The Women of Iceland

Word Reaches me on a lazy day in August that as a longtime admirer of women--with a preference for blondes--I am wasting my time in Southampton. If my information is correct, the purest, most delightful representatives of the species exist in far-off Iceland. Hollywood's fairest are no match for them.

The women of mighty Stockholm, considered by many to be the blonde capital of the world, offer little competition. But Iceland in the summer? Iceland at any time, for that matter? Isn't it just ice?

Not to worry. I'm told the country, though 30 miles from the Arctic Circle, is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a climate that is cool, comfortable and free of Long Island humidity--ideal.

Thus assured, I'm off on that most noble of enterprises--a search for the ultimate blonde.

The caring and attentive flight attendants of Icelandic Airlines are blonde enough but tend to be on the matronly side. Still, they give off a promise of golden-haired daughters awaiting them at Keflavík Airport. Disappointingly, no such daughters are in evidence. The few blondes at the arrival gate have a suspiciously bottled look.

Is it possible that the cream of Iceland's blonde corps have been sent off to start colonies abroad?

A grim thought.

Matters fail to improve on the long journey to Reykjavík (the Bay of Smoke), (text continued on page 136)The Women of Iceland(continued from page 121) though the driver insists that if I stay alert, I'll see flaxen-haired trolls zipping through the lava fields.

Trolls, I explain patiently, are not what I have in mind.

Alarmingly, no blondes are in sight in the crowded lobby of the majestic Börg Hotel. Perhaps in compensation, I'm assigned to a suite once occupied by Marlene Dietrich, the legendary (blonde) film star who once kicked me out of a Manhattan cocktail party, punishment for my crime of not recognizing her (at the age of 60).

For all its scenic wonders, Iceland is rarely visited by Americans and is generally thought of as one of the last unexplored vacation treasures. Which makes it all the more disheartening when a bellman races through the lobby and announces that Jerry Seinfeld has just arrived.

"Not only that," he adds in an aside to me, "but JFK Jr. is salmon-fishing in the north, and Danny DeVito just checked out."

A visitor from Chicago hears this and shakes his head in despair.

"There goes the neighborhood."

And still no blondes, though I do spot a pair of raven-tressed charmers at the bar. If Seinfeld were in the market for a new Shoshanna Lonstein, either woman would be an excellent candidate.

Off to the streets now, in pursuit of my elusive quarry. Half of Iceland's population of 270,000 live in this city of neatly arranged, brightly colored stucco houses. It's all presided over by the Pearl--a geothermal dome on an overlying hill that sucks up pure water from the hot springs below and acts as a "natural radiator," both heating and cooling the houses and offices below. W.H. Auden, who admired Iceland ("It is different from anyplace else"), still complained that "the country has no architecture," failing to be impressed by the Hansel and Gretel look of the city, which is architecture enough for me.

On a more serious note, I'm close to panic now. Where are they? Then I turn the corner of busy Laufásvegur Street and my impatience is rewarded. I experience my first sighting.

They appear singly, then in shy and tentative pairs. And then, from out of nowhere, there they are--entire teams of towering, long-striding Viking goddesses, decked out in fishskin blouses and sheep-stomach dresses, the descendant daughters of Erik the Red and proud Helga the Hun-Slayer. Each carries a cellular phone and wears redundant four-inch chunky heels. Some parade confidently through the streets, chattering away in Norse; others can be seen in the cafés, listening to Oasis, sipping lethal brennevin (a local favorite a.k.a. black death) cocktails.

They virtually overflow with freshness and vitality.

What has been uncovered here is a whole new species of smash-mouth, in-your-face, no-nonsense, look-no-further, this-is-it blondes.

And they seem friendly, too.

If Iceland's women are, indeed, the most beautiful creatures on the planet, there must be an explanation as to how this has come about.

Baldvin Jonsson, an agricultural expert and the city's unofficial host, feels he has the answer.

"The Icelandic woman bathes in hot springs and waterfalls. Her food has never been exposed to additives, antibiotics, hormones, herbicides. Peaches, tomatoes, grapes and bananas are grown in hothouses. The air she breathes is unpolluted. Iceland has virtually no biting insects. Dogs, which were banned for a period, are rare and strictly licensed. Alda and Thóra and Helga and their sisters are protected by some of the strictest environmental laws in the world. In sum, what you have here is the first totally organic woman."

"And let us not forget her skin," says Christine, my lovely guide, whose own complexion is flawless. "There is no harsh sun here--we have only several months of indirect sunshine--and wrinkles are almost unheard of.

