by Arthur Slade
"You're forgiven," Grandpa said. "There's only one thing that would make up for it: a big, hot cup of ... "
"Coffee! It's on its way." Uncle Thordy leapt up and went to the kitchen. The living room only had a view of the kitchen table, but not the rest of the kitchen, so I couldn't see what Uncle Thordy was up to, but with all the banging it sounded like he was conducting a symphony of pots and pans.
"Don't be to hard on ol' Thordy," Grandpa whispered. "He hasn't been the same since Kristjanna died. He even looks different, more tired, I guess. I hardly even recognized him."
A few minutes later Uncle Thordy returned with a tray full of cups and a huge metal pot of coffee. He smiled and triumphantly lifted the blue pot. It looked like something straight out of the pioneer days, covered with dents. He poured us each a cup without asking whether we wanted one. "This'll get your heart going," he promised, handing me a cup. I saw the dark bags under his eyes, the lines on his face. The scars above his right eyebrow added to the impression that he'd had a hard time lately. I knew what a heavy weight grief could be, it must have taken years off his life.
The coffee was thick as oil and steaming hot. I glanced at Sarah and Michael, who were both staring at their own cups like they'd been given poison. I'd had coffee a few times before, but this was way different. Like the long lost ancestor of coffee. I took a sip and it tasted about half as good as it looked. It was hot enough to heat my innards, though, and I was thankful for that.
"This is what Icelanders drink?" Sarah whispered. "No wonder so many of them look grumpy."
Uncle Thordy had slipped out and was back again with a plate heaped with flat, blackened pieces of bread along with strips of meat. He set it on the coffee table in front of us. "Hangikjöt and flatkökur," he announced.
"That's smoked lamb and hard bread to you," Grandpa explained.
We dug in. The bread was hard as cement, but I was able to bite off a big enough chunk to discover that it was fairly tasty. And the lamb melted in my mouth. I was so famished I could've eaten a ton of it. We hadn't had a bit of food since breakfast on the airplane. Uncle Thordy returned a third time with a plate of stuff called gravlax, which was made of salmon. It tasted salty.
"If I'd been more organized I'd have had a real meal prepared for you. Maybe even some svid."
"Oh, you should save that for special occasions," Grandpa said. "Plus it'd probably freak Michael out,"
"Freak me out, why?"
Grandfather brushed crumbs off his shirt. "It's singed sheep's head, sawn in two, boiled and eaten fresh."
Michael turned pale, along with me and Sarah. I was the first to voice our opinion. "Ewwww!"
"We never waste anything in Iceland," Uncle Thordy began, "it's part of — "
A knock on the door cut his sentence short. He shot out of his seat, spilling coffee on his hand. "I'm not expecting company," he said, wiping the coffee on his pants. "Just wait here." He walked down the short hall and out of sight. The front door creaked open letting a gust of wind come into the living room. It settled at our feet and chilled my legs. I slid closer to the fire.
Uncle Thordy spoke in hushed tones and another voice answered. There was a soft clunk, then the door closed.
A moment later a man followed Uncle Thordy into the room. The stranger pulled back the hood of his jacket and a few flakes of snow fell to the floor. I was surprised to see a young guy about my age, his black hair slicked back. He had a thin, fine-boned face, dark skin and his lips were curled into a friendly smile.
"This is Mordur, my hired helper. He saw my lights were on so he came by," Uncle Thordy explained. Grandpa stood and reached out his hand. Mordur gave him a exuberant shake, saying, "Gott kvöld." Grandpa winced slightly, like Mordur had squeezed too tight. Mordur shook everyone else's hand, saying "good evening" in English each time.
When he came to me, he held my hand for a few seconds longer than the others and stared at it like it was an interesting butterfly that had just landed on his palm. I was surprised how warm his hand was — burning hot. He looked me in the eyes, his were a swirling grey.
"Sugar," he said.
"Wh — what?" I muttered. I started to blush.
"Sugar. I come by for sugar." His English had a bit of an accent to it. He let go of my hand. He seemed — well — almost like he was struck with a sudden bout of shyness. "For my coffee. It makes it much ... uh ... more good tasting." He turned to everyone. "Welcome to Iceland! Christmas is best time to be here. The best time, I mean. It is when you get all the good food."
