Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

I grope in my pocket for a tissue and wipe my mouth, wipe my shoes on the grass, and start to whimper, chilled to my bones.

Heiður puts her arm around me and declares that everything will be all right, that there’s nothing to worry about. She opens the car door and gets me inside. Suddenly I’m sitting behind the wheel of this minitruck. I lean my head on the wheel, feeble, wiped out, and I hope to God that the three wretches — man, cat, and daughter — don’t come out of the house while I’m recovering.

HARPA EIR AND THE THREE WRETCHES.

Heiður gets in the passenger side, puts her arm around my shoulders, and asks whether something unusual happened.

Edda was holding the ca-hat, I say with a sob.

That couldn’t have been so awful, says Heiður.

She held it like an infa-hant.

I don’t understand, Harpa dear. Tell me more when you’re feeling better. You’re just nervous and out of sorts because of the trip. Such a situation makes your mind go all sorts of places. It’s natural. This is such a big change, and you want so much for it to go well. You know, Harpa, I have a feeling that this is going to work out. You’re doing absolutely the right thing.

Heiður wipes a splotch of vomit from my shoulder, strokes my hair, and says that I should take it easy now while she goes in to chat with the others. Before leaving, she tells me to remember that she’s always there for me, no matter how things go. But that they’re certainly heading in the right direction.

A door bangs shut. Edda comes out from the farmhouse with that cretin of a cat on her shoulder. I quickly lean my forehead on the steering wheel so that I don’t have to witness this.

When I crack one eye open, I see the cat jump from the girl’s arms in the direction of the cemetery and disappear into a bunch of yellowing angelica. Edda comes over and asks what I’m doing.

I didn’t feel well.

Are you ill?

No, I think it’s passing.

We’re leaving. Heiður’s on her way out.

Yes, I say, realizing that I won’t look very good dangling on the wheel like this. My uncle steps out of the house, and I sit up quickly and prepare to hop to the ground with my new technique, but I’m somehow so clumsy that I land on my knees in slow motion, straight onto some fresh lamb droppings at Edda’s feet. She pulls me up with a rock-hard hand and asks in a dismayed tone: What’s wrong with you, Mom?

I’m dying. Isn’t that what you want?

I barely manage to refrain from launching a dreadful stream of curses at Edda, in which the terms “soul murderer” and “walking abomination” would be among the more harmless ones.

Mo…wha…? She looks at me in disbelief. I’ve never hated her more than right now, as I lean completely exhausted against the pickup. I want to strangle her with my bare hands, this viper who’s poisoned my life so thoroughly that at this moment, nothing’s left but the poison. At the same time I feel a pang in my chest and can’t move, not even to commit my crime.

Edda helps me to the other side of the car and pushes me in. She’s strong as a lion, and I’m moved to tears of self-pity thinking of all those times that I’ve supported her when she was helpless, even though I’m the smaller and weaker one of us. As I recall, she’s never supported me before.

I try to sit as upright as possible, in order to preserve my dignity upon departing, and spread a scarf over the shit blotch on my knee. Blazing bright fish are swimming on the scarf, one of Gabriel Axel’s beautiful gifts.

How I long to be with you in your abode, Monsieur Axel, where the windows have pale-yellow silk curtains and special guests such as Harpa Eir are served champagne and pâté de foie gras. How I long to go to a gentler world where laughing people sit in rows beneath striped umbrellas on the patios of cafés.

My attempt to appear normal is useless. Arnbjartur takes a hard look at me as he shakes my hand in farewell and says: Don’t worry. This will all work out.

Edda swings herself up into the backseat and gives her regards to Deng.

Arnbjartur asks whether he should send the cat out east by parcel post, and then immediately answers his own question: No, I’ll just bring it myself.

How do you think Dýrfinna would react? asks Heiður.

Not nearly as badly as she might let on.

And this you say in advance, says Heiður.

Too bad there’s no room in your car, Arnbjartur says. Well, I can always just leave tomorrow.

Who’s going to take care of the farm?

No problem there. I’ll just keep Liggjas here. He’s got no future anyway.

Good-bye, Uncle. Take it easy.

Good-bye, you three. May fortune be with you.

The little sheep has followed us and is standing next to Arnbjartur.

Be-e-a, says Lambsy.

Watch out for the car now, dearie, says Arnbjartur. Don’t get run over.

Bu-u, says Lambsy.

Aw, the poor thing’s so terribly limited, Arnbjartur remarks.

Good-bye, Uncle, and thanks.

I wish myself away, away, away. Shut my eyes tight, wish myself back to my summer as an au pair in Perpignan, buying cherries at the marketplace and strolling lightly dressed between old houses in warm, fresh air. I wish myself away. To a place where I can speak French all day. Be a foreigner. Which I am.

You run out of your uncle’s house and vomit? What in the world’s become of you, child?

Oh, Mom, I’m so tired. Will you give it a rest?

I can’t.

You’ve always lacked self-discipline.

You know that I don’t feel too well on this side.

You mean the other side.

Don’t twist my meaning.

You never felt well, Mom. What did you think would change?

I thought I’d be allowed to rest in peace. But it didn’t turn out like that.

Fucking misery. Will we meet again, then?

If you should die.

Oh, Mom, you’re so spacey. As you’ve always been.

I turn on the radio in the hope of disrupting the broadcast from the evil woman. The radio’s playing Mozart’s 40th Symphony, performed on original instruments. I envision lovers who are forced to part for the final time after having spent the day riding an old carousel.

I listened to this for days after Jói died.

Transparent butterflies with frosted wings are granted permission to fly over misleading spiky knobs sticking up from the ash-gray expanse of lava. The lava becomes gray like this when it hasn’t rained for weeks.

You’ll never again conjure up butterflies in your mind, you who are gone.

How differently dead you and Mom are, Jói my friend.

How do you feel? asks Heiður.

Just fine.

It’s handy that we’re on a new road now. I wouldn’t have liked taking the old puke-road through all the lava. It even made people who couldn’t imagine being carsick feel like they needed to throw up. But the old road’s good for walks, and for getting to know the lava field. I read that in a book.

It’s a genuine achievement in road construction. Can you imagine dozens of men with chisels carving a path through all that lava over the course of many years?

Many years. Most things take many years. Changes come slowly. If anything seems to change overnight, it’s actually taken many years to change. The mind has been chipping away with a chisel for years. Without a blow being heard.

The precursor of most things is invisible.

In these parts, the precursor of winter is invisible.

There’s no sign of the true season — time has vanished — and I imagine, I conjure up the idea, that autumn is far, far off, this autumn and those to follow. I’ve taped almost two thousand torn-off pages back on to the calendar. It’s an early July day, and I’m on vacation.