City Scapes

Travis is at the rear of the warehouse. His arm moves in a circle of motion as he rotates the arm of the printing press. The printing press is new, bought from a car boot sale at Akranes, although Travis was proud to tell us the press actually came from the back of an old bus.

“The vendor was from Dar-es-Salaam,” he said. “He had all manner of things in there, some definitely not for the faint-hearted.”

When pressed he wouldn’t elaborate and stood elaborately from the table, his napkin falling from his knees like a redundant parachute.

“These topics are best not discussed in front of children.”

“I’m only one child,” said Spud. “Singular. Definitive.”

Spud has settled into the warehouse well. The interior walls are up now and he has his own section. He refers to this as ‘Spud’s Realm’ and will do so in the third person; such as, “I’m just off to Spud’s Realm for an hour or so.”

He has decorated the walls with pictures of his own design. Often these are long-nosed beasts with many arms and eyes that burn with fire. He has a talent for art matched only by his enthusiasm.

When we asked him to design the advertising leaflets for the whale watching business he clapped his hands and jumped two feet into the air. This quite startled the penguin and for several hours he hid himself in a storage locker and refused point blank to come out.

However, my heart is warmed. Europe may have been destroyed by an earthquake but I have a family now; Torn, Travis, Spud and the penguin. I am happy.

That evening I rub the juice of juniper berries into Travis’s aching arm and then he prepares the food; bláberjasúpa, a kind of blueberry soup and a cavernous herring salad. The herrings he leaves with all their eyes intact.

We take a table outside and light candles as the sun goes down. The sea is flat and dark like a desert in the depths of night. The outline of our plane is just visible, a hulking tank upon the water. Above our heads the stars twinkle angrily.

After we have eaten Torn holds up one of the newly printed leaflets, the green and violet paper fluttering like a gentle shield in the evening breeze.

“For the business to succeed, we need customers to come. That is Marx’s first rule of the economic system.”

Spud holds his hand high in the air. “I could deliver them with papers,” he says. “It would be easy as pie. Easier. Pies can be hard to make. Especially sardine ones.”

“I was thinking of bigger fish than that,” says Torn. “Reykjavik is the place for these babies.”

Like a wish made the candle suddenly goes out and I understand the leaflets should be my responsibility. Travis flies the plane, Torn is the expert on whale songs, Spud has his job as a paper boy.

“I will go,” I say, “only you will have to advise me how to get there.”

Torn smiles and I know he is happy.

“There is a bus that leaves at first light,” he says.

“Then I better pack,” I say.

The leaflets take up more than half the case. The other half I fill with my personal effects. At the top I place my favourite t-shirt. This was bought at an Eurythmics concert in 1984 and signed by two of their backing singers. It is green in colour but yellowed slightly with age.

For a while I stand toying with my willie warmer. I am not wearing it. This is due, in part, to the clement weather.

“I don’t think you’ll be needing that,” says Torn. “I will keep it here with me, as a memento.”

“This earthquake,” I say, “it makes you think. So many dead, right out of the blue.”

“Unexpected events are, by their nature, unexpected. And they happen rarely. This is what gives them their unexpected quality. You’ll be ok.”

I close the lid of the case. “I’m looking forward to it. Bright lights. Big city.”

In the morning it is dark when we get up. Torn walks with me to the bus stop. As I turn to catch a final glimpse of the warehouse I see the silhouette of the penguin in the slightly ajar door. It is standing quite still, like a sentry.

“Goodbye penguin,” I say. “See you soon.”

If it has heard me it gives no indication. Sometimes the penguin is more friendly than at others.

The bus driver is both mute and a Sikh. He has the largest turban I have ever seen and set within its folds is a pad of bus tickets. As I pay my fare he reaches up for the pad, tears off one of the tickets, and silently passes this to me.

There is only one other passenger, an old woman in a herringbone coat with enormous buttons each shaped like a smiling mouth. Next to her on the seat are the collected works of Dorothy L Sayers. The spine of each book is in a different shade of green.

As I walk past her she puts a finger in the book she is holding and smiles at me.

“The butler did it,” she says. “That is what I like about this author, it is always the butler.”

I take a seat at the back. I watch the warehouses go by and then I close my eyes. I try to think who I will distribute my leaflets to, and in turn, who will come to watch the whales.

