“Approaching rain,” was another phrase that he repeated endlessly, from the Icelandic weather forecasts.
In the box there were two letters to Karl which delivered the main news from Iceland since the autumn, along with some newspaper cuttings. They talked about the news from home and someone remarked that Hannes was absent as usual.
“Ja, Hannes,” Lothar said, with a smirk.
“I told him about this,” Emil said, downing a glass.
“Why is he so mysterious?” Hrafnhildur asked.
“Ah yes, mysterious,” Lothar said.
“It’s so strange,” Emil said. “He never turns up to the FDJ meetings or their lectures. I’ve never seen him doing volunteer work. Is he too good to work in the ruins? Aren’t we good enough for him? Does he think he’s better than us? Tomas, you’ve talked to him.”
“I think Hannes just wants to finish his course,” he said, with a shrug. “He’s just got this year left.”
“Everyone always spoke of him as a future star of the party,” Karl said. “He was always described as leadership material. He doesn’t look very promising here. I think I’ve only seen him twice this winter and he hardly said a word to me.”
“You barely see him,” Lothar said. “He’s rather glum,” he added, shaking his head, then sipped the schnapps and pulled the same sort of face that Karl had.
Down on the ground floor they heard the front door open, followed by quick footsteps up the stairs. Two males and a female appeared at the gloomy far end of the corridor. They were students, passing acquaintances of Karl’s.
“We heard you were having an Icelandic Christmas party,” the girl said when they entered the kitchen and saw the spread. There was plenty of lamb left and the others made room for them at the table. One of the men produced two bottles of vodka, to riotous applause. They introduced themselves: the men were from Czechoslovakia and the girl was Hungarian.
She sat beside him and he felt himself go weak. He tried not to stare at her after she emerged from the darkness of the corridor, but when he saw her there for the first time a wave of feelings rushed through him that he would never have thought himself capable of and found difficult to understand. Something strange happened and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a peculiar joy and euphoria, mixed with shyness. No girl had ever had such an effect on him.
“Are you from Iceland too?” She turned to him and asked her question in good German.
“Yes, I’m from Iceland,” he stammered, also in German, which he could speak well by now. He dragged his gaze away from her when it dawned on him that he had been staring at her ever since she’d sat down beside him.
“What monstrosity is that?” she asked, pointing to a boiled sheep’s head on the table, still uneaten.
“A sheep’s head, sawn in half and charred,” he said, and saw her wince.
“What sort of people do that?” she asked.
“Icelanders,” he said. “Actually it’s very good,” he added rather hesitantly. “The tongue and the cheeks…” He stopped when he realised that it did not sound particularly appetising.
“So, you eat the eyes and lips too?” she asked, not trying to conceal her disgust.
“The lips? Yes, those too. And the eyes.”
“You can’t have had much food if you had to resort to that,” she said.
“We were a very poor nation,” he said, nodding.
“I’m Ilona,” she said, holding out her hand. They exchanged greetings and he told her that his name was Tomas.
One of her companions called out to her. He had a plate full of smoked lamb and potatoes and urged her to try it, telling her that it was delicious. She stood up, found a plate and cut a slice of the meat.
“We never get enough meat,” she said as she sat down beside him again.
“Umm, wonderful,” she said with her mouth full of smoked lamb.
“Better than sheep’s eyes,” he said.
They went on celebrating into the early hours. More students heard about the party and the house filled up. An old gramophone was taken out and someone put some Sinatra records on. Late in the night the different nationalities took turns singing songs about their countries. Karl and Emil, both definitely feeling the effects of the consignment from Iceland, began by singing a melancholy ode by Jonas Hallgrimsson. Then the Hungarians took over, followed by the Czechs, the Swedes and the Germans, and a student from Senegal who pined for the hot African nights. Hrafnhildur insisted on hearing the most beautiful words in all their mother tongues, and after some confusion it was agreed that one representative from each country would stand and recite the most beautiful passage in it. The Icelanders were unanimous. Hrafnhildur rose and declaimed the finest piece of Icelandic poetry ever written:
Her delivery was shot through with emotion and even though only a few of them understood it, the group was stunned into momentary silence, until a mighty round of applause broke out and Hrafnhildur took a deep bow.
He was still sitting with Ilona at the kitchen table; she looked at him inquisitively. He told her about the character in the poem that had been recited, who was reflecting on a long journey through the Icelandic wilderness with a young girl for whom he yearned. He knew that they could never be lovers and with those morose thoughts he returned alone to his valley, weighed down by sorrow. Above him twinkled the star of love that had once lit his way but had now disappeared behind a cloud, and he thought to himself that their love, although unfulfilled, would last for ever.
She watched him while he was talking and whether it was his story of the sorrowful young lover, or the way he told it, or just the Icelandic schnapps, she suddenly kissed him right on the lips, so tenderly that he felt like a little child again.
Rut did not return from her Christmas vacation. She sent a letter to each of her friends in Leipzig, and in his she mentioned the facilities and various other complaints, and he understood that she had had enough. Or perhaps she was just too homesick. In the dormitory kitchen, the Icelanders talked it over. Karl said he missed her and Emil nodded. Hrafnhildur said she was soft.
The next time he met Hannes he asked why he had not wanted to join them at the residence. This was after a lecture on structural stress which had taken a strange turn. Hannes had attended it too. Twenty minutes after the lecture began, the door had opened and in walked three students who said they were from the FDJ and would like to say a few words. With them was a young man he had sometimes seen at the library and had assumed was a student of German literature. The student looked down at the floor. The leader of the group, who introduced himself as the secretary of the FDJ, began speaking about student solidarity and reminded them of the four aims of the university’s work: to teach them Marxist theory, make them socially active, have them work in the service of society within a programme organised by young communists, and establish a class of intellectuals who would later become professionals in their respective fields.
He turned to the student with them and described how he had admitted listening to western radio broadcasts and then had promised to mend his ways. The student looked up, took one step forward, confessed his crime and said he would not tune in to western programmes again. Said they were corrupted by imperialism and capitalist profiteering, and urged everyone in the hall to listen only to Eastern European radio in future.