"Please, join us," Uncle Thordy said. "The coffee's hot."
Mordur shook his head. "No thank you. I still have to finish dishes. Your family is here to celebrate the holiday, that is good. Have you warned them about the thirteen Santa Clauses?"
"Thirteen Santa Clauses!" I said, a little too loudly. Mordur looked my way, giving me a warm grin. His eyes strayed to the top of my head then back. Was my hair a mess? "B — but there's just one Santa Claus, isn't there?"
"Not in Iceland. We do different things here. The thirteen Santa Clauses are the Jólasveinar. It means 'Christmas lads'. They are very small. Imps! I think that is the word you use. There is Stúfur, the itty bitty one, and Pottasleikir — he licks pots people leave out — Bjúgnakrækir, the sausage snatcher, and ten others. One comes every night for thirteen nights before Christmas and puts a gift in your shoe. Unless you are bad, of course. Then they do a bad thing. Like steal your sausages or hide your lipstick."
"Only in Iceland would they have bad Santa Clauses," Michael said, between bites of bread. "We're a morbid people, we are. Thirteen brats handing out presents."
"Careful," Mordur warned, shaking his finger, "the Jólasveinar know when you talk bad about them. You will end up with a rotten potato in your shoe."
"It's all he deserves," Sarah joked. Mordur smiled at her and I felt a sudden tinge of jealousy. She already had a boyfriend in Manitoba, why was she flirting with him?
"Tonight is the twenty one of December, Gluggagægir's night. He is the window peeper. And if you are really bad, Gryla, the old hag mother of the Jólasveinar, will go and eat you."
"This is starting to sound more like Halloween," I said. Mordur turned towards me again. "Tricks, treats and monsters."
Uncle Thordy set down his cup of coffee on the side table. "Don't you three listen to Mordur. He's inherited his father's long-winded, storytelling genes. And don't worry about being devoured by Gryla. The only old hag near this croft is Gunnvor and all she eats is regular food. As far as I know."
Genuine surprise showed on Grandfather's face. "You mean she's still alive? She was ancient when I was a child. I thought she would've died years ago."
Uncle Thordy rubbed his beard. "Oh, she's alive alright. Alive and kicking. I can feel her beady eyes on my back every time I head out to the pasture. She puts the spook in the horses, too."
"Then she hasn't changed." Grandpa Thursten shook his head in disbelief. "She used to come down to where we played by the marsh and threaten to break our bones and throw us in a cairn if we kept making a racket."
"She may be Gryla in disguise," Mordur said, laughing. "Anyway, I do need sugar, then I will depart with all your wonderful guests." He slapped his forehead. "I mean leave you with all your guests. Sorry, my English is rusted. It has been months since I used it." He shrugged.
"It's okay," I said, "your English is a thousand times better than my Icelandic." I smiled, then wondered if I had salmon stuck in my teeth. My cheeks flashed with heat. For the millionth time I cursed my pale white complexion. I was probably as red as the nose on Rudolph the Red — Nosed Reindeer. Mordur glanced at the top of my head again and I resisted the urge to pat down my hair. Sarah caught my eye and winked.
Mordur followed Uncle Uncle Thordy into the kitchen and came out with a small paper bag of sugar.
"It was good meeting you all," Mordur said, then left. A moment later the door down the hall opened and banged shut.
"He'
s young for a hired man," Grandpa remarked.
Uncle Thordy nodded. "He is. Just sixteen. He's the son of my previous hired man, Einar. Einar drowned last summer while fishing at sea. A terrible, tragic accident. He left Mordur with nothing but a few month's savings and the clothes on his back. His mother lives in France and didn't want anything to do with him."
"How'd he learn English?" Sarah asked.
"Mordur isn't much for school, but he's smart as a whip. He picked up his English from tourists and other Icelanders. We all know pieces and bits of two or three different languages. He's good at most everything he wants to be good at and the animals do what he says, so I decided to keep him around. Plus I felt a debt to his father, Einar was a dependable man."
