Jón Gnarr - The Indian

After the call, I went into my room. I couldn’t catch my breath and I was only able to fill my lungs by yawning. I was seriously tired and wanted to disappear into the giant thumb. Satan is an ugly name.

The sound keeps going. Einar switches between looking at me and writing in his book.

— It’s just coming from the corner, I say.

I’m bad and ugly. Maybe Satan really has come to get me. Maybe he’s coming up out of the ground. Maybe Einar is friends with Satan. Maybe Mom won’t care if Satan takes me. Maybe she’s already gone. I might never go back home. It’s like a heavy slab is laying across my chest. I’m defenseless: I don’t have my knife with me.

I jump to my feet and listen. The sound is coming from the radiator. Sometimes a sound comes from the radiator in my room. But that’s a quiet buzz and not a great noise like this. Then I figure out what it is. It’s just some drilling. I breathe easy. I sit back down.

— Were you frightened, Jón? Were you afraid of the sound?

— No.

— Do you know how old you are?

— Six.

— Which school do you go to?

— Foxvox!

— Fossvogs?

— That’s what I said.

— Is school fun?

— Yes.

— Who is your teacher?

— Her name is Marta. I’ve got a schoolbag, too. It’s red with a picture on the front, of a boy standing by a tree, giving a girl an apple.

— Is it a nice bag?

— Stebbi says that it’s a girl’s bag.

— Who is Stebbi?

— He’s my friend.

— So you have friends?

I don’t want to discuss these things. It’s no fun. I like the way my bag smells. The scent of leather is my favorite smell. I love my bag because it’s good to breathe inside it. Sometimes I’ll stick my face in it and breathe the nice smell and then I feel good. Sometimes, it smells like whatever snacks were in my bag.

Smell is very important. My sister Runa sometimes teases me by making me smell baker’s ammonia. That’s bad. I think all smells are good, except others’ poop and pee smells, and the smell of cucumbers.

The smell of cucumber is the worst smell in the world. It makes me sick. Once my mom tried to give me bread with slices of cucumber. She threw the slices away and put pâté in its place. But I could still smell it. The smell of cucumber is so strong. It’s green and spiky.

There’s paper on the table and whiteboard markers. Markers smell good. I like sniffing markers. When you sniff colored markers, you’ve got to be careful not to write on your nose. The red one smells of oranges.

I take a piece of paper and a marker and draw a picture of Satan with his bag. I also draw a knife and a gun to kill Satan with. If Satan comes, I’ll kill him with a knife.

— Who’s this? asks Einar, looking at the images.

— This is Satan.

— Who’s that?

— He’s just some guy.

— Do you know him?

— No.

— Do you know where he lives?

— He’s friends with The Octopus.

— Who’s that?

I don’t want to talk about it. I get bored so I shut up. Maybe it will all go away if I don’t talk about it. I’m not talking about Satan. I don’t even think about it. And I’m not going to talk about Salarías, either.

Einar looks at me curiously. I wish he’d stop doing that. I don’t want him to see me. Maybe he can see what I’m thinking. My mom can tell when I’m about to do something. Maybe he’s thinking about what to do with really bad and ugly boys like me.

I get the toys out of the toy-box and put them on the table: a large bull, some miniature cowboys, a lion, and an elephant. The bull attacks the cowboys and kills them all. It also kills the lion and elephant and butts them off the table. I put the bull on the table and build a fort around it so no one can get to it to kill or hurt it. I take everything that’s on the table and arrange it around the bull.

I take the desktop phone and make a fence with the cable. A dial tone sounds from the handset. That’s okay. Nobody can hurt the bull. The bull can look after itself. It can butt anyone who tries to kill it. If Satan comes, the bull will gore him to death.

When the bull is completely safe, I go back to studying my comics.

Einar writes in his book. I read the paper. I recognize J. That’s my initial. But it’s difficult to draw. Though not as difficult as drawing R and S.

Stebbi knows how to read. Mom once pointed to the letters on the fridge and asked us what they spelled. I didn’t know. There were so many characters. But Stebbi knew: A — D — M — I — R — A — L.

Einar goes out and calls Mom. They talk; I don’t listen to them. I don’t care what they’re saying.

— Put your coat on, says Mom.

I get dressed while reading my paper.

I don’t want to be there. I want to go away and to be left alone. All of a sudden we’re outside. I won’t ever go back again.

Jón Gunnar is my research subject on account of his lack of restraint and his isolation from other children […] His expression suggests he is somewhat confused: “lost.” He seems to barge headlong without taking account of what he is up to, and without seeming aware of his surroundings. Jón Gunnar sat with his mother in the waiting room, greeted me without looking at me and brought with him a comic he was reading. He was headed into the wrong corridor, but he got his bearings and then was on his way into another room in the right hallway before he made it to my room. He walked straight in, seemed to have no reaction to me as a stranger, sat at the desk and began reading his paper. He was wearing a winter coat; when he seemed to be starting to get quite warm, I suggested that he seemed like he might want to take off his jacket. He carried on doing what he was doing while he struggled out of the jacket and dropped it on the floor beside him.

After a little while in the room with me he began to look around; he saw something up on the bookcase and said “I want that.” It was a crane made of Bilofix; he immediately began to tackle it; although the crane was fairly complicated, there was no hesitation from Jón Gunnar: he took it apart, loosening a screw here, another there, and tightening a nut in a third place. It took just half a minute until the crane got totally entangled; the band inside it slackened completely and the crane started to fall apart. Then Jón Gunnar took the band, wrapped it around the whole thing, and tried to tie the band. That failed, so he let it fall to the ground and began looking at the instructions for the Bilofix, which had many pictures. He said he couldn’t do this, nor this, nor this; eventually, he found the easiest part, and said “I can do that.” He made no effort to carry it out; he just left the Bilofix mess there on the floor, and didn’t seem bothered by it, even though he had to walk over it when he wanted to play with something else.

When we went out into the corridor, he began to hear a thundering from outside the building. There were people drilling into the wall. The lad looked towards the window and asked what that was; I wanted him to tell me what he thought it was. “It’s just from the corner,” he said, and tried to let that solution suffice; when the noise increased, he began to look back in its direction and went towards it. Once he saw the radiator, he said, “It’s just from the radiator.” But we drew closer to the radiator, and he began to listen to it. Then he said, as if nothing were more self-explanatory, “It’s just someone drilling outside.”

[…] When he started playing with small animals and cowboys and such like on the table, he described to me what was happening. He selected the bull, which perpetrated the most awful bloodbath: it killed every single one of the animals and most of the people. When it was over, he took it up and made fences on the table around the bull. He used whatever was available: for example he took a phone and used that as part of his protective wall. He didn’t see this as interfering in any way; however, the buzzing from the handset continued for about 5 min. Then he said, “I’m going to read my paper.” He got onto his knees and read for about 10 minutes and was completely in his own world, unaware of what was taking place around him. He never once looked at me.