Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

It isn’t funny, says Bettý.

What type of vehicle is the foreigner driving? asks Heiður.

He’s coming by sea. Both of the foreigners are for Harpa.

That doesn’t make sense, says Heiður.

I only say what I see.

I’m going to get some fresh air, says Heiður.

I only say what I see, repeats my aunt in an extremely soft, deep voice as Heiður squirms out the tent door.

Tell us more about the boys, says Edda excitedly.

They’re slightly older than you, my dear. The driver, he must be seventeen. But you should beware of these birds. They’re involved in all sorts of nonsense.

They’re my friends, says Edda.

I don’t think these are good friends to have. Stay away from them.

Is it sometimes possible to get through to Grandma in her old tent? asks Edda.

She does hang about.

I inch my way to the tent flap, on all fours. It’s impossible to listen to this.

Where are you going? says Bettý.

Out. You should be careful of what you say when adolescents are present. They’re so impressionable.

I glance over my shoulder, still on all fours, and look into my aunt’s face as I push aside the flap. Daylight falls on her uncommon head and hair.

We’ve come here mostly to bum a cup of coffee, not to listen to such…such…crap, if I’m going to be completely honest.

Don’t be offended. All I’m trying to do is offer some guidance.

I hurry out of the spiritual tent and take quick steps to the farmhouse. Heiður is sitting silently in front of the door, on a kitchen stool that has been used for paint jobs and is splotched with every color of the rainbow. Her expression is stony.

You hardly need any more proof, she says as soon as I’m within earshot.

What?

Harpa, this aunt of yours looks like a foreigner. And you actually resemble her. You can forget those incredible speculations of yours that your dad isn’t your true father.

What do you mean I look like her? She looks like a walking joke.

What about the hair color, what about the skin color, what about her eyes?

Stop it.

The other two emerge from the tent and head toward us, young and old, tall and slender and limping, both of them, one with tangled gray-flecked hair, the other with red hair. My aunt in her pink variation on a robe and Edda in stretch pants and a black T-shirt, with a sneering white skull on the back. The cat follows them like a dog. I’ll be damned. Everything here is after everything else. This cohesion at Útheimar isn’t to my liking.

Wouldn’t you know it? My aunt and her great-niece are holding hands. This sight startles me so much that I have to lean up against the fence for support. There’s no denying that Edda is capable of surprising her opponents.

You must be hungry, says my aunt.

Yes, says Edda. I haven’t had a decent bite this entire trip.

Heiður gets up and says: That’s not true. Your mother brought gourmet snacks. Yesterday you had roast lamb.

I’ve got plenty of cakes for you, and there’s no wait on the coffee. It’s all out on the table.

Were you expecting visitors?

Yes, I was starting to expect you.

Did Dýrfinna call? I ask, feeling a bit ashamed, because I know that the relationship between the sisters leaves much to be desired. Dýrfinna can’t stand the way Bettý messes with the beyond.

Dýrfinna? says Bettý. No. Not her.

A narrow foyer is the first thing to greet someone entering Útheimar by the main door, and then the kitchen. You take two steps inside and you’re in the kitchen, just like that. The housewife forbids us from taking off our shoes.

The huge round table in the kitchen nearly fills the whole room. This table and the Aga coal stove that Bettý hasn’t had the heart to part with are like two independent but harmonious personalities, an old couple that rules over the home’s nerve center.

LUCKAN SKAL VARA STÄNGD.

The Swedish runes on the Aga stove that no one could interpret when I was a kid.

Three megacakes adorn the table’s white linen: one cream cake, decorated neatly with strawberries and kiwi; a chocolate cake with mousse and delicious-looking chocolate shavings; and a stout cake-roll with yellow cream, sprinkled with sugar. At the center of the table is a large porcelain dish of flatbread and smoked trout. My aunt has set the table with her best cups and saucers. I remember the Chinese porcelain service from my childhood. It’s as thin as a shell, blue and white, with a peacock pattern. I count nine cups and one glass, and there’s enough food for at least ten people. By my last count, however, there are only four of us.

Edda takes a seat at the table without being invited. Heiður and I follow her example. Edda grabs a piece of flatbread and munches it noisily, despite no one telling her to help herself.

Bettý pours coffee and asks Edda whether she’d like some Coke. The girl is visibly thrilled, and even says yes, please . Bettý goes to the pantry and returns with a one-and-a-half-liter bottle, pours a glass for Edda, and places the bottle on the table in front of her. The girl has already grabbed hold of a second piece of flatbread before Heiður and I even begin, and she drains her glass in one draw. Bettý hovers over her and refills the glass. Thanks, says the girl before bursting out with a long muffled belch. Heiður and I both nibble at pieces of flatbread, which are such sweet appeasement to our hunger that it takes enormous willpower not to gobble them down noisily like the teenager.

I’m going to stay behind, says Edda, as she starts in on a slice of brown cake, having finished her second glass of Coke.

I think that would suit you fine, says Bettý.

I’m careful to keep my mouth shut. Heiður gives me a highly meaningful look.

You wouldn’t mind, Mom, would you?

Wouldn’t it be best for you to start with what we agreed on? I say. If you don’t like it out east, you can see whether your great-aunt is serious.

Where we are is also out east, says Edda, with a nasty laugh.

She continues to chow down. I’m appalled at the sight, but I’d rather not make it my business. Bettý is still hovering over us, cutting slices of cake and pouring drinks and serving us, and crowning everything by going to the pantry to fetch a giant container of crullers. I dare not tell the woman to sit down. After all, it’s her house.

Are you expecting people from the family reunion for coffee?

A lot of things turn up here.

I wonder why Dýrfinna didn’t tell me about this reunion. I called her the day before yesterday.

This isn’t the sort of reunion that would interest Dýrfinna. She’s completely insensitive.

Are you saying it’s not a family reunion?

Maybe not in a traditional sense.

What is it, then?

Mixed participation. We’re experimenting with it.

How so?

People from here and from the beyond.

So all the participants must be psychic. The living ones, I mean, interjects Heiður.

To some extent, says Bettý, sliding cream-cake slice number two onto Edda’s plate. Of course we’ve had a bit of trouble, because not everyone sees everyone, which can make the overall relationships complicated in practice. I, for example, am the only one who sees your mother, and only in her old tent, but the others have some doubts about it — and about me as well, even though I’ve produced various evidence. When we held a closed meeting in your old family tent yesterday morning, we were overwhelmed by a perfume scent that everyone who’d met your mother recognized.

Madame Rochas, I say, in my finest pronunciation.

Heiður laughs out loud.

Lout, says Edda, her mouth full of cream cake.

I succeed in eating such a large portion of these baked delights in such an astonishingly short time that I’m more or less in sugar shock. You’d think that Bettý kneaded drugs into the dough, because I feel almost unable to stop. The taste is irresistible. These aren’t like country-girl cakes at the brink of the world but more akin to something you’d get at the finest patisseries in Vienna, Zurich, or Warsaw. The cake roll and cream cake might seem a bit too clunky for such places, but they’re perfect on the inside, and the chocolate cake is impeccable both inside and out. How does Aunt Bettý bake these exotic cakes having never stepped beyond this country’s borders? It’s true that Bettý isn’t Icelandic in appearance — I have to grant Heiður that. Still, she really reminds me of someone. I just can’t think of who.