January 2002
“Sunday in Reykjavik,” sighs Heidi as she places a cappuccino in front of me at Cafe de Paris “For us it means a walk or a movie. Or a spa.”
In fact, the latter is what we’ve planned: The Blue Lagoon—geothermal seawater rich in mineral salts, silica and algae.
That’s where I leave the gang, welcoming the opportunity to go one-on-one with Kristjan to fathom what’s beneath the icy surface.
A 40-something father of three, Kristjan is happiest when alone in glacial wilderness exploring nature’s most astonishing landscapes. For this guy, no place is too remote. When he doesn’t have a paying customer, he goes anyway. Every trip, he says, he sees something even more astonishing than the last.
Kristjan’s father was one of Reykjavik’s toughest fishermen, never missing a day in freezing waters, no matter how strong a blizzard blew. Fishermen would sit around a card table on particularly brutal days and wait for someone else to go first. Inevitably, Kristjan’s father would rise and go out. The others would follow.
Although proud of his country and heritage, Kristjan acknowledges its flaws. I ask him what the good burghers think about waking up to frozen piss and puke and broken glass every Saturday and Sunday morning.
He tells me that berserk-ness, in its current form, has been going on for 40 years and that The Thing (Iceland’s parliament) has been looking at ways to curtail this collective catharsis. To complicate matters, he adds, drug abuse is on the rise despite strict penalties. “Ecstasy, cannabis, cocaine,” sighs Kristjan. “Ninety percent of our crime is drug-related.”
“I’ve only seen one police car since I arrived,” I say.
“It is a problem,” says Kristjan. “Not enough police.” His pet peeve, though, is strip clubs. “There used to be one. Now, seven. They bring in girls from Lithuania and Russia with five-week work permits, and rotate them. It’s not enough, so strip clubs are now trying to recruit Icelandic girls. They’re not interested.”
Tourism, says Kristjan, has doubled in five years. “We have no room for more.”
An influx of foreign visitors is good for business, but Kristjan does not believe growing tourism is good for Iceland, whatever revenues it brings to his country or to him personally.
“Where do they come from?” I ask.
“Mostly American and German. But now Japanese,” says Kristjan. “The Japanese come only to see the aurora borealis. I drive them out of the city, for three or four hours at night, looking for northern lights.”
“I haven’t seen one dog since I arrived,” I say. “What’s with that?”
“We don’t have them in the city any more,” is all Kristjan will say on this topic. (Further investigation reveals that Icelanders have a phobia about wormy dog poop. So no dogs.)
Later, I manage to track down a video of Angels of the Universe with English subtitles to take home with me.
Van Stein, Floater and I sit down for dinner at Naust—the oldest restaurant in Reykjavik, in Iceland’s oldest building, shaped like a ship with peepholes for windows overlooking the harbor. I opt for lamb in barbecue sauce, and it is the finest, most tender lamb I have ever eaten.
Four successive nights, four different restaurants, not one disappointing dish.
Van Stein still operates on borrowed energy, interest mounting. His next mission: a trek with Kristjan to hunt northern lights for a painting.
Exfiltration?
“What must Kristjan think?” I say, leaning back, arms butterflied behind my head. “Three Americans and one Scot visiting his icy country in bleakest winter. One asks to see the local madhouse, another wants to paint it. We’ve come, we tell him, to go berserk. Imagine, if he is an informant for the Icelandic Intelligence Service, what must he be reporting back? Two guys trek off to Geysir, one gets geyser-whacked. What are the other two up to?”
“Huh?” says Van Stein. “What are you two up to?”
“Exactly,” I say. “Erik the Red makes friends with a barmaid. Another diversion we’ve concocted? Or maybe she’s an Icelandic spy, a plant?”
“She’s learning Russian,” whispers Floater.
“Of course.” I smile.
“What do you mean?” asks Van Stein, more bewildered than ever.
“She’s not really a barmaid,” I say. “She’s a Russian spy. Probably weaseled her way in on a temporary work visa through a strip club. The SVR has been using strip clubs to plant swallows throughout Western Europe.”
“Swallows?”
“Honey-pot agents. Beautiful young women who seduce influential, middle-aged men who know secrets. Pillow talk.”
“And you think…? But why would they be interested in… us?”
I wink. “Why do you think you were recruited for this trip?”
