The Atom Station

24. The square before dawn

I opened my eyes after a short sleep; a light still glowed dimly in the night lamp, and I looked around me overcome with deep boredom as if in a wilderness. Where was I? And who was this man? I crept out of bed and dressed silently. Was he asleep—or was he pretending to be asleep? The door was unlocked and I stole away down the stairs with my case in my hand, and did not put on my shoes until I reached the outside door; and I walked on to the empty street in the cold morning breeze, while the town still slept.

The street lights took the place of stars, except that they brought no message from the depths of the heavens; this was a world without depths, and I was alone—so alone that even that other persona of the self, the one that stirs shame and regret, had abandoned me; I was dull, and everything was flat: a person without context, or to be more exact, a woman without existence.

And then I was standing once again in the square where I had stood the previous evening; that is how the opening theme reappears at the end of a musical composition, only in a different key, in a different rhythm, with unrelated chords—and with the contents in reverse; in reality I did not recognize anything any more, except my wooden suitcase. The square which yesterday had been thronged with busy people and throbbing with many thousands of horsepower was now empty and still. I seated myself on a bench in the middle of the square, tired.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Has anything happened?”

“No, nothing has happened.”

In this way I took part in a long and no doubt significant conversation, perhaps with some disembodied voice, perhaps with one of those personae of the self or the godhead which for so long had been lost, or had perhaps never even existed; until I happened to look up and saw a man standing beside me, studying me.

“I thought you were crying,” he said.

“No, no,” I replied. “I’m just a little tired; just finished a journey.”

“Well, well, good morning, how do you do?” said the man. “Surely it’s not you, here, is it?”

“Am I seeing right?” I said, for who should it be but my good friend and fellow pupil of the previous winter, the unself-conscious policeman, that thickset man who always saw things in the light of reality because he had such a heavy behind. And I rose to my feet as is the custom amongst country women when they greet a man and said, “And how do you do?”

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’ve just arrived in town,” I said. “From home.”

“At this queer hour?”

“We had a breakdown,” I replied. “It took them some time to repair it. We didn’t get here until just now. I’m waiting until it’s a rather more reasonable hour before going to wake people up.”

“Listen, dear,” said the unself-conscious policeman. “We’ll have some coffee, of course, with our professor, he’ll hardly be in bed yet. And you can tell us how the music is doing in the north.”

“Tell me about the south, rather,” I said.

“Oh, my dear,” he said, “what is a man to say nowadays? Child murders in the street are no longer news, nor even if men drink themselves stupid and insensible in order to get courage to beat their wives. The order of the day now is: sell the country, bury bones.”

I said that the only thing I knew about that was that the gods had come north to us with two crates and claimed they contained bones; but that while our pastor was rounding up a cortege, the Government had sent for the crates.

“These wretched gods,” said the unself-conscious policeman. “It so happened that the bones arrived from Copenhagen on the very day that the representatives of the Great Power were demanding an agreement; with the result that Parliament was up to the eyes in selling on that particular day, and had no time to hold a ceremony. The Prime Minister sent a chit down to the harbor and asked for the bones to be shoved into his warehouse at Snorredda until the meeting was over. In fact, that meeting lasted well into the night, because the Commies are against the dollar, and so they didn’t manage to sell before nearly dawn. And in the meantime these devils grabbed their opportunity and stole the bones.”

“So we have been sold?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, the sovereignty’s gone, I suppose, that’s all right. Reykjaness is going to be some special resting-place for welfare missions going east and west.”

“And who all said Yes?” I asked.

“You’re surely not so childish as to need to ask that?” he said. “Naturally all the fatherland-hurrah chaps said Yes.”

“The ones who swore on their mothers?” I asked.

“D’you imagine anyone else would want to sell our country?” he said.

“And the people?” I asked.

“Naturally they ordered us in the police force to prepare the tear-gas and other tidbits for the people,” he said. “But the people did nothing. The people are children. They are taught that criminals live in Skolavordustig[25] and not Austurvoll. Their faith in this wavers a bit, perhaps, from time to time, but when politicians have sworn often enough and hurrahed for long enough, they begin to believe it again. People don’t have the imagination to understand politicians. People are too innocent.”

“Yes, I suppose I knew well enough the way things were going when they began to swear oaths up north in the summer,” I said. “All trivial matters have ceased to take me by surprise. But since I have been so lucky as to meet a friend, I would like to ask you one thing: what news is there of—the Northern Trading Company?”

“You don’t know that either?” he said.

“I know nothing,” I said.

“Not even that he’s up the road now?”

“Who is where?”

“Since you haven’t heard anything,” he said, “I doubt if I’m the right person to tell you the news.”

“Up the road?” I went on asking. “What is up the road?”

“In Skolavordustig,” he said.

“The prison?” I asked.

“We call it up the road,” he said. “Up the road: where the small fry go. But all in good time, my dear; I believe things will improve. He got so far, in fact, as to buy the Cadillac off Pliers, his fellow parishioner. In actual fact he only blundered in one thing, despite the fact that the organist had often warned him about it, and us all: if you are going to commit a crime, you must first get yourself a millionaire, or else you are just a ludicrous person; and belong up the road; in Skolavordustig.”

“And the firm?” I asked.

“It never existed,” he said. “And no merchandise, either. He never, indeed, actually claimed that the merchandise existed, he merely said: the merchandise will arrive soon. And then he sold and sold everything imaginable, and accepted payment. But when at last he stood there with the money in his hands and was going to start importing the goods for his customers, Snorredda claimed priority for foreign currency. And the Government, which is one of Snorredda’s assets, had come to the decision that petty young businessmen were for the axe.”

“I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with my legs,” I said, and took hold of his arm; truth to tell I had simultaneously a feeling of nausea and sparks before my eyes, as if I were going to faint; and I asked him to halt for a moment, and dashed my free hand across my eyes to wipe away this plague.

“I shouldn’t have started gossiping about this,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “But I’m a little tired after the journey still.”

After that we walked arm in arm across the road and behind the buildings; to the house; and I pulled myself together enough to be able to say: “Oh well, since we are a sold people in a sold country, I suppose nothing matters very much any more.”

“Now we’ll see what sort of mood our organist is in,” said the unself-conscious policeman.