Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

So be it.

The cat and I came to a house reinforced with corrugated iron, not far from Suðurlandsbraut Road. And as we approached, a pigeon flew up from the white expanse of snow. I saw it by the light from a window. It wasn’t an ordinary pigeon, but rather, a fancy pigeon, with a tuft on its head, pretending to be something it wasn’t. It looked like a new species, in between a rooster and a dove. When the pigeon flapped its wings, that beggar of a cat got all excited, lost interest in me, and shot as if from a gun to the next drift, where it took a hunting position. To that little cat I was never anything but a small woman in the snow, just a temporary companion. At the start it was going to take shelter with me, but then forgot all about that when the tufted pigeon appeared. Was it just going to catch and eat this fine specimen, which had most likely been smuggled into this country under someone’s coat? Maybe it would be rather easy prey if it were stiff with cold.

Then, right at that moment, I had an attack of apprehension. Where was Edda? What was Edda doing? Was she alive or dead? Was she fine, or hurt? Half-stoned, completely stoned, on what? Pregnant? Sick with AIDS? Or had she killed a few birds with one stone and was a number of these things at once? My thoughts were straitjacketed in a vicious circle. Same old story, over and over. A scratched horror record, that didn’t change with the turning of the years. A new year starting, and I was screwed up once again.

Then I had to make it happen. I had to create angels throughout all of Laugardalur, lie down on my back, get up, make angel upon angel with wide wings until the day dawned and I turned into wingless stone.

The bird flew featherless,

alit on the wall, boneless.

It stopped snowing, and I tried to shake the snow off my black coat, then took off my black wool cap and brushed it. Along Suðurlandsbraut drunk people appeared as far as the eye could see, scattered here and there. Some stumbled, some stepped out onto the street and tried to stop cars crawling by in the wet snow. It didn’t matter whether they were taxis or private cars. I made a detour so as not to be in the way of a loaded man behaving aggressively beneath a streetlight, punching the air, lashing out against some invisible opponent. The man was bald and had unkempt light-red sideburns. He was thick-set and wore no overcoat, only a suit, with his shirt untucked. Suddenly he gave a drawling shout: Snorri! At the same moment a resident on the middle story of the first Álfheimur apartment block began a traditional fireworks display from his balcony, shooting a great many rockets into the air, filling the night with loud bangs and showers of sparks.

He’d likely been in a drunken stupor before the clock struck midnight, and he was only now stirring to action on this first day of the New Year. This display couldn’t have been popular among his neighbors, because the lights were off in most of the apartment building’s windows. Even the man under the streetlight gave a start and shouted: Why are you doing this, Snorri?

The fireworks display dwindled to one rocket, which hissed horizontally off the balcony and sank with a mild whine to the ground by the basement window, while windows lit up throughout the apartment building.

It was as if the sparklers that burned earlier in the evening had been frozen and crushed and sprinkled over the fresh snow. It was a mass of tiny sparkling crystals, and I felt ashamed to leave tracks in it. That was more disrespectful than tramping in dirty rubber boots crisscross over the wide wet floor of the royal cleaning woman. I was therefore relieved when the snow started falling again and I knew that it would soon cover my tracks. I was guilty of walking on the earth, but then the snow covered that oversight, allowing me to tread lighter among the drifts, short-legged in boots up to my knees.

Only what was closest was visible, as in the fog we’re driving through now. The world narrowed. There was nothing else in it but me. Now there’s nothing in the world but the three of us, and yet, just me, because the fog-vapor creeps into the car. It envelops me until only I exist, alone in a car, a driverless passenger.

It’s impossible to say where we’ve come, and how we’re traveling, whether we’re sailing or flying, whether we’re being carried along by the fog river or sit unmoving in a viscous grayish-white substance. To me it seems as if the car’s wheels could start spinning at any moment, and then it would be no use to switch on the front-wheel drive.

Now I lay me down to sleep , and so on. It would certainly best befit me to sleep after the unseemly toil of the night and honorable toil of the days.

This winter I’ll have time to sleep enough. To sleep enough. It sounds like a line from a song in a dream. Insomnia’s been one of my unwelcome mistresses this unlucky year. Thinking about Edda in her situation is like having a little child that’s sick, and fearing for its life night after night, week after week, month after month. To sleep enough at the sea’s edge farthest to the east, to the sounds of the waves. Is there a better dream than that?

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

Appearing at times through the porous fog are roadside puddles, and drinking from them are white sheep. Beyond them rise ravine-cut slopes with sturdy birch thickets. The sun gleams on the mossy-gray glacier that spills like porridge onto the plain. Wooded ridges and green patches of willow by the road. The world always comes to light once again. That’s its nature and necessity. A widening world, out into sand and utterly gray stones.

At a house on Háteigsvegur Street stood two children, a boy and a girl, both of whom could hardly have been more than eight years old. They swung sparklers in circles, and I was worried that everyone might be dead drunk inside the house, meaning they the kids might end up outside until noon or longer that New Year’s Day. When I walked by, the girl said to me: Do you see that man?

The human figure sitting on the steps and leaning against the railing was turning into a snowman, blending in with the background so well that I wouldn’t have noticed him if not for the girl pointing him out. As I walked up the steps, it appeared to me that this white shape was a young man. He must have been sitting there for quite a while, judging by the amount of snow accumulation. His eyelashes sparkled white.

Wake up, I said, touching him on the shoulder.

He didn’t wake up. I took off my wool mitten and touched his cheek. It was ice-cold. Yet the man wasn’t dead; he was breathing. I tried to shake him, but he didn’t move. I shook him more, perplexed, but at that he fell on his side and lay there with his knees at right angles. I was afraid he’d hurt his head when he plopped over. I rang four doorbells in a frenzy.

A young woman in a glittery dress of stretch material answered one of them. Her feet were bare in very high-heeled shoes. Before I said anything, she’d stuck her head out, looked at me and from me to the man who lay by her door, and assessed the situation in a flash: You’re too late. The party’s over.

No I don’t need a party. We need an ambulance.

Are you hurt? Come in.

No, I’m not hurt. It’s him.

Where’s he hurt?

He might be frozen.

Is he dead, maybe?

I don’t think so.

If he’s dead, it would be more logical to call the police.

Start by calling an ambulance. Please.

The two kids had come all the way up to us on the steps. They’d lit new sparklers, very long ones that shot sparks over the man.

Go home, kids, I said. This isn’t the place for you.

They headed toward the building next door.