The Perfect Landscape

by Ragna Sigurðardóttir

  5

  IN THE FOREGROUND

  E-mails have been flying back and forth between Hanna and her friends since she arrived in the country. Yet they still have not found an evening that suits them all, so they’ve settled on meeting for lunch today instead. Even then, only three of them, Hanna, Gudny, and Laufey, are able to make it to the vegetarian restaurant downtown.

  That morning Hanna goes to the national library in search of information on Christian Holst’s art collection, the butcher who owned The Birches for so many years. She does not find anything about Holst but discovers a number of things about Elisabeth Hansen, the Danish art collector whose paintings were the jewel in Holst’s collection.

  Reading the description of Elisabeth Hansen, with her red hair and lively manner, Hanna is reminded of a letter by Gudrun Johannsdottir that she found in the gallery’s archives. It was written in 1939 to a good friend of Gudrun’s who was living in Italy at the time. In the letter Gudrun describes the evening she and her friend Sigfus Gunnarsson visited Elisabeth Hansen. Elisabeth used to hold an open house one evening a week with free food. These events were frequented by Danish abstract painters, some of whom later became part of the CoBrA movement. Sigfus was among them, and Elisabeth made him very welcome but cold-shouldered Gudrun all evening.

  Gudrun mentions in the letter that Sigfus had sold a painting to Elisabeth that same evening. Where might this picture be and what sort of painting was it? Hanna thinks to herself, huddled over the books. If Sigfus had sold Elisabeth a painting then it probably went to the butcher, as he bought up virtually her whole collection.

  After a bit of searching Hanna finally turns up something about the butcher in a book about Danish abstract painters. It emerges that at the end of his life, Christian Holst gave nearly all his CoBrA paintings to an art gallery on Jutland. Maybe Sigfus’s painting ended up there as well, muses Hanna, jotting down the gallery’s name. It would be interesting to find a painting by Sigfus Gunnarsson, unknown in Iceland until now, somewhere on the Jutland countryside in Denmark.

  Hanna keeps on looking but does not find anything further about the butcher, and as she walks downtown to her lunch date, she is still no nearer the truth about The Birches. Mr. Jensen at the auction house hasn’t gotten back in touch, which is no more than she expected.

  She feels she is just not getting anywhere. The joint exhibition venture has also come to a halt. Haraldur is not answering his phone, neither Leifur nor Anselma can give her a clear idea of what they are going to display, and Jon has gone back home to Antwerp. The article Hanna intended to write for the booklet is not coming together either; it is as if everything is frozen over, just like nature. After a mild and rainy January, winter has set in with snow and frost. Not beautiful, still winter days as in Holland; here there’s been low pressure, gales, whirling snowstorms, and drifting snow all around.

  Hanna is late getting to the restaurant, but she is still the first one there. She smiles to herself, glad to be back home, where it is quite natural to be a bit unpunctual. The restaurant only serves healthy vegetarian dishes, and she reads the menu with mistrust. Having lived with Frederico for years, her taste in food has become rather Italian, and she is not keen on superhealthy food. In the end she orders vegetable lasagna just as Gudny arrives at the table, and she orders the same without asking what it is. She is out of breath and explains she is late because the road across the moor was in a bad state.

  “I took my own car. I’m more at ease in a Jeep out in the country,” she says. “Then I parked the car outside the parliament building and got caught up in a snowstorm walking across here!” She brushes the snow from her blonde highlights; any hairstyle she may have had has now been blown away.

  “But it was fun over at the prison,” she says, laughing. “An amazing woman has taken over there.” Gudny is referring to the new prison chief who has revamped operations. “She’s really giving these men an opportunity,” she says. “We were also talking about the young ones; a case came up the other day about a youngster who wanted to go to prison rather than to a young offenders’ institution out in the countryside.”

  Smiling, covered in snow, and rosy-cheeked, she shakes her head in surprise. Hanna looks at her fondly, at her big smile. Hearing her familiar, lively laughter, Hanna is pleased to see her friend again, and her concerns about The Birches and the disagreement between the artists pale in significance compared to all that Gudny has to deal with in her job as minister of justice. Gudny makes light of it and praises her colleagues. The signs of weariness are not lost on Hanna, but she sees that Gudny is enjoying her work and she’s glad for her. Gudny always wanted to go far.

  By the time Laufey arrives, they have already begun eating, and, again, Hanna feels how important their friendship is to her. She does not have much contact with her family now that her parents have died; she never was close to her half brothers and sisters. It is her friends who are her link between the past and the present, between her life before she moved abroad and her life now. They have known one another for about twenty years, some of them for longer. The bonds of friendship have not broken even though they seldom meet.

  “They’ve both grown taller than me,” Laufey is saying proudly of her two sons. She is sitting in a thick padded anorak with an African band wrapped around her head as always, and she seems untouched by age. They talk about their children; Gudny answers her phone. It’s hectic in the restaurant; people are coming and going and they each keep glancing up at the clock. There is more stress here than in Amsterdam, despite the lack of punctuality. Gudny is talking to someone on the phone about a group of youngsters who were arrested downtown in a derelict house recently. Hanna hears what she is saying without eavesdropping, but when Gudny mentions graffiti, Hanna is all ears. When Gudny hangs up, Hanna tells her how some of the city’s outdoor artworks have been vandalized.

