by Alda Grand
She felt a pressure on her arm and she awoke. She was panicked for a second that she could not see and then she slowly remembered where she was.
“You were groaning in your sleep,” Sara said rubbing her arm, “It sounded like you were having a horrible nightmare.”
The nightmare was already fading away like ash in a strong wind. “I don't know what it was, something was chasing me and it was about to touch me. I didn't want the thing to touch my skin.” She shuddered at the remnants of whatever horrible creature had been stalking her in her sleep. “Thanks for waking me. Are you here long?”
“I came yesterday but you were passed out and heavily sedated. I’ve been here all morning,” Sara said.
“What time is it?” Lana asked.
“Its around midday,” Sara said. “How are you feeling?”
Lana moved in the bed and flexed her arms and legs gently and said, “A little stiff and my head feels like its packed with cotton wool, other then that I feel ok and a little stupid.”
“I was talking to the Doctor he said there are signs on the way to the beach warning about the area with the quicksand. You must have missed them with the fog that rolled in. Seemingly it's a one in a million occurrence,” Sara said.
“I never got to thank the man who saved me. His name was Einar, have you meet him?” Lana asked.
“Oh I meet him all right. He came to the guesthouse to tell me what happened,” she let out a whistle and continued, “You haven't seen him yet. Lets just say you are in for a treat. He looks like some sort of viking from an old story book. He’s big and broad and looks like he could pick you up and throw you onto his shoulder with ease. His eyes are the brightest blue you have ever seen, he's laid back and charming, and so damn handsome. He looks like a model, not someone who farms or fishes. And that accent, it does funny things to me every time he says my name. I definitely thought we had a bit of a moment when he was in our room,” Sara said.
Lana felt a momentary dull pain in her stomach and the slightest hint of jealousy. Of course it was just like Sara to be already homing in on Einar, the country boy probably wouldn't know what hit him. Lana felt the twinge of pain again thinking of Sara being with him but she pushed it aside. What did she think she was living in? Some sort of fairytale where the girl is rescued by the handsome prince and then they walk off into the sunset hand in hand. This was the real world and she was nothing but an escort who slept with men for money and allowed them to fulfil whatever sick and twisted fantasies they had while she lay there unconscious. How could someone like her ever end up with the fairytale ending? She couldn't afford to even allow herself to dream about such a scenario happening.
“What about everything else, are we ok?” Lana said lowering her voice.
“If you mean are there any ninja like assassins creeping about then we are in the clear. No one will find us here,” Sara said a little too flippantly for Lana's liking.
“How can you be sure?” Lana asked.
“Who is going to waste time coming after two high class hookers. We are safe stop your worrying. The doctor said you can get out tomorrow, you need to stay for one more night of observation. I’m going to go and explore the town. Do you want me to pick you up anything while I’m out?” Sara asked.
Lana wasn't surprised that Sara didn't intend to stay by her bed and hang out with her. She always had an underlying streak of selfishness and had been accused of being cold and heartless in the past. Lana was used to it and so tried not to let it hurt her too much. “No, I’m ok. Is Einar going to come back to see me?” Lana asked.
Sara let out a snort of a laughter and replied, “Do you miss your big strong hero?” Sometimes Lana felt that Sara didn't fully respect her and looked down on her as someone of a lesser calibre. Pull yourself together Lana thought to yourself, you are only feeling these doubts magnified because she is the only one you can rely on at the moment. Don't let her sharpness cut you too much.
“I want to thank him for rescuing me. If he hadn't come when he did,” she trailed off and felt a cold chill run through her body.
Sara rubbed her arm gently and said, “I know. I don't know what I would have done if I lost you.” This was typical Sara swinging from sarcastic barbs one second to open hearted genuine emotion the next. “When I see him I’ll let him know you want to see him again,” she said and left Lana alone in the hospital room.
