I could also have told the man we sometimes received copies of the Familie Journal, which were lent between farms, with pictures of King Frederick IX who had three daughters in silk dresses. Hissing and swishing, as a local woman put it.
“Recently, I’ve been reading various poetry books by female Danish writers,” I say.
“Really?”
The man looks at me probingly.
“Have you any experience in Smørrebrød, making open sandwiches?”
“I worked in a slaughterhouse and have some experience working with cold cuts,” I say.
He picks up the letter off the desk and slips on his glasses.
“Yes, it says here you worked in a slaughterhouse forfjor, the year before last.”
He puts the letter down again.
“The reference letter attached to the application says you possess a sense of beauty and harmony?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I say bluntly.
When I get home, D.J. Johnsson has bought minced meat, twice-baked buns and eggs and is making meatballs.
I tell him I’ve got a job and that I start at six in the morning and finish at three.
“What did you write in my reference letter?” I ask my friend.
My dear Hekla,
Thank you for the coat for Thorgerdur. No other child in the neighbourhood owns such a fine garment. We bought a lawnmower and I went out to cut the grass at four o’clock in the morning. I kept the door half open but the girls were fast asleep. And their father too. I hadn’t written in the diary over the past weeks, but when I came in I wrote three sentences: “The grass is so tall that it reaches my nipples. It’s on the limit of being able to continue growing vertically. Then it will lie down like a woman giving birth.” It wasn’t really like that, though, because the grass barely reached my ankles. But I longed to mention my nipples. Probably because my breasts are so full of milk. If I had described the lawn after I had mowed it, I could have used a male simile and spoken about stubble. After writing those three sentences, I decided to stop writing in the diary. I’ve packed away my wings. They were a small bird’s wings that could carry me no further than east to the birch grove of Thrastaskógur, oh, Hekla. The other main news is that one of the twins in the fish shop died (unexpectedly) and I don’t know which one it was. The one who survived doesn’t tease me, but I don’t know whether that’s because he’s mourning his brother or because it was the one who called me his darling who died. I’m a 22-year-old mother of two and there’s a streak of melancholic nostalgia inside me. Sorry for sharing these thoughts with you. Throw away these squiggles.
Have I travelled far away enough
from home to cry?
D.J. Johnsson hasn’t come home for two days.
“He’s off this weekend,” says his colleague when I enquire about him at the bar. He looks me over as he dries the glasses.
“Are you his sister? You resemble each other like two drops of water. Except he’s dark and you’re blonde.”
When D.J. Johnsson finally returns, he’s wobbling on his feet, clutching a bottle of beer. He looks like he hasn’t slept.
I stare at him.
“I’m not selling myself,” he says. “I don’t do drugs. I’m celebrating being alive.”
I sit beside him on the bed.
“You know, Hekla, some men want me to dress up and play a woman. I don’t want to be treated like a woman, Hekla. I’m a man.”
“I know.”
He droops his head.
“I’m just a guy who likes guys.”
He lies on the bed and presses the pillow against his head.
I sit with him and stroke him. He’s shaking.
“I’m a foreigner in this flat country. D.J. Johnsson. I’m a guest on this earth. I was born by accident. I wasn’t planned for. Sometimes I’m so tired, Hekla. Of existing and sometimes
“I just want to
“Sleep
“nod off
“conk out
“for a whole month.”
I try to remember if we have any leftover herring and beetroot.
“Shall I make you some smørrebrød?” I ask.
“I want to sew, Hekla. The sewing machine is my typewriter.”
Hekla dear,
The day has turned into night. Temperature: 9°. It looks as if the hay harvest will be reasonable, despite the wet, windy spring. It would have made a difference to have you with us in the haymaking, unlike some poets who are too feeble for outdoor work. It’s actually quite amazing how so many poets lack physical stamina. If they’re not blind like Homer, Milton and Borges, they’re lame and can’t do any sort of labour. Once a poet from Reykjavík joined us for six days, a distant cousin of your mother’s, whom she pampered, of course. At the peak of the haymaking season. His mission was to listen to the vernacular of country folk while we were working.
Apart from that, the main news is that the eruption in Surtsey continues. It has been going on for nine months now and the island has grown to a height of 174 metres. In the spring, two new craters opened beside the mother island and two extra islands were formed. They were named Surtur the first and Surtur the second in the royalist tradition. And it’s not all over because yet another island is expected to be born from a small black crater that has been named Syrtling.
Then the July nights arrived, warm and silent. All days pass, all moments vanish.
YOUR FATHER
So far from the battlefield of the world
“I could,” says D.J. Johnsson, seemingly giving it some thought, “ask a friend of mine to read it over if you want to try to write in Danish.”
“Like Gunnar Gunnarsson?”
“I was thinking more of a short
