He poured two and handed me one. I handed him the book.
He said:
It’s always strange when they come back to you. It’s like sending children out into the world with no idea where they’ll end up. Look at this. Third printing, 1986. 1986! It could have been around the world. Some clapped-out hippy in Kathmandu could have carried it on a trek; passed it to a mate on his way to Australia; a tourist might have picked it up in an airport before meeting one of those cruise ships that go to the Antarctic. What shall I put?
I felt cold. I could say To Ludo, with love from Dad. In ten seconds there would not be an object in the room that was not there now, and yet everything would be different.
He had a pen in his hand and had been through this all before.
The hand that had been now here now there held the pen. His mouth was slightly pursed. He was wearing a blue shirt and brown corduroys.
He said: What’s your name?
David.
Is To David with best wishes all right? he asked.
I nodded.
He scrawled something in the book and handed it back.
I wondered whether I would throw up.
He asked me something about school.
I said I didn’t go to school.
He asked me about that.
I said something about that.
He said something else. He was being pleasant. There seemed to be a lot of grey in his hair; that wouldn’t have been there at the time of the Medley.
I said: Can I see where you work?
He said: Sure. He sounded surprised and pleased.
I followed him up to the top of the house. This was not the same house, but they had gone to his study for the Medley, so some of the books and things would probably be here. I don’t know why I had to see this but I had to see it.
He had the whole top of the house for a study. He showed me his computer. He said he used to have a lot of games on it but he had to take them off because he wasted too much time playing games. He gave me an engaging boyish grin. He showed me his database on different countries. He showed me boxes of record cards for different books.
On a bookshelf I saw 10 books by the author of the magazine article Sibylla had shown me. I walked over and took one off the shelf. It was signed. I said:
Are they all signed?
He said:
I’m a big fan.
He said:
I think he is one of the greatest writers in English this century.
I did not laugh hysterically. I said:
My mother says I will be able to appreciate him when I am older.
He said:
What other books do you like?
I was about to say Other?
I said:
Do you mean in English?
He said:
In anything.
I said:
I like Kon Tiki.
He said:
Fair enough.
I said I liked Amundsen and Scott and I liked King Solomon’s Mines and I liked everything by Dumas and I liked The Bad Seed and The Hound of the Baskervilles and I liked The Name of the Rose but the Italian was rather difficult.
I said:
I like Malory a lot. I like the Odyssey. I read the Iliad a long time ago but I was too young to appreciate it. I’m reading Njal’s Saga right now. My favourite part is where they go around the booths asking for help and Skarp-Hedin insults everybody.
He had been making a thing of being wide-eyed and open mouthed. He said humorously: I don’t think I’ve come across it.
I said: Do you want to see my Penguin translation? I’ve got it with me.
He said: Sure.
I opened my backpack and took out the Penguin translation by Magnus Magnusson. The Icelandic dictionary is about £140 & I had told Sibylla we could not afford it.
I opened it to the page. I said: It’s only a couple of pages, and I handed it to him.
He turned the pages, chuckling as he read. At last he handed it back to me.
You’re right, it’s a scream, he said. I’ll have to get a copy. Thanks.
I said: The translation isn’t very much like the Icelandic though. You can’t really imagine a Viking warrior saying don’t interfere in the conversation. The Icelandic is vil ek nú biðja
He said: You know Icelandic?
I said: No, I’ve only just started. That’s why I need the Penguin.
He said: Isn’t that cheating?
I said: It’s harder than using a dictionary.
He said: Then why don’t you use a dictionary?
I said: It costs £140.
He said: £140!
I said: Well it stands to reason there’s not much of a market for it. People only study it at university if at all; the only way you can get anything in Icelandic is to order it specially from Iceland; who’s going to buy the dictionary? If there was a groundswell of interest in the population at large maybe the price would come down, or at least maybe libraries would get a copy, but obviously people aren’t going to develop an interest in something they’ve never heard of.
He said: Well how did you develop an interest in it?
I said: I read some of the Penguin translations when I was younger. I said: The interesting thing is that according to Hainsworth’s classic article on Homer & the epic cycle the mark of Homer’s superiority to the cycle is supposed to be richness and expansiveness, & yet it seems as though bareness is the thing that is good in the Icelandic saga. You could say Well, Schoenberg is obviously wrong to dismiss the Japanese print as primitive and superficial, why is he wrong?
He was giving me another humorous wide-eyed look. He said:
Now I believe you read my book.
I did not know what to say.
I said:
I’ve read all your books.
And he said: Thanks.
He said: I mean that. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
I thought: I can’t stand this.
I thought of the three Prisoners of Fate. I could walk out any time. I wanted to walk out and I wanted to drop hints. I wanted to mention the Rosetta Stone and watch realisation dawn. I don’t know what I was going to say.
I was just about to say something when I saw Fraser’s Ptolemaic Alexandria on a shelf. I exclaimed artlessly:
Oh, you’ve got Ptolemaic Alexandria!
He said:
I shouldn’t really have bought it but I couldn’t resist.
I didn’t ask where he’d heard of it. Somebody had obviously told him it was a superb work of scholarship which no home should be without.
I said:
Well, it’s a brilliant book.
He said:
Not that it’s much use to me. Did you know there was a Greek tragedy about God and Moses? It’s got it at the back but it’s all in Greek.
I said:
Would you like me to read some for you?
He said:
Oh—
and he said
Well, why not?
I got Volume II off the shelf and I started reading where God is saying Stretch out thy rod in iambic trimeters and I translated as I went along and after about three lines I could see he was looking bored and amazed.
I said:
Well, you get the drift.
He said:
How old are you?
I said I was 11. I said there was nothing very difficult about the passage and anyone who had studied the language for a few months would be able to read it and I had known it for years.
He said: Christ.
I said it was not such a big deal and that J. S. Mill had started Greek at the age of 3.
He said: How old were you when you started?
I said: 4.
He said: Christ.