Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

It felt as if Heiður arrived immediately, and I asked whether she’d come on a magic carpet.

What’s the situation?

I don’t know. Apparently she’s not going to die, so I’m told.

Were you given a sedative?

I’m so doped up that I’m teetering.

Sit still, said Heiður. Don’t move more than you have to. I’ll ask.

Everything was on the right track. Edda was sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her. Heiður drove me home and helped me into bed. It was wet, of course, and I ended up in Edda’s bed. Heiður lay down on the couch in the living room, and we both slept until late afternoon. She stayed at my place instead of with her golden boyfriend, even though he was going abroad the next morning. Through the mire in my head, I felt ashamed of myself for sabotaging my friend’s love life.

I’m an exhausted child in a car, suffering from sore muscles after a one-night stand with the first man I met on the road, literally. You loose wench, shame! The first man you met. Tsk, tsk.

It’s true, little Eisa, you certainly did an incredible job.

Mom, if you call me Eisa once more I’ll never speak to you again. Now stop your rambling and come straight out with it. Who is my father?

Axel.

Fine. I’ll ask Dýrfinna.

Do you think I care?

Where did you get hold of the poor foreigner who knocked you up?

At work, of course. I never went anywhere else but there.

At the Marine Research Institute?

It was called the Fisheries Department when you were conceived.

Mom gives me a cheeky look and purses her lips, which are done up with orange-colored lipstick.

A strange catch?

You might say so.

Was it wanderlust that compelled you to get hold of him? Did you have the affair in place of traveling abroad?

Your thinking has become terribly original.

Don’t try to get me off track. You held up your wanderlust like a shield. You know, you’re not the only one who wants to make tracks. Do you have to whine about it constantly?

Don’t be so hard on me.

Mom, can’t you be just a tiny bit of a guardian angel to me? Can’t you be still, like the woman in the jingle? There sits my mother, carding new wool.

I have no interest in knitting.

A single-file line of sheep stares at me.

Meandering picturesquely between high tufts of grass.

The sparse vegetation is magenta-colored, with a purple weft, greening around the watery spots that aren’t big enough to be ponds and are too big to be puddles.

It was really nice of you to come up to City Hospital when Edda froze. I could hardly have made it home without help.

That’s what I’m here for, says Heiður. This visibility is really awful.

It’s good to be free of the landscape.

I don’t understand you. You’ve never told me properly what happened afterward.

You’re impossible to pin down, I say. You’re on the move so much. Edda was utterly exhausted when she came home, with a bit of a fever and mild pneumonia, so I was home for two days taking care of her. Once when I was fixing the covers, thinking that she was sleeping, she started crying. I wiped her tears with the corner of the quilt cover and remembered that I’d done the same when she was starting to thaw, before she was taken to the hospital. I asked whether she’d intended to die and she said she didn’t know. I also asked why her shirt was open at her chest and she said she’d torn it open herself, but she didn’t know why. Once she asked me for a poem that she particularly liked in the The Book of Verses .

A mishap! I am not to blame

dear Mother, as I know you’ve seen

the little brook down hollow green

run swift in sport and joyful game,

then broaden where the slope is tame

to babble, bobble, guggle there!

But not to fear! From here on out

I shall indeed take better care.

A merry life you have, ’tis true;

when to embrace you, as you run

your steady course ’neath slopes in sun

are violets yellow red and blue;

I stretched my hand for one or two

and then you splashed so cold on me.

You evil brook! From here on out

I shan’t forget, not once, you see.

My petticoat, white, pure and fine,

is now all soaked, right to my skin;

if then you’d heard and seen its grin,

the mischief that did from it shine—

I reached to make a flower mine,

and then it splashed so cold on me.

You evil brook! From here on out

I shan’t forget, not once, you see.

Through hollow runs the brook in play,

and wets the maiden, toes to locks,

as there she steps upon the rocks,

so thoughtful of you, brook; I say!

Dear Mother, home is where I’ll stay,

outside today I will not fare.

But not to fear! From here on out

I shall indeed take better care.

When I recited it we laughed, light as feathers, as if what had happened to Edda was about as unfortunate as the girl’s little accident in the poem.

Then Teddi arrived, without warning. I was going to slam the door in his face, but was too late. Edda came out, and he slipped past me. End of the dream. I’ve hardly been able to make contact with her since then. She’s like a malfunctioning lighthouse that emits a faint light twice a month, one second at a time. I’ve acted toward her as if she were dying, watched her in the hope of making the tiniest connection, even if it’s for the last time.

Harpa, is that him?

Heiður brakes sharply, nearly running into a bright-yellow van.

I’ll be damned.

Gerti Chicken and company. These rascals certainly aren’t engaged in an ordinary pursuit. They’re ahead of us.

How clever. Progressive chasing.

I wonder where they spent the night.

What’s that got to do with it?

I’ll call Rikki. He’ll arrest the bastards. I won’t tolerate this.

Do you think he can arrest them for driving the wrong section of Highway Number One?

Delaying them would be enough to let us reach our destination. He only has to hold them up for about an hour. That’d give us more than enough of a head start. Once Edda’s in Andey, these guys can’t do anything. Doesn’t their character make you shudder? They’ve seen her badly injured, wasted, half-dead. And right when she’s about to get back on track, they come chasing after her. Would you call that human?

Maybe I should stop and try marksmanship, says Heiður. I can render them harmless by shooting holes in their rear tires.

Heiður, I can’t believe you’ve got a firearm. You don’t have a gun permit. And having a rifle near Edda? You know she’s totally unpredictable. I’ll have a nervous breakdown if you even mention it again.

Heiður gives me an irritated look, then steps on it and passes the van in the fog, honking the horn loudly. A little tirade about the driver finally losing her marbles comes from the sleepyhead in the backseat.

Heiður’s getting good at keeping silent in order to preserve the peace. Would my poor friend ever have made this trip if she’d known how it would be? What her ears would have to hear, all those less-than-beautiful words. She’s doing me the favor, sacrificing four days of her precious artist’s life. The world’s reward. I console myself with the thought that she’ll have it far better on the way back, alone, left in peace with her own proper Telemann.

Menacing yellow headlights approach us rapidly from behind. They look like they’re heading straight for us, but Heiður manages to turn aside at the last minute. Edda starts up with a shriek. We barely avoid running off the edge of the road.

Your wonderful friends aren’t going to be content with just chasing us, I say. They want to kill us too.

Shut up, you old cow, says Edda.