Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller
Page 36
N.B.: These fragmented legends, plucked from every direction, are recorded from oral sources from around the country, totally unaltered by any artistry. I do not have time to sort the items into a clear scenario (cause: effect), to construct a raftered building and finish them with a well-made final sentence conveying the opinion that fiction is the writer’s spiritual sexual intercourse with the story content and the reader, hopefully resulting in orgasms for everyone and everything; soon I am going to die.
Memo: If it should turn out that my life lasts quite some time, I’m going to write a novel full of contrasts with the situation in the Soviet Union, obtained on the one hand from The Morning Paper and on the other from The National Will.
Remember: Character sketches. But above all: fine icelandic humor is lightweight and comprehensible to people.
Meanwhile I remained distant to myself, neither generous nor spirited work finds her way to worship at my door. Precautions are necessary. I have made a detailed record of where and how things are in the room, as much in the drawers of the table as in closets and bags, so I can perceive the slightest turmoil. I think it pays off, though my time is wasted in inventory at night. I’ve drawn almost invisible lines around the feet of my alarm clock and the condom pack in the bedroom drawer. I keep three condoms on hand in case I need to use one. There is hope yet. I exercise discipline and mostly leave myself alone nowadays mostly except perhaps in the evening, if a lack of character shoots through me. Baui cannot take a joke; I irritate him with an old negro woman and get nothing from him for a week. The old woman is long dead so there’s nothing to get angry at me for. I do not recall where her image is displayed; on a pack of cocoa. No. I remember she was a singer, black and strong, immensely ugly. I do not want to deny the fact that sometimes I even consider my desire to become a fleshly woman for a short time, maybe just once or twice a day. Ideally I would have been a kind of gender-tuner, with a gender switch beneath my belly or in a secret belt around my navel. And when I would put a finger under my shirt and press my navel (I am always in there digging lint out) I would appear to others as a big, light-haired, sex-bomb: in the street, in the bank, in second-hand bookstores, the men’s toilets. I would play this game until everyone got furious and felt they were hallucinating. No, the human creature is poorly equipped by the hand of nature. Everything is immutable: trees bear leaves, leaves are green; all humans walk on two legs; snow is white; seasons come in an unwavering series one after the other; no law breaks itself. Fashion is not drastic enough, even the makers of prosthetics are so conventional that they construct a prosthetic in the color of what it replaces, not bright or dappled as it could be, and leaves need to rot or wilt so that the green does not disturb the peace. Only the presence of death disturbs man. I would enjoy the greatest popularity as a world-famous female scientist. I think that must be so. No domestic Icelander excels in science. On the men’s market there is too much supply and fierce competition, but there is an open way to fame and fortune for a gifted, talented woman. People may doubt my talents and abilities as a man but were they in the cylinder of a woman’s body they would probably say: She is singular. The requirements for women are less stringent. Generally, it is said: He is lazy for a man; he is ugly for a man. As a woman, he would have probably been considered hard-working and handsome. I do not know. But there is no doubt that often I consider becoming a woman. Yes. If the truth is malleable and the human body, too, why could not those feelings become tangible and manifest either in the form of a woman or a man. I would be a world-famous woman in the field of nuclear physics. No, as I have said: everything about a person is a bound substance. I guess the nation would strongly oppose such a woman on its coat of arms. I guess the newspapers would not catch the news:
First Self-Taught icelandic Woman Splits Atom.