  “I think I know which kids we’re talking about, Hanna,” replies Gudny with her mouth full. The phone rings again, but she turns it to silent and slips it into her bag. “Now I can eat in peace for a moment,” she says with a broad grin.

  “Do you really think it’s them?” asks Hanna, surprised. “The ones you were talking about, who were arrested?”

  Gudny swallows and nods. “Exactly. They’re a small gang, maybe four to six kids, one is only thirteen. They’ve been graffitiing on walls in derelict buildings in town, both inside and out. There’s very little we can do about it. The police take them down to the station, either call the child social work team or their parents, take a statement from them, and then their parents fetch them or the police drive them home. I think the thirteen-year-old is on the child protection register, probably has an impossible home situation, the poor thing.”

  “Isn’t it possible to do something for these kids? Give them some walls to spray as they please or something?” Hanna asks, but Gudny shakes her head.

  “We’ve tried all that long ago. It makes no difference—problem kids just aren’t interested. That is, part of this graffiti culture is the excitement of doing something forbidden. Although they do sometimes get punished, for example, one lad was made to clean up the wall of a house he’d spray-painted.”

  “I see,” says Hanna. “Art students from the Academy paint on walls where it’s permitted. They know what they’re about, and they want to do something stunning.”

  “Mmm,” replies Gudny, looking at the clock. Hanna does not mind.

  “I feel sorry for these kids,” Hanna says. “I had it so good when I was a child. It would never have occurred to me to go and graffiti a wall.”

  Laufey laughs. “I don’t suppose there was a lot of that in Leirhofn or Kopasker?” Hanna smiles back, recalling the little village in the north of the country where she was born and brought up.

  “I was always happy at home in Leirhofn.” She stares pensively out of the window, at the drifting snow. “I remember my bedroom window so well. It faced out toward the mountains, and when I sat up in bed I could se
e right up their slopes. I never wanted to have curtains. The hillsides, the snow, and the crags were like a graphics painting in wintertime. And in the summers I looked right onto the hollows full of berries. And in the evenings...” Falling silent for a moment, Hanna slips back in time and pictures the rural area she was brought up in. “In the evenings the slopes were a reddish-pink. Those mountains were like a friendly giant’s embrace.”

  “Weren’t you only a young girl when you moved?” Gudny has finished eating and signals to the waiter. Hanna notices that she gets immediate service. She also notices that people at nearby tables recognize who Gudny is, but no one has bothered them.

  “The earthquake was in ’76. I was nine then.”

  “Where were you when it happened?” asks Laufey. Hanna has never talked about that time, and she hesitates. She is not sure she wants to go over that day. She was about to mentally raise her sword in self-defense, look up at the clock, and mention something about time flying, but she changes her mind. Why should she not tell them what happened? It was so long ago. She still glances at the clock, as a precaution, so she can stop when she wants, make the time an excuse to go.

  “I was in school.” She hesitates, the earthquake vivid before her even though it was over thirty years ago. “The walls and the floor were like waves. It was as if a blow thundered down on the building. Books tumbled off their shelves. Somehow we all got out and no one was hurt.”

  Hanna takes a sip of water. Gudny stops, her phone halfway out of her bag.

  “Then they drove us home,” Hanna goes on. “You see, the school was in Kopasker and children from the surrounding farms were bused in. There were crevices in the road, deep fissures created by the earthquake.” Hanna does not mention the fear that reigned in the school bus, the silence; no one knew what things would be like at home, what awaited them.

  “When I came home, I was so lucky—I immediately saw Mom in the doorway. None of our family was injured.” Hanna hesitates again; she feels that no words can express what happened that day. She has always thought that it was then that her parents decided to split up. But in fact it was not like that. The family moved to Akureyri; the divorce came later. But she cannot help herself. She has always thought that if the earthquake had not destroyed their house, if they had not had to move, then her life would have been different and better. But she does not say any of this.

  “There was rice pudding all over the kitchen floor,” she says lightheartedly instead. “Rice pudding, raisins, and broken crockery. And the fridge and cooker that stood up against opposite walls had met in the middle of the room.” She smiles at Laufey. Gudny picks up her phone and checks her missed calls.

  “Gudny,” says Hanna suddenly, without thinking, maybe because she wants to change the subject. “I would like to do something for these kids who are in trouble. Or for that young lad—is it possible to help him in some way? Perhaps the gallery can do something, or the Annexe, possibly some project for youngsters? Make our town beautiful or something along those lines?” Hanna cannot stop thinking about this lad, the youngest member of the group. What sort of a life must he have if he is considered a case for the child protection register? Maybe his family split up like hers did and he doesn’t have a mother to give him the love and security that she enjoyed.

  “I’ll look into it, Hanna,” says Gudny, smiling at her. Hanna senses that Gudny finds her overly sentimental, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t have to keep a professional distance when faced with the difficult lives of these youngsters. In her head she immediately starts on a letter to the mayor. The gallery needs extra funds this year because the cost of cleaning up the vandalism has run over budget. Working with the youth could be part of that package. She can see herself organizing something with Agusta, even though it would only be a Saturday afternoon, one weekend.

