The Journey Home: A Novel by Olaf Olafsson

struggled in his embrace and he crushed me against him until our lips met.
    I couldn’t tear myself away from him, unwilling to let this indescribable sense of well-being slip from my grasp.
    I should have sensed that I was being warned. It should have been obvious to me, as I don’t believe in coincidences and Dr. Kivan’s farce must have been a bad omen. It would have been enough to have thanked him for his help, said good-bye and hurried home instead of sitting down with him in a café and losing myself in a treacherous happiness.
    Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had listened when Mrs. Brown said: “I know it’s none of my business but he’s Jewish, isn’t he?”
    The end seemed inevitable, obvious even on the evening he proposed to me. If only I had remembered Dr. Kivan at that moment and the Icelandic dwarf which he persuaded people to believe was a monster, I would have understood that this was what the world had come to and everything would have been different. Everything.
    Boulestin said little at first when I plucked up the courage to tell him that I was going to move to the country and stay there for the next few months.
    “Where?” he asked.
    “A summer cottage not far from Bath,” I answered, without mentioning the fact that I intended to live there with Jakob.
    He looked at me in silence for a while; I could see he was putting two and two together. However, he was too discreet to mention Jakob. Instead he said: “Maybe the work is too difficult for you.”
    I was so hurt and angry that I couldn’t utter a word.
    “If it is,” he continued, “there’s no hope of your ever being able to run a restaurant. It’s not enough to show promise.”
    I was on the verge of answering him back but fortunately had the sense to bite back the words.
    “When are you going?”
    “In three weeks.”
    “Try to use them well,” he said. “You won’t learn anything about cooking once you’ve left town.”
    That he should dare to insinuate that I couldn’t handle the work! I decided to show him what I was made of and refused to take a single day off during my last few weeks.
    “Isn’t this going a bit far?” asked Mrs. Brown, who knew what was going on.
    “No one tells me that I can’t cope with hard work,” I answered.
    Boulestin pretended hardly to notice me during those last days but now I suspect he was amused by my obstinacy. In fact, I’m sure he was.
    Jakob tried to make me change my mind but I lost my temper with him. He was light-hearted in those days as he had just finished his doctoral thesis and was at last free to enjoy himself. He had taken on some proofreading for the University Press and was looking forward to getting out into the country. At first his happiness made me even grumpier but before I knew it I had started to laugh at his teasing.
    I am ashamed to recall what a simpleton I was in those days, how blind I was. Of course, I loved Jakob more than words can tell, but what is love but a quest for disappointment? I was blind when I took leave of Mrs. Brown with a long embrace. Blind when I lied to my mother that I was going to Somerset for Boulestin.
    Blind.
    When we got talking after dinner, the first engineer began to enthuse about the car I had arrived in. He was clearly surprised that I should know anything about it, though I explained to him that this was quite by chance. It was obvious that he was very keen on machines and cars and he embarked on a rather lengthy description of the spare parts and carburetors he had bought while in port. I nodded out of politeness as he was a nice chap. When he turned the conversation to the
Gullfoss
’s engines and invited me down to the engine room, I didn’t know what else to do but go with him.
    We were down there for some time and I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself. The engines roared with a confidenceinspiring steadiness, unaffected by the whims of the world, by disasters or changes of mood. The smell of oil mingled