After some moments I realise I have little understanding of Reykjavik and what sort of people live there. This is going to be an adventure, I am sure of it.

I awake to a different landscape. On the horizon buildings loom, rising like flower stalks from the ground. The old lady next to me wets a finger and turns a page in her book. She catches sight of me looking.

“Now we’re getting to the crux of it,” she says. “The butler is about to admit his crime.”

“Is that Reykjavik?” I say, pointing.

“If you had been there before you would know.”

I shake my head. “I haven’t, you see.” And then I add, “Well, only to the airport.”

“A good place to arrive,” says the woman and she puts her a finger in her book. “I have heard that since this debacle in Europe the magicians are willing to come out of hiding.”

“Hiding?” I say.

“They predicted this, you know? A great earthquake. The death of many. It was the disbelief that sent them packing. You can only be disbelieved for so long before you start putting things in a case.”

I try to ask more questions but the woman fields them all like a pro-am baseball player and with a smirk she finishes her book. She adds it to the bottom of the pile and takes another from the top.

I imagine her in a Charles Dickens novel, teaching Tiny Tim his ABCs and smacking him violently on his bad leg every time he gets a letter wrong.

We stop once for a toilet break and the driver and I stand amiably side by side weeing against the back wheel. I try to ask him about the magicians and only too late remember that he is a mute. I get the feeling that it is going to be one of those days. Silently I wish Torn were with me. Then I put myself away and get back on the bus.

We arrive at nightfall. I collect my case and like Rumplestiltskin on his first foray into Algiers I place one foot in front of the other and head towards the port. After weeks in the warehouse I want to be close to water. The sound of it will be a comfort, a reminder of home.

After several minutes of dreary buildings I come to a large flashing billboard. Picked out in light bulbs in myriads of colour are the words, ‘Faxafloi Bay’.

We are finally getting somewhere I think, and then I wonder who this ‘we’ might be. After all, I am alone. Just me and my false leg, walking with me in the same way Watson always followed Holmes, sometimes nagging, sometimes a help, but always there.

The streets are beginning to fill. Dogs with fur in ragged bunches sit on the lids of dustbins, sniffing the air for the chance of a bone. Sailors in tight trousers cusp lighter flames in the palm of their hands as they nod to light cigarettes clamped to the edges of their mouths. And ladies of the night ply for trade.

Neither the dogs nor the sailors nor the ladies seem likely candidates for my leaflets and I am wondering when I will find a hotel when I see a red sign, ‘Hotel’ it says in red letters like the kisses of Hanoi call-girls.

Behind the reception is a tall man in a lime green suit. He smiles as I enter and I see that he has only two teeth. These are both on the same side.

“I’d like a room,” I say.

The man places the thumb and forefinger of each hand hard against his temple and bows his head in concentration.

“Let me guess,” he says, “you are a visitor to Reykjavik.”

As I admit that he is right, he smiles and tells me he is something of a clairvoyant. He then places a box on the counter in front of him and tells me to dip in my hand.

“This is the hotel of chance,” he says. “Your room is in the lap of the gods.”

“Which god is that?” I ask, intrigued.

“Choose and do not question,” says the man. “This is what Nietzsche always said and he was a superman.”

Thinking that perhaps he is half-right I dip my hand in the box and withdraw a key.

“Ah,” says the man, catching sight of the numbers on the fob I am holding, “1975, a good year. It saw the end of the war in Vietnam.”

“But is it a good room?” I ask.

“Seek and ye shall find.”

The man claps his hand three times and a cupboard door opens and a bell boy appears.

“I was having a little rest,” says the bellboy, perhaps catching sight of my surprised face. “He lets me sleep when we are quiet.”

That he was sleeping would explain why he is wearing only a pair of orange underpants, that and the blue circular fez common to bellboys the globe over.

“This way,” he says, and we make for the stairs, like an ambush about to be sprung by the Viet Cong.

The room is on the fifteenth floor and by the time we get there my legs are tired, both my real one and the false. At the tenth floor I considered asking the bellboy to take my case. I decided not, not wanting to appear churlish.

I am pleasantly surprised by the room. It has wooden floorboards and wooden walls. On each of the walls is a painting of a duck. In one corner of the room is a bath on four legs, in another corner is a bed.

