I surf the Web in search of a suitable destination and focus on countries along warfare latitudes. Sixty-three countries and regions soon emerge as potential candidates. What was the country that Svanur mentioned in connection with the documentary he had watched about women and war?
In the end, I choose a country that was in the news for a long time because of the battles being waged there, but has vanished from the spotlight due to a cease-fire a few months ago. The situation is said to be precarious, and it is unclear whether the cease-fire will hold. It seems ideal, I could be shot on a street corner or step on a land mine. It’s as if I could hear Svanur’s voice:
“If you were a woman, you’d be raped first.”
It will be a one-way ticket. I find a hotel online in some derelict small town I recognise from the news. I remember that hotels are, in fact, favoured venues for topping one’s self. The online photos were clearly taken before the war, and one can see that the hotel once stood by a little square adorned with flowers, and that bee breeding and honey production thrived in the surrounding countryside. The hotel is situated close to the beach, and according to the information on the website, it was a popular tourist resort, known for its archaeological sites and mud baths. There is mention of thermal baths in the hotel and a centuries-old mosaic wall.
As I’m writing a farewell letter, I slip a record onto the turntable and listen to “One Way Ticket to the Moon.”
Who should I address it to? To my daughter and mother, the two namesakes, Gudrún W. and Gudrún S.?
I start to think about what Svanur said on the walk.
“People are forgotten. Eventually no one remembers you.”
Waterlily has immaculate skin, but is worried that she doesn’t have beautiful enough knees. Should I tell her not to worry about her knees? Men don’t give any thought to knees, they don’t think about women in parts, but in overall pictures. Do they do that? I think of my own intimate diaries.
Mom has already made arrangements regarding the flora on her grave. She wants to have low ivy, dwarf willow. Should I write: no pomp, no handles on the coffin, just the cheapest wooden box, raw?
I make a first draft of the letter and write: I’m gone then. Why then? Cross it out.
I add: I won’t be coming back. Cross out I won’t be coming back and write I no longer exist. Should I mention the spring? Where could that come in? Suddenly I’d like to insert the words “latter half” into the letter. Could I say: In the latter half of next week I will no longer exist? Or: In the latter half of next week the world will be spinning without me? What’s the weather forecast for the world without me? They’re forecasting mild weather and rain over the next few days. I write: In the latter half of next week it will stop raining. Waterlily will know what I mean.
Cross everything out.
Start again:
I don’t think any real father could have been any prouder than I am. Cross out real and just leave father.
Rip up the sheet and start again:
Sold Steel Legs Ltd. to Eiríkur Gudmundsson (yes, it’s the guy who runs the Steel Frame Ltd. company and makes kitchen islands), he’ll transfer the final payment to your account in June. Yours, Dad.
God saves the sufferers with suffering
I pack for a corpse. The suitcase is almost empty: no sunscreen, no razor, no change of shirt, no sandals, swimsuit, or shorts, no camera and no phone. It will be impossible to contact me.
Then I tidy up the apartment a bit.
I spread the duvet over the double bed and smoothen it slightly, then draw the bedspread over the bedclothes and tug on the corners on both sides to even them out. Should I vacuum as well? I open the wardrobe. Is that really the sweater Gudrún knitted for me, folded at the very back of the shelf?
I adjust the pile of books on the bedside table. What’s the Bible still doing there? The bookmark is still on the Book of Job.
After Gudrún and I stopped sharing our nights together, and she lay on one side of the bed, wrapped in down with her book, and I lay on the other side with mine, I read three books that no one I know has managed to read from beginning to end: the Bible, the Koran, and the Vedas. It took me three months to read the Bible, a total of 1,829 pages, but a shorter time to read the others. My favourites were the love verses of the apostle Paul and the Koran’s messages of peace. For he who murders one man murders all mankind; he who saves a human life saves mankind. And I liked Purusha in the Vedas with his thousand heads, thousand eyes and thousand legs, who held the entire world in his embrace.
Only on one occasion did Gudrún ask me to read to her. By then she was dressing our duvets in nonmatching covers and building a barricade of pillows between us, like a fortified wall between the east and west banks of the marital bed.
“Which part would you like me to read?” I asked.
“Just where you are now.”
I was in the Book of Job so I read about the righteous Job, blameless and upright, God-fearing and scrupulous, who was imprisoned in chains and afflicted with suffering.
Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return, I end my reading.
“Thanks,” she said softly, and I sensed a vulnerability in her voice. Then I heard her say, “I knew it,” as she shook the pillow between us and turned away. I looked at her beautiful curved shoulder under her nightdress. If I had been on the Song of Songs and read your breasts are like bunches
