65° - 01.07.1968, Blaðsíða 25

Cosy and warm, it enclosed the guests. It’s
moment had come. Soft lights produced a pleasant
glow. And in this discreet warm glow, shrill peals
of laughter and the sharp glitter of jewelry cut
through the air like menacing flashes of lightning.
The sherry glasses were reflected in a silver tray.
In the background the stones that had once been
part of a mountain but were now neatly laid,
docile and obedient, separated the sitting-room
from the dining-room.
Sigga was talking: “I was just saying to Thor-
lak on the way here that we all meet far too
seldom, that’s what I think.”
“I agree,” said Elm, “actually we had tickets
for the theatre this evening but we cancelled them.
I would so much rather be here.”
“Was it a premiere?”
She nodded — “The Wild Duck, by Ibsen. As
a matter of fact, we weren’t awfully keen on
going, I mean after all it’s hardly what you would
call a fashionable play today.”
Snorri circulated with the silver tray. The per-
fect host always says something touching and
witty to everybody. He was annoyed to find his
nerves all tense, to smile was an effort, everything
he said fell somehow flat. It was just as though
he was going through a personal ordeal, like the
room, and the outcome was in doubt. His usual
self-consciousness towards the women was doing
its best to get the upper hand. It wasn’t that he
didn’t like them, this group of eight women (or
were they ten?) that congregated each week in
one spot, rather like a spider drawing in its legs
together. He had never analyzed his feelings
toward them; he had never had the opportunity
of doing so. He had acquired them automatically
with marriage. Or had they acquired him? When
they came to see his wife, he was presented like
some sort of dessert after coffee and made to
greet them, as helpless as a well brought-up ten
year old boy who greets his mother’s guests. And
they accepted the greetings in their self-assurance
as rightful guests in the house. But he himself
was nothing, neither guest nor host. He didn’t
know what he was. Even his wife was like a
stranger on such occasions.
The presence of their husbands now took some
of the power away from them. He was quite in
his rights as host. He was grateful to them for
that and this fact gave him support. Yet none
of these men was a close friend of his. They had
really nothing else in common but this sewing
club. All the same, he couldn’t help feeling sym-
pathy with them. On special occasions they were
dressed up in their best clothes and made to
amuse themselves together.
“Your health —”
He emptied his glass in one gulp.
Silence while they all drank.
Dorry broke the silence.
“Well now,” she said heartily like a well-
meaning teacher who is about to announce a
holiday, “I must say this really is an absolutely
fabulous house.”
Everybody began looking round as if they had
received a command. Snorri was seized with a
peculiar feeling of being an outsider. In his em-
barrassment he began to study Freyja’s features.
High cheekbones, straight nose, hair done up in
a whirl — beautiful, but distant, cold. A museum
piece that it was forbidden to touch. He had heard
that women like that were the best ones in bed.
How did men approach such women? Tomas,
her husband, was sitting by himself in a corner,
cleaning his pipe. Now he looked up. Snorri saw
for a moment that Tomas’s and Freyja’s eyes
met. Just for a moment. And perhaps purely by
chance. Then Tomas went on cleaning his pipe.
He did not look around. Nor did he join in the
words of praise of the room and the house that
were being strewn about by various guests. Pipe-
cleaning was obviously a job that demanded all
one’s concentration and skill. Snorri was suddenly
filled with hatred of Tomas. Why the hell didn’t
the man look around? Wasn’t that why he had
been invited? Yet at the same time he felt, despite
everything, that he would have liked the man for
a friend if he had met him somewhere else and
in different circumstances — if he could have
offered him something else than this house.
Sigga’s loud voice interrupted his thoughts.
“It looks absolutely wonderful here. I told you
that you would never regret having this wall
built.”
Tomas stood up and went towards the wall.
Snorri joined him. Tomas knocked the wall with
his knuckles.
“From DrapuhliS mountain?” he asked.
“Bulandstindur,” —
“Must have been quite a job” —
"Three truckloads.”
“Expensive?”
Their eyes met. They were sizing each other
up, trying to find out each other’s strength.
“Well,” said Snorri. He was doing his best to
remember whether Tomas had a stone wall. “It
65 DEGREES
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