Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

I’m not surprised.

She was hosting some sort of event at Útheimar that she called a mixed-participation gathering. A family reunion with people from here and from the beyond.

Mixed participation. She’s not all there, the dear. Dýrfinna laughs silver laughter, almost the same as Grandma Una’s. The difference is that in Dýrfinna’s laughter there’s something a bit puckish.

Bettý claimed that five men were following us, but they were all supposed to be alive, says Heiður.

That’s something new, if they’re starting to come from this world.

Yet hasn’t some of what she’s predicted happened? asks Heiður.

If you swing enough, you’re bound to hit something, says Dýrfinna. Mixed participation. Of all things.

Dýrfinna laughs again. It’s ringing laughter, with a touch of crumhorn.

How did the rest of the trip go?

That’s a story in itself, says Heiður. But we did one good deed by putting a roof over the head of a poor Frenchman we met on the road.

Heiður gives me an impish wink, which I pretend not to notice, though Dýrfinna does and looks at me curiously.

Yes, foreigners are often frightfully helpless in this country, she says. It can be an act of mercy to give them a hand.

Would you like to get settled in upstairs? I’ll go set the table.

We aren’t hungry yet, says Heiður. We just had coffee at Andey.

It’s time for dinner, says my aunt. You must put something solid in your stomachs after all this traveling. You can’t live on snacks and cakes alone. Do you have to head straight back tomorrow, dear? she asks Heiður.

That’s the plan.

Such a busy person.

Heiður and I ascend the steep stairs to the attic. Two small rooms with an open door between them. In the inner room a huge plant reaches all the way up to the ceiling where it’s highest and leans against the wall, tied up so that it doesn’t tip over. We have to squeeze our way through the door in order to get past the big lobed leaves.

What is this? Heiður asks, shaking her head.

It’s called Monstera deliciosa , which I think means bliss-monster.

Flashes of light dance a polka on the waves beyond the currant hedge. The silence of the village and the sea are carried in through the open window, interrupted by nothing but the chugging of a fishing boat, which isn’t yet visible in the view provided by the dormer window. Heiður’s falling into a lyrical trance, saying that it’s wonderful to be here, that it defies her expectations. I’m so earthbound that all I say is that the rooms need to be painted.

If it helps you feel better, you should paint, says Heiður.

I start making Heiður’s bed, which will be my bed this winter, a poor old divan against the outer wall, beneath the aggressive plant that’s more akin to a monster than bliss.

Heiður sits down in an old square armchair in the front room and watches me take care of the housework. To her it’s natural that I make the bed. And it is natural. She drove me all the way here, after all. She takes care of the big picture, and I the small details. It’s been that way since the beginning. What’s wrong with that? Harpa Eir, assistant nurse in spirit and in truth.

The monstera makes it difficult for me to tidy up the room. It’s over me and all around me. I knock my elbow against it as I stuff the quilt into its cover, and bump it with my behind as I turn around. Heiður’s worried that the room won’t have enough oxygen because the plant sucks it all in.

If we don’t wake up in the morning, we’ll know why, I say.

Heiður laughs and says: We’ll just open a window.

That won’t do. The monstera doesn’t tolerate drafts.

In other words, it’s we who should give up the ghost, rather than the plant?

Have a look at this.

What is it?

It’s Mom.

A photo of my mother, half-hidden behind ivy stretching an arm up the wall.

She was so elegant.

This is the picture of the mom I’d forgotten. My mom in shorts, binding hay bales. An attractive, well-built mother with wavy hair, Mom as she was a quarter of a century before I came into being, with her favorite mountain, Strýta, in the background. There’s something provocative, yet at the same time dreamy, in her expression, as if she’s waiting for something. For my mystery dad, I suppose.

If my dad’s a mystery dad, then I’m a mystery daddy’s girl.

Come and get it! Dinner!

I haven’t put on the pillowcase, but I’m so reluctant about disobeying my aunt that I leave the bed unmade and tear off down the steep stairs ahead of Heiður.

Everything’s on the table: freshly harvested small potatoes in a floral bowl that’s older than I am, melted butter in a sauceboat, cabbage rolls on a platter, the same white-and-blue dishes that I ate off of in my childhood. Even the nick in my plate is the same, a comfort in a hard world that changes so rapidly, and badly. Both my private world and the outer world. No stone unturned, except in Dýrfinna’s garden. Where there are, in fact, stones unturned.

I sit against the Atlas Crystal and listen to the hypnotizing hum; it’s like the voice of an old man in his final moments, fully reconciled with his destiny. Dýrfinna takes up two spaces in a custom-built broad-armed chair covered with a sheepskin.

Help yourselves, says my aunt.

I see that Heiður is skeptical. She’s extremely fussy, being accustomed only to the best, and preferring macrobiotics. Yet she serves herself, though she violates a cardinal rule by cutting apart one of the delicate light-green cabbage rolls, revealing the pale meat mixture inside, and taking only half.

You’re certainly not going to be overeating, says Dýrfinna.

We’ve just had some rhubarb tart, says Heiður apologetically.

Always on a damned diet, of course, says Dýrfinna.

Heiður’s not on a diet, I say, terribly nervous. She just never gains weight.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the lines in Heiður’s face harden. Her nose lifts and seems to grow sharper. Oh boy, I think, this is going to be fun.

Naturally, says Dýrfinna. Those who don’t eat don’t fatten.

Heiður’s always eating, I counter in a quivering voice. She just burns so many calories.

That’s what they all say. But they’re really always dieting, all their lives.

Having said this, my aunt ladles a porcelain ladleful of melted butter over Heiður’s half cabbage roll.

Good Lord, Aunt, Heiður doesn’t eat butter.

That explains her figure.

Heiður blushes in frustration and watches the pool of butter branch out in the meat mixture’s greasy broth.

Would you like a new plate? asks Dýrfinna.

I wouldn’t say no, says Heiður, with suppressed anger in her voice.

Dýrfinna positions her hands on the table and prepares to stand up, but I hop to my feet, take Heiður’s plate, and get a new one. Heiður serves herself the other half of the cabbage roll, uncontaminated by melted butter, but is unable to hide her acid expression.

What would you like with that, my dear? I’ve got drippings, if you’d prefer.

Now I’m beginning to suspect my aunt of malice. She can’t be serious, offering Heiður Jensdóttir drippings .

Seldom have I refused the drippings. But no. Just kidding. I don’t want drippings.

A little bit of drippings would do you good.

It’s completely unlike Dýrfinna to behave this way. There can be no other explanation than that she doesn’t like Heiður. The expensive tracksuit, the pearly earrings, the unassuming diamond ring are more than my aunt can bear. It pains her to see Harpa as Heiður’s poor, plain charity case, an orphan alongside the Laugarás gal who never needs to lift a finger, yet dashes around the world with a golden flute and a small hard suitcase stuffed with clothing of such fine silk that it never gets wrinkled.