27.12.2006
Twentyseven
XXVlI
http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/DestinyDesperation.mp3
Jon Jonsson hurries eating the buttered bread with smoked meat and salami, finding it quite delicious with the hot chocolate, which is never on the table but on big holidays.
Every other day this drink's just called cocoa, but so what Jon is thinking when he pushes his chair out from the linoleum-covered kitchen-table.
He hasn't any time to bother about this sudden change in his mother's household.
He'd only decided to join his mum at the coffee-table, because she'd told him that she'd made the table-corner especially elegant, for she wanted to discuss something very vital to his future.
Nevertheless she hadn´t said anything important yet, other than ger'so'vel (be my guest), when she handed him whatever he needed each time.
-What was the important subject you had to inform me about, mamma.
Please be quick about it , Jon says showing no more interest in other people's affairs, than he ever did.
What was more important than his own future-planning, but when he looks into his mother's eyes he's only able to see deep sorrow.
Large tears are running down her beautifully shaped nose from her a little squint-eyed eyelids.
He realizes that in reality his mum's a little
beauty-queen, who´s obviously been in a horrid marriage with a real thug called Jon Jonsson senior, who'd treated her just like she were just a rag or a bondwoman.
But the son had never speculated anything about it;
she just being his mum and of course his father's words are laws in their home.
When he was younger and before he'd encountered with the Beings he and his mamma had often had intermittent talks.
She'd told him that before she'd met his pabbi (dad) in the Cross in Njardvik, which had been the most popular meeting-place for the young people in those days, she'd made plans of going to the medical school at the university in the succession of finishing the Menntaskoli in Reykjavík (junior-college), where she was on her third year of four.
Weekdays she was living with her cousin in Reykjavik, but came south to Keflavik (50 km.) with the bus every weekend and holidays.
Sometimes she went along with her friends supposedly dancing in the Cross, where she might meet her future lover the girls used to giggle about.
In those days it wasn´t believed to be OK if an eighteen year old girl was seen with an older man.
The Cross, as it was called was a large barrack with corrugated iron, which the US Red Cross had built intended for the recreation of the garrison on
Keflavik Airport during WW ll around 1942.
The barrack was located on a site in the village of Njardvik, which lies close to the town of Keflavik
and where there were living a few big landowners.
The Americans named the barrack Red Cross Recreation Hall.
Not any Icelanders were allowed to enjoy the recreation or dances there, except perhabs it's Icelandic staff and ladies who were invited by the American soldiers.
After the war some administrators of the Ungmennafelag Njardvikur (youth club) and the
Kvenfelag (women´s organisation) wanted to buy the barrack thus getting their own place for entertainment.
Magnus Olafsson, Mangi in the Shed, who was quite a wealthy farmer and the owner of a large boat for fishing, volunteered to lend them 30,000 Icelandic kroners for the purchase.
Back then it was more money than most people made in their lifetime.
When the Cross had changed its nationality it became a frequent recreation hall of people from Keflavik, Njarðvik and other places.
All kinds of recreations were there,
e.g. children got a chance to walk around a
christmas-tree,
but most famous were the weekend dances sought by people from all over, if not for dancing, then for watching and listening to popular bands, like the KK-sixtet in the fifties or Hljomar (sounds), the first Icelandic pop-group or the Icelandic version of the Beatles, who became famous performing there in the sixties.
The accordion-evenings were also popular.
-But that was just what happened in my case, my dear Jon, mamma told him looking in his eyes with her tear-swollen eyes, he recalls, just the way she´s doing right now.
-Where we the girls were sitting so very well mannered at tables or on benches by the walls, waiting and hoping that some young man who was looking for a dance partner would notice you and ask for a dance, I noticed this very handsome man, who obviously had noticed me as well.
I became quite excited, where I watched him walking ...
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