The bellboy sniffs silently and walks over to the bed. For a moment I think he is going to get in and carry on his orgy of sleep but instead he turns down the top of the covers.

“If there’s nothing else,” he says and holds out his hand, palm upwards.

“There is one thing,” I say. “I wonder if you would know of anyone who would be interested in whale-watching.”

The bellboy thinks for a moment, running a finger lightly over the outline of his penis in his underpants as he does so.

“Not sure,” he says, finally. “We have plenty of sightings of whales here already. In the morning you will be able to see them from the window yourself. We have a good view of the port.”

Perhaps sensing my disappointment the bellboy stops by the door on his way out.

“Ask Esau in the morning.”

“Esau?” I say.

“The man on reception. He’s a clever bugger. He’ll come up with something.”

Gratefully I drop a coin into the bellboy’s hand. He examines it closely and then slides it into the waistband of his underpants. It makes a clinking sound as he does so and too late I realise he had not been playing with his penis at all. His underpants are obviously where he keeps his moneybox.

Surely I am a fool and as I fall asleep I wonder if I am cut out for the job assigned to me.

In the morning I wake to find the sun streaming through the windows. I attach my leg and head down the stairs for breakfast.

From the buffet table I collect two fried eggs, a sausage and a half of fried tomato, arrange them into a face on my plate and head over to one of the empty tables.

As I cut into the smiling mouth of the sausage the dialogue of a pair of loud Americans drifts over. It is like the Atlantic has never existed and, if it has, they have chosen to ignore it.

“Well bud,” says one. He is holding up a paper. “What about this one? Engineer. Must have experiences of bridges.”

“I don’t know bud,” says the other. “Explosions is more my thing. I like blowing things up. The moving of the Mississippi basin, that was some of my work.”

“Stands to reason,” says the first one again, “before you can insert a bridge you got to blow some shit up. Every bridge needs a hole.”

“Mebbe you’re right,” says the other.

Sensing an off-chance I stand from my table and sidle over. I pose my question about whale-watching opportunities and the two men raise their eyes to me.

“I don’t know about that,” says one. “All the sensible money is heading to Europe. Do you know how many homes need rebuilding there?”

I admit that I don’t and wait patiently for an answer. Like the old Patagonia express atop Mt Fuji it never comes.

As the smaller of the two Americans, in hat size at least, mops up the last of his egg juice, he directs his gaze on me.

“Iceland may become an important place. We are considering annexing it as a base of operations for American investment in the reconstruction of Europe.”

“It could become the new Thailand,” says the other one. “It’s economy was founded on the servicing of American GIs going to or from Vietnam. Opportunity and disaster are often found hand in hand.”

I walk back towards my table, my heart like a loaded gun. I hadn’t considered what was happening in Europe as an opportunity. Perhaps it was and perhaps it was just me.

A strange jet-lag numbness fills my head although I have not been on a plane. I finish my breakfast and go out to the reception. Esau is there. He puts his fingers to his forehead and bows in concentration.

“Don’t tell me,” he says. “You have a question.”

“I have these leaflets to deliver.”

“And who would you like to deliver them to?”

My time in Reykjavik has been short and already I am worried by the Americans’ words. Perhaps the whole society will be concerned with events in Europe. After all, the destruction of a continent is a big thing. Then I remember the words of the woman on the bus.

“Magicians,” I say.

“Step this way,” says Esau and he pulls a sheet of paper from under the counter. “You do know that the existence of these magicians is purely mythical?”

“Of course,” I say, although it is news to me.

“My grandfather told my father and my father told me. Whoever told my grandfather we don’t know. It is a secret. What I can tell you is that after Jorgenson’s declaration that magic was unlawful the magicians were said to go underground. Here, take this.”

“What is it?” I say.

“It is a map of the sewer system. Follow the red line. That is all I know.”

The sun hits me as I head out of the hotel. It hangs in the sky like a mental patient destined to transcribe the same circle of motion in the lunatic asylum.

Shops are opening in the street and a line of old women, identical in hound’s-tooth jackets and hairgrips in the shape of silver fish, queue outside one with a sign that simply says, ‘Tungsten’. Intrigued, but resilient, I move on.

