Jón Gnarr - The Indian

I sneak back along the corridor. I place Mom’s slippers on either side of the corridor. I put them on their ends up against the wall, heels in the air. Then I stretch the string tightly between them. After that, I go back into the kitchen and hide myself under the kitchen table.

A little time passes, then Grandma Guðrún comes along. She’s dressed in a light bathrobe with gray overalls on top of it. She’s wearing thick tights, and slippers. She’s also in black men’s socks, like the ones my dad wears.

It’s funny to see such an old woman in Dad’s socks.

Grandma Guðrún is blind. Her eyes are open and work normally, but she simply doesn’t see anything through them. When she walks, she doesn’t lift her legs like normal people: she slides them across the floor, gently stroking the surface with her soles to test what’s in front of her.

She starts walking along the hallway. She uses her hands to help feel her way. I manage to contain my laughter. She runs her feet into the string. She doesn’t cotton on immediately, not until the shoes have fallen over and are dragging after her. Then she bends down and investigates what’s happening.

— What’s this here?

I burst out laughing. It’s a very funny sight. Grandma smiles benignly.

— Well, now, is that you, little Jón? Get on with you!

She frees the string from her legs and heads into the bathroom.

Grandma’s old. She’s more than 90 years old. She was born in the year seventeen hundred and sour cabbage. Her face is all puckered and she’s got white hair. She lives with us, in the room next to mine.

Grandma looks after me during the day when Mom is working. She sits in her room all day and knits and listens to the radio. She doesn’t pay me any mind. She only comes out to get herself coffee.

When Runa moved out, Grandma got her room. Runa has a boyfriend and lives with him. He’s called Grétar. He’s really tough; he listens to the Rolling Stones. All the boys in the street agree that he’s the toughest guy they’ve ever seen. He’s much cooler than Anton’s brother and even cooler than Gummi’s brother, even though Gummi’s brother owns a Jeep, a Lada Sport.

Grétar doesn’t need a Jeep. He’s got long hair. He’s fun and likes talking to me. And he’s puked up on Dad. It was after they’d been out dancing. Dad picked up Runa and Grétar because they were too drunk to drive.

When they got home, Grétar leaned towards him to thank him but instead puked all over his shoulder. Dad didn’t say anything but “Goodnight” and then strolled in with vomit on his shoulder.

Runa and Grétar rolled about laughing. I would laugh too if I saw that. I would never dare puke over Dad.

Runa’s trying to have a baby.

Grandma has glaucoma. There’s a cloud over her eyes. But she still can tell the difference between night and day. If it’s bright, she sees people as shadows. And she hears remarkably well. She always thinks there’s someone with me. But there never is. I’m always playing by myself. I speak for Action Man and for the tin soldiers.

Grandma can do most things other people can, by using her hands and fingertips instead of her eyes. She dresses herself. She knows her clothes by feeling them.

And on the phone there’s an extra dial on top of the standard one. The extra dial has big, raised numbers so she can make phone calls.

I like teasing Grandma. She never gets mad at me, not even when I tricked her into smelling baker’s ammonia, like Runa once did to me. Sometimes I hide inside her closet and attack her when she walks past. She has an incredibly strong grip given how old she is. I think she must be the strongest old crone in Iceland.

I reach for her neck. She grabs my hands and holds me tight.

— Think you can take me on? she says.

I start laughing and run away.

There’s some tape in one of the drawers that’s sticky on both sides. I once put it under her slippers. When she walked, the shoes kept sticking to the floor and she had to keep tugging her legs along. I don’t know what was funnier, the expression on Grandma or the sound she made when she tugged up the shoes. I rolled around laughing.

In the morning, my mom leaves coffee in a Thermos for Grandma. She puts her finger down into the cup as she pours. That’s how she can tell the cup is getting full. Then, when she pours milk, she keeps her finger inside the cup, and pours milk over it to work out how much milk she’s got.

Once, I put laundry detergent in her coffee. She sipped it and immediately spat it back in the cup.

— There’s something not right with this coffee, little Jón. I wonder, have you done something to it?

I started cackling. She wasn’t angry. We were just playing around. Grandma is fun. She gives me candy and sometimes money.

If I have money, I’ll go to a kiosk and buy Bazooka chewing gum or a can of fizzy drink. There’s a cartoon inside Bazooka chewing gum. It’s about a boy named Bazooka Joe. I don’t understand it. But it’s still fun to collect the episodes. I also collect soccer cards though I’m not bothered about soccer. The soccer cards have a good smell.

I don’t know which soccer players are the best. I know that Kevin Keegan is good. My favorite picture is still the one of the guy who is sitting on his haunches smiling happily, but his balls are hanging down one leg of his shorts. I crack up when I see it.

Sometimes my mom sends me to the convenience store to buy her cigarettes. I’m allowed to spend the change. Once, there were fifty cents left, so I rang home to ask my mom if I could spend it all. She said yes, but it didn’t matter because it cost me fifty cents to make the call. I can be a real idiot.

I enjoy being around Grandma. I’m usually at school or outside playing during the day. I spend the evenings with Grandma. Especially when Mom and Dad are playing bridge. She kisses me good night and says the Our Father with me before I go to sleep. She bows over my chest and makes the sign of the cross. It’s comforting. Grandma never goes outside. At most, she sits on the balcony in nice weather.

I can only remember one time that Grandma’s been outside. It was when we were building the garage. I was playing on it. I was going to take a running start and jump over the ditch. I took a step back and fell backwards, right off the garage roof. I landed on the asphalt drive and made a hole in my head. I’d managed to turn myself a bit in the air so I could put my hands out. If I’d landed on my back, I would definitely have fractured my skull.

At first, I didn’t dare move. I’d definitely broken some bones. And I was in shock.

All the kids came over, and so did some grown-ups who’d seen it happen. They all stood around me in a circle.

There wasn’t much the matter. I had a wound in my head, between my eyes, and I’d scraped the skin on my palms. Nothing else. But it was fun to lie there and be the center of attention and see everyone be really concerned about me. They were talking about calling an ambulance, and someone said that I wasn’t allowed to move.

Then Grandma came out. Someone had run to my house to let them know what had happened. Mom and Dad were both at work.

It was such a weird sight that everyone forgot me and just stared at her. There was a deathly silence. No one knew who she was. She was tiny, with her wild, white hair. She was in a traditional peysufot and slippers. It was like she’d arrived from the past by time machine and somehow landed in Fossvogur.