Auður Ólafsdóttir - The Greenhouse

I don’t tell Dad Anna has left, and for once he doesn’t even give her a single mention, nor does he give me a weather report, or his usual lowdown on the conditions of the roads and vegetation either. But there’s a tension in him:

— I don’t know how you’re going to take what I’m about to tell you now.

— Have you met a woman?

— Have you turned psychic, boy? It’s not as if I met her yesterday, there was quite a prelude to it; she’s an old friend of your mother’s and mine.

— Well, you’ve mentioned Bogga every time I’ve called you; you’ve been doing the electric wiring for her and fixing her windows and she’s been inviting you for meat soup and glazed ham.

— Bogga has asked me to move in with her; she lives alone in the house.

Then Dad hesitates a moment.

— I would have wanted to continue living here, but I feel I don’t know how anything works without your mother.

Then he pauses before changing subject:

— How’s your little Flóra doing?

— She’s started to walk.

— And what about your rose garden?

— It’s turning into the most beautiful rose garden in the world again.

— That’s good to hear, Lobbi lad.

There’s another silence before he tackles the next bit:

— I’ve been thinking things over and I see now that I’ve been putting unnecessary pressure on you about your studies. If you’re happy, then so is your old man. Jósef is happy with his girlfriend, too, so I don’t need to have worries about my boys.

— No, you don’t have to have any worries about us.

— You know you still have your mother’s inheritance if you want to travel the world and visit more gardens.

Once my daughter has said Granda down the phone and I’ve said good-bye to Dad, I go looking for the priest. I have to tell him that my situation has changed yet again, that it’s just me and the child now, as it was supposed to be in the beginning anyway. We find Father Thomas in the guesthouse. I tell him Anna has left.

— Yeah, it isn’t always easy to understand feelings, he says, patting me on the shoulder. Then he pats the child on the head.

— Things normally get worse before they get better again, he says when we’re sitting opposite him at the desk. He moves the penholder so that it doesn’t block his view of the child and fetches the porcelain doll in the knitted blue dress.

— When everything is over there’s always some element that’s been overlooked, just like with Christmas preparations, he says skimming through his collection on the shelves.

— As you can imagine, there is such a vast selection of films about the unpredictable paths of love that it would take me ages to find them all on these shelves.

My daughter is tired and rests her head on my shoulder. I stick the pacifier into her mouth. Then I notice that a small clay pot has appeared on the desk filled with soil and green shoots that barely peep over the edge. I don’t ask about the species.

— Still though, if you give me a bit of time and pop in, say, this afternoon, I might have found some movies for you. I’d focus on some women directors, although they’re not free of irony.

Then he switches topics and says that everyone in the monastery agrees that the garden is quite extraordinary. Although he doesn’t go as far as to call it a miracle, the transformation is far more spectacular than anyone could have imagined, and from what Brother Zacharias and others have been able to gather from some of the old manuscripts, the garden is once more as it’s described in the ancient books; its beauty equals the beauty of the heavenly mother of God.

— The eight circular rose groves around the pond elevate the garden to perfection, he says, arranging some papers on the desk.

— Yes, I say. My daughter has fallen asleep on my shoulder. I gently stroke her cheek.

— The monks can hardly bear the thought of being cooped up in the library with all that beauty within reach through the window now, he adds, leaning back in his chair and studying the sleeping child.

— People have been giving the monastery small donations, and we have a little bit of a fund, although it doesn’t really compare to the wealth of former times, he says, smiling at me. Up until now it’s mainly been used for the restoration of manuscripts, but we’ve agreed that it would be right to use a part of what has been collected to pay you a wage and for the maintenance of the garden. We’ve also thought of making the garden more accessible so that more than thirteen men can enjoy it, and even opening it up to tourists.

When I stand up with the sleeping child in my arms, he nods toward the flower pot with the frail green shoots and says:

— No, that’s not your rose species; it’s a future lily, if I read the writing on the packet of seeds correctly.

Father Thomas escorts us to the street; he probably isn’t expecting me to return in the afternoon. I have the sleeping child in my arms. As he’s shaking my hand to say good-bye, he suddenly asks:

— What’s your rose called again, the one you moved into the garden?

— Eight-petaled rose.

— Yes, eight-petaled rose, of course, I thought so. You should take a look at the rose in the window over the altar in the church the next time you’re passing; it has eight connate petals around its core.

We wake up early in the morning; it’s still dark outside. At some point in the night I lifted my daughter up into my bed and now she’s sitting beside me, looking around and in the air. Her mother’s scent still lingers in the quilt.

— Twi, twi, says the child, pointing at the dove with half a wing.

I turn to my daughter and she smiles from ear to ear.

— Shall we go home to Granddad?

— Gan-da.

— Does Flóra Sól want to walk on moss?

— Should Daddy pick crowberries for you?

— Does Flóra Sól want to try sitting on a tussock?

I carry her into the kitchen in her pajamas, fill the kettle, and light the gas. Then I put some oatmeal in the pot and tie a bib around the child while I wait for it to boil.

We don’t linger much after breakfast, but get dressed and go out. I put the child in the carriage it isn’t totally bright yet, and a peculiar reddish-blue mist hangs over the monastery in the still air.

When we get into the church I put the brakes on the carriage under the doomsday painting. I pick up my daughter, sit her on my shoulders, and we set off on a journey toward the sun, moving through the semidarkness at the very back of the church. We give ourselves plenty of time, stopping frequently on the way. I slip some coins into the jar for Saint Joseph and light a candle. I hold the burning candle with one hand and my child’s ankle with the other, carefully trying to ensure that the wax doesn’t leak. Slowly we move farther into the church toward the chancel where the sun is just rising, a flare of amber on the edge of dawn. Bit by bit, the delicate light narrows into a beam through the stained-glass window, filling the church like a shaft of translucent white cotton. My daughter remains perfectly still on my shoulders, and shielding my eyes with my hand, I look into the light, into the blinding glare; and then I see it, way at the top of the chancel window, the violet-red eight-petaled rose, just as the ray pierces through the crown and lands on the child’s cheek.