Sölvi Sigurdsson - The Last Days of My Mother

“Strange how I was never a dean’s wife,” she said, blowing cosmopolitan smoke rings at her reflection. “Why has my love life always been so. .? Take Jonas for example. It’s not my fault that the man was so sickly all the time.”

“I ran into him in the bakery the other day and he seems to be doing better, he’s walking again—”

“It was hopeless,” she injected and stubbed out her cigarette. “A man who’s in rehab when he’s not actually in the hospital? No. What I’ve never had, Trooper, is a man who could support me. Look at those two over there. It’s obvious what they’ve been up to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Obviously homosexuals.”

“Ah, but of course! I was wondering what’s up with their asses,” I said, ignoring the disapproving looks from the people on the next table. Truth was, Mother had a real soft spot for gay men.

“Why on earth do all the best men go into this? No wonder women my age have trouble finding a man.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Eva.”

“No, I mean it. Either they’re married to some sad cow or feeling each other up. Can you name one normal, single man my age?”

I reached for my Food Market bag and pretended to read the celebrity pages of my newspaper. The main story was about Croatian supermodels Milla and Iva.

“Although. . you know. . I always thought you’d turn out gay, Trooper,” she continued. “I’ve never known any child as dramatic as you were. You’d dress up in my clothes, put on makeup, walk around in over-sized heels. .”

“You raised me in the theater, what did you expect?”

“Sure, but just think, a beautiful woman like me — surrounded by homosexuals her whole life. Then along come these old farts like Emma Gulla. . apparently she bagged herself a doctor.”

“Who’s Emma Gulla?”

“Don’t you remember her? Such an incredibly ugly woman. And boring, too.”

A nearby screen announced that our flight was boarding. I picked up our things and prepared to go.

“Wait. Let’s have one for the road, Trooper.”

“We’ll miss our flight.”

“I doubt they’ll take off without us.”

“Eva,” I sighed.

“Alright, alright. I’ve got a little something with me anyways.”

We walked along the seemingly endless corridor toward the gate. Mother was astonished at the lack of moving sidewalks and gave the flight attendant a long speech about the technological superiority of German airports. The Samsung-girl in the short denim dress sat in the seat across the aisle from me.

“Isn’t that the same dress I gave Zola?” Mother whispered, but I was too overwhelmed by the girl’s presence to answer. She fastened her seatbelt while her boyfriend wrestled with his laptop, giving me a chance to stare at her legs and wonder how some human of the male sex, some sweaty, hick ape had actually been a part of her conception. I’d much rather believe that the Samsung-girl was the fruit of intense sex between the supermodels Milla and Iva. Mother, however, repeated her suspicions of the girl’s mundane part in the material world, took a swig from her flask and said: “Yes, I’m sure that’s the same dress.”

“What dress are you talking about?”

“Well, that dress I gave Zola. She made it into this huge issue, remember? She could be so incredibly opinionated.”

I remembered. A couple years earlier Mother had held a gala on Palm Sunday, inviting pensioners, neighbors, and distant relatives who had the required weakness for wine. The day before the party Mother had stopped by with a dress she’d bought on a whim for Zola during a shopping frenzy at the mall’s end-of-season sale. Zola didn’t like showing too much skin and was horrified by the short hemline. Mother insisted she wear it and then made an alcohol-induced presentation of Zola in the dress, parading her about the party, to show off what a fantastic stylist she was, the gorgeousness of the dress, how great Zola looked in it, and how wonderful the whole thing was. The tension escalated as the evening progressed, something detonated between them; there was shouting and crying and we left without good-byes. Zola said she’d had it and demanded that I talk to Mother or she’d never step foot in that house again. The next morning I took a taxi down to Spítala Street. Mother came to the door and welcomed me in high spirits. Now we’d have a fun hangover day! But instead of sharing a drink with her, I brought up the incident.

“What?”

“Just, you know. You were being difficult. That speech, for instance, about Willy Nellyson and his cock.”

“That was just a joke.”

“And then you asked Zola if I was any good.”

“Really? In bed?”

“That was the only way to interpret it.”

“Oh. And what did she say?”

“That’s beside the point. You need to learn to behave in company.”

She asked if this was a message from Zola and I told her to knock it off, that she knew very well that this wasn’t about Zola.

“Well, I don’t remember you speaking to me like this before you met that woman.”

“ That woman . Is that how you think of her? The woman who took days off work to. .”

“Oh, Trooper, let’s not bring that up.”

“By all means, let’s. I want to know what you mean.”

“Well, nothing really. I just don’t recall you making a habit of attacking people before this relationship.”

“I’m not attacking anyone. You were the one who. .”

“Know what, Trooper? There’s no point in this. I worry about you, that’s all. You’re so terribly codependent.”

After this I was stuck for a while in no man’s land between the two women, like melted cheese between two slices of toast. I talked to Mother on the phone every now and then, but spent my days with Zola. I woke up next to her and cooked with her and in the evenings after we’d tidied up, I’d tell her stories from work about people who wanted to buy out their neighbors in order to build a sauna in the basement, and colleagues who bought dogs to go jogging with but ended up keeping them in a pet hotel while they themselves developed a high-maintenance cocaine addiction. Zola had no faith in my profession. She believed real estate agencies were the final indicator of the degeneration of modern man, the moral bankruptcy of capitalism, and the distorted image of people who stare into the bathroom mirror to define their lives, but perceive nothing but the tiles. I should quit and elope with her to Ireland.

“Ireland!?” Mother was practically foaming at the mouth.

“Just for a while. Zola’s going to study geology.”

“I’d think the best place for that would be Iceland .”

“We just want a change of scenery.”

“Ahh. . well, of course you do,” she said in a calmer tone tainted with newfound excitement. “This will be great! I’ve got lots of frequent flyer miles.”

In order to appease Zola I decided to enroll in a practical course in Dublin’s Trinity College, settling on a diploma in Freudian Analysis. My first class was unlike anything I’d tried before. I became a spokesman for phenomenology, an advocate of idealism; dressed in striped shirts and tweed jackets that underlined my transformed status in human society. Fellow students envied my naïve passion for Sigmund and wondered at the intimate, personal relationship I formed with him. As I stared into my own essence, a whole new world of theory opened up like a blender for the miscellaneous gumbo of soul and psyche.

The guileless euphoria over my relationship with the psychoanalyst only lasted a couple of weeks, however. I realized that even though my Austrian friend had great insight into the human soul, his writings were lacking in practical solutions. I was left with a deep, almost tormented understanding of an impossible situation, and in my desperation I went and bought insanely expensive tickets for The Lord of the Dance — Michael Flatley in order to entertain Mother during her visit. But instead of seizing the opportunity to take a break from each other, Zola and Mother both insisted on going and ended up getting hammered in the local pub after the show. I never understood what happened, but assumed that Zola’s wild nature had echoed the hysterical humor Mother would embrace after her third drink and abandon on the thirteenth.