Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

The woman who won me at a tombola at my neighbourhood sports club—I waited a whole day, but it was worth the wait, she braided flowers into my hair—opens the door for me, and looks at the clock, then into my eyes. My eyes could be clock dials, the clock dial on the woman’s wrist my other eye.

She says: punctual as always.

I say: an escort has to be punctual.

And I storm in, bump into her and whisper in her ear: I drew a flower for you that died.

Then I drew a new flower and it didn’t die.

She laughs—this is the Saturday laughter. I laugh a Saturday laughter too. Her mother steps out of the wall clock, laughing, and hugs me like a lost son. I am a lost son, I was a lost son, and I continue being the lost one. Nobody finds me. An escort and a lost son. The mother of the woman who bought me at the tombola says goodbye and runs out with a stocking over her face.

Hm.

It’s good to be an escort and rest in the embrace of a sugary beetle that plucks the clips from my hair.

We take refuge under the living-room table.

I say: I expect the attack will begin at 1.30 p.m.

The woman I accompany says: hardly on a Saturday.

I agree that this would be strange timing. Saturday is not that kind of day, she adds.

While we wait—for Sunday’s or Monday’s attack?—we drink tea from her mother’s thermos, have a nap, read the future Sunday paper, nap, carve little men to sell at the peace bazaar, nap, carve men for the peace bazaar, talk in whispers, something about the dignity of the teaching profession in Iceland and my humiliation as an escort. Her mother sends us food that we accept by tearing a hole in the thin curtain that hides the other dimension. The woman whom I faithfully accompany opens the jars with a strong hand. I hold onto the jars with a weak hand. We eat from the jars. There is also little chance of earthquakes at weekends, I say in a strong, bold voice, such is the effect of food on the voice. Then we have a nap for our digestion. In the evening, we crawl out from the hiding place and sneak out, despite the curfew, and meet very few cats outside—they meow. But the people do their time sitting inside, do their time sitting inside, do their time sitting inside and eating out of jars. The stars don’t penetrate the smoke over the city: it doesn’t smell of powder though, not yet; and the Northern Lights dancers haven’t yet snapped their skates to their ankles.

In an unmarked art gallery a four-person group, myself among them and the woman I accompany, eavesdrop on the most cramped lavatory in the city of Reykjavík: two young men lay eggs that contain night-protein, or Tindersticks, as some call it; the hens speak a foreign language. We who sit on this side of the partition don’t know the language. They wash their hands and laugh—that’s an international language—squeeze out of the bathroom and say goodbye to us with joy and gratitude for free use of a toilet, and leave. We go into the bathroom and examine it all over. The seat is up, what does that mean? The fairy-tale princess drags us out with a fairy-tale rope: the story is about a rich man who lived in a villa and decided to eat her; to gobble the fairy-tale princess up, he’d boiled water in a person-size pot, taken her in his arms to throw her into the pot when an old woman came running in with a flyswatter and saved our fairy-tale princess.

I once drew that flyswatter, I say, in a drawing that I gave my cousin who died.

We hang our heads, think about death and the Statue of Liberty for a minute.

We step into the yellow, pink and silver woods. Some kids had sprayed the woods, put glitter on the bark and shimmer on the leaves; it gladdens eyes that pretend to be clock dials every half hour: tick-tock, tick-tock. The ground is feathery soft. Soft as moss. We sense, feel, the movement of the Earth around itself. I say something. You say something. But we don’t talk about the conditions and dignity of preschool teachers, but about something else, and it’s forgotten as soon as the words forsake us. Your dress has taken on another colour, and my clothes glisten like fish-skin, a moment before I turn into one, and swim through the woods in search of you.

Yes, now I remember what you said because fish remember everything:

You told me about a patient, a girl who sang in a two-person room on the hospital floor where they send people with gastro and infectious diseases. The girl woke up in the morning singing and fell asleep at night singing. But she also napped several times a day so she didn’t sing non-stop all day. She sang for the woman who fed her, and used the rests to swallow the gruel. Patients wanted to die in bed beside her, but were not granted their wish. It’s not possible to arrange death in advance, you said, before I turned into the fish who seeks its mermaid, the one who will hold onto the fish in her arms a while before eating him. I want you to eat me, says the fish to the mermaid. I want you to eat me.

Speaking of hospitals, it says in the loudspeaker system of the shimmering woods, and isn’t that the fairy-tale princess’s gravelly radio voice? Yes, I just think it is, her voice branches out between the trees:

At the end of the working day, people head down to the hospital grounds with their children. The patients come out into the lobby escorted by orderlies, say hello to people, say hello to their fans and go for an energetic walk around the garden, on crutches, in a wheelchair, unsupported, with a drip on a stand, some with new nappies, and give the children who come up with their parents money for lollipops and chocolate sultanas; good to make it easier for the families. The fathers nod their heads and mumble: thank you. The mothers smile nicely. The patients bow: my pleasure, it’s more blessed to give than to receive, this is a sweet kid you’ve raised, this is a sweet piggy bank whose hair you’ve done so prettily and put ribbons in, thanks, thanks, it’s our pleasure, it’s more blessed to give than to receive.

The dry nappies rustle like dried-up leaves this autumn when nappies thus dropped dramatically in price. The show manager announced that despite the show running at a loss, nappies would be on sale. That alleviated the seriousness of the show considerably, to season it with delicate wit: cheap nappies. This trifle of joint funds shouldn’t harm anyone. The joke may be at the expense of those who will never stop wearing nappies. This counsel will also encourage people to have children, so that the future actors-to-be will continue to be born in the country, said the show manager and then bowed.

Says the fairy-tale princess in the loudspeaker system of the shimmering woods and laughs beautifully. That’s what princesses who adventures follow do. Her laughter follows us on the way home: two women who the stray cats shield, with elongated shadows and elongated caterwauling, so the guards don’t notice our journey under the quivering street lights.

I follow my friend and crawl again under the living-room table. I don’t find my nightdress: it’s made of letters and my eyes are without numbers. We dress ourselves in the bags. 23.32. It’s safer to wait here than elsewhere. Under the table there is shelter from the fireworks. May I have a piece of paper, I ask; she hands me a piece of paper. May I have a pen, I ask; she hands me a pen. What is the escort going to write, asks the voice on the radio that rests on top of the table. I: a letter to parents-to-be who can’t afford IVF treatment.

With these instructions I will potter about until Monday morning, when the curfew ends: