Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

I can hardly wait, I say.

Lie down and elevate your foot, says Yves to Edda.

She smiles, and I could swear she’s trying to be provocative. The tip of her tongue is pushed forward onto her lips, and her head’s tilted — pretty darned coquettish. Which is no wonder. Descended from whores on her mother’s side, who started early. Turn away and focus on the cooking; that’s the thing to do.

Does it hurt now? asks Yves.

Thank you, it’s much better with the bandage. It gives such good support, says Edda from the couch, throwing her arm under her head with a flirty flair. Turn away, ahem, and focus on the cooking, I tell myself again.

I guess I’ll go get my backpack now, says Yves, probably a bit embarrassed at having tossed it aside in his perfectly correct execution of the response to an emergency situation in the Icelandic wilderness.

You do that, I say, and sail swiftly out into the immeasurable ocean of culinary arts in which I’ve been immersed half my life and longer. But I don’t really need to put much effort into it now. The potato gratin is ready to stick in the oven, carefully prepared in advance for the trip. The leg of lamb was seasoned yesterday, according to all the rules of the art. But I still have to prepare a salad. It has to be fresh.

Yves gives me a glance and heads down the path.

I light the gas oven and put in the food before selecting cutting boards and knives to cut vegetables for the salad. I rinse off the lettuce, and my eager eyes wander to the bottle of wine standing open on a small table by the couch where Edda’s lying. It’s Heiður’s wine, not mine, and the French rascal said to wait. They’re doing their own thing — he out in the wild, she in a huff in her room — while I work on making dinner for them and my indescribable daughter, who now has a sprained ankle on top of everything else, wrapped up by a French male nurse who could, for that matter, be a disguised member of Doctors Without Borders in search of Icelandic patients out on the road. I’m not heeding orders any longer. I’ll have red wine when I feel like it.

Edda gapes at me as I fill my glass and asks: Didn’t he say it should wait?

I don’t take orders from foreigners.

Don’t you find it inappropriate to drink alone like that?

It makes sense that you of all people should be concerned about other people’s drinking habits.

Edda’s surprised. She didn’t expect an attack, because she’s behaved herself so well for the past ten minutes, or longer. The usual pattern is that when the clouds break in Edda’s behavior, I respond like a little wimp, slobbering and muttering meekly, Good master , in the most submissive spirit of an Icelandic pauper since stories began. Then I go to great lengths not to make any mistakes and comply with the wishes of this master, a scrawny red-haired teenager with filthy fingernails. The little foot-dryer slinks as quietly as possible through the apartment, but the master leaps on her when least expected, and stomps hard. Stomp stomp. Then the little floor-rag cries, heavy torrents of dishwater tears. Wherever they come from, after all the wringing done to her.

What got into you, Mom? Your howling like a fool made me hurt myself.

Hmm…Remember the time I hurt my knee very badly? I don’t recall any particular sympathy then, least of all from the person who kicked me.

Edda looks at me like a priest looking at a sinner who’s committed gross sacrilege, made obscene mockeries of the Passion Hymns , made mud pies in the baptismal font.

Well done. It takes initiative to remind her that she’s hurt me. I raise my glass to her and take a drink.

I then decamp to the kitchen, where I take another sip. It’s an excellent wine, and I can’t for the life of me notice anything bad about it, even though it’s traveled today. Traveled. This poor man is a dreadful sissy. What’s he doing out on the road, in Iceland? He fits in much better with those mollycoddled vines of his and pretentious wine connoisseurs.

Damn, you can be a bitch, grouses Edda. Not a bit of sympathy even though I just hurt myself. I totally regret coming with you and that nutcase friend of yours. Ugh.

Settle down now, little Edda, and know your place. You couldn’t have thought I’d continue to coddle you, considering how you’ve been behaving.

Eat shit, whore.

Heiður comes rushing out of the bedroom, a Fury in a short-sleeved T-shirt. Apparently she was trying to nap.

Would you mind shutting your damned mouths? Heiður exclaims. What the hell is this ruckus supposed to mean? It’s like being with a bunch of lunatics.

You’re no better yourself, says Edda.

Do you know what you are? You’re a stupid, rude little girl who should be in an asylum.

Don’t talk to the child that way, Heiður. Are you losing it completely?

I say what I want. This is my house, and I’m the one who was silly enough to drive you. It would serve you right if I drove away and left you here.

The pleasure would be mine, says Edda.

You have no shame. You’ve ruined everything for your mom, and then you just lie on the couch and talk shit.

Don’t go judging me and Edda. You understand nothing but violins and crystal glasses. You don’t understand the lives of ordinary people.

Look at yourself. You’re all torn up with jealousy and envy. You’re seething with hatred for people who have a better life than you. No matter what I do for you, it’s never good enough. You hate me because I managed to accomplish a small piece of what I wanted to accomplish, while you haven’t managed a tiny sliver.

You’re the snobbiest cunt I’ve ever met in my life, is heard from the couch. Snobby cunt. I’ll bet you’ve never even let anyone in it. It’s probably made of crystal and would shatter at a touch.

Heiður walks straight through the deck door, out to the car, and drives off. I keep cutting vegetables and take a sip of wine, listening to the sound of the engine fade away.

Then I feel like going out for a bit, so I put on my jacket, grab a chair, refill my wineglass, and sit out on the deck, glaring at the white giant before me. Peaks and ridges cast shadows on the vastness of the glacier from which they grow.

THE CLOUDLESS GLACIER CASTS SHADOWS ON ITSELF.

BATHED IN CREAMY YELLOW LIGHT.

The sun is singing on the glacier

the final August song

and tomorrow true autumn begins. September.

The evening cloud veils make mischief around the moon and obscure it.

The glacier and its time mean something to me. The glacier and time, and swans that honk, and the wide expanse, green patches in the shelter of the frozen expanse, beyond the irregularly braided net of the streams.

I belong to myself. This crowd is none of my business. I’ll bring Edda east somehow, even if Heiður’s gone south in a huff. I’ll wait to see what happens next at Dýrfinna’s for half a month, three weeks. I’ll slip away, I’ll write poetry, I’ll go to school in Perpignan under the protective wing of Gabriel Axel. He’s invited me often enough. Edda will have to stay in Andey or else perish. I’m my own person, I’ll educate myself, I’ll start another kind of life. It’s much better to be dead than to live life as I’ve done in recent years. I always have an escape route to put an end to that hell. But it would be much better to abandon Edda, live for myself, and let her die if that’s what she wants. People like that probably wish for nothing. They get caught in the evil net that the preacher speaks of, in an evil time, and can’t move.

But then, apparently, miracles can happen. They break free, and feel afterward that it would be better to be dead than be back in the net.