Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

Wanderlust or insanity, I say. What to call it?

Laughter simmers up in my aunt. Let’s not judge so sharply. There are so many strange things in one’s own chest, if one takes the trouble to look there.

Dýrfinna, don’t you find people incredibly inconsistent in terms of being good for each other?

Certainly.

My poor mother wasn’t good for any of us, and it’s quite typical that she was worst for the one that she treated best.

Your brother’s upbringing was certainly a failure. It’s too late to save it. But your circumstances were different, despite your being siblings. Perhaps you were also more resistant toward your upbringing than poor Sibbi. In any case, you win. You have two extremely kind, living dads.

Maybe so.

I even have a letter that shows how good your French dad is.

He’s more of an Andalusian than anything else, I say. Because he was brought up in Seville. His father was French and his mother a Portuguese Jew. So really, he’s Jewish, since it’s determined by maternity.

That’s a brilliant mix. So you’re half Icelandic, if we go by genes, one quarter Jewish, and one quarter French.

I’m quite the bastard. Such a mix doesn’t exist in all the world. It’s disorienting.

It shouldn’t be.

Oh?

It’s good when different nationalities mix. Good and necessary. Icelanders would have been a degenerate race long ago if they hadn’t been so promiscuous, their women so excited about foreigners who were driven onto their shores.

You don’t pity the poor strange-looking kids who emerge from this frivolity?

It’s true that you don’t look like anyone else, even though all sorts of things are born under the sun. It doesn’t take a visionary to see that you must have been of foreign origin.

You weren’t speaking literally when you mentioned a letter, were you?

Yes, my dear, it’s a letter to you from Gabriel Axel.

Why didn’t you give it to me a long time ago?

There were strict orders that you not be shown the letter unless you asked.

Why do you have the letter anyway?

Who else should have it? I got in touch with Gabriel when your mother died. I thought it right to inform him of her death.

And what would have become of this letter if you’d passed away, may I ask?

It was all taken care of. I put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to Ingólfur. He knows the details, since he had to help me with the English when I wrote.

Just a moment. Does everyone in the family know except me?

No, no. No one knows except Ingólfur and me.

Not even Margrét?

No, my dear.

My aunt stands up, supporting herself on the arms of the easy chair. There are traces of a whipped-cream mustache on her upper lip. It’s appropriate that the sibyl would have a whipped-cream mustache while helping to solve one of life’s mysteries, the one involving me.

She reaches for a key on a shelf that’s the oldest piece in the house, embossed by my great-grandfather Antoníus, a craftsman and powerful poet. The shelf also holds a ceramic curlew, a row of rock crystals and zeolites, and a stuffed plover with a damaged wing. That plover won’t be going far this autumn.

Aunt Dýrfinna opens the desktop cabinet, the piece of furniture that she sometimes let me investigate when I was little. In the shallow drawers she kept a locket with a photo of her Unnar, her wedding ring, which had become too narrow for her work-swollen fingers, old photos, and faded yellow letters, among them one from Great-grandpa Antoníus to Great-grandma Alda from when they were courting. My aunt opens the drawer where Great-grandpa’s letter is kept and takes out a familiar folder of beige silk. Embroidered on it are carrier pigeons, which I’ve known well ever since I was a kid. Their wingspans are abnormally wide, reminding me more of eagles than pigeons. In this silk folder Dýrfinna has kept my secret. She pulls out a brown envelope with a rubber band around it. On it are the words INGÓLFUR ÁSGEIRSSON, in Dýrfinna’s handwriting.

The letter to you is in here, explains my aunt.

Not even letters to me are addressed to me.

I tear open the envelope addressed to Ingólfur, and inside it find another smaller one, addressed to HARPA EIR AXELSDÓTTIR, in familiar letters made by Gabriel Axel’s pen. His writing looks almost like typescript, each individual letter clearly shaped, the ink sea-green, appropriate for the person who owns a shop called The Art of Sailing.

Perpignan, October 18, 1984

1984! I should have asked earlier.

Dear Harpa Eir, my delightful daughter,

My heart is heavy writing you these lines, but I am also relieved. This letter will only appear to your eyes if you wish it yourself, if you ask the question. What drives me to write to you in this manner is that when we met, I sensed that you doubted your documented origin, and thus I have found the courage in myself to confirm that your suspicion is correct. I am the one for whom you searched, and the one you found, but you did not know that.

I felt certain that destiny would arrange for us a different, and better, meeting than our mere fleeting one that one particular summer, having brought us together as it did in the first place.

It was you, dear child, who made our meeting possible. I shall always remember as long as I live what you answered when I asked: Why did you choose this place, precisely?

I looked over maps of France, you said, and I liked Perpignan best.

In this, supernatural forces were at work. Your mind, dear child, your gentle intuition. I have never met a person your age so independent in thought, so pleasant in conversation. I am deeply proud to be your father, even if in secret, although no one knows that I am the father of anyone, no one but Elvíra, who nowadays I am able to call my life companion.

We must ask ourselves, dear child, what will come of you reading this letter while both of your fathers are alive. I venture to ask you never to reveal this secret to your father in Reykjavík. It would only sadden his heart and do no one any good.

I am aware that you have been beset by difficulties, and I wish that I could make life lighter for you. It is of great importance to me that you benefit from my decent means, to the extent that it is possible, without waking the suspicion of your father in Reykjavík. Over the years I have put together savings that will be more than sufficient to support Elvíra and me well into our old age, should God grant us a long life. As far as real estate is concerned, I own the entire building housing my shop, and last year I also acquired a rather small but well-built house by the sea, not far south of La Rochelle.

I understand that your economic situation has been quite constricted, and I ask you to do me the favor of accepting without delay, in cash, an advance portion of your inheritance. My house is always open to you and your daughter, both this one here in Perpignan and my cottage in La Rochelle, which

is also delightful to visit in winter. I am able to give you the good news that when my assets are sold after I am gone, half of the equivalent value will be sufficient to secure the financial future for you and Edda, my beloved granddaughter. I sincerely hope to meet her before she is full-grown.

I know that you have had the inclination to educate yourself better. Nothing in life would make me happier than to be able to host you here, and Edda, of course, if you should wish to pursue higher education in these parts.

Now I ask that you send me a note, confirming that you have received this message. I have waited for this day with impatience and immense fear that I might not live to see it.

I wish you the very best, my beloved, distant daughter. Every day that I take breaths, I think of you. On the rare occasions that I received a letter from you, I lifted it with trembling hands, in the hope that the secret had been revealed, and that I would again be able to enjoy your company, wonder of my life, who God gave me in a roundabout way. May the good Father envelop you in love, and I pray fervently and sincerely that as things stand, the information that is confirmed in this letter may be to the advantage of you and your daughter, Edda Sólveig, and only to your advantage.