Van Stein shrugs. “I paint?”
“Exactly. You’re the decoy. They’re watching you go to strange places at strange hours while we do the real work in town, hiding in plain sight.”
Van Stein glances around the restaurant. “Is… someone… watching us?”
“The Russians, for one. But their swallow is too late, the job’s done.”
“What job?”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “Our mission was to exfiltrate a Russian defector.”
“Exfiltrate?”
“Get him out of here, to the USA. He was smuggled by boat to Iceland and needed a new passport for onward travel.”
“And you…?
I check my watch. “By now he’s on the Eastern Shore, the Chesapeake, in a safehouse. Or I would not be telling you this.”
“I don’t get it,” says Van Stein. “The passport… how…? When…?”
“Remember my private drink in London?”
Kristjan enters the restaurant, looking for Van Stein.
“This is all very secret,” I whisper. “Assume our driver reports everything he hears to them.”
Van Stein bolts out the restaurant with Kristjan, energized by intrigue.
Floater looks at me long and hard. “Is this true?”
“Of course not. Maybe it’ll convey into a decent painting.”
Floater shakes his head. “You know, I can’t tell any more what’s true and what isn’t with you. You really had him going. And me too.” He pauses. “I wasn’t kidding about the barmaid. She really does speak Russian. And she was asking loads of questions about you after you left today.”
We make our way to Kaffi Brennislan: two belts of Stroh rum, through-the-roof proof, by the picture window.
Across the square, from a parked car, a Russian intelligence officer trains his binoculars upon us.
Departure
En route to Keflavik Airport early the next morning, we pass the ugly building that so offended our driver when we drove past four days earlier.
“That’s not really an aluminum smelting plant,” I whisper to Van Stein. “They’re doing genetic experiments on these pure-bred Icelandic people.”
“Really?”
“Not only. They’re using mental patients from the Klepp. And worse.”
“How can it get any worse?”
“It’s run by Dr. Mengele’s illegitimate son from Uruguay.”
At the airport I buy souvenirs: a plaster elf and a puffin puppet, stuff the elf up the puffin for protection. Elf not happy, I pen into my journal. Puffin none too pleased either.
Van Stein buys an assortment of postcards. “Here.” He passes me a picture of an Icelandic volcano in progress. “I found hell.”
I study the image. “Not only,” I say. “Look at that.”
Van Stein looks closer. “Oh my God!” The hair atop his head stands on end, butterfly lift-off mode. “It’s-it’s-it’s… the devil! Thip!” He whips back major spittle from his lower lip.
“It took us four days,” I say, “but we found the bastard.”
If we were manic and animated on the flight over, we are the exact opposite on the flight back to London. The bank from which Van Stein borrowed energy recalled its loan, with interest compounded. Erik the Red joins the artist and Floater in a chorus of snores.
Alpha 26 is waiting for us at Heathrow, looking more like a berserker than anything we’d seen in Iceland.
“We found the devil.” I show him Van Stein’s postcard. “See?”
The devil is in the detail.
Alpha 26 seems moderately impressed, most unlike him. “Not the devil,” he sniffs. “But one of its disciples. Your only weapon is the love you have in your heart. Hold on…” Alpha 26 peers right, left and ahead through his windshield. “This is where, years ago, I raped a police horse. It wasn’t even good looking. That’s what comes of smoking ointment as a kid.”
Creativity & Madness
Just one day back in Montecito, our trippy Iceland experience trip feels like a surreal dream.
I watch Angels of Universe, a story about an Icelandic artist who goes mad, gets committed to the Klepp, is discharged, kills himself.
Sigur Ros (the CD I’d purchased) sounds like a fetus trying to make sense of what might lurk outside the womb—a metaphor, perhaps, for existence in Iceland (or anywhere): Brighter in January than expected.
But way darker beneath the surface.
Suffering jet lag, Van Stein and I meet in Starbucks at 5 a.m. for caffeine and post-trip (psycho) analysis.
“We tapped into something,” says the artist, shaking his head, wondering what we brought back. “We went out there all light and breezy, joking about berserk. And we found the real thing.” He pauses. “There’s more to this, you know. Berserk-ness in Iceland was just the initiation.”
An initiation into what became our Surreal Bounce Odyssey, journeying along the razor’s edge that separates creativity from madness.