Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

promoted to head of department. And indeed
Jóhannes had had the same discussion with all three of Snaer’s predecessors over the years.
    The fact was that Jóhannes was a brilliant teacher of Icelandic literature. And language for that matter. Three of his former pupils held positions in the Faculty of Icelandic at the
University of Iceland; another one had won the Icelandic Literature Prize the year before. He inspired people to love their country’s language. And when push came to shove, all heads of
department respected that.
    Except, perhaps, Snaer.
    The younger man cleared his throat. ‘You have probably heard the rumours that with the government spending cuts the school is going to have to reduce its teaching staff by ten per
cent?’
    ‘No. I don’t listen to staffroom tattle,’ Jóhannes said, lying. Of course he listened to staffroom tattle.
    ‘The Principal has told me that we need to lose one member of staff from this department. He and I have discussed it, and we feel that as the teacher who is the least willing to embrace
what the school is trying to do, indeed what the government is trying to do to raise educational standards—’
    Jóhannes couldn’t contain himself. ‘Raise standards? Lower them more like.’
    Snaer ignored him. ‘—that you should be the one to leave.’
    Suddenly Jóhannes realized what Snaer was saying. No one had ever called his bluff before. ‘You can’t be serious?’
    ‘I am serious. The Principal is waiting to talk to you in his office now. Unless you want to change your mind? If you could be persuaded to teach what you are supposed to teach, you could
be a very good educator.’
    ‘Educator! What kind of a word is that?’ Jóhannes demanded.
    ‘Just because your father was a novelist—’
    ‘A great novelist!’
    ‘A novelist. It doesn’t mean that your position is untouchable.’
    ‘What about the younger members of staff? Why get rid of your most experienced person?’
    ‘You mean someone like Elísabet? She’s young, she’s hardworking, she’s enthusiastic, she teaches what she’s supposed to teach and does it well.’
    Jóhannes’s indignation subsided a touch. ‘I know. I taught her when she was a pupil here.’ Elísabet had been teaching at the school a year and a half, and she was
popular with staff and pupils. She had a genuine love of Icelandic.
    ‘And she will no doubt go on to teach many fine educators herself. Unless I fire her today, of course.’
    ‘It’s all the illiterate bankers’ fault,’ Jóhannes grumbled. ‘If they hadn’t got the country into this mess there wouldn’t be these
cuts.’
    ‘You mean if someone had just taught them about a couple of berserkers raging around a lava field a thousand years ago, everything would be different?’
    ‘It may have been,’ said Jóhannes defensively.
    ‘Well, it’s a bit late now. You and I have an appointment with the Principal.’
    Jóhannes left the Principal’s office and headed straight for the car park. The Principal had been more polite than Snaer, more respectful, but his message was
clear.
    Jóhannes’s career as a teacher at that school was over.
    He had offered to give Jóhannes the rest of the day off, and Jóhannes had accepted. He needed to get out of the school right away.
    As he drove the couple of kilometres from the school to his home in Vesturbaer, Jóhannes’s brain was in turmoil. His bluff had been called as he should always have known one day it
would be. Why should he be the only teacher in Iceland who got away with ignoring the National Curriculum? Sure, there were famous people in the Icelandic literary world whom he had taught as
schoolchildren, but would they really care about what happened to him? ‘I thought old Jóhannes had already retired,’ would be their response.
    Jóhannes was only fifty-five, but people thought he was older. He was physically fit, big, lean and erect with a shock of thick white hair and a craggy face, but he behaved like someone
ten years older. He wore tweed jackets and a tie, he smoked a pipe; he was from another era.
    He pulled up in front of his house in Bárugata. It was a big house for a teacher, on a street that had been popular in the old days with sea captains, since from the upper storeys of its
buildings you could look down the hill to the Old Harbour. He had grown up there; his parents had lived and died there, and after his father’s death he had inherited it. The house was built
for