Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

In the densest of the fog, not even the next roadside marker is visible. It’s doubtful we’ll see anything living, unless some of the blood-smeared fledglings aren’t truly dead. But at only twenty-five miles per hour, there’s plenty of time to view the road’s pathetic images. How nice it would be now to spend that time doing something else.

Stressed-out Heiður. There’s nothing worse than driving blind.

I should head back to Reykjavík. This pile of carcasses isn’t very promising. Nothing here looks promising.

Why don’t I remember these doomed and dead birds from my travels with Mom, Dad, and Sibbi?

Autumn wasn’t a time for traveling then. It’s become so now.

Autumn is the time of dead fulmar chicks. I never want to witness this again.

THE TIME OF DEAD FULMAR CHICKS.

Are they obese, foolish, or unfledged? All of this at once, I suppose.

Heiður lays on the horn to save a bird. What does the bird do? Waddles like an old man on weak legs, two steps, off the road. Doesn’t die now. Some time is left.

Why doesn’t she use her stupid gun to finish off half-dead fulmars? It would be an act of mercy.

Did she really bring a rifle? Sneak it into a bag when no one was looking?

Heiður is tough on defense.

I’m soft all the time.

I don’t deserve to be.

Don’t deserve it!

Is it so desirable?

To be.

Like a doomed fulmar on the road.

Like a fulmar chick soon to be dead.

That’s my story.

It’s not interesting.

My death won’t be interesting.

The day that I die will be a good day to breathe my last. Whatever day that is will be just fine for taking it. The last breath.

The day that I die will be a good day. But whether I look forward to it is another story. Even if I can’t live as best as I’d like.

Can’t live as best as I’d like. (Repeat and sing: NOT AS BEST, in chorus.)

I’d rather be dead.

If only I were allowed.

That’s one among other things I’m not allowed.

We’re not stopping at any gas station now, Harpa, in case those idiots are lying in wait for us.

I’m not afraid of those gangster runts.

How are you doing back there?

I was glad for the change.

It’s more difficult for us to talk.

I’m so tired I don’t feel like talking anyway. I’m in an utterly boring mood today.

You’re so fun when you’re boring.

Your typical double-edged compliment, Heiður.

The pickup truck takes a frighteningly slow pace up the steepest slope. The danger can’t be seen except in short bursts, because the fog is merciful. A few sharply angled yards of scree and then the rising wall of black fog. The superhero Heiður drives very slowly, much too slowly even for these circumstances. She isn’t used to this. My self-confident flutist isn’t at home here.

The route up Almannaskarð is a route into the air, a kind of takeoff up into the fog roof. I’m afraid of heights and terrified of the most drastic slopes. Cars need suction cups for this mountain pass. I glance at Heiður. Yes, she’s scared as well, the warrior herself.

I’m way too far over in the middle of the road, hisses Heiður. What if someone else comes along?

It’s okay for you to move closer to the edge.

I’m too afraid.

Afraid that as we drive up the country’s longest and steepest slope, a big rig will collide with us because we’re on the wrong side of the road, or drive us off it, down the sheer scree. My mind tells me that at some point today we’ll go off the road again. Maybe very far, maybe all the way. As far as it’s possible to go.

Arriving at our destination on our backs. Where I can wallow.

Heiður, I say, trying to help, there’s a sharp turn at the top, where it’s steepest. Be prepared for it — we can’t see a damned thing.

I’m fucking scared to drive here.

What else could you be?

If you were to ask me what I think is the ultimate countryside in all of Iceland, you’d think I would say my countryside, my fjord to the east. But I wouldn’t say that, since my fjord isn’t countryside, but more of a dreamland. I would say that Lón — which has nothing to do with me — is the ultimate Icelandic countryside. There at the lagoon between the majestic mountains of Eystrahorn and Vestrahorn, groups of sheep graze on sea-green grass and expand like fleece balloons. The sky above the sheep and adolescent lambs is a spotted floating sky, and a three-stranded peak juts up from clouds that wrap themselves like a fur scarf with a sparse fringe around the mountain’s shoulders. The water in the estuary gleams as we draw nearer, and straight-beaked ringed plovers, so small that they should be called tiny plovers or plover pips, flock on the black glimmer, picking their way over the decoration beneath their feet. Incarnate ceramic birds from an Icelandic factory. To me ringed plover sounds modestly poetic. I write it behind my ear.

Ringed plover.

Ringed-plover stream.

Tiptoeing plovers are the antithesis to incapacitated fulmar chicks. Living birds are the liveliest of all that lives, but a dead bird is the deadest of all that was.

Over the iridescent estuary is an unbroken cloud band of turquoise light, a slightly cloying color. The western sky has assumed a hue of mild orange. I envision the past as having the color of an orange, but I have no idea of the color of the here and now. THE COLOR OF THE HERE AND NOW, though it’s unknown, would be well suited for a poem or even as the title of a book; what book, I don’t know.

Look, reindeer!

Wow, they’re almost invisible in the landscape.

Their color is like eiderdown.

Keep your damned noise down, groans Edda.

Edda, look, there are reindeer.

Shove them up your ass.

The herd packs itself tighter and heads toward the car, with graceful movements, their heads bearing heavy V-shaped horns.

I thought they were supposed to be skittish.

A rust-brown stream rushes over a bridge spanning a powerful river running from Vatnajökull Glacier, past sweet summer cottages, paradisiacal foliage, and splendor.

I’m starving, moans Edda.

Good timing, I say. I actually have to go down to Útheimar to see Aunt Bettý.

I’m up for that, says Heiður. I’ve never met her.

You’ve been missing out.

Is Bettý the clairvoyant one?

Sure is.

But aren’t we pressed for time because of those rascals? Don’t we risk them catching us if we linger?

No, a detour will mess them up. Then we’ll just finish the rest of the drive east all at once.

Plus, I continue, Bettý’s farm is fantastic. A lava complex rises there from the plain — and the farm is hidden within it, between hills, just a stone’s throw from the sea.

We’ll never reach the Eastfjords at the rate we’re going, says Edda.

Are you in a hurry?

Damn, you make me crazy. I wish I hadn’t come.

Heiður might not have another opportunity to say hello to Bettý, I say. You might not, either. The two of you made such a good pair when you were little.

You think I really want to hang out with some supernatural old bat?

She’s your great-aunt, after all.

Great-aunt, my ass.

It’s down there. You can’t see it until you’ve come all the way up to the door. And you know, Edda dear, Bettý bakes the best cakes around.

I’m dying of hunger. You’re keeping me starving, besides everything else.

Here, you can have a sandwich and a banana.

Ugh, gross, it’s all crushed and shit. Besides, isn’t the salmon poisonous? You barfed it up yesterday.

Let’s go down to the farm. I’m hungry too, says Heiður, and this isn’t picnic weather.

Heiður speeds up, accidentally honking the horn as she leans into the accelerator. Two little birds fly up from the other side of a rock, and a russet lump of a lamb hops across the road, right in front of the car, forcing Heiður to brake.