Although at the time Sturla hadn’t published poems in magazines, let alone a book, Jónas knew about his interest in poetry and knew that he wrote poetry. When the inspiration seized him (meaning: when he was drunk), Jónas would make belittling remarks about poetry, saying that the phenomenon of contemporary poetry was solely for people who couldn’t admit they had no talent for other pursuits, for tasks requiring concentration or discipline. Because of this, Sturla was surprised by what his cousin said about sitting on a complete manuscript, whatever that meant.
And yet, it turned out that Jónas never showed Sturla these secret papers — papers which later came out of Benedikt’s folder — because two weeks after the conversation at Hressingarskálinn, Jónas was dead. On the two occasions they’d met in between those events, Jónas hadn’t been in any state to remember what he’d promised. It was on the latter of those meetings that Sturla lent him the money which he fully believed Jónas had used to buy his overdose: his Magnyl pills, which he probably bought from the pharmacy on the corner of Rauðarárstígur and Háteigsvegur; and the bottles of Brennivín, Black Death, which he must have carried in a black plastic bag along Snorrabraut, through Norðurmýri, and up to Meðalholt.
That Jónas’s manuscript — which was surprisingly close to complete, especially given the disapproval the author had expressed about it — ended up in Sturla’s hands was in fact the greatest blessing (or the worst misfortune?) that could have resulted from the way Benedikt’s leather folder was an inch away from being discarded.
For in fact it had been discarded. A few months after Jónas’s death, Hallmundur called Sturla; he said he’d been going through his son’s belongings, and he was ready to get rid of those that were of no value to anyone, but he wanted to make sure Sturla got a chance to look at the books, records, and other things which he might have a use for. Sturla had long wanted to find a way to ask his uncle if he could take a look at his cousin’s belongings, but he never had. And when he went to Hallmundur and Þeba’s house in Breiðholt, into their garage where Hallmundur had stacked the cases with his son’s possessions, it soon became apparent that all the loose items — paper, stationery, and other small items — had already been thrown out; among these items was the folder, which Hallmundur remembered had gone into the charity container at the trash dump. Once he’d found this out, Sturla didn’t stay in the garage long; he collected, somewhat hastily, a few records (including the first record by Megas and some five or six CDs by T-Bone Walker) and a few books which Hallmundur clearly didn’t care to keep. He turned down an offer to have coffee with the couple and took the next bus to the trash dump.
It took quite some toil for Sturla to find the case Hallmundur had thrown into the container, and it was no less difficult to begin to understand how his uncle could have abandoned — in the cold and foul-smelling dump — such a well-treated item as the ambassador’s beautiful document folder, something which had not only laid on his son’s writing table for many years but which also held all kinds of his personal items: photographs, old report cards, sketches, and, last but not least, the typed manuscript of a book he’d composed. It seemed like Jónas’s parents had neglected to look inside the folder, and for a few moments Sturla deliberated whether to collect only the manuscript and folder, and let Hallmundur and Þeba know about all the other things it contained; perhaps they hadn’t known that the folder was full of their son’s personal effects. But given that they would still not be interested in keeping those things, it would be quite awkward, Sturla reasoned, if he pointed the items out to them. With that in mind, he decided to keep them himself — as well as an old, Russian-made chess timer which lay in the same cardboard box as the folder and a yellow Waterman fountain pen which he remembered Jónas had received as a confirmation gift.
But was it possible that Jónas had shown someone else his poetry, poetry which had caught Sturla so much by surprise on the first read? It was true that some of the poems had borrowed things from the modernist works of earlier times, and that some of the poems showed a clear sarcasm towards the so-called radical poets of the mid-seventies, but Sturla thought he immediately perceived a personal quality in them that he truly believed was valuable. And over time, because he would often browse through Jónas’s typed sheets, the poems began to take front seat in Sturla’s mind, and he often recalled a line of poetry here and there from the manuscript at unlikely times, until finally Jónas’s lines had not only become part of Sturla’s lyrical storehouse — as he phrased it — but some of them even ran together with Sturla’s own thoughts. Or did he have it backwards: Did his thoughts spring from Jónas’s texts? The result was that, almost three decades after Jónas’s nameless manuscript came into Sturla’s possession, its contents formed the backbone of his latest book, assertions.
But was it possible that someone had recognized Jónas’s poems in the form in which they were published in Sturla’s book? What other reason was there why, at the dawn of the 21st century, someone would question something as innocent as a newly-published book of poems? Of course, he shouldn’t rule out that some classmate of Jónas — even perhaps some miserable down-and-out who he had started hanging around with in his last days — had read some of the manuscript, perhaps a few poems, even though Sturla had absolutely trusted his cousin’s statement that he would be the first person to read “the whole caboodle.”
No more than ten minutes passes between Sturla ordering the food and it arriving at the table. Sturla orders another beer, and while he waits for this and looks at the meat and potatoes on the plate, he hears the door to the place open; it closes again a moment later, without anyone having come inside. He pushes at the hot dish with his fork, using it to release the various aromas: it is the same kind of food as Count Gediminas’s immigrant, German laborers would have ordered in his time. This, Sturla thinks, is original food.
The waiter who brings him the second beer is different from the one who intercepted him and hung up his overcoat; he is older and more substantial — is he Jokûbas Daugirdas’s brother?
Sturla has no sooner taken his first bite of meat than the telephone rings in his breast pocket. He scrambles to get the telephone as his father’s home phone number shows up on the screen. He puts the fork down, swallows, takes a sip of beer, draws a deep breath, and answers.
“Hi, Sturla.”
Sturla isn’t able to work out what lies beneath his father’s tone of voice.
“Has the newspaper arrived?” he asks, without returning the greeting.
“Where are you?” replies Jón.
“You know where I am.”
“No.”
“I am in Vilnius.”
“Where in Vilnius?”
“Downtown.”
“Somewhere inside?”
“What do you mean? I’m in a restaurant downtown.” He waits for his father to say something and continues: “Is it that serious? Should I hold onto something?”