The novel Höll minninganna in an English translation. Also published by Faber and Faber in London in 2004.
From Walking Into the Night:
High up in the oak by the walkway outside my window bluebirds have made their nest. I watch their comings and goings through a pair of binoculars whenever I have time; there are four chicks in the nest. Yesterday the male made eighteen journeys in just half an hour for food. He never seemed to come home emptyhanded, if you can say that of a bird. I’ve been trying to draw them but have lost some of my old skill through lack of practice. I always thought the drawing I did of the black-tailed godwit – the one we hung in the study – was best. I remember how hard it was to capture the shadings of its chestnut breast; it’s as though I was working on it only yesterday. It was around noon on a Saturday. The sound of the hammering drifted in through the window, the smell of pancakes carried from the kitchen, and I looked up to see Maria closing the gate to the street and strolling up the path to the house. She looked dreamy, and paused on the way; I seem to remember she was holding a buttercup in her hand ...
But now I’m out of practice and can’t capture the blue sheen on the birds’ backs and wings, even though I can picture it and know it from the sea and the sky. In fact, I came across a dead bird down on the hillside the other day and brought it home so I wouldn’t have to rely on my faulty memory. But it didn’t work – there was no way I could find the right shade, even with my new watercolors.
The steamer I wrote you about will leave tomorrow morning. The warehouses are now packed with iron and cement for the Chief’s endless building projects here on the hill. I dreamed last night that I sailed away with the ship; I was wearing the blue hat I bought in Copenhagen, waving from the deck. I’ve dreamed this dream before but this time I woke up disoriented because it’s years since I’ve seen that hat or even thought about it. Could I have left it behind?
He folded the letter carefully; five densely written sheets, a polished, almost feminine hand, in blue ink. He didn’t date it and wrote nothing on the envelope but her name. He didn’t seal it but opened the bottom drawer of the desk and laid it on top of the other two letters, next to a small boat whittled from a piece of wood that bore the name Einar RE 1 and a pebble from home. He laid it carefully on top of the other two letters and decided not to wonder if he would ever send them.
(Walking into the Night, New York: Pantheon Books 2003, p. 15-16)