"But much more important," she adds generously, "if we have the most beautiful women here, it's because we have such beautiful men."

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Whether they have visited the Northern Sphinx or not, everyone seems to think they know something about Iceland, making it useful to separate fact from fiction.

As a test of virility, you'll be asked to eat shark's meat that's been buried in the ground for long periods of time.

You won't be asked immediately, but it is a delicacy, and a taste will be offered at some point during your visit. The "fragrance" is a bit off-putting--and when you've eaten a sampling, the women in your vicinity will tend to scatter. Finally, though, it's not much different from very ripe cheese.

Other local favorites include reindeer stew, cod cheeks, roast breast of puffin, sautéed whale steak, ptarmigan soup, sour seal, pressed sheepshead and pickled lamb testicles. (The last is a favorite of Helga, one of the Playboy models. At dinner one night, she cries out: "Someone order the balls. I love the balls.")

A favorite activity for couples is to lie out on the airport tarmac and greet incoming planes by drinking vodka and making love.

Not quite, though there is a great deal of raucous celebration, much of it sexual, when the long winter months come to an end. Icelandic women tend to be free and relaxed about sex; a start at the age of 14 is not unusual. Casual sex tends to be more casual than in most countries. In the many bars and cafés--it is a young person's city--a simple "Yes?" from an Icelandic man and a nod from a Viking coed is all the preliminary chitchat required to send the couple happily off to bed. There is no stigma attached to producing a child out of wedlock, and the city is heavily populated by attractive young single moms.

But the arrival of the Playboy team is another story--it sends a seismic shock through the country. Not that the women had the slightest trepidation about flinging off their clothes and posing in the nude. (They were actually much more fearful of being questioned by a journalist.)

"But there are so few people here," Christine explains, "and we are very much like a small town. It's impossible for a girl to go into a bar at night and not recognize half a dozen of her previous lovers."

Helga, who has posed nude for another publication, said that several of the men she knew recognized her--even though her face was concealed.

A bit of finger-pointing is expected when this issue hits the newsstands--and several of the models' boyfriends resisted having their ladyloves appear in the nude. But the women persisted. ("Ashamed of my body?" said the devastating Alda, who has no cause for concern. "How absurd can you get?") The boyfriends eventually came around.

"An Icelandic woman is not to be pushed about," said another model, Kristin. "We were feminists before feminism was invented."

Iceland produced the first democratically elected female head of state--though her name, Vigdis Finnbogadóttir, is unpronounceable.

An Icelandic woman will often startle her lover during sex by bursting into a recital of Icelandic sagas.

This is undocumented, but there is no question that the Icelandic woman is familiar with the 1000-year-old sagas and can recite Norse poetry at length. The country boasts the highest literacy rate in the world. Along with her native tongue, the Icelandic blonde speaks English and Danish and can usually get along nicely in French and German too. Among the models, several work in finance, and others study law or medicine. The only working actress is Thóra Duscgal, whose tastes run upmarket (her favorite actor is Derek Jacobi).

All take a rather jaundiced view of the imported dancers who work in the city's newly opened topless bars.

"An Icelandic woman," says Helga, "would never do such weird things with her underwears."

Setting blondes aside for the moment--no mean feat--it is impossible to visit Iceland and not be struck--and remain haunted--by the barren yet gorgeous landscape. Vast sheets of calcified lava cover much of the earth (one third of the world's lava eruptions are deposited here), volcanic mud pots burble, hot geysers go steaming to the sky, volcanoes blow periodically (there is a major eruption about every five years), sulfur pits smoke. The entire country smolders and bubbles and sizzles. Yet all of it is presided over by peaceful ice-capped mountains and surrounded by friendly seas. The country looks, all at once, like the beginning and the end of civilization.

The kingdom of heaven. The bowels of hell. To borrow again from Auden: "Iceland is sacred soil, its memory a constant background to what I am doing. It is a permanent part of my existence."

After a week of being surrounded by--if not quite gorging on--blondes, the visitor experiences a curious phenomenon: the sudden longing for a brunette.

At Nelly's Café, which is frequented by artists (could it be the Elaine's of Reykjavík?), a young man sits at a table with his lunch companions, four paralyzingly beautiful, young, blonde home wreckers.

Yet he is slumped in his chair and clearly despondent.

A friend explains: "On a trip to Florida, Lars fell in love with a 300-pound Seminole woman. She rejected him and he's never gotten over it."