Miss Iceland

was grumpy. He asked about how the pictures had been framed and said that many paintings had been ruined by the frames. I described the frames to him and he was satisfied. I told him I live in a basement in 12 Kjartansgata where the sun can’t be seen for five months of the year. Then the light of the paintings comes to my rescue and illuminates the living room, I said. He was pleased to hear that. I wanted to say that they illuminate my life but was afraid of bursting into tears. When he told me that the white colour was the most difficult because it was so delicate, I had to look away and dab a tear. He said such beautiful things, Hekla. He told me that unfortunately, he was all out of coffee, but that to make up for that he was going to share another secret with me, which is that there is actually green under the white colour. There are now three people who know this: him, you and me. Before I left I told him that I was afraid that my husband was going to sell the paintings to buy cement for the foundations of a house in Sogamýri. He offered to buy the paintings himself so that my husband could buy the cement.”

She sits at the kitchen table with the wriggling child and is silent for a moment, occasionally casting me an inquisitive glance.

“Haven’t you told the poet you’re a writer yet?”

She could just as easily have asked: Does he know about the wild beast that’s running loose inside you and waiting for you to release it? Does a poet understand a poet?

“He hasn’t asked me,” I say.

“Has he taken you to Café Mokka with him yet?”

“I mentioned it to him once.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that none of them took girlfriends with them. Besides, he’d assumed I didn’t drink coffee.”

“Men are born poets. By the time of their confirmation, they’ve taken on the inescapable role of being geniuses. It doesn’t matter whether they write books or not. Women, on the other hand, grapple with puberty and have babies, which prevents them from being able to write.”

She stands up, lifts the child into the cot and winds up a music box. Then she turns to tell me about a dream she had last night.

“I dreamed of a bowl full of freshly fried crullers and I don’t know how to interpret the dream. Now I’m afraid that they’re children. My life is over if I get pregnant again. Then I’ll change into the woman who lives in the basement across the way. She’s stopped going out to the shop.”

Miss Northern Lights

Suddenly he’s gone. My sailor.

A tremendous downpour and storm have broken out and there are few customers in the dining room. Then I spot him standing at the door with his duffel bag and I know he’s saying goodbye. He says a place unexpectedly came up at the eleventh hour on one of the Fossur cargo ships that sails to Rotterdam and that it’s leaving tonight. He solemnly hands me the key to the room so that I can pick up the cat and typewriter.

He says he’s terminated his lease on the room.

“They were about to throw me out anyway,” he says.

I don’t ask him if he’ll be coming back.

He tells me to take the books I want, but asks me to do him a favour and send the rest of his stuff on a coach west to Búdardalur.

He hugs me tight and says he has to hurry.

As soon as I stick the key into the lock, I hear a meow. The cat rises to its feet and stretches. I bend over to stroke it.

Odin has put on weight.

The books are in a pile on the table and, in the middle of the floor, there is an open cardboard box, on top of which I see the feathery cape Jón John has packed away.

What attracts my attention the most, though, is a full-length sleeveless dress which has been draped lengthwise on the bed. I touch the material.

On top of the dress is a letter marked Hekla.

I open it.

Try on the dress.

I saw a photo of Jacqueline Kennedy in this dress in a fashion mag and drew a pattern based on the same design. Her dress was white but yours is Northern Lights green. I now hear you ask: What am I supposed to do with an evening gown? You don’t need a reason to wear a beautiful dress, Hekla. You are Miss Northern Lights.

I’ll write to you when I’ve found a job in a theatre.

YOURS, D.J. JOHNSSON

P. S. Ísey should get the sewing machine. I’ve included two patterns for Christmas dresses, one for a thirteen-month-old girl and the other for a four-month-pregnant woman.

The poet has gone to Mokka when I get home with the cat, typewriter and dress. For the moment I keep the typewriter in a case under the bed. The cat surveys the room, then hops onto the bed and coils itself at its foot.

I hang the dress up in the wardrobe.

The poet comes home as I’m boiling the fish. He’s convinced the cat will be able to crawl out through the skylight, down the drainpipe and onto the roof of the neighbour’s garage.

He shuffles through the records I’ve arranged on the bed, picks one up and examines the sleeve.

“Bob Dylan,” he says, turning the sleeve to read the back. “Sure doesn’t look like any Rachmaninoff.”

When I come back into the room after washing-up, the wardrobe is open. The poet wants to know why a long ball gown is hanging in there. He says he was about to hang up his jacket when he was confronted by this glittering Northern Lights splendour.

“And no available hanger.”

Sailors’ Special Requests

The poet is restless and paces the floor.

He says he was listening to the radio and by chance heard a request from me on the Sailors’ Special Requests programme.

“With love to D.J.