Auður Ólafsdóttir - The Greenhouse

I decide to go to the garden later than usual today and to have a haircut instead, while I try to rethink my life from scratch. It says barber on the sign, but it also seems to be a hair salon for ladies, with three archaic hair dryers. The woman in the salon washes my hair. She takes a long time to spread the shampoo and very slowly massages me around the ears and all around my scalp. She has black hair and tells me that there are two of them working there in shifts. Then she says I have thick hair and that she’s spotted me a few times on the street and looked at my hair. Finally, she asks me how short I want it to be. Meanwhile I’m thinking of Anna, whom I only saw for ten minutes about two months ago when I was saying good-bye to her in the hall, and before that, but only kind of, in the maternity ward. That isn’t altogether true either, because I popped in to see the child between my trips out at sea; the last time I brought a doll and tomatoes.

And yet, to be honest, I wouldn’t be able to describe the mother of my child in any way that would enable a stranger to recognize her from my description, let’s say to the police, for example, if something came up and the girls didn’t get off the train.

— What kind of a nose does she have?

— I’m not sure. Feminine.

— Can you describe her in detail?

— Not much.

— And her mouth?

— Average size.

— What do you mean by average size? What kind of lips does she have?

— Thick, I think. Should I say a cherry mouth? I try to remember her sleeping face in the maternity ward.

— Color of her eyes?

— Not sure, blue or green.

Instead I try to conjure up that private memory, the light in the greenhouse and her leaf-patterned body.

I feel the need to rehearse the new situation that has unexpectedly cropped up in my life so I tell the woman that I’m expecting my daughter, about nine months old, and her mother on a visit. The woman nods, full of understanding. I immediately regret divulging this unnecessary information, which could just as easily have been left at the bottom of the ocean as far as I was concerned.

I stand out in the sun in the square with my newly cut hair while it dries and also to give myself time to recover from the emotion. People are staring at me; maybe they’re unused to seeing men with wet hair on the street. In just a few days’ time, I’ll no longer be the rose boy but the foreigner with the baby carriage.

When I get back to the guesthouse that evening after working in the garden, Father Thomas is waiting for me in the hall. Do you need an apartment for you and the child? he asks without hesitation.

— I’ve spoken to a nice woman and put in a good word for you. She can give you a apartment just here on the next street, he says.

— It’s only temporary, I say.

— Yeah, exactly, temporary, that’s what I told her. How long did you say the child would be staying for, four weeks?

— Yeah, at the most.

— It’s furnished. It’s normally empty, you just have to pay for the gas and cover a few minor expenses.

— I can take a look at the apartment tomorrow.

After I’ve thanked him, Father Thomas has something else he needs to get off his chest. He tells me that the monks are very happy with everything I’ve done with the roses so far; they also fully understand the temporary changes in my situation and hope to get me back when my circumstances permit.

— You can come to the garden if you find someone to babysit the child. Weren’t you saying that the little one takes a snooze in the afternoon? Brother Martin, broadly speaking, approves of the ivy plants but shares the same concerns that Brother Jacob has, that it might carry bugs into the building. He asks me to remind you that his room is on the southern side, the same side as Brother Stephen’s room, who is allergic to pollen.

My first home after Dad’s house is on the second floor of a building with a mint-green facade. The apartment stretches lengthwise and is made up of two rooms that lead into each other with incredibly high ceilings that are totally out of sync with the small size of the apartment.

— Twenty feet, says the woman when I look up at the ceiling, indicating six with her fingers. The bedroom, which is accessed through the dining room, has a double carved bed and wallpaper with a white fleur-de-lis pattern against a maroon background, and an antique-looking painting hangs over the bed.

— The flight from Egypt, the woman explains somewhat at length. The furniture could be collector’s items from an old manor. The apartment is nevertheless clean and bright and there are no personal effects, apart from two painted plaster statues standing on the chest of drawers in the bedroom: a stooping old man with a halo and a monk in a habit with a child in his arms, also with a halo.

— Saint Joseph and Saint Anthony of Padua, the woman explains to me. She tells me that the apartment belongs to her sister, who has moved out with most of her personal belongings, so it’s therefore almost completely empty.

The other room is bigger and some kind of sitting room, dining room, and kitchen all rolled into one. There’s a sofa you can pull out and use as a sofa bed, says the woman.

— If need be, she adds looking at me from head to toe, as if she were surprised that the priest should have taken me under his wing.

The rent is practically nothing. I think the woman might have even made a mistake; I actually only pay for the gas.

— Gas is extra, she says.

There are mirrors literally everywhere; I count seven of them in total, which makes the place look bigger and almost gives it the semblance of a maze. For a moment it feels like there are three women standing close to me. Although I have no experience of a nine-month-old child, it occurs to me that she might find mirrors fun.

— This is only temporary, I say.

— So Father Thomas was saying. He said it would be six weeks to begin with and that you’ll be having a little child with you.

She studies me carefully; maybe she thinks I don’t look much like a father?

I suddenly look into the mirror beside me and meet the worried gaze of a man with newly cut red hair. Although it could, of course, be a good antidote to loneliness, there is something peculiar about being mirrored all the time, about being constantly reminded of one’s self.

The woman says she is going to lend me some bedclothes. I’m not sure I fully understood whether she is coming back with them straight away or later, but meanwhile I don’t dare leave the building.

After the woman has left, I lie on the bed and discover on the bedroom ceiling, twenty feet above, the remnants of a fresco depicting winged angels spiraling around a blue hole in the celestial vault. In the middle of the blue sky there is a white dove with a wing missing. I stand up and take another round of the apartment. On the desk there is a vase with plastic flowers; to me a home can never be a home unless there are living flowers, so I take the vase and stick it into an empty kitchen cupboard.

— Where are the flowers? is the first question the woman asks me when she returns with a pile of ironed bedclothes in her arm.

I walk over to the cupboard, open it, and hand her the vase with the plastic flowers without saying a word. She takes it and puts it back on the table again, in the exact same spot as before. When the woman is gone and I’m left standing alone on the threshold of my first apartment with three keys in my hand, I put the plastic decoration back into the cupboard again. Then I draw back the thick curtains in the bedroom. They’re made of red velvet with interwoven patterns that look like fire lilies, with double silk lining; I have the feeling they might have been moved from a grander house. It makes sense; turning them, you can see that the hem has been shortened and re-sewn. The windows extend to the floor and open onto a balcony with a railing; I estimate it can hold a stool and four or five potted plants.