Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

With love, always,

Gabriel Axel

Where in the world did they meet?

At the Marine Research Institute.

Oh?

Yes, Gabriel Axel came here because he had an Icelandic acquaintance who was a marine biologist. This friend showed him his place of work, and your mother was working in the café, where she served the foreigner.

Love at first sight.

Something like that.

Gabriel Axel never mentioned a word of an Icelandic acquaintance.

I know, my dear. He didn’t want to waken the slightest suspicion in you. An extremely decent man, judging by all the signs.

Bettý said that I’m being followed by a tall, thin, dark-skinned man, speaking a foreign language.

What a bunch of nonsense.

She said he was alive, incredibly sad, and wanted to speak to me.

Pff, she must have sniffed that out.

How so?

She has a way of sniffing out all sorts of damned things. There’s nothing supernatural about it. It’s called prying.

Yes, but if no one in the country knows this but me and you and Ingólfur?

Naturally, your mother knew it while she was alive.

Do you think she told Bettý?

It’s not out of the question. But it wouldn’t have been wise to do so, because Bettý’s never been able to keep secrets. Telling Bettý a secret is as good as broadcasting it.

You don’t really put much faith in your sister’s talents.

Yes, yes, she’s a genius at baking, but she’s completely irresponsible when it comes to conversation, and that’s not the same as the gift of prophecy.

Silence descends, the silence that occurs when a question has been answered.

It’s different from the silence preceding a question.

The time of questions hasn’t passed, though one answer’s been received.

A question that’s been answered engenders new questions.

At what moment did he realize it, the owner of The Art of Sailing in Perpignan, that he was facing his daughter? When I told him my name? When did I do that?

He probably didn’t recognize me right away, and indeed, a long time had passed since that day. The historic bright-weather day when I walked over to the tall man with the camera standing near the sculptor’s domed studio, the man who gave me a gold chain that I told no one about, never ever, because he put a finger to his mouth and said hush in a foreign language as he waved to me before I set out for Dock Wood, crossing the plank over the little ditch.

The doorbell rings.

Who can that be, so late?

It’s unusual nowadays, says Dýrfinna. It wouldn’t be so surprising if I were still working.

Dýrfinna’s heavy footsteps approach the front door. I’m uncomfortable waiting for her to open the door, and I move over to the old dining-table chair that’s partially hidden behind it. I feel nauseous. I feel like I’m going to pass out. And why not? Poor me, whose line of descent has just been changed. A genuine changeling, on my father’s side. Do the books say anything about whether people could be changelings on their father’s side?

Might it be my man from Ísafjörður at the door? He could have tracked me down easily, of course. Impossible to know what that man might come up with. My palms become sweaty as I await what will come next. What if it’s the boyfriend who’s not a boyfriend? What should I say then ?

Hello, Arnbjartur. Please come in.

Arnbjartur does as he’s told. I sit tight on the chair.

My uncle walks to the living room in full Icelandic gear, wearing clogs and a typical angelica-green anorak, carrying a cardboard suitcase bound with a string, looking as if it could have been descended from the suitcase of Salka Valka and her mother, Sigurlína, when they stepped onto land, exhausted, at Óseyri in Axlarfjörður.

You’ll have to sleep in the sewing room, says Dýrfinna. The women are sleeping upstairs.

I actually had the master bed in mind, says Arnbjartur, laughing and giving a glimpse of bits and pieces of his teeth, which seemed to be scattered randomly.

You’ll start in the living room. You can’t take everything by trump on the first night, says Dýrfinna.

Arnbjartur grins and sits on the couch, still in his anorak.

How’d you get here?

I hitched rides on trucks the whole way — first to Höfn, and then here. It didn’t cost a single króna. The man laughs and rocks giddily on the couch. The vehicle from Höfn was called HERMANN AND LÍSA, REYÐARFJÖRÐUR. It was Lísa who drove. She’s an absolutely lovely person. There were two of us coming from Höfn. I’m pretty sure the other fellow was French — handsome, wearing a red coat.

Did the backpacker continue onward? I ask, a bit shocked at being reminded of my dead-and-buried one-night stand. Would he be staying in my fjord tonight?

Why do you ask? inquires Arnbjartur, laughing with a chirpy trill.

Dýrfinna eyes me, saying: Might he be the same one who stayed with you in the summerhouse?

It can’t be, I lie. He was going the opposite direction.

He got out of the truck here, says Arnbjartur. In case you’re interested.

He was gone in the morning, forever. Then shows up again in the evening, at my destination. He hasn’t come here to find me, but to find the fjord. How sensitive, and so very sensible. He wanted to fall asleep and wake up even just once in the dream fjord of the Queen of the Night.

Arnbjartur lays his suitcase on the couch and clicks open the rusty latches. From a brown paper bag he removes a plastic bag, containing the first harvest of autumn: small artistically shaped rutabagas, one head of lettuce, several bright carrots, potatoes. He lays out the slightly dirty fruits of the earth, creating a STILL LIFE, of freshly picked vegetables on a brown paper bag and posh cups and saucers.

The potatoes are from Erika. There are more in the bag in the hall.

You shouldn’t waste them on me.

I’ve got to contribute something to the household, since you’re putting me up.

Would you like some hot chocolate, my dear? asks Dýrfinna.

Yes, please.

I’ll heat up some more, I say, standing up out of the depths of the unspringy easy chair.

I’m sure Arnbjartur would like a little shot of something in it.

Yes, of course. Stay where you are. I’ll take care of it.

I feel dizzy as I stand at the stove and stir the hot chocolate. Dýrfinna’s made several liters in her old jam pot. I look into this honey-sweet brown liquid as the wooden spoon goes round and round, leaving tracks. I invent a new kind of sorcery, hot-chocolate sorcery , and empower the drink, intoning softly, like a witch just warming up.

Would you know yet more?

Had I known all along? Ever since the first tear ran down the cheek of my gloomy friend in Perpignan, in his apartment above The Art of Sailing?

Maybe I’d known it, but I didn’t know that I knew. Humans are experts at raising mental screens: highly mobile, practical screens that conceal the facts. Yet maybe I can be excused for not exactly having let it cross my mind that the sweet ghost Gabriel Axel might be the one I was searching for.

Mom’s wanderlust didn’t ever take her overseas, only me. Maybe it could still save me — and Edda too. Mom’s daydreams, or more accurately delusions, procured me two fathers and, according to the letter, some wealth, turning me into someone who might have chances .

I still have a chance to go to school. Can that be?

A chance not to have to spend my entire life tending sick people for shitty pay.

But would I really be better off, by educating myself, by having money, if Edda perishes?

The letter was written ten years ago. Higher education? I could have already been finished with that, if I’d had the sense to ask my question earlier.