House of Evidence(96)

Klemenz smiled at the memory and wiped a few tears from his eyes.

“I had gone to a concert at the Music Society where he was playing. Afterward there was coffee, and I noticed that he was watching me from across the room. Of course, I had often fallen for heterosexual men, and that had naturally come to nothing, but I sensed that this man might be different. And, as it transpired, Matthías was a homosexual.”

Klemenz got up and paced the floor slowly.

“We got to know each other very gradually. It took me a long time to get Matthías to respond to his feelings. When he finally did, and we became lovers, I had to use all available means to counteract the shame that his upbringing had instilled in him. But we got there in the end, and we enjoyed every moment of our time together. The big upheaval came when my father caught us in my bed together. Though I was nineteen at the time, I looked young for my age, and Father regarded me as a child still. He was convinced that Matthías had seduced me, an innocent boy, and so reported him to the authorities. Old Alfred was summoned, and he immediately renounced Matthías forevermore. Jacob Senior saved whatever could be saved of the situation. He got them to agree to drop the case, provided Matthías left the country. I was not allowed to see him before he left, and that almost finished me off. I was ill for weeks, but in the end, I secretly met with Jacob and told him the full story. He understood it as much as he could, and advised me to convince my parents to let me go abroad and learn to be a waiter, which is what I did. I left Iceland in the second half of 1928. By then, Matthías was in Berlin and had started his cello studies at the music academy, which were going well, as he had learned German from his old music teacher. We met again in Berlin, and were now able to live together; I began my course, and life was wonderful. We got to know a large group of homosexual men and women, and we were able to live there in an incredibly tolerant environment. I worked while going to school, and very soon Matthías also began to earn money playing the cello. We severed all connections with Iceland, with the exception of Jacob; Matthías and Jacob kept up a correspondence.”

“Did you never come back to Iceland?” Hrefna asked.

“No, we had no desire to do that.”

“So how did Matthías get mixed up in the monarchy business?” Hrefna asked.

Klemenz laughed softly. “Jacob Senior was working on promoting his railroad company, and was negotiating with German companies during the years before the war. As a way to build up working capital, he became an envoy for some eccentrics who wanted to find a king for Iceland in Europe. Jacob tested the opinions of some of the aristocracy here, in confidence, but von Kuppel became rather too interested, and tried to get the support of people of influence in Germany so that he would be the only candidate for the office when the invitation arrived. Then, during the war, he became a bit confused, and began to believe that he had actually been offered the position. That was how Jacob’s and Matthías’s names came to be associated with this matter.”

“How successful was Jacob with the railroad enterprise in Germany?”

“That’s another story.” He sighed. “Jacob was well received, and there were German businesses prepared to assist him with the company. But it all had to be played down in Iceland because of the political situation, so it was agreed that Mannheim Stahlwerke would build two trains and contribute these as equity in Isländische Bahn AG. That company would then lease the trains to the Iceland Railroad Company.”

“Was Matthías involved in any of this?”

“Yes, unfortunately, he agreed to become his brother’s agent in Germany.”

“Tell me more about that.”

“By 1937, homosexual people in Germany began to be persecuted. I wanted to emigrate, but Matthías felt he had to look after the interests of the railroad company. By the end of the year, we moved to Hamburg, where nobody knew anything of our personal affairs. Matthías oversaw the building of the trains, and he had to push hard for progress on the project, as military industry had been prioritized. In the meantime, Jacob was preparing the construction of the track in Reykjavik. He wanted to build the railway from the harbor to Öskjuhlíd to begin with, because he was convinced that as soon as the Icelanders saw the trains, they would open their eyes to the value of the railroad. He was, however, not able to deliver his part of the project on time, which meant that it wasn’t possible to ship the trains to Iceland when they were ready; so Matthías took a picture of one of them, parked on the quayside in Hamburg, and sent it to Jacob.”