"It's always a comfort to work with someone you trust." Grandpa rubbed at his chest as if he had some sort of sharp pain. When he saw us all watching him, he grinned. "What are you staring at? Haven't you seen an old man try to keep down a burp before?" He looked at Uncle Thordy. "Do you have any plans for us tomorrow?" he asked.
"To let you sleep as long as you want. None of the relatives arrive until tomorrow night."
Grandpa nodded. "Sleeping in sounds like a great idea. Maybe in the afternoon I can drive you kids to Bjarg. It's where Grettir the Strong grew up. We might even be able to take a trip to Drang Island, where Grettir died. Though I don't think we'd want to climb around there this time of year."
Grandpa always spoke as though it was just a couple of years ago that Grettir the Strong was alive, but in fact he lived sometime back in the 1100's, long before I set foot on this earth. According to my parents, Grettir spent most of his time fighting other Icelanders and the undead. I've always been glad our family let go of that tradition.
Grandpa reminded us we all had orders to phone home once we got to Uncle Thordy's, no matter what time it was in the States. Michael and Sarah went first and talked to their parents for a few minutes. When it was my turn my Mom picked up the phone on the third ring. It was so odd to hear her voice sounding crystal clear, even though she was thousands of miles away. Her and Dad were just sitting down for a late supper, hamburgers and home — made French fries. She asked me questions about the trip and I answered them all in a daze. When it came time to say goodbye, all I could say was, "I miss you."
"We miss you too, Dear," Mom said.
I joined everyone in the living room and we talked for another half hour. My eyes started to burn, my lids grew heavy. It had been a long, trying trip and jet lag seemed to have caught up with me. Uncle Thordy saw one of my yawns. "It doesn't matter what country you're in," he said, "a yawn means the same thing. I'll show you to your rooms."
We grabbed our luggage and Uncle Thordy led us down a short hall, the walls white and bare. Sarah and I would share a room. Michael had to settle for a cot in Uncle Thordy's tiny office. Grandpa took a room down the hall from us. We said goodnight to Uncle Thordy and Michael.
"I'm glad to have you girls along," Grandpa said quietly to us, "I do feel lucky to have grandchildren like you two. And Michael, of course."
"Have a good sleep, Afi," Sarah said.
As he turned away I noticed a dark spot on the back of his shirt. "Grandpa, what's that?"
He turned to me, then looked over his shoulder at where I was pointing. It was a red stain.
"Did you cut yourself?" Sarah asked.
"Not that I know of," Grandpa answered. "I'll check it out in the mirror. Guess I must of leaned on something sharp. Goodnight." He closed the door.
Once we were in our room I dropped my backpack next to a cot. I went to the washroom and decided to have a quick bath. The water here got hot real fast. Maybe it came directly from a hot spring. My hair actually looked okay, I'm not sure why Mordur kept staring at it. A few minutes later I was clean and perfectly toasty.
8.
"How are you feeling, now, Angie?" Sarah was sitting up in her bed, reading a thick paperback novel. "I know you're not much into airplanes." Her brown hair was undone so it fell across one shoulder. She'd let it grow since the last time I'd seen her and it made her look more sophisticated.
"I'm better," I admitted, towel drying my hair. It was down to my shoulders. It'd be awhile before it would catch up to Sarah's. "Once we landed I calmed down. Of course the bus ride didn't help much. Or the car ride."
"It hasn't exactly been an uneventful trip, so far, has it?"
"It was a little weird how Uncle Thordy forgot to pick us up." I grabbed my brush and began working on the tangles in my hair. "And then he wasn't all that friendly until he found out who we were."
"Maybe they're more paranoid here than we are at home. Or more superstitious. But I got the same vibes. He was relieved to see it was us."
"Do you find the house a little stinky?" I asked.
Sarah nodded. "I don't think Uncle Thordy's all that careful about keeping everything clean. Plus I think he's a little depressed. I get the feeling if we lifted the rugs we'd find a lot of dust bunnies."
Done with my hair, I dropped my brush on the night table and tucked myself under the biggest, thickest comforter I'd ever seen. We were quiet for a few moments. There were tons of things I wanted to ask Sarah, about her boyfriend, how her mom and dad were, what was new in her life, but I just couldn't find the energy.