The mirror would display an image of an ancient woman with an ax; it would be popular and unoriginal. Some unique news: in this basement here in Reykjavík yesterday a self-educated woman managed to split the atom with improvised equipment. But the icelandic Association of University Women has been silent over the event. We cannot recognize this woman without stamped documents from the university, says the head, Tómassina Tómasdóttir, in an interview with the newspaper; she has no certificate and no scholarly woman’s female features from birth. We cannot demand prospective members lift their dresses for admission to the club. This woman does not have a genuine hole. All this sounds marvelous. Now it is woman’s time. The time of man has passed. With overuse of himself and his exaggerated features man has managed to run through the ages of achievement, to make himself a totally known entity. Woman, however, is still at the stage of the unknown. She is an algebraic creation; she is x. All great men will become women secretly or apparently. With old age, this becomes clear in men. Notice how great professionals in various fields become old woman with age. Shave the beards of the great men of the nineteenth century and, lo: there you have, evidently, a strict grandmother. Women would get a significant boost if great men could change themselves after becoming inoperative as pollinating animals. Examine photographs of Ibsen and Einstein (and countless others), shave the beard of the man in the image and clothe him in a black satin dress, if he is a foreigner (put the domestic ones in national costume), spread dandruff and hair that’s falling out on the shoulders and collar, and you will see: out comes the old woman in them. (Is it a coincidence that the icelandic authors usually choose old women as the subject; is it just a romance for old women or a latent desire to be a woman.) Variously these written old women are strict stepmothers or lively . . . well, you know. Place a hamper full of crochet and crafts in Churchill’s lap, take out his cigar, and see the correct image: a grandmother sitting in an old wicker chair, busy with wool work, good-natured, witty, and a bit obscene. I could resist the temptations of the flesh, so I would not need to drop the first year of high school—due to childbirth. As is commonplace, like the Society of University Women complains sorely, the subservience of woman, their compulsion to lie flat like a skate, plaice, or flounder, fish species that are bottom fish and monochrome, white below, black above, as women are viewed mentally and physically. Women are flatfish. What trial of strength would it be for me to stick my tampon in each morning, carry out the self-explanatory details of the contemporary woman’s morning routine, a precaution women’s issues continually hammers on about from A to Z: geld yourselves with a stopper. All female swans are females. If drowsiness sinks over me or I get sleepy from the test-tube steam then I, the scientific woman, would swallow the anti-baby-pill and be independent enough to freely stroke my own head. Sometimes I would use the old tips, rinse myself occasionally with a weak brandy solution. A proof that I could resist the temptation. I take my dreams as witness. Make your judgment on them. You would be difficult judges: complicating dreams and confusing them in rhyme with your cross examination. My dreams have never
but eventually these countless examples became contradicted are dreams there to confuse men the prosecution bench from then on they do not distinguish that which happened awake or in a dream the human spirit reached its highest level absolute anarchy and has been convicted of the same stage man arrives at after extended alcoholism and drug use and infatuation with sex with mergers
Had she (the laundry woman) been examined immediately after the rape subtle analysis might have revealed some particles of Ca-O-la talcum on her thighs, since I spread this type of talc on my groin morning and evening. I get a heavy sweat around my balls and the sweat irritates the skin and gets into my rectum. I suffer from night sweats too so I stroke my palms firmly on my thighs and my chest wrinkles with old dark sweat underneath. My thighs rub together, red patches break out, ulcers on my testicles, if they are not well taken care of. In the investigation now I would innocently ask what relevance that has, but in a dream of course I would be equally guilty after as before. Self-torment is every Christian man’s atonement. I am directed to a seat on an oak bench. Two policewoman guard the door.
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why did Göring laugh in the well-known image of the Nuremberg trials everyone laughing and the police at the door pursing their lips to hold in a laugh what could be funny in this place with the war crime tribunals I’ve never been able to find out about why it does not fit the trial in Nuremberg but there’s no explanation for the laughter which is what alone awakens people’s curiositywhy does the British encyclopedia know neither about the laughter nor that the British royal family is of icelandic descent it is no encyclopedia that damnedwas the photograph of Göring published in a newspaper to make curious people crazy at this legal torture: at what did Göring the murderer laugh what allege that led the judges and everyone to join in a court of laughter before the death sentence was pronounced and the executions began of Göring and his fellows for crimes against humanity is that what humanity is then a lying spot on the tongue of the guilty and innocent is this one and the same or is world history funny like the material in the writers’ novels praised as genius because people either laugh or weep on each page of their reading
Come, says the judge, swear on the Bible. He rises slowly from his divan and goes to the table where the book lies. Place your right hand on god’s word and say: I will tell the truth and nothing but the truth, like in a radio play. This man is a pagan. Those present look around them as the words come out. Miss Gerður sleeps red-faced on a blue cushion. The judge tilts his cheek to his fellow judges and whispers: If the man is without faith or just superstitious then his oath is useless. Does the woman tell the truth asks the man gruffly. So, woman, out with your tongue. He keeps his buzzing tongue fixed on the tip with bitten nails and watches the black spot through a magnifying glass. This is just a wart, I mutter through my throat. I am writing about my warts, genitals and limbs and tongue also so that I do not lie in the novel, Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller. I ONLY WANT TO BE A TORSO. The judges put their noses together. The court is emptied. After careful consideration, they deem me truthful. He is confirmed and baptized and inoculated in the Lutheran faith. This will be a relief to god, they say, self-righteous and dependable. Their decision is hindered because I have sworn a false oath. The effort is over. You believe in god at heart, my love. Indeed, I say. All hymns make me emotional, no matter how loathsome I know them to be, or badly sung. And I’m relieved that someone made the decision for me. Or semen was found in her. Analyzed in the laboratory of the University. I ejaculated both on site and later in a dream. And also dreamed the event. I dreamed it long before. I ask: Have you ever been forced to do another’s will during sleep. No one forced you to rape or carry out the atrocities committed while you slept soundly and innocent