The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.1988, Page 26

24
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1988
las. She said that Anna was now in her
eighteenth year, a healthy, promising young
woman who worked for a fairly good
wage. She also told me a few things about
the men who boarded with her, saying
they were all exceedingly kind and honest
men, that one of them, named Kjartan,
worked as a builder not far away, another,
Bjorn, worked at a sawmill near the Louise
Bridge and the third, Arnbr, worked here
and there.
“He is a little strange, is Arndr,” said my
cousin, “but he is honest and well-behaved,
and you will take to him when you begin
to know him better.”
When the clock struck six, and the whis-
tles at the mill were blowing, my cousin
was putting the tablecloth on and the meal
was ready. Shortly after, the boarders
came home from work and, a bit later,
Anna arrived.
I kept staring at these men, for, although
they were my countrymen and had no physi-
cal defects or unusual habits, nevertheless,
they were, in my eyes, rather peculiar and
quite unlike those few Icelanders I had
known in Nova Scotia. I could see that
Kjartan was quite a dandy. His clothes suited
him very well and were clean, though he
had come from work and the streets were
sloppy. Around his neck he wore a white
starched collar and a blue necktie. His bear-
ing and deportment showed that he was
quite vain and fancied himself a gentleman.
He was neither tall nor broad, but he had a
fine physique. He was dark-haired with a
fair-sized mustache, nicely curled. He had a
rather thin face and prominent eyes and
was, I would guess, about twenty-five years
old. When he came in, he took a folded
newspaper out of his pocket, laid it on the
table and began to wash himself with the
greatest care.
Bjorn was about the same age as Kjartan
but they were very different in most respects.
Bjorn was of average height, very broad and
thickset, fair of brow and face, round and
rosy-cheeked, cheerful and innocent in de-
meanor. All his movements bore witness
that he was a healthy and virile male. He
literally raced home from work in the even-
ing, and seemed not at all tired, although he
worked at the hardest job in the mill. He
wore coarse blue cotton clothing and a strong
sweaty odor emanated from him when he
came in.
Arndr’s appearance and manner were
very different. He was in his twentieth year,
tall and slim with auburn hair and large
dreamy misty-gray eyes. He was not un-
handsome but looked rather infirm and
melancholy. Some kind of hidden suffering
hovered over his countenance; some strange
unrest was in his heart, and his eyes revealed
a vague anxiety and restlessness. Even so, I
felt, there was something about him which
pointed to great gifts and a good heart. No
doubt he was, as my cousin had told me,
“more than a little strange,” and not as other
people are. He is also the main hero of this
story.
This is how my cousin’s boarders ap-
peared to me. For unnamed but valid rea-
sons, I am not going to mention their ancestry
or their places of origin in Iceland. Both
Kjartan and Bjorn had taken English sur-
names. Many Icelanders did that at the time
and still do it today. You can hardly blame
them because Icelandic names sound very
ugly on the ears when pronounced by people
of this country. And though some of the
Icelandic surnames in the western world
seem odd and not really Icelandic, many of
them are, in my opinion, very beautiful and
very appropriate to this country.
When everyone was washed and combed
and Kjartan had put on a new collar and tie,
the meal began. Various topics were dis-
cussed while we sat at the table. It was
Kjartan who had the most to say because he
could read English. He bought the morning
paper every day and took great delight in
telling about what was mentioned in it. At
that time there were few Icelandic papers in