The map leads me down to Faxafloi Bay. Here, white buildings surround the harbour, like sentries standing guard. There is a café and a young waiter with hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a white cloth hanging from his back pockets, sets out tables one by one by one by one.

I check the map and walk five paces east to a manhole cover. Timing my lifting of it to the waiter disappearing back inside the café to retrieve another table I do lift it and swiftly lower myself inside. With a clang it shuts over my head.

I have never been underground before even though my father was a miner. For many years he wanted me to follow in his footsteps and then the roof caved in. I touch a hand to the ceiling above my head. It is damp but it feels firm and that is a start.

The leaflets are in a bundle under my arm, gripped together by a thick red elastic band. There are 249 of them. 250 were printed but Spud kept one for himself and pinned it on the wall of his cubicle among his beasts. He said that one day he would use it in his portfolio. He wanted to work for a travelling zoo, drawing pictures of all the animals to bring in the crowds. Thoughts of home comfort me.

I am in some kind of tunnel. It is dark, but there is light at the end and I head towards this. ‘Light at the end of the tunnel’ has an almost metaphorical resonance in my head and I feel it is just the sort of thing I should head towards.

As I walk I think and I think that perhaps my plan has certain holes. It is unlikely that there will be 249 magicians down here, enough to give out all my leaflets to, and even if there are, would magicians be the kind of people who would want to go on whale-watching trips?

Maybe I could sell them as magic whales. Or perhaps magicians would want to use certain parts of whales in their spells. As I child I had read Jules Verne’s ‘The Man from Atlantis’ and I distinctly remembered something about Macarthur the Magician using the tooth of a whale to make the centre of the Earth seem nearer than it actually was. Or I may have been mistaken. Time can play tricks.

The light is getting brighter, there is a smell of something in the air, and the lack of a breeze, and a clanging like a bell in a church tower on the side of a mountain in Greece. I take a deep breath and step into the light.

I wasn’t aware that I had been going down but I must have been because the cavern I enter is storeys high. It stretches upwards and ends in a fluted roof like that of a cathedral. But that is not the most impressive thing. In the centre of the cavern is a bronze coloured rocket. It is massive, much larger than several whales, even the blue one I saw in the British museum as a child.

Hanging from ropes on each side of the rocket are men. I can see they are busy at work, painting.

“Can I help you?” says a voice.

I turn around. There is a man with a long beard.

“I was looking for the magicians,” I say.

The man narrows his eyes. “Have you come about the mince?”

I shake my head and spin round towards the rocket as a loud shout comes from it. One of the painters has come loose from his rope and I watch as he drops towards the ground. Just as I think his impact is inevitable the man next to me twitches an eyebrow and the painter hovers in mid-air.

“So you are the magicians,” I say.

The man grimaces. “Not exactly. We’ve decided to give up all that nonsense. Go on to more practical things. We’ve built a rocket, you know? What we thought was we’d go to the moon. Set up a base of operations there and then set about helping these people in Europe. We thought we could have a kind of halfway base on the moon. Mini-hospital or something. What do you think?”

“Good idea,” I say. “But what exactly do you mean by ‘halfway’?”

The man takes a pen out of one pocket and a piece of paper out of the other. He draws one circle which he labels ‘Earth’ and above this another circle which he labels ‘moon’. Then he draws one arrow from the Earth to the Moon and one arrow back from the Moon to the Earth.

“You see?” he says. “Going via the moon, Europe is about halfway from Iceland.”

“Brilliant!” I say. “Do you have any interest in whales?”

The magicians, or inventors, as they have asked me to call them, insist that I stay to tea and I am more than happy to agree, my breakfast having been more than somewhat spoiled by a number of loud Americans. We sit around a large table at the base of the rocket.

“The rocket can hold up to one hundred people,” says Dillon. He is the magician / inventor who first accosted me. “If it proves a success we could build another one.”

I take a piece of cheese off the plate in the centre of the table and take a large bite.

“People up there think you’re a myth,” I say.

“Oh, you don’t want to believe everything you hear,” says Dillon. “We’ve been planning on coming out from down here for a while. Only we were waiting for the right opportunity. We didn’t want to just pop back to the surface with nothing to show. I mean, here we are, the magicians! So what? I think this rocket is just the trick.”

