25.5.2009
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One day when Didi Stina had a day off at the hospital, Maggi, the fisherman, came by with some fish. She called him Cod-biter and thought the nickname was terrific. They had known each other since they were kids. He grew up with his mother who lived directly across the street from the house where Didi Stina's foster parents lived. He was always a bit of a boozer, splendidly careless, but otherwise a fine fellow. He quit school before finishing compulsory education and worked here and there. Then he got married?divorced?then married again and divorced again.
He had met Didi Stina downtown just after Kalli Sandfeldt had come back from America, and they had moved into a new, sunny house in Fossvogur. Then Cod-biter, that is to say Maggi, Didi Stina's life-long friend, had gotten a job on a trawler. She invited him home, and from then on, every time his trawler docked in town, he brought her some fish. Then he usually had some Icelandic schnapps (brennivin) in the inner pocket of his overcoat. Usually he sat with her in the kitchen and mixed the brennivin with black coffee that was sweetened with some sugar. He always drank this out of a glass?never out of a cup or mug.
He was big, a real fisherman, with a slightly ruddy complexion, and he did not have a trace of inferiority complex. After divorcing his second wife, he was foot-loose and fancy-free, a little crude, and he always smelled a bit like a fisherman.
Didi Stina sat on the kitchen counter and listened.
"If I'd only gotten a wife like you."
She laughed at him and swung her feet in and out from the kitchen counter where she sat.
"Boy, are you pretty," he said.
She laughed and enjoyed his lines. She had a small glass that she sipped from.
"Do you know, Didi Stina, I haven't had a woman in a whole year."
"What's the matter, man, are you sick?" Then she laughed and swung her feet in and out.
"Some say I'm crude. Not true. Inside I'm very sensitive." He had stood up and was looking at the woman where she sat swinging her feet. She was blushing a little.
He walked right up to her there on the counter and put his arms around her.
"Whoa, now. No monkey business," she said and tried to push him away. He pressed her against him and tried to kiss her.
"Cut it out, now."
It was always this way when Cod-biter came to visit Didi Stina.
"I am so lonely, you know?"
"Stop crushing me, man," she said. By then he usually got down to business?the same as he tried every time he visited Didi Stina. First, she had thought it was funny, but the time came when she began to find it uncomfortable: "Just the tip?just once, then I'll never mention it again?I promise."
"Jesus, cut it out!" she usually said, or something like that. Finally, though, he got to kiss her on the cheek and a little on the mouth. Then he said good-bye and left. When his ship came in next, this was repeated?he brought her some fish and drank brennivin in black coffee with a little sugar.