Krýsuvik

Empty old churches
Roads never paved
Blessings were offered
Nothing was saved
A water-stained bible
A cross, nothing more
Empty old churches
With dust on the floor

We took a long drive to the south coast of Iceland today, to some
places that Disa hasn´t seen before. We drove west almost to the
airport in Keflavik, then south past the steam clouds of the famous
Blue Lagoon. This is a part of Iceland that makes you think they
could´ve saved a lot of money and filmed the moon landing here.
No trees, few birds, unpaved roads, miles and miles of roughened
volcanic terrain without so much as a house.

In an hour we reach the shores of the Atlantic, a town called Grindavik.
There is an old church converted to a daycare, a couple stores, a faded
Michelin sign on an abandoned tin garage, a few kids in windbreakers
riding their bicycles, a group of Icelandic ponies standing in the cold
wind like statues. A little ways farther there is a golf course with no one
on it this rainy day, green fairways running along the Atlantic coastline,
one to a green set against the stone foundation of an old house that the
waves flood up against, flagstick bent 30-degrees by the fierce winds.

The end of the land.

We drive east along the coast, the roads worsening. There are no guard
rails, and the edges of the road slant away toward the rocks and black
sand below. There are so many blind hills on this narrow road that you
drive in bull-low, in case you come upon another car coming in the
opposite direction. About halfway up a mountain road, we see a cyclist
in rain gear, loaded saddlebags straddling both front and back wheels,
his face bent downward under his helmet. Those Tour de France riders
have it easy compared to this two-wheel vagabond. We pull slowly by
him. He´s too deep in his wild gestalt to even notice us.

At Krýsuvik - a place not a town - there is a small wooden church up
the green hillside. It has stopped raining and the sun lights up this
remote landscape with surreal gold and greens. The church is of grey
unpainted wood, apparently abandoned, and unlocked. There are a
few graves outside it, one of a painter, the other of a former head of
the count, each marked with a peel-paint white cross. Cracking open
the rust-sealed door and bending our heads low to enter, we find
four rows of pews, lightly dusted. The sun enters through the small side
windows, brightens the altar, where two candles stand. A few blankets
are carefully folded on a stand in the corner, under a black and white
photo of a gentleman whom I presume was the last to conduct a service
under this roof.

There is a water-stained bible, some pages stuck together, and what we
discover is a guestbook. I look through it with Disa. There, amid the
many Icelandic names, are scribbled together two names that I recognize:
Lonf Vawe and Frank Religin. Theirs are the only signatures without a
country of origin beside them. I ought to have guessed they´d have been
here before me.

Another car has parked below us on the edge of the black road. Two
older men climb up to the church. Their deepened faces have that glacial,
wind-hewn look of those who´ve lived on this island all their lives. Disa
speaks with them in her native language while I wander out among the
graves, light a cigarette, look on down the valley where a few sheep
nibble what vegetation they can find up the side of the ragged mountain.
There are piled stones here and there, random graves that bear no names.

Farther down the road I can see clouds of steam rising. Disa mentioned
something about there being a hot spring out here, a geyser. That must be
it, I think, more evidence of the subterranean fires that we know are there,
but rarely speak of. The men talk to Disa in hushed voices, what hair they
have left being pulled toward the sky by the wind.

Krýsuvík.

I take a draw of smoke, let it ride out of my nostrils. I´d need binoculars to
be certain that my eyes aren´t deceiving me, but higher up than the sheep,
on a rocky plateau, there appear to be two riders moving on horseback,
their hunched silhouettes bobbing slowly up and down, up and down
against the brightening sky.

DL