But somewhere beneath all my tiredness, my heart was beating double-time. The coffee had kicked it into high gear. The last thing I needed was to be tossing and turning all night.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Sarah said, measuring each word, "but you don't seem as well — up — as you usually are. I always think of you as being Suzy Sunshine, but you're not quite like that right now. Is everything alright? Or is it just the long trip?"
Sarah had a gift for being able to sense my deeper moods better than anyone, even my parents. "I — I've been thinking about my brother a lot lately. The closer I got to this holiday, the more I thought about him."
"It's been five years, hasn't it?"
"Yes. A long time. But the older I get, the more I miss him. Or the more I understand what it means to not have him around anymore."
"I miss him too, Angie. Andrew was a great kid. As much as Michael gets on my nerves, I can't imagine what it would be like if he was gone."
We fell silent. What else was there to say? He was gone and we missed him.
But there was something else. I opened my mouth to tell Sarah about the nightmares I'd had back at home, but then couldn't spit out a word. I had an overwhelming feeling that if I spoke about them, they would return. Better to leave them be.
There was one other thing bothering me, though.
"Do you think Grandpa's okay? He seems tired. More tired than I've ever seen him."
She frowned. "He is looking older. And he tried to tell us the same story twice in the same day. He never used to do that."
"I hope he's okay," I said.
"He probably needs rest, that's all. It was a heck of a long trip. I still can't believe we're here. Actually in Iceland. Where our family comes from." She yawned and blinked sleepily several times. "You know, I think I'll be a lot more excited about it tomorrow. How about some shut eye?" She waited for me to nod then clicked off the lamp. "Nighty-night."
"Goodnight," I whispered, my eyelids slowly shutting down. Sleep. Exactly what I needed. A chance for my brain to rest.
I hoped I was too exhausted to dream.
9.
Probably the worst nightmare in all of the Old Norse myths is the one that haunted Baldur. Baldur was the purest of the gods. He was beautiful, wise, and gentle, and the son of Odin. No one wished him harm. Yet one night he had awful nightmares that made him twist and squirm in an attempt to escape the dark phantoms. He woke up, his body gleaming with sweat. He tried to remember each shape he'd seen and dispel them from his mind. But he failed. The skulking dream creatures crept away only to return again whenever he closed his eyes.
None of the gods could figure out the meaning of the dreams. Finall
y Odin went down to the Underworld to ask a dead seer what the dreams meant. She told him Baldur would die soon, and his death was a sign that Ragnarok — the end of the world — was coming. There was nothing any of the gods could do to stop either event.
When I closed my eyes and slipped towards sleep, I had a nightmare that equaled the evil of Baldur's bad dream. Once or twice I thought I heard rustling outside the window, but I couldn't pull myself out of the dream world. When I finally fell into a deep sleep, my head was full of constantly changing images, skull guests and floating specters that terrorized me. Snow swirled around, fire burst from the ground. Viking armies battled each other, falling down dead, only to rise up again and continue the fight.
Then the wolf from my other dream returned, loping across the battlefield. But this time, instead of eating me bite by bite, he leapt through the sky and seized the sun, spattering blood across the world. A second smaller wolf swallowed the moon.
Through it all was the sound of scratching, like someone was scraping at a piece of glass with a knife. Or pulling their nails across a chalkboard. And somewhere in the background was my brother's voice, sounding out like a distant bell.
I woke up halfway through the night, sweating like I had run a marathon. I didn't want to fall asleep again because I knew the shapes were still there, somewhere beyond the shadows in my brain, waiting for me. I layed awake, staring at the ceiling, pulling the comforter tight. My arms soon grew tired, my body ached and, despite my fears, my weary eyelids slid closed. I slept.
10.
"Breakfast!" A loud knock on the door jarred me awake. The lights in the room were on, burning into my eyes. "Breakfast!" Uncle Thordy repeated. "Get up and grab it while it's hot!"
I blinked and sat up. "I thought the plan was to sleep in today."
Sarah was already dressed in jeans and a red lumberjack-type shirt: heavy, warm, but not exactly the height of fashion. She was sitting on the bed pulling her hair into a pony tail.