“Jacob Senior was a great shooting enthusiast; they were his,” Matthías replied. “Jacob Junior also went shooting with his father, and was a reasonable shot.”
“Is there ammunition here for the guns?”
“I expect so, but Jacob Junior probably kept it in a safe place.”
“Can you tell me why one of the dining chairs has been moved into the parlor?” Halldór asked, as the two men made their way through the parlor toward the dining room.
“No,” Matthías declared, shaking his head.
In the dining room was a large sideboard for china; some of the doors were glazed, revealing the collection of beautiful plates inside. There was a small trolley in one corner of the room.
They passed through the door that led from the dining room into the kitchen. And Matthías paused, looking around the room. “Jacob and his mother showed great persistence in putting up with this turn-of-the-century kitchen all these years. The refrigerator was the only thing that was bought new, but it was hidden inside one of the cupboards. There is also an electric stove.”
Halldór examined the utensils hanging on the walls. “Has this stuff been in use here all the time?” he asked.
“No, hardly,” Matthías replied. “I assume that Sveinborg has cooking equipment that she keeps somewhere. These things are more museum items. Jacob Junior even collected old kitchen equipment from other houses to display here.”
“There is a coal-fired range here; is it in working order?” Halldór asked.
“Yes, it is connected to the house’s main chimney stack, which has three flues. There is also a fireplace in the laundry room in the basement. Come, I’ll show you all this on the plan of the house that is kept in the studio.”
To the right of the house’s main entrance was a door leading to the extension. “Jacob Senior had this studio built in 1935 to provide a work space for himself and his assistants,” explained Matthías.
It was a spacious room, about twelve by twenty-six feet, containing a large drafting table with a complicated wrought-iron support that allowed one to adjust the table’s height and position. A heavy counterweight made it easy to set the angle of the table, and a drafting machine with two long rulers was attached to its top edge. There was a chair with a screw thread so it could be made higher or lower by turning the seat. Halldór’s eye was caught by the large framed drawings, white lines on a dark blue base, hanging on the walls. He examined the one nearest to him. “Reykjavik Station, Scale 1:2000, 1923.” The drawing was a rough sketch of Reykjavik city center, showing the outlines of the principal buildings and Tjörnin Lake, but also incorporating a railroad station and train tracks.
The railroad station had been drawn on the corner of Skothúsvegur and Sóleyjargata, where the Hljómskáli building had later been built; Birkihlíd could also be seen nearby. The tracks were shown running southbound along Sóleyjargata, and northbound along Lækjargata toward the harbor. There was a legend with explanations and references by letter or number to the various features of the drawing: station building, office and heated warehouse, freight shed, freight-loading bay, weighbridge, workshop and locomotive shed, turntable, ash hopper, water tank, main running tracks, passenger sidings, freight sidings, freight yard, harbor yard, locomotive sidings.
“So they must have done a great deal of the planning for this railroad,” Halldór said.
“Yes, there was a lot of work behind this. Jacob Senior was very proud of these drawings,” Matthías said.
“These are photocopies of the originals, aren’t they?”
“Yes, that is correct. The originals are somewhere in safekeeping. I remember helping my brother Jacob make this copy.”
“How was that done?”
“The original was fastened into a frame over a sheet of paper that had been treated with chemicals, ammonia among other things; the stench was dreadful. The frame was then held in a window, and the part of the copy exposed to daylight turned blue, while those parts under the pen markings remained white.”
Halldór moved to the next drawing. It showed a railroad track leading eastward from Reykjavik over Mosfellsheidi, north beyond Lake Thingvallavatn, and from there south toward Ölfusá River, and east to Thjórsá River.
“Is this not an odd route for a railroad?” Halldór asked.
“It seems like it today, but at the time that they were planning the railroad, the heath over Hellisheidi was considered too high and steep to be crossed. Mosfellsheidi was much flatter. Later on, the route through Threngsli was discovered, and subsequently all plans were based on that one.”