What could Svanur say that would be a revelation to me?
Would he look for some appropriate poetic or philosophical quotation on death? Would he find the words to change the situation? Or would he just say:
“You’ll die soon enough anyway. You can be sure of that. Talk to me again in thirty years’ time and then you’ll be clinging to every minute like a dog to a bone. Like your mom.”
Instead he says:
“Have I shown you the scar already?”
“The scar? No, what scar?”
“From the slipped disc operation.”
Before I know it, he’s yanking his T-shirt out of his trousers and pulling it up behind. There are few people on the street in the middle of a workday.
A large scar stretches along his spine. I picture how the guy at Tryggvi’s Tattoo Parlour would tackle this with a quad bike or snowmobile, but I resist the temptation to reveal my water lily.
“Did you know,” he says, “that in some places in the world scars are symbols that command respect and a person who bears a big and impressive scar is a person who has looked a wild beast in the eye, tackled his fears, and survived?”
I walk across the street with the rifle under my arm, up to the fourth floor, and lay it on the double bed.
Most scars on the skin are flat and pale in colour and only retain a small portion of the wound that caused their formation
I just got through the door when the phone in my pocket rings.
It’s the nursing home. A messenger. The woman apologetically introduces herself as a member of the staff who is helping my mother make a phone call. My mother was expecting me today but I didn’t show up. She says this hesitantly and cautiously, as if she knows it’s only been two hours since I visited Mom and that I seldom visit less than three times a week. She passes the phone to Mom. My lunchtime visit has been erased from her mind.
Mom’s voice quivers on the line:
“This is Gudrún Stella Jónasdóttir Snæland, can I speak to Jónas?”
“It’s me, Mom.”
“Is that you, Jónas?”
“Yes, this is my number you called, Mom dear.” She wants to know why I never visit her.
I tell her I came today.
She mulls this over and, while she tries to get her bearings, I hang on the line.
When she comes back to me she says she remembers my visit well, but forgot to ask me something when I was there. If I have a saw. The job she wants to ask me to do is to remove the branch of a tree that keeps knocking against a window by her bed and prevents her from sleeping.
“Your father kept his toolbox in our bedroom. He was a reliable man, your father, even though he wasn’t much fun.”
She hesitates.
“Did you say you were going on a journey?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to war?”
“No, not that either.”
She dithers again.
“Are you going on a special mission, Pumpkin dear?”
Special mission. I think about that term. Like to save the planet. Discover a new vaccine?
“No.”
There is yet another long silence on the phone. Maybe she’s trying to remember why she called.
“Don’t you want to live, Pumpkin dear?”
“I’m not sure.”
“At least you still have all your hair. The men on my side don’t lose their hair.”
Before I know it, I’ve said it:
“Gudrún Waterlily isn’t mine.”
I could have added she isn’t the blood of my blood. I haven’t procreated anything, the line dies out with me.
I hear rustling at the other end and voices in the distance that seem to be drawing closer. There is a prolonged silence before she continues:
“Your father and I visited a history museum on our honeymoon. That was about as romantic as it got. But what struck me the most was that the soldiers’ uniforms were made out of such thin material. Made out of lousy sheets, all for show.”
“I know, Mom.”
I sense there is something still bothering her.
“Who’s Heidegger?” Mom finally asks.
Didn’t I once write an essay about Heidegger in my only year at university? Wasn’t he the one who claimed that humanity’s relationship with reality should grow out of a sense of wonderment? Like a child or a young animal.
“A German philosopher. Why do you ask?”
“Because he phoned this morning and was asking for you. I told him he had the wrong number.”
Apologia pro vita sua (A defence of one’s own life)
A number of other options were certainly considered. It occurs to me, for example, that I could take down the ceiling light and use the hook. A decision also has to be made about the location. I stage different scenarios in my mind. Should I shoot myself in the living room or hang myself in the bedroom, kitchenette, or bathroom? I also have to choose what clothes to wear. What would be appropriate? Pyjamas, Sunday best, work clothes, in my socks or shoes?
Suddenly I remember that Waterlily has a key and might barge in on me. It would be typical of her to be standing there in the middle of the living room out of the blue to share something she had just discovered. She would say:
“Dad, did you know that bird couples only migrate to this island once and therefore can’t draw any lessons from the experience?”
How long would it take for her to start worrying about me? What’s more, she’d be the one who would have to go through my stuff. I think of the basement downstairs, which is full of junk that should have been sorted and thrown away long ago. Shouldn’t I spare her the burden?
As soon as I open the basement door, I see the stool I designed and built when Gudrún and I started living together. It has an adjustable seat that can be raised and lowered. There’s the toboggan and the orange tent that takes the better part of a day to put up, sleeping bags
