return the book and report the news of Bárður’s death, announce that the only thing that mattered is gone and will never return. Then why continue to live, why, he mumbles to the snowflakes, which do not reply, they are just white and fall silently to the ground. Now I’ll go in and return the book, thanks for the loan, this is magnificent writing, nothing is sweet to me, without thee, it killed my best friend, the only good thing that was possible to find in this damned life, that is to say, thanks for the loan, and then he would say goodbye, or no, forget that, just turn on his heel and walk back out, struggle down to the hotel, the World’s End Hotel, take a basement room, pay later or, in other words, never, because tomorrow or tomorrow evening he is going to kill himself. This suddenly comes to him, the solution appears, just like that. Kill himself, then all the uncertainty is behind him. He thought of thanking God, but something held him back. Bárður had told him about Suicide Cliff: he would go there, easy as air to walk off it, the sea would take care of the rest, it knows how to drown people, is highly trained, the boy would go immediately if he weren’t so damned tired and horribly hungry, and then he also needs to return a book. He wades through the final meters of snow, slowly, with difficulty.
No one is out and about in the entire Village except for this boy, who is too tired and hungry to die.
II
How many years fit into one day, one day and one night? It is a middle-aged man, not a nineteen-year-old boy, who opens the outer door to Geirþrúður’s café more than forty-eight hours after he walked through the same door for the first time with his friend Bárður, the boy misses him so much that he needs to rest his forehead for a long time on the wall inside the entrance, or whatever we ought to call this little space where Jens the overland postman usually keeps his boxes and bags until Dr. Sigurður fetches them, or sends someone after them, while Jens forgets the difficulties of life by drinking beer. The boy stares into the wall for a long time with wide-open eyes, then looks down at several pairs of shoes made of seawolf skin. Guests are expected to take off their boots here, if they’re covered in filth and mud, and slip on these fish-skin shoes instead. Many people find this an unnecessary ostentation, no doubt extreme, and some people stubbornly resist but have to give in if they wish to be served, and who doesn’t remove his footwear if there’s hope of a beer? I’m not taking off anything, the boy says quietly to himself, but, on the other hand, he needs to open another door to go all the way inside, the inner door opens into the Café itself, thus ensuring that the cold from outside does not follow guests in unhindered, life is a struggle to hold the cold at bay. Thirty years, mutters the boy, thirty years since I was here with Bárður. He looks at the door, so that’s how it looks, and that’s how the door handle is, remarkable, he thinks, but then everything becomes hazy, tears appear in the corners of his eyes and they muddle his sight. The boy doesn’t cry for long, several tears, several small boats that run down his cheeks heavily laden with sorrow.
The boy takes a deep breath, opens the door and is startled by the jingling of the bell above it.
He immediately sees three men in the corner farthest from him, of course he sees them, there are no others here, just these men and eight to ten empty tables. The men look up, they all look at him, then the thing occurs that he finds so unbearable and that he despises himself for: his shyness sweeps sorrow and grief from him, deprives him of thought, he becomes nothing but nervousness, uncertainty, and he has no idea what he ought to do. The only thing that comes into his mind is to sit down, which he does, sits down at the table as far from the men as possible, turns sideways to them and sits straight-backed, white with snow.
No one is out and about in the entire Village except for this boy, who is too tired and hungry to die.
II
How many years fit into one day, one day and one night? It is a middle-aged man, not a nineteen-year-old boy, who opens the outer door to Geirþrúður’s café more than forty-eight hours after he walked through the same door for the first time with his friend Bárður, the boy misses him so much that he needs to rest his forehead for a long time on the wall inside the entrance, or whatever we ought to call this little space where Jens the overland postman usually keeps his boxes and bags until Dr. Sigurður fetches them, or sends someone after them, while Jens forgets the difficulties of life by drinking beer. The boy stares into the wall for a long time with wide-open eyes, then looks down at several pairs of shoes made of seawolf skin. Guests are expected to take off their boots here, if they’re covered in filth and mud, and slip on these fish-skin shoes instead. Many people find this an unnecessary ostentation, no doubt extreme, and some people stubbornly resist but have to give in if they wish to be served, and who doesn’t remove his footwear if there’s hope of a beer? I’m not taking off anything, the boy says quietly to himself, but, on the other hand, he needs to open another door to go all the way inside, the inner door opens into the Café itself, thus ensuring that the cold from outside does not follow guests in unhindered, life is a struggle to hold the cold at bay. Thirty years, mutters the boy, thirty years since I was here with Bárður. He looks at the door, so that’s how it looks, and that’s how the door handle is, remarkable, he thinks, but then everything becomes hazy, tears appear in the corners of his eyes and they muddle his sight. The boy doesn’t cry for long, several tears, several small boats that run down his cheeks heavily laden with sorrow.
The boy takes a deep breath, opens the door and is startled by the jingling of the bell above it.
He immediately sees three men in the corner farthest from him, of course he sees them, there are no others here, just these men and eight to ten empty tables. The men look up, they all look at him, then the thing occurs that he finds so unbearable and that he despises himself for: his shyness sweeps sorrow and grief from him, deprives him of thought, he becomes nothing but nervousness, uncertainty, and he has no idea what he ought to do. The only thing that comes into his mind is to sit down, which he does, sits down at the table as far from the men as possible, turns sideways to them and sits straight-backed, white with snow.
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