Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

He should have spared us the polite chatter and been chivalrous in his actions, I comment.

How many windshields do you think he’s shattered, this guy? Doesn’t his mama give him hell? growls Heiður.

Did you get his license number?

It’s L 666. Baptism in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, my ass!

My uncle Arnbjartur’s single-story farmhouse snuggles between the ridges where elves dwell and kindle lights at twilight. Tall rowan trees stand erect, like guards, at the house gable.

Rusty wire mesh, barbed-wire fences on the verge of falling, and artistic driftwood posts surround the property, looking like installations by famous modern artists. The posts are infinitely varied in composition: wide, low, high, narrow, knotted, planed, and everything in between.

The finely crafted ironwork farm gate is made up of two wheels with spokes, some bent, others poking out into the air. The gate’s divided into two parts, hanging slanted on hinges, half on the way up, half down.

Rusted tractors and other farm machines, the oldest one of which could be from before World War II, stand in a discontinuous row reaching from the farmhouse all the way down to the private cemetery. On the other side of the house are the remains of three cars, in various states of decay. One of them is so far gone that it’s on the verge of changing into something other than a car. Yet it’s missing nothing in particular except for the hood and one door. It’s as if it ended up in a scrap press where the workers changed their minds and stopped after starting to crush it.

I get out to open the gate but can’t undo the knots that hold it shut. Heiður comes to help me, after putting on a pair of work gloves. She’s constantly looking after her flutist fingers.

We regard Arnbjartur’s mailbox reverentially. This piece is a true achievement of the imagination. He’s taken a tire, poured concrete into it, and stuck a pole in the middle. An iron box is tied to the pole with a frayed string.

On my little stroll to the house, I take a deep breath and rest my eyes on the gigantic angelica plants on the ridge by the stream, watching how they struggle against the wind before yielding to it. The farm’s generator is in a crooked, rickety shed with a collapsed roof, a refuge for birds and mice.

A stone wall at the bottom of a steep hayfield surrounds the notorious farmstead cemetery. From there it isn’t far to the trollish lava and deeply reddish-brown river. The river’s loud, heavy rush frightened me as a child, but now it gives me a sense of serenity. The sound itself hasn’t changed in all of these years.

Heiður has driven up to the house and parked next to a pickup that’s an exact replica of the one we’re in, including its color. She comes galloping over to me, swinging the bag of organic potatoes from Efri-Hæðir. Sometimes she’s much more mindful than I am.

How old’s Arnbjartur?

Eighty-two, as I recall.

A curtain of pink frosted plastic, looking better suited for a bathroom window, is pulled over the pane on the front door.

Arnbjartur opens the door before we manage to knock. He’s followed closely by a little sheep. Arnbjartur’s a nimble-footed gray-haired man with bright eyes like a child’s, and he’s still sharp as a tack.

Hello, dear, says Arnbjartur, taking my hand like I’m a first-class member of Parliament, then Heiður’s hand. He introduces himself like a soldier, bowing his head. Arnbjartur Óðinsson. I’m just waiting for him to click his heels.

Welcome. Out with you, Lambsy.

Lambsy understands human speech and steps outside immediately.

It’s a little cosset from last year, explains Arnbjartur. It only feels comfortable when it’s right behind you. Did you run into some sand?

A bit, I say. Edda instructed us to wait at the bridge.

Is the car okay?

Yes, fortunately.

As I say this, my uncle glances quickly at the car, sees Edda, and says nothing.

The house stinks of iodine. A veterinarian smell.

How many animals’ lives have you saved recently, Addi? No one but Mom would have asked him such a thing, or called him Addi. It was one of her methods for demeaning people, to come up with demeaning nicknames. She called Dad “Seli” and me “Eisa.” Occasionally, she called me “Harpa baby,” though that name was well meant.

My uncle’s wearing brown moleskin pants and a brown checkered shirt under a large blue sweater. He really resembles a Scandinavian intellectual from around 1970 and even wears an intellectual’s clogs. He has thick, unruly hair reaching below his ears. He shows little outward signs of aging, except for some missing teeth.

I pass on the greetings from Erika and Dad, and explain the organically grown potatoes. Arnbjartur reaches for a potato and takes it into the kitchen to get a better look at it under the light.

Gosh, it’s pretty. Maybe I ought to switch to biodynamite.

He places it at the center of the kitchen table, a perfect fruit of the earth from the vegetable garden at Efri-Hæðir.

This potato is a daughter of the sun and has the same color as its mother. I could write a little poem about it, if only I would.

In the kitchen everything’s spic-and-span. The sink and faucet gleam, and there’s not a crumb on the floor. On the other hand, the walls haven’t been painted for several decades. In some places the bare stone is visible, cracked through and through. The linoleum has peeled off in the corner by the Rafha stove, perched on slender legs. Seeing the disrepair and tidiness collide in this way is so mind-blowing that Heiður and I sit there silently.

In the hayfield beyond the barn, human movement can be seen. A man in grass-green overalls presses sluggishly against the wind, his hands in his pockets, Lambsy following closely.

Have you hired a farmhand?

No, that’s just Liggjas. He’s been here a week now.

What’s that you say?

He’s Faroese. His full name is Liggjas-under-the-Waterfall, but don’t bother teasing him about it. He’d just retort with a comment about Icelandic children being given names like Ljótur and Ormur. Why would anyone name their children Ugly and Worm?

What’s he doing here?

He first came here last year with a friend of his from Klaksvík who spent his childhood summers in the countryside at Bjarnarstaður. This spring they were traveling, completely broke. I put them in Steinka’s room, and they found it so comfy that they stayed half a month. They were on their way to work in a fish-processing plant in the Westfjords, and I gave them money for gas to get there.

A one-man charitable organization, you are, I say.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But there are quite a few disadvantaged Faroese in the countryside here. I think we should welcome them, because sooner or later we’ll end up like them.

How so?

As far as I’m concerned, we won’t be celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Republic of Iceland in 2044. We’ll have thrown away all our chances, I’m sad to say. There hasn’t been any control over anything here, and the economy’s in ruins. A lot of people have utterly disgraceful wages. There’ll be a mass exodus from this country. I don’t even know what people are waiting for.

I’ve often thought along those lines, too, says Heiður.

Luckily, I’ll be dead, which is fine with me, Arnbjartur says. I wouldn’t want to have experienced this country gaining its independence and then losing its independence again. It’ll be good to be allowed to die in the meantime.

He starts making coffee, and Heiður’s expression amuses me. She’s pathologically afraid of germs and isn’t happy about being served refreshments from the hands of a recluse.

Arnbjartur places a pair of coffee cups decorated with golden flowers on the kitchen table, which is covered with a worn oilcloth bedecked with the Icelandic Yule Lads. It’s a match for the red Christmas lights shining in the kitchen window. Then he reaches for a parcel wrapped in brown paper, with two types of rubber bands around it. He takes his sweet time unwrapping a blue velvet box, folding the paper neatly afterward, stretching a rubber band back around it. He takes three polished silver teaspoons from the box and lays them on the table, sitting down unexpectedly at the same time, though the kettle’s in fact boiling. He looks straight at me with wide child’s eyes and asks: What’s this trip you’re taking?