Bragi Ólafsson
TRANS. BY Lytton Smith
The Third Shot Glass
I was eleven.
We’d been at the summerhouse for five days, and for the last three it had rained the way you imagine it rains in the rainforests of South America. Dad had used the time to teach me whittling with my scout knife, and I remember how Mom got irritated when she found wood shavings under one of the sofa cushions, even after we’d cleaned up around the sofa where we’d been working. Why we’d thought it a good idea to whittle wood inside the house she couldn’t begin to guess, Mom said, but Dad explained it quite simply: the weather outside just wasn’t creative. And he was totally right. I had a bit of difficulty understanding why she became so angry, especially given that the boat which I had conjured out of a large log Dad had found about the house was named after her. Even my sister Rannveig, at the time barely three, was able to appreciate the feat carving the boat represented; she picked it up in both hands and examined it closely, like she was dreaming of how she’d one day sail in such a fine vessel. Afterwards, she placed it gently on the table, rather than throwing it away, the way she treated most of her playthings.
I instantly regretted not having called the boat Rannveig.
Dad did his best to appease Mom’s mood by tidying up around the cottage; not just the hidden shavings which had been discovered under the cushions, but sweeping and scouring all the rooms. And by dinnertime, Mom was no longer mad; she hugged me to her and praised my shipbuilding; she said she couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful than keeping her name afloat. I remember not understanding what she meant by this, but I nevertheless made myself a promise that I would never lose the boat; and, just as crucial, I would never change her name. And I went to sleep with it sailing across my torso up in the sleeping loft.
Though we had been having a good time in the summer cottage these past five days, Mom and Dad had decided to return home the next day. It was going to be sunny in Reykjavík and they didn’t want to loiter about here in this foreign rain, as Dad put it. Even though they had the summerhouse, free of charge, for a whole two weeks.
But the next day arrived and with it a gleaming sun, and not so much as a wisp of cloud to be seen in the sky. And so there was no further discussion of returning home. I feared Dad was going to die laughing as he listened to the weather report at ten a.m., how the skies in Reykjavík were overcast.
Just before noon it felt like we had won a tremendous prize from the lottery, because he opened two cans of beer on the porch, one for him and one for Mom, and he told me to go fetch the small bottle of whisky which lived in the cupboard under the sink. Then Mom sent me to fetch the little shot glasses which had the pictures of cowboys on them; I had to climb up on the high kitchen stool to reach them. I fetched three glasses. Rannveig got to play naked on the grass, and I sat beside Mom in my sun lounger and drank Mirinda, my favorite fruit soda, from the third of the shot glasses. Admittedly no more than one gulp fit into a glass, but it was wonderful fun to have to be constantly pouring myself more drink.
I remember that I started to imagine I was all grown-up, Rannveig was my child, and Dad and Mom were Grandpa and Grandma. There on the porch I made the decision that my sister would inherit the boat after Mom was dead, though its name wouldn’t change, and I was going to command her to treat it like it was her child. I was deep in these thoughts when Dad said, totally out of nowhere, that it would be entirely idiotic to have a dog or a cat to look after while one also had children. It was out of the question; he would never go get stuck with some lice-ridden dog or cat. Mom simply could not follow why he had decided this; it had never been in the cards to get a dog or a cat, and yet for some reason it seemed Dad got a little irritated. He said that if a person absolutely had to get himself some form of pet, the best sort of pet would simply be a good friend.
Dad’s words struck me as so funny: I could picture him in front of me strolling about the town with his best friend on a leash.
Around one o’clock, we ate a light lunch, and I remember Mom and Dad were flabbergasted that the weather was holding the way it was; Dad said that it didn’t make any sense at all. But soon after lunch I noticed that they had gotten a little tipsy, and Dad remarked it was a shame that the little whisky bottle was no bigger than it was. Still, they had plenty of beer, or so it seemed to me, at least. Uncle Sveinn always gave Dad lots of beer when he came to port, and Dad was in the habit of storing it for particular occasions. I remember that one time he had amassed fifty beers in storage so he could have them with his old schoolmates who were going to get together and celebrate someone or other’s birthday, but then Uncle Sveinn came to visit, as he often did, bringing a few extra beers, and he and Dad drank practically all fifty beers that evening. Sveinn slept on the sofa out in the living room, and when he woke the next morning, very late, he woke Dad, and they drank the few remaining beers. I remember how Mom sat in the kitchen all day listening to the radio. It was like the living room wasn’t spacious enough for all three of them.
But now there was no Uncle Sveinn visiting. However, they had kept bringing him up in their conversations, something to do with a new washing machine and some smoked ham which Mom had been going to sell to her sister in Eskifjörður. But around three o’clock, when Dad had started to complain about the weather, that they would simply burn right up in this sun, he suggested to Mom that the two of them take a little walk around the neighborhood. Mom didn’t think that was the wisest idea, leaving us siblings behind alone. I suggested that we all go together, but there was no interest in that, and we continued sitting there on the porch watching Rannveig playing in front of the summerhouse. Once in a while, she clambered up onto the porch and asked me to come play with her. I didn’t feel like it.
The cottage was surrounded by thick shrubs, and although the other cottages in the area weren’t far off, you couldn’t see anything but the roof of the nearest one. The sun had woken up the devil, Dad said, and I felt like we were overseas, even though I’d never in my life set foot on foreign soil. The birds worked hard at making themselves heard, as though they didn’t trust that they would see the sun again that summer, and Rannveig kept pointing at each of them in the air and shouting “swallow.” When one bird sat on the railing outside the porch, and Rannveig pointed at it and, as before, shouted “swallow,” Dad burst out laughing: “The child seems to want us to keep drinking.”
Sometimes I felt like Dad was more fond of Rannveig than of me.
When he raised the idea that he and Mom could just stroll out into the bushes, I made it clear to them that I could always look after Rannveig. Mom remained reluctant to leave the two of us behind, but by the time Dad had kissed her a few times on the mouth, and whispered to her for a bit, she let herself be swayed, saying, in a voice that sounded a little strange, like she was suddenly very tired, “Okay.” But all the same, they were not going to be gone long. She told me to watch my little sister like a hawk, and to try to get her to pee in the potty. Then they disappeared into the undergrowth, and I heard Mom catch herself on a tree; she winced so loudly that I thought she was going to turn right back. But then I heard Dad talking about a clearing he knew nearby, and how Mom only needed to bear with the branches briefly. Then their voices faded away, and Rannveig and I were left alone together.
It had become dreadfully hot. I saw that Dad had left behind a half-full glass of beer, sitting there beside his chair—they had taken an unopened can along with them on their little stroll—and I poured some beer out of his glass into my shot tumbler and swallowed it down. I remember that I found the taste surprisingly good. Rannveig definitely saw me do it, because no sooner was I done setting down my shot glass and putting Dad’s glass back down, in the exact same place as he had left it, than she shouted to me that she was thirsty. I felt so cozy there in the sun lounger that I had zero desire to go run errands for my little sister; I told to her to fetch herself some juice from the fridge, and I would help her with the glass. She tried to tell me that that wouldn’t work, that I had to help her while Mom and Dad were away, but when she realized that I wasn’t going to stir from my chair, she went sluggishly up the stairs to the porch, done in by the sun and from being outdoors. She disappeared into the cottage. I snuck myself more fills of my shot glass and before I even knew it, I had practically emptied the beer Dad had left behind. In truth, there was probably only a single shot left in his glass, but I did not think he would miss what I had drunk, and justified my opinion by thinking about the sheer amount he and Uncle Sveinn had drunk that one time in the living room at home.
I dozed off.
I’m not sure how long I slept, but all at once I woke up, as though someone had startled me; I sprang up from my chair and ran into the cottage. The first thing I saw was the juice pitcher beside the fridge, but once I was properly inside I saw Rannveig lying face down beside the stairs that led up to the sleeping loft. She was clutching my tree-boat. I held her around her belly and rolled her over, but she did not move. I pinched her cheeks, without getting any reaction from her, and all at once I was so scared I ran out of the house and began to call loudly for Mom and Dad. I waited on the porch a little while for a response, and then I ran right down the stairs and out into the bushes. They were so thick that I found I could hardly make any headway, it was like I had been grabbed around my right foot and I fell flat on my face in the stinging vegetation. I called out again for my parents, without getting any answer. My foot stung, and when I reached down and touched it I found it was bleeding, I thought to myself how I would never be able to stand up again, that Dad and Mom were never going to find me, and Rannveig—I did not dare think about Rannveig. I remember just how I lay there surrounded by those repulsive trees, and how all at once I began to think about what Dad had been saying about pets. I felt dizzy. I imagined we owned a dog, and I started wondering whether he was intelligent enough to run after Mom and Dad and let them know that something was up. But then the thought popped into mind that if the dog was that bright, he would surely also point out to Dad that I had snuck beer from his glass.
Again I shouted for my parents, and got no answer. The sun was so strong and the silence so absolute that I could well imagine that I was deep in the Sahara Desert. Except that had I been there, I would have been able to keep going forward without getting stuck in the trees.
Bragi Ólafsson is the author of several books of poetry and short stories, along with six novels, including The Pets (a finalist for the Icelandic Literature Prize) and The Ambassador (finalist for the Nordic Council Literature Prize and recipient of the Icelandic Bookseller’s Award as the best novel of the year), both of which are available from Open Letter Books. The Narrator will be published by Open Letter this fall.
Lytton Smith’s recent translations include works by Kristín Ómarsdóttir, Ófeigur Sigurðsson, and Guðbergur Bergsson. His recent poetry chapbook, My Radar Data Knows Its Thing, was published by Foundlings in February. He teaches at SUNY Geneseo.