Jón Gnarr - The Indian

Her blindness made her all the stranger. She padded forward hesitantly, groping her way. If you didn’t know she was blind, you’d simply think that she was distracted, or simply old and confused. If she’d been able to see, she’d have seen me surrounded by all these people.

She came our way. When she was almost on top of us, she turned her back to us and it was like she was just looking into the garden. No one said a word.

— Jón, my dear, is everything okay? she said, quietly.

It was so funny I forgot I had a wound in my head and wasn’t meant to move. I forgot all about my shock. I got up and walked over to her.

— I’m right here, Grandma.

— Are you okay?

— Yes, I just have a wound in my head.

— That’s good, my dear.

She held on to my elbow and I went back inside with her. We called Dad and he came and took me to the emergency room.

When I don’t have any one to play with, and don’t want to play on my own, I sometimes go into Grandma’s room and talk to her. She tells me amusing stories about the old days. When Grandma was little, people lived in houses made of turf. There was no television or radio. There were no cars. There wasn’t even electricity. Everyone was very poor and had to work hard. People were always dying because there were no doctors to cure them. Children died a lot. Sometimes two children were baptized after the same person so that the name would survive if one of the children died. It would be like if my brother’s name wasn’t actually Ómar but Jón, the name I got from Grandpa.

When Grandma was little, everyone had lice. At night people sat around, picking off lice and chatting.

Grandma and her friends often played at picking lice from people who were asleep. They competed to see who could find the most.

I myself have gotten lice. There was a lice outbreak in Fossvogs School because there are so many lice-rats at school who come from Blesugróf. All the kids had a note home. Mom had to delouse my hair and wash it with special lice soap. But in the old days there wasn’t any lice soap. There wasn’t any soap, period. Back then, people washed their hair with keytu , which is old piss. I don’t think anyone would do that today.

Grandma also knows fairy tales. She sometimes tells me stories: the one about Búkollu the cow or the one about the idiot brothers Gísli, Eîrikur, and Helgi. In fairy tales, people have strange names and there are also trolls and elves.

Grandma has seen elves. Once, she saw a troll on the mountain above her farm. Trolls only move about at night. If the sun catches them, they turn to stone, so they have to hide deep inside their cave during the day.

Once when grandmother sat watching the sheep, she saw a female elf standing on one side of a large rock. When Grandma crept closer, she saw the elf was folding baby clothes. When the elfwoman spotted her, she hastily snatched up the clothes, walked straight into the stone, and disappeared.

— Was there a door on the stone?

— No, nothing like that.

— Why did she go inside the stone?

— The elves live in the rocks, and climb on them as they please.

— Wow!

I’ve never seen elves or fairies. I’ve not even seen a ghost. I’ve tried spying on the elves at the large elf stone along the road on Álfhólsvegur. I lay there waiting for hours but didn’t see anything.

— They don’t want to be seen, said Grandma.

— Why not?

— They fear we humans.

I can understand that. They would definitely be forced to do lots of things they wouldn’t want to, like going to school. If I were an elf or a troll, I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself; I’d simply make sure to hide so I could live in peace.

Grandma never looks forward to anything.

— Aren’t you looking forward to your birthday?

— No.

— Why not?

— I’ve had so many birthdays.

— Don’t you look forward to Christmas?

— No, she says, and laughs like it’s absurd to look forward to Christmas.

— Don’t you love getting presents?

— No, she says, and smiles.

Amazing. I look forward to birthdays. But I look forward to Christmas even more. I look forward to it so much that I can’t sleep for several nights before Christmas.

I wake up early on Christmas Eve. It’s like the clock ticks slower than normal; time promises it won’t ever pass. Christmas Eve lasts for several days. I look at the clock and it says two o’clock. I think many hours have gone by, I look back at it, and it’s only quarter past two.

— You must look forward to something, Grandma?

— I look forward to dying.

— Why?

— I look forward to meeting my blessed Savior.

Sometimes Grandma talks about boring things. And she describes them as though I’ve never heard of them before. They are always the same stories, mostly about people who died. They’re sentimental and Grandma gets sad when she tells them. She becomes like my dad.

The one about Vigdís from Muli’s deathbed is especially annoying. It’s about a woman who was very ill for a long time; she was in a lot of torment before she died.

— Her face was disfigured by the pain…her little boy sat at her bedside, and she held his little hand…

I don’t bother listening to that stupid story.

— Her chest rattled as though each breath was going to be her last.

I go get myself some Cocoa Puffs. Grandma doesn’t eat Cocoa Puffs. She thinks they taste bad. She thinks that about Coke, too.

— Pff! It’s just mud and sugar.

And she’s never watched television. It wasn’t invented until after she became blind.

Poor grandmother.

There’s a strange lamp on the table. The shade rotates when you turn on the light and you can see all kinds of landscapes on it. It’s almost like the movies. It says MALLORCA on the side.

Gummi’s been to Mallorca. He went there with his mom and dad. He was totally tanned when he came back. You could really tell because he is so blond.

I liked seeing the pictures from Mallorca. Gummi had a folder full of them: of the beach, the zoo, and other places. In one picture, he’s holding an enormous parrot, like Kiki in Enid Blyton’s The Adventure Series . That’s pretty cool. On the wall of his room there’s a poster with a picture of him on it. The poster reads: WANTED. Under the image is written: REWARD $50,000. Total fake.

I went abroad, once. I went to Denmark and Norway with Mom and Dad. I went to Tívoli and the zoo, but there aren’t any pictures.

There aren’t many pictures of me at home. In one photo, I’m standing with my parents but you can’t see my face because I’m reading Duck Tales . There’s a picture of me when I was little; it hangs on the wall inside the television room. There’s also one of Grandma Anna holding me. I haven’t seen many pictures of her, either. Mom and Dad never take pictures of me. The only nice picture I’ve got of myself is a picture Gummi took with his camera, when it was my birthday.

In Denmark, I went to childcare with some strangers. That was fun. We went out into the woods and hunted frogs. After that, I went with my parents to Norway to visit my sister Kristín.

I’d like to have a photo album full of pictures of myself. I’d be able to look at them and recall all the good memories. I could show them to my friends and tell stories about what happened.

Many things at Gummi’s house have Mallorca written on them: ashtrays and wall plates. Inside the living room, on a high-up shelf, there’s a huge, black bull with horns. It says TORRES on it. His parents bought it when they were in Mallorca.