Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

Stop it now, really. Your little family was beautiful.

Maybe it looked beautiful from the outside. But beyond all else, it was barbarous.

When did you start thinking like that?

I think I always have. I only just realized it. Once I decided to spend the winter out east, I started reconsidering my position thoroughly, and that’s when it came to me. I’m not saying that I have no good memories of Edda and me when she was a child. I have many wonderful ones and I try to keep them clean and polished, but that doesn’t change the fact that bearing a child at such a young age amounts to murder.

I think you’re just testing out this theory on me. Because it’s so dreadful.

Think what you want.

If it was as murderous as you say, it must have also seeped into the girl.

How so? The terrible shape she’s in is due to her mother thinking such ugly things? I suppose it would be best to accept the blame for that as well. Clearly, I contaminated her so much with my thoughts that she went straight to the dogs. It’d be extremely practical to take the entire package of sin upon myself. Then there’d be no need to worry about it anymore.

You already play that game, by blaming your mother. So you shouldn’t be surprised if Edda were to blame you for a few things.

Poor Mom was no ordinary case. Remember how she tormented me when it turned out that I was pregnant?

I know she wanted you to have an abortion, but isn’t it exaggerating a bit to say that she tormented you?

It wasn’t a polite exchange of opinion. She was like one of the Furies making her demands. She wouldn’t hear of any other arrangement. She just droned on and on. Get an abortion.

Of course it wasn’t pretty.

Definitely not.

Maybe you should have done what she said.

Don’t you remember? I was queasy at the very thought. I didn’t dare. Those were different times. And poor you, as much a child as I was — you kept trying to convince me that having an abortion done wasn’t so horrible. Women had undergone such things throughout the ages. I probably would have done it if my fool of a mother wasn’t being so hard on me. She put me into total defiance mode by reacting so vehemently. As if the fetus belonged to her. It’s Mom’s fault that I did nothing. If I had, I might be a famous scientist or famous poet by now, or on my way to becoming one. But now it’s absolutely guaranteed that I’ll never amount to anything. And just look at the child — she would have been better unborn.

But this trip could change that!

You know what I really think I would do if I could start over? Be alone — from the very beginning, all of my life. That’s best by far. That’s what’s worth striving for. Flirt with boys to start with, but then remain a virgin until death. Never let anyone see you naked, except for health care workers, if necessary. Have yourself to yourself, body and soul. No goddamn intimacy, which can never last. Live for yourself and remember that that’s how you benefit others best. Have crushes on many, but fall in love with no one, at least not with a feeling close to madness. To be blinded with adoration for someone: what a horror. You should be able to see the light and the other person at the same time. Celibacy is infinitely beautiful. You’re free from other people’s grumbling, bodily noises, diseases, and defects. You can cultivate your own character flaws undisturbed or try to scrape them off, as you please, and it’s no one’s business but your own. People who live alone with no descendants can be good to everyone, because their dealings with others are relatively few. Those who have families, even if it’s just one child, will inevitably behave badly at times. Shadows will fall on their relationships. Those who live alone can say with conviction when they die that shadows never fell on their relationships with others. Except of course on their relationships with their father, mother, and siblings, but that was so long ago that it doesn’t matter anymore.

I wish I’d been a beautiful bachelorette, who charmed loads of people, but was a problem to none. I would have liked to have had a well-rounded education, worked in a fun place, written poetry in the evenings and on weekends, taken long trips out into the wilderness, hiked in the highlands, had a living room with Chinese lacquered screens and two big palm trees and an antique porcelain vase from the Ming dynasty, a view of Snæfellsjökull, a beautiful garden with a variety of species that aren’t supposed to be able to grow in Iceland. I would have liked to have been mentally and physically fit, tranquil, to have possessed inner calm, alert and reflective, to have published my first book on my sixtieth birthday, a very long poem that was so amazing that nothing like it had ever been seen, then retired, lived off a decent pension, written when I was in the mood and done some gardening in between, gotten to know lots of other interesting people, died peacefully at around eighty in my own bed, been a smiling, brainy old female corpse, harmless as a lamb, with five pages of obituaries in Morgunblaðið , two of which were from wizened admirers who had to use magnifying glasses to write and recalled me as a slightly shy twenty-year-old with long legs and ash-blonde hair.

Won’t you even allow yourself to look like you do?

A dark-brown Icelandic dwarf. Would you be pleased to be that?

Come on. As beautiful as you are. You just make me angry.

I have a look that people find okay on others, but they’d rather die than have themselves. My fate would have been completely different if I’d been tall and blonde. It’s so ridiculous that people’s success in life depends simply on how they look. What do you think becomes of a little coffee-brown round-faced woman with wild curls who supposedly comes from thoroughly Icelandic parents? It isn’t pretty, Heiður. You’ve got to admit that.

Are you still obsessed with your misattributed paternity?

Do you seriously think that Axel is my dad?

The way you look doesn’t prove anything. All sorts of things are born under the sun.

If anyone knows the truth, it’s Aunt Dýrfinna. I’m going to ask her when I’m out east.

You’re not in your right mind. I know what’s wrong with you. This situation with Edda has twisted up everything in your head.

I’ve always looked like a freak. It has nothing to do with Edda.

You may as well ask Dýrfinna, I suppose. But I think it’s highly unlikely that she’ll tell you anything.

If anyone knows what happened, it’s her.

It’s completely obvious what happened. Your father and mother slept together, creating you.

No kidding. But what father, my dear? That’s the question. What father?

Poor Axel. If he only knew what you’re thinking.

He doesn’t need to know.

Have you ever talked about it with him?

Are you nuts?

Uff, it’s all just your imagination.

My father and I bear absolutely no resemblance. Not a bump, not a stump of a finger, not a fragment of a tooth. I’ve always suspected that something wasn’t quite right.

Always suspected? You were at least fourteen years old before you mentioned it to me.

The suspicion was always lurking, but I don’t think that children spell out such things to themselves. What’s strange is that when I had Edda, I knew that Dad couldn’t be my father. I have no idea why I saw it so clearly then. But that’s how it was. As the girl grew up, it also became clear that there was no resemblance whatsoever between her and her grandfather, either.

Is this supposed to be a joke? You and Edda look so different that strangers thinks I’m her mother. Yves thought so, just today.

There are still one or two resemblances between Edda and myself, if you look closely. The lips, for example. The bone structure of our faces.