Steinunn Sigurdardottir - Place of the Heart

Are you melancholy, my dear? asks Arnbjartur.

No, no. I just find it quite sad to have left Dad behind like that.

There’s no end to poor Seli’s troubles. But he has only himself to blame. I told him to stay away from your mother. She was an incredibly dubious character.

I forbid you to talk about my sister like that, says Dýrfinna. She wasn’t perfect, but neither are you, dear.

I didn’t mean to offend you, but as far as I’m concerned, my brother definitely deserved better.

He was in love. That’s all there is to it.

I’ve never understood what people are going on about. I’m not in love, says Arnbjartur.

I’m sure you were at one time, says Dýrfinna.

Then it would have been with you, Finna. Arnbjartur’s face turns purple from laughter.

Well, what’s so funny about that? says Dýrfinna. I’m rather offended.

Don’t be. No, Finna dear, you and Eva Sólgerður are really the most different of sisters. Poor Seli didn’t have a chance in that misadventure.

I’m going to finish making my bed, I say. I’ll be back in a moment.

Sæmundur senses that I’m ready to get up. He beats me to it and leaps off my lap with a mew of complaint.

It’s just so sad to leave Dad behind.

It was sad already, sing the stairs as I march up, but how will it be after tonight? With his brother sniffing out the secret just as soon as it was revealed to me.

My old dad, who has lost everything. A wife who betrayed him, producing a strange-looking daughter. A daughter who has fled and, besides, is not his daughter. A bungler of a son who let his father shoulder the responsibility for his own debts, completely fleecing him as a result. At that rate, he should thank his stars that he still had his poor little Blaupunkt radio, several items that he crafted himself, and a few books about nature in Iceland and other countries.

Now the false daughter, the apple of his eye, is going to flee even farther, to her other dad in a southern corner of the world. If I know my dad, he’ll do me the favor of dying before it comes to that.

In the sweltering heat of the inner bedroom, Heiður is snoring quietly but vigorously under the shelter of the wonderful monster-plant. Experience has taught me never to sleep without earplugs in the vicinity of my best friend. For the long trip east, I invested in silicone earplugs, but I highly doubt that anything would suffice to defend against this snore-phantom. I once called Heiður that out loud, the snore-phantom . It’s one of the things that’ll not soon be forgotten.

I use my strength to push my pillow into a pillowcase that’s too small, forming a hard ball that hardly resembles anything for laying a head on. And the bed’s more like a plank than a divan. But no matter — tonight I’d sleep soundly on anything, even a bed of nails with a boulder beneath my head. Those who have gained a new paternity must surely sleep more soundly than those who have nothing but a dilapidated one and no chance at any metamorphosis whatsoever. I really should celebrate this tomorrow with a Coke and Prince Polo.

I take the well-swaddled Cosette out of the brown leather suitcase that my dad in Perpignan slipped me before we parted ways. It was stuffed with paper, beneath which was another gift, just as he said there would be, and which I was supposed to unwrap when I returned home to Iceland. When I did, I found a golden heart-shaped box, and in it the scarab, my Egyptian beetle of lapis and gold. A lucky charm for an unlucky creature, a lucky charm that I lose and find, lose and find.

I lay Cosette on my bed, the raggedy doll that my mother loved more than she loved me.

It would be better if I tossed her into a bucket of water.

If I soaked you, Cosette Plaster-Cocotte, you’d dissolve.

But it won’t do to soak Harpa Eir. She’ll never dissolve.

I could also bury you in a shoe box, Cosette, up in Grandma’s Grove, next to the little swallow. Put up a cross and sing “Over Cold Desert Sands.”

BAK PÚ VÓ, Mommy Mare.

FISH, replies Mom, as of old when she found me howling on the kitchen floor in my foster-daughter-of-wolves game, after returning from the fish shop, with me thinking she’d gone into town.

Pillow in hand, I turn around to find Mom sitting curled up in the stocky easy chair, with her head beneath the huge shade of the floor lamp just beyond the doorway. If I pull the string and turn on the lamp above Mom’s head, maybe she’ll disappear. But I’d need to reach over her to do so, and I tremble at the thought.

The spotlight in the fish-processing plant’s parking lot sends a dull beam in through our window, instead of lighting up the lot as it should. The gleam from this crooked light reveals that Mom’s hair has turned white, thin, and straight. She’s wearing a long yellow bathrobe of flax. Her legs are crossed, and the upper part of her inner thigh is visible, revealing old folds of skin that appear powder white. She’s finally aged these past ten years, and not particularly well.

Are you feeling better now, girl?

It’s good to have some certainty.

Aren’t you terribly scandalized? asks Mom, sounding distressed.

That’s hardly the word for it.

I loved him, says Mom tearfully, pointing at the place of her heart with her middle finger, an exaggerated movement and carefully conceived finger position, as if from some sort of modern dance. At the same time, she gives me a penetrating, melancholy look, with her eyebrows raised and her eyes half-closed, like a first-year theater student.

I loved him, she repeats.

What does it matter?

Mom starts sobbing. Her body shakes, her face is chalky white, her mascara smudges. If a very elderly man were to play a female role, he would look something like this. It’s the most horrifying look I’ve ever seen on Mom, but I don’t want to laugh. I want to lie down on the floor and wail, or jump on her and smother her with the pillow. I think she’d be relieved.

You have no idea how I’ve suffered.

I let my hands holding the pillow sink, and Mom continues in a raspy masculine voice, as her sobs dwindle.

Then I died and left you and Edda. You have no idea what it’s like to be dead, witnessing everything and not being able to do anything. You just keep on suffering.

Come on, Mom, if we search a bit, we can dig up some good memories. Remember when you and Dad came east on board Hekla at the sunniest time of the year, and I made up the bed for you, in this exact same room, because you always got seasick and wanted to lie down as soon as you arrived? You were fine that time. You were in a good mood, bright and cheerful.

You’re a wonderful girl, Harpa baby, but I’m a terrible disgrace.

It turns out it was great, what you did. I don’t have to worry about money. That’s really important. I can go to school and everything, Mom.

Yes, but what does that do to help poor me?

Mom has started crying again, and this time I can hardly bear it. I go over to the chair to embrace her, to comfort her. She stands up, and the yellow rag she’s wearing falls open, revealing a tired and forlorn old breast. I wrap my arms around Mom, around empty air, and fall onto the chair in a heap.

Mom, I say, my face buried in the rock-hard pillow. Mom, I love you more than anything. I wish you were still alive.

I hear Arnbjartur’s clogs clacking, and he shouts up the stairs: Aren’t you coming back down?

Shh. Do you want to wake her? I whisper loudly.

I can’t hear you! the man shouts.

I get up, throw the pillow onto Cosette, who’s occupying my bed, and hurry down.

Did you need to make such a horrendous ruckus? I ask. My friend is sleeping upstairs.

Dýrfinna is sitting with her hands on the chair’s arms, as if she’s about to stand up. Her head glows with light that comes from inside. She’s an angel of the evening, next to a still life of potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, lettuce, and a porcelain pitcher of hot chocolate with a stately spout and a gold knob on its lid. She wants to say something, and I’m inclined to think it’ll be prophetic.