Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

It’s quite a story. I look at Heiður and ask: Where to begin?

That’s for you to know.

Well, it’s best not to beat around the bush, I say. There are problems with Edda, and I saw no better option than to head east. Edda will be staying in Andey with Ingólfur and Margrét for the winter, and I’ll be staying with Dýrfinna.

So you’re going all the way east. Maybe it’d be best if I came along. I’ve always had a crush on Dýrfinna, and she’s a widow now, by God.

You’re not going to tie yourself down now, are you?

Better late than never.

Do you think Dýrfinna would have you?

Maybe if I get myself a new pair of teeth.

Sorry, but there’s just no room in the car with us.

I could of course take the bus, after I’ve seen to the teeth.

Wouldn’t it be a housekeeper that you need, Arnbjartur?

Not now. It’s been fifteen years since Steingerður died. I didn’t feel like getting another one.

Is she buried out here in the cemetery?

Who told you that? Who told you that? Arnbjartur jumps to his feet with a smack of his clogs and pours the coffee into the pot in such a state that I’m afraid the boiling liquid will splash over him.

I thought Mom mentioned it. Never mind.

You couldn’t always trust what your mother had to say, dear. Sad to say, sad to say. There’s hardly anyone in the cemetery. That’s the truth.

Heiður and I sit timidly as mice. My uncle continues pouring coffee into the pot with a vengeance.

There’s nothing at all buried in the cemetery but a leg, he goes on. Which should never have happened.

My uncle normally speaks with a drawl, and when he’s upset the drawl tightens. Then it shoots up to high C, and down again in a steep curve.

He quickly opens the lower cabinet, takes from it a tub that could have been a paint can in a past life, pulls out a sand cake and a package of Frón shortbread cookies and arranges them neatly on an old cake platter, white with a gold pattern that originally depicted a Christmas tree. The silence is growing uncomfortably long.

A leg?

Yes, a leg. Strange that your mother didn’t tell you about it, while she was blabbing about Steingerður.

Well?

There was this man who lost his leg, which can happen to anyone, of course, except that he demanded that the leg be buried. He apparently found it an unpleasant idea to toss his leg in the trash, so when Steingerður died, he asked my permission to put it into the coffin with her, though I didn’t exactly own her body.

But Steingerður’s daughter Lóa attended the burial, and the damned cow threw a fit when she saw that they were going to put a hairy male leg in her mother’s coffin, though it was wearing an intricately knitted sock. I asked whether it would have changed anything if it had been a female leg, and she gave a shout, cursed me in front of the priest, and said that she was taking her mother away, that she didn’t belong in that utterly empty cemetery. It was difficult to lay Steinka to rest, bless her soul. Her daughter ran off with the coffin, and I was stuck with the leg. I wasn’t about to buy another coffin for it, so I felt it my best option to bury it out here in the cemetery, in consecrated ground. I constructed a rather good-quality box and even warbled “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” But apparently that wasn’t elegant enough, because the cursed leg’s returned to haunt us. It kicks open doors.

What?

I’m serious, he says. Though I’ve never heard of an individual leg returning from beyond the grave. No such thing in the book.

Does the man the leg belonged to know it’s haunting you?

I didn’t ask him.

Is the leg causing trouble elsewhere, or just here at your place?

Doors are constantly being kicked open throughout the area, and I’m being blamed for it. The old hags on the farms around here are sending spirits back at me. They believe I’m empowering the leg against them. It’s nonsense. I’m not sending that thing anywhere. Wouldn’t you think I’d drive it away from myself and others if I had the chance? I’d be damned relieved to go out east with you to Dýrfinna’s. It’s impossible having this leg hanging over my head. Especially during the black of winter.

Wouldn’t it hunt you down even if you left? Isn’t it good at getting around?

It shoots all over the place like a bat out of hell. It’s a damned disgrace for this entire district. But I doubt the rascal can follow me out east. I highly doubt it’d like it there anyway, to be honest.

Arnbjartur vehemently pours coffee into our cups, and at that moment Edda storms in, her brows knitted.

Hello, darling.

Hello.

Won’t you have a seat and join the fun?

Edda looks around, and when she sees the Christmas pattern on the tablecloth and the lights in the window, she frowns like a respectable but displeased lady. Evidently the darling child’s had a bourgeois upbringing.

What may I offer the lady? Uncle Arnbjartur says.

Nothing.

That’s really not much.

A short-legged creature with a long furry tail and brownish fur darts into the kitchen from the hallway and hops straight into Arnbjartur’s arms.

What’s that? asks Edda.

It’s a tomcat, my dear.

My God! Just look at that.

I see what Edda means, because I wasn’t able to figure out what on earth it was, with its tiny eyes peeking out through its tufty hair, and sharp-pointed ears standing straight up on its head, as on an Icelandic dog. Even more bizarre, the cat and its owner have similar hair, right down to the style.

Heiður, how about taking a photo of the kitty? It’s so funny, I say, with the subtle scheme of capturing Arnbjartur and the cat in the same photo because they look like cousins.

Heiður gets up and goes out to the car for the camera.

What kind of cat is it? asks Edda.

It’s a Gothic Viking cat.

Can I hold it? says Edda in a high-pitched pampering tone that’s in glaring contrast to her hard-boiled shell.

Arnbjartur hands Edda the lousy cat. It curls up contentedly in the arms of this obdurate girl and purrs with a grinding sound that’s grating to the ears. Edda’s thoroughly motherly with this furry monster, which she now props on her shoulder, like an infant needing to be burped. Somehow, seeing Edda hold this wretch of a cat like a baby makes me queasy.

What’s its name? asks Edda.

It was baptized Drengur, but is called Deng in honor of the Chinese leader.

Edda laughs and strokes the creature gently, with both hands.

I feel almost dangerously nauseous, so I stand up and announce that I’m going to check on Heiður.

She’s standing in the yard, trying to keep control of her hair in the strong wind as she points the camera that she bought in Hong Kong. It’s a Nikon, the sort of thing whose price you don’t ask about.

It’s absurdly beautiful here, says Heiður, if you turn from your uncle’s trash dump toward the river and the lava. Then she lets out one of her famous cries: Oh my God! You’re not looking very well, dear.

I sit down on a horse block in the yard and take deep, slow breaths.

Are you ill?

I shake my head and try to swallow the rising vomit.

The coffee was far too strong, Heiður suggests.

I shake my head again.

Are you going to barf?

I nod and feel that I have to yield to this force from my abdomen, stand up, grab the door handle on the pickup with one hand, to give me a grip on something in existence, and vomit with the wind over the horse block.

God Almighty, do you think the smoked salmon was bad?

I shake my head, retch again, and notice as I do so that I’m standing with my left foot in sheep shit. Damned sheep, tearing up the land and shitting at people’s doorsteps.