I gaze up at its metal side. I see what Dillon means. It is quite a trick. Magic always seemed such an unsolid thing, making things appear, disappear. I could see where the magicians were coming from.

“One question,” I say, taking another bite of cheese, “how are you going to get the rocket above ground?” I am thinking of the tunnel by which I entered the cavern. It was only a bit taller than my head. Not nearly as tall as a rocket. “Have you got a big door somewhere?”

Around the table is silence. One of the inventors lets a fork drop from his hand. This time there is no magic to cushion its fall.

The inventors invite me to spend the night and I accept. At ten o’clock on the nose Dillon bangs a large metal gong and we troop into the sleeping quarters. Each of the beds is shaped like a different kind of fish and is covered with a vibrant pink eiderdown.

“Pink and fish are both conducive to sleep,” says Dillon.

“Is that magic?” I say.

Dillon casts his hands about him as if he is about to catch one of the beds on a fishing-rod. “Actually, psychology. A magician must be something of a Renaissance man. You will share with Horatio, ok?”

Horatio is seventeen and our bed is shaped like a trout. Before slipping beneath the covers I detach my leg.

“Tell me,” says Horatio, “does that hurt?”

“It’s not a real leg,” I say, and I tap it three times, making a dull hollow sound. “Can I ask you a question? Just how long have you been down here?”

Horatio pulls off his t-shirt. His skin is white and smooth, except for his left breast where there is a blue tattoo. It is of a rocket, the rocket in the other room.

“We don’t call it down here,” he says. “This is our home and home is a matter of perspective.”

I think of the warehouse and the sea-plane which bobs on the ocean. I have never heard a truer word spoken in truth, and I close my eyes and sleep and in the morning I wake up and I have a plan.

“You will need two very large trees,” I say. I take a pair of cocktail sticks from off the breakfast table and insert one into either side of the pancake I am holding. “Then you must cut around the area above the rocket to make a circle like this pancake. And behold, you have the big door I was talking about.”

To demonstrate I hold each of the cocktail sticks between my thumb and forefinger and swivel the pancake with my index fingers. It turns neatly on the sticks.

“Marvellous,” says Dillon. He claps his hands.

“If you can build a rocket,” I say, “you can do this easily.”

Dillon is nodding and I can see already the possibility forming in his eyes.

“It’s a brilliant idea. However did you think of it?”

In my mind is an episode of the Thunderbirds but I keep my lips firmly sealed. It is not that I want to take undue credit, it is more that I don’t want to sully their own attempt at international rescue with intimations of cheap puppetry.

“Tell me,” says Dillon, “how can we ever repay you?”

I have another idea and I sit bolt upright. Now it is my turn to clap my hands.

The journey back to Keflavik and the warehouse passes without incident. It is Spud who sees me first and comes running and throws his arms around my knees.

“Let go,” I say, “or I’ll fall over.” And he goes running away, shouting over and over, “Thumbelina is back. Thumbelina is back.”

Of course Torn and Travis want to know about the leaflets but I only say that all will be revealed presently. The good thing about mysteries is that someone often holds the answer.

Travis cooks a welcome home meal and we eat sitting outside at the table. As Travis comes out of the warehouse holding a large platter Torn smacks his lips.

“Ah, beinlausir fuglar,” he says, “my favourite.” And then catching sight of my incomprehension he adds, “It means ‘boneless birds’. It’s made from beef.”

We drink brennivín from large cups and at ten o’clock, the appointed hour, I stand and point to the heavens.

“Behold, the stars,” says Spud and knocks back his own draft of brennivín.

“No there,” I say and then quite clearly we all see the rocket, its tail aflame.

“What exactly did you do in Reykjavik?” says Torn and as he does so there is a massive explosion. It comes from the direction of the rocket and as we watch a million stars seem to shoot from its nose and then slowly they descend towards the Earth. Meanwhile, the rocket continues its journey to the moon.

“A firework?” says Spud.

“No,” I say, “whale-watching leaflets. The fall-out will be general all over Reykjavik.” I sit down and fold my arms. “As Lenin said, ‘Advertising is the key’.”

“Wonderful,” says Torn.

“This will make the buggers come,” says Travis.

“Magic,” says Spud and we all smile.