstanding, he’d seen none of the fabled storm or drear.
    “Today,” repeated Sigurd. He laughed. He turned to Jón Hendrik and shouted, “He says the weather’s good today .”
    “He’ll see,” growled Jón Hendrik.
    “He sees plenty,” Sigurd stated.
    A balm of triumph suffused Jonathan; one person, at least, did not think him a boob.
    “So,” said Sigurd.
    A single so wasn’t in the script. And to confuse things further, the girl, pulling the child in her charge closer, chimed in with “I reckon so.”
    Jonathan really did want to go. “I reckon so,” he said, hoping he could ride out on the girl’s coattails.
    But, as he had suspected from his research, women’s scripts were different, and with a quick “So, so, so,” she was out the door, leaving him to thread his own way through the maze of farewell. And between his incompetence and Sigurd’s boredom (Jonathan could see no other explanation for Sigurd’s embarking on the epic version of goodbye), this might have taken the rest of the afternoon. They were rescued by the arrival of two fishermen in yellow outfits who needed tobacco and lubricating oil. Jonathan scuttled out into the street with a “Good day” and an all-American wave. This gesture evidently struck Sigurd as mysterious, for in Jonathan’s last glimpse of him, through the window beside Jón Hendrik’s head, he was open-mouthed and inattentive to his customers.
    Pleased with his productive afternoon, Jonathan went down to the dock to watch the mail boat load for Tórshavn, which took ten minutes, then went to the post office. Improbably, Jón Hendrik had in those ten minutes transported himself to his major headquarters and was chewing in the corner when Jonathan arrived. “Good day the American!” he said. He tendered this greeting as if they had not been at loggerheads only fifteen minutes before.
    Devilish, Jonathan said, “Fine weather.” But Jón Hendrik did not reply. There was mail: a letter from Professor Olsen and a bank statement from the Cambridge Trust Company, with Gerda’s tidy script forwarding it to the Faroes.
    Feeling a little tired, Jonathan decided to go home and read his letters (a bank statement qualified, in these circumstances, as a letter) and then make himself corn muffins for dinner. And take notes on the day.
    Jonathan’s preferred spot for letter reading was the toilet, so there he repaired. A pleasant twenty minutes passed during which he learned that his balance was $2,500 and that Olsen was thinking of coming to the Faroes at the beginning of September. (Jonathan doubted he would. Olsen had, in his two previous letters, announced that