The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Side 26

24
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #1
vant Porbjorg carded wool, and at the back
of the room two farmhands mended fishing
nets shredded in last April’s storm.
The only ones doing nothing useful
were Oli’s father and his Uncle Pall. On
the far side of the room they faced each
other across opposite sides of the dining
table, sipping coffee through sugar cubes
held clenched in between their teeth and
arguing no less fiercely than a pair of Gllma
wrestlers. Tonight’s vaka could not start
until they stopped. The two men looked
alike, with their bristling beards and bushy
mustaches, their high-domed foreheads,
but their opinions bore about as much
resemblance to each other as fish to sheep.
In the rare moments when their minds
threatened to converge, Petur was quick to
veer his thinking in the most opposite
direction possible. Sometimes Pall and
Petur argued for hours, as if there were no
one else in the room.
Oli had no patience for these debates,
which ranged from the price of wool in
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Denmark to obscure tenets of Lutheran
theology, but he knew better than to inter-
rupt. Finally he heard the scrape of wood
on wood: Pall stood up and was pushing
his chair back under the table. “Enough,
Petur. There are some questions only God
Himself can answer.”
Petur opened his bible and began flip-
ping its pages, searching for one last rebut-
tal, but the argument was over. Pall had
conceded to Petur, as everyone eventually
did, for lack of stamina if nothing else. Oli
followed Pall to the bookshelf to see what
he would choose for the evening’s reading.
Gilt titles gleamed in the firelight. Pall
chose Eirik the Red, the chronicle of the
Vikings’ attempt to settle North America.
It was one of Oli’s favourites. He sat by the
bookshelf, lightly tracing the leather spines
of the books as his uncle prepared to read.
“The Saga of Eirik the Red,” Pall
began. Or almost began, because then he
could not help but add, “Since some of our
people are foolish enough to try again.” Oli
knew he was referring to those Icelanders
who had emigrated to America in the past
three years, nearly five hundred of them. It
was a topic of much debate.
Unable to let such a remark go unchal-
lenged, Petur crossed his arms across his
chest, tugged his beard, and cleared his
throat. “And can you truly blame them?
People are starving. The sheep are dying of
scabies, and for the last two winters we’ve
stayed frozen until May. Meanwhile the
Danes wrap their greedy fingers round
Iceland’s neck, choking our ability to
trade.”
“And that is a reason to give up?” Pall
countered. “Now is precisely the time to
fight for independence. Look at France.
And there have always been bad winters,
diseases of sheep. We’ve survived worse.
But how can we survive as a people if we
abandon our island, our history?”
“When people are starving history
offers little sustenance.”
A long silence followed, in which it
became clear that Pall would not reply. So
Petur - never one to let an argument die -
added, “And what about your own broth-
er?”
“Jon is an utlagi,” Pall said bitterly. An