  Hanna is deep in thought when Gudny gets up to go. She hugs them good-bye while talking on the phone, and is still talking as she pays the bill and disappears. Her driver is waiting.

  Laufey appears in no hurry, and Hanna is quick to suggest a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. She needs to talk to her and preferably in private. This is an ideal opportunity, and she has been thinking all morning how to approach the subject of Steinn.

  He has been off sick. “Steinn, who is never ill,” said Edda over the coffee machine that morning. “I’ve worked with Steinn for seven years and he’s never had a single sick day.”

  Hanna had immediately suspected what was wrong but said nothing. The previous week she had looked up glaucoma on the Internet and read about the symptoms of slow onset glaucoma. These could well explain Steinn’s behavior. A person’s peripheral vision deteriorates slowly but surely, creating blind spots, but the central vision remains largely untouched. If nothing is done about it, the condition will progress and cause blindness; people frequently do not notice the deterioration until it is too late. Acute glaucoma, on the other hand, can cause blindness in a very short space of time, in a matter of hours if nothing is done. Hanna does not know if slow onset glaucoma can change into acute or what is really the matter with Steinn, who is never ill. She doesn’t really feel she can call him; she can’t think up a good reason that doesn’t sound odd. Questioning him about his health seems almost like a vote of no confidence, and it would be inappropriate to keep asking him about it. She has decided to be patient, and besides she knows that Steinn doesn’t care for help or sympathy; he is a very proud man. She hopes that someone else, someone close to him, will see to it that he gets the help he needs, but she is not so sure.

  The slices of cake arrive at the table immediately. Hanna and Laufey are probably getting the benefit of Gudny’s ministerial status, even though she has left. Hanna needs to get straight to the point because neither of them has much time. She tells Laufey what she thinks Steinn is suffering from and asks for her professional opinion as a doctor, what she should do. Laufey gives her a curious look.

  “So you’re taking quite an interest in this man?”

  Hanna does not deny it. She decides to be frank. “I’m not exactly falling for him, but there’s something about him, Laufey. I don’t quite know. Anyway, there’s nothing between us. Besides, he’s married.”

  “And so are you,” says Laufey, smiling. Hanna smiles back.

  “Whether I like Steinn is not the point. I’m just concerned about him.”

  “How is Frederico anyway?” Laufey interrupts. “How is the long-distance relationship going?”

  Hanna sighs silently. Laufey always senses what is on Hanna’s mind. She can’t get away from it.

  “Things aren’t entirely OK between us,” she says, setting her fork and a delicious bit of cake back down on the plate. Then she comes out with it. Says it out loud for the first time since she stumbled on what was going on; she feels as if she is looking down into an abyss. “He’s been seeing someone else.”

  The words sound banal and ordinary. She does not look at Laufey as she says it, not into her warm dark eyes, but past her, at the people at the next table, a young couple who are eating soup. They look as if they are in love. She looks at the girl; she seems so young, too young to have a boyfriend. She looks past them and out onto the street, looks at the scene through Frederico’s eyes, as he saw it, that winter when he tried to live here. It is cold, gray, and ugly. She feels so downcast.

  Laufey must see it, too, because she lays her hand on Hanna’s arm. They sit in silence for a while. Laufey carries on eating. She waits, giving Hanna the opportunity to say something further, but she doesn’t.

  “Steinn is just a friend,” she says instead. “He’s been a friend to me ever since I began there.” Hanna feels Laufey’s eyes on her, senses the doubts she does not put into words, and for a second she is uncertain of herself. Is Steinn really a friend or does he just need a helping hand? She is not entirely sure but leans toward the feeling of friendship. Yes, he is a true friend.

  “I don’t know how I can put this to him or get him to go to
the doctor’s. Or how he can get an appointment at the hospital. I think it’s too important for him to delay any longer.” Hanna forces herself to eat the chocolate cake, and after she has swallowed a few mouthfuls she feels better. She knows that Laufey will not mention Frederico again, and she is grateful to her for that. She won’t talk to anyone else about it either, and Hanna is relieved to have a friend she can trust.

  “What about his wife?” asks Laufey.

  “She is an artist, and they have two children, quite small I think,” replies Hanna.

  “Do you know her?”

  Hanna shakes her head.

  “You should just tell him straight-out, Hanna, ask the man about it. Give him a kick,” says Laufey. “It can’t go on like this. You can point him in the right direction, to the eye clinic at the hospital. I wish I could help more, but I have to go now.”

  Laufey and Hanna both get up and hug each other and all that is left unsaid between them is expressed in that embrace. For the first time since Hanna realized what was going on, she finds herself holding back her tears. Until now, her anger at her husband has been overwhelming, but Laufey’s empathy helps dissolve those feelings. Hanna needs to make up her mind whether she wants to stay in the marriage. She needs to know in her heart whether she is doing it for her own sake or for Heba, and she hasn’t yet made that decision.