That night he climbs into the bed.
“It was cold out there.
“And I was lonely,” he adds.
I make room for him.
“I dreamt,” he says, “that I was on a merry-go-round in a deserted Tivoli Gardens, in a bleak barren landscape. I was alone and I thought: the world spins with everything but me.”
He hesitates.
“I think, Hekla, that I want to be buried beside Mum, in the west in Búdardalur.”
My dearest Hekla,
We’ve got a patch of land in Sogamýri. Lýdur goes there every evening to work on the foundations. Then I’m alone with the girls. He’s going to join the Lions or Kiwanis club. It’s the only way, he says. A family man with a wife and two children has to have connections. Otherwise you won’t get any builders. Lýdur is really happy with his girls and I’ve got to give it to him, he’s good at sleeping through the children crying at night. He’s also understanding about the mess the apartment is in. I’m making Lýdur a pair of trousers with the sewing machine Jón John gave me, but it’s more difficult than it seems.
Burn this letter in a fire. No, tear it to shreds, scatter it in the air and let it snow on you, dearest friend, and fall on your shoulders. You don’t have to be naked.
YOUR BEST FRIEND (FOR LIFE)
South
“We’re losing the flat in the autumn,” says D.J. Johnsson. “What should we do then?”
I finish the sentence I’m writing and turn.
“We’ll find another flat.”
He looks at me.
“Let’s go away, Hekla.”
I stand up.
“Where to?”
“South. By train.”
He’s standing in the middle of the floor.
“We’re two of a kind, Hekla. Neither of us is at home anywhere.”
“We don’t have the money for a train ticket. We don’t own anything.”
I think: my only possessions are two typewriters, one of which is electric.
“We’ll find a way. I’ll take on more shifts.”
He muses.
“It’ll take us a week to travel and you can write.”
“All the way?”
“Yes, all the way. We’ll travel as far as the train can take us, until we reach the sea. On the journey we’ll buy bread and cheeses named after the villages they’re made in.”
Dear Hekla,
I have news to share. We just bought a car, to be more precise: an orange Saab that Lýdur got as a bargain through his brother-in-law. And not only that, but I now have a driver’s licence. Lýdur encouraged me to and took me on several drives to save on the driving lessons. The driving instructor was really surprised I knew how to reverse. In the test I had to park the car. Neither Mum nor my mother-in-law has a driving licence. I wanted to drive to Sogamýri on my first drive to see Lýdur working on the foundations, but I got no further than Snorrabraut where I almost backed into a tourist. He wasn’t hurt but we were both equally startled. Who expects to find a tourist in the country in the second half of August? He turned out to be a French geologist, who’d come here because of the Surtsey eruption. He had a map and pointed out where he was going. I felt the least I could do was drive him to Thorlákshöfn even though I had the two girls in the back. Fortunately, Katla slept in the carrycot for most of the way. Otherwise I would have had to stop at the ski shelter to breastfeed her. It took a while to explain to him that my friend was called Hekla and my daughter Katla, but he got it in the end.
They’re two volcanoes, I said.
P.S. I saw Starkadur on Barónsstígur yesterday with a girl. I think I spotted engagement rings. He asked whether I’d received any mail from you and I said that I got a letter every week. He peeped into the pram. His girlfriend was all wide-eyed during the conversation.
There are two people inside me
and they are at war with each other
D.J. Johnsson is waiting for me after work and accompanies me home. He rides his bike and I mine, and I immediately sense he is on edge.
“Is something up?”
He gets straight to the point.
“I was wondering, Hekla, whether it wouldn’t be better to get married before the trip.”
I look at him, he seems worried.
I smile at him.
He strokes the fringe over his eyes.
“I’m serious, Hekla.”
This is the third time he mentions marriage in a short period, either because some friend of his is about to get married or he believes he’ll eventually end up getting married.
“Does that mean you’re going to give up?”
He doesn’t answer the question but looks straight into the distance.
“I’ve been thinking about it for some time. It could be useful for both of us.”
He hesitates.
“It’s also cheaper. We only need one hotel room if we have wedding rings.”
“It would never work,” I say.
“There are many different types of marriages,” he continues. “You’re my best friend. We’re both misfits.”
He stops and looks at me.
“It wouldn’t change anything. I’d get to be myself and you’d get to write. We’d take care of each other.”
We approach the hall door. He helps me lock my bike.
“It’s not as if I haven’t been propositioned by women,” he says.
Two dogs start fighting in the alleyway.
“We’d make a pretty couple. We’d make the most beautiful couple, Hekla.”
My dearest Hekla,
My father-in-law died two weeks ago after a difficult illness. I wrote an obituary about him in Morgunbladid. It was the only eulogy. Even though he hadn’t been close to Lýdur, I felt he deserved the article for the Kjarval paintings. Lýdur embraced me that evening and said that he never knew that his father had been a fan of Hannes Hafsteinn’s poetry. (He had asked me to read the article to him because for some reason the letters became all jumbled when he tried to read it himself. I don’t understand why.) I based it on the lines: “I love you, storm, I love you, love you, eternal battle.” What was heartbreaking for Lýdur, however, was that there
