I met Monika once, as she is now studying in the maritime academy in Reykjavík. I met her with her new friend, a tall captain of a whaler.
She didn't have the braids or the dirty fingers I had grown accustomed to. She wore her hair in a knot on the top of her head, her fingernails had grown long and clean and she really looked like a lady in her dress and long overcoat.
We greeted each other politely but distantly like old acquaintances. She introduced me to her friend and we shook hands. His name is Halldór and he is a captain of one of the whalers, a steam powered old ship only operating in the summer. Monika was completing her licence to manage ships up to 200 tons, and after the final exam she would go home to Bildalia. The young Siggi was now working in her place with her father on his boat.
-My father will soon retire, so I will take over and Siggi will be my first mate. She said. -Siggi is a hard working young man and a good companion.
I knew that Siggi is also managing the Bildalian Post newspaper alongside his fisherman job.
A talented young man, that's true.
I've been thinking a lot about my friend and teacher Bartholomew and his part in this story. He is now working with the research team in Bildalia. They have built a high power radio transmitter facility in the valley of Otradalur and the area is now covered with antennas and radars.
-It's like a steel forest has grown in the valley. Said my friend Eldar in one of his letters.
I took a decision one weekend to go and visit my old school up on the highlands. Helga my good friend and teacher is now the headmaster of the old Skálholt school during the winter and in the summer she manages the secretive occult school for the gifted. Skálholt has been Iceland's most respected university since 1056 and until the university of Iceland was founded in 1911. Now the school is a boarding school for privileged children. It is considered a very conservative and old fashioned school today but it is still very popular among the Iceland´s elite. Only 30-50 students get admission, though hundreds may apply.
I took the bus from Reykjavík to Skálholt early in a Saturday morning and just before noon I stood at the gate of the schoolyard. Everything was silent.
An elderly woman came out of the front door and walked across the square towards the bell tower who stood beside the old church. She looked at her watch hanging from a chain on her chest. I reached for my pocket watch and saw the time was almost twelve.
At one minute to twelve she pulled the bell cord and within seconds the school building came alive.
I adjusted my watch one minute forward. Helga was a person of precision, her watch would be more accurate than mine.
She noticed me standing on the other side of the gate and peered her eyes through her little round spectacles.
-Is this you Ingimar? she asked and smiled. -Have you conquered the world yet?
I opened the black gate towering me and entered the school yard.
-No, not yet. I replied.
I walked towards her and embraced her. She seemed much smaller than the last time I saw her, she must be at least seventy years old by now.
We walked inside the schoolhouse arm in arm and into the library where we used to spend hours together practicing her methods in reading, many years ago.
The library was a round hall at the east end of the building. A large window stretched from the floor to the ceiling and it was the only light in the room. The walls were covered with books five or six meters up and a little balcony separated two floors of the round room. A black iron ladder went up against the wall. It had wheels on both ends so it was easy to move it to any location within the library. I remember I used to jump on the ladder and try to slide on it all the way around the hall.
Underneath the tall window was the desk and behind the desk the tall back chair of the headmaster. Now the chair belonged to Helga.
We found a comfortable place to sit in the centre of the library. A large padded sofa that still smelled like the leather was new. Helga lid a lamp on the table in front of the sofa and I could see on her face that she was about to sell me a secret. Her left eyebrow moved up while the other was down.
-There are many kinds of knowledge, both hidden and
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