The word “when” hung in the air like a silver bubble of air floating up through a still pond. What did she mean by “when” Lana thought to herself. Had Sara already arranged to meet up with Einar again. She felt a twinge inside as if someone was pulling on a loose thread and slowly unravelling it. Why wouldn't Einar want to hang out with Sara, she was attractive, smart and seemed to draw men to her like an open flame. Lana wallowed in self pity thinking why would he be interested in her, she was banged up and damaged goods lying in a hospital bed with a metre of bandages wrapped around her head. How could she ever compete with Sara and why should she even bother, she knew nothing about Einar and yet he was all she seemed to be able to think about since her rescue. Lana remembered reading an article about women falling for fire fighters who rescued them from burning buildings. The consensus was that when surviving a traumatic experience the women subconsciously transferred their intense emotions onto the person who had saved them. Maybe this was all that Lana was feeling now, an extreme bond and feeling of closeness to Einar when one really doesn't exist. As she tried to rationalise away what she was feeling she slowly began to drift off into a light doze as she imagined Einar picking her up in his strong arms.
A light knock on her door woke her an hour later. “Who is it?” she said groggily.
“It’s Einar. I can come back later if you are sleeping,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat and she automatically looked around for a mirror to check herself before realising her world was one of pitch black until her eyes healed. “I’m awake, you can come in,” she said as her palms began to sweat a little.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he pulled a chair to the side of her bed. She could hear a bag rustle as he placed it between his feet.
“I’m a little groggy from the sedatives and my body feels like I went five hours on the back of a bucking bull. I feel a little better now that I have company,” she said. Lana cringed at her last comment, without seeing his facial expressions she had no way to know his reaction. Maybe he looked bored and disinterested and was only coming to visit her out of a sense of obligation. Or the worst possible scenario, he was here to find out more information about Sara because she had already got her hooks into him.
“I meet your friend yesterday,” he said. Lana cursed to herself, here it comes she thought. She’d been here before and the inevitable questions would begin. Does Sara have a boyfriend, did she mention me, could I hang out with her again and on and on they would drone, treating Lana like nothing more than the gatekeeper of knowledge in all things Sara related. “She seemed,” he hesitated for a moment choosing his words carefully, “nice,” he continued. Lana could live in that pause, roll around and pull up its edges and wrap herself in the unexpected delight of the pause. It was not the pause of someone who wants to know more about the inner workings of the great and beautiful Sara, it was the pause of someone who was more confused or confounded by her. The pause was glorious to Lana's ears.
“She can be a bit of a handful at times. We have been room mates and friends for a year or so now,” Lana said. The word friend jarred her as if she had bit into something hard and crunchy amidst a bowl of ice cream. Was she really Sara’s friend or were they bonded by proximity and shared experience. If they didn't both work as escorts for Gus would she be friends with someone like Sara or was it because she was the only one she could talk to about the experience of doing the things they performed for money?
“I brought you something. I thought since you couldn't see what Iceland has to offer I’d bring it to you,” he said unzipping a bag at his f
eet. “I’ve brought most of it from my farm. You have to smell each item and try to guess what it is.”
Lana smiled at the thoughtfulness of this gesture. Einar didn't have to do any of this for her, he could have just as easily dismissed her as another dumb tourist who had paid no attention to the warning signs by the beach. Instead here he was sitting beside her and playing a game with her. The skin on her arms tingled at such a nice gesture. “Ok Im ready,” she said reaching her hand out. Einar touched his warm course hand against the back of her hand and gently pushed her outstretched hand away. Her skin prickled at his touch,
“Hey no cheating. You have to do this all by smell alone. Im going to hold the first one under your nose. Tell me what you smell.”
Lana inhaled deeply and a rush of scents filled her nose. “I can smell fresh cut grass, it smells bright and green. Is it freshly cut grass you are going to dry to turn in hay?”
“You are kind of close. It grows in the ground and you eat it. Icelanders eat it a lot. Try again,” he said raising the item to below her nose.
She sniffed again. “I can smell citrus and is that something a little earthy? I think its some sort of berry, like a redberry maybe?”, she said not fully sure with her guess.
“Not even close,” Einar said with a laugh.
Lana's heart beat fiercely in her chest. His laugh was open and friendly and invited you in, to be part of the joke and not the butt of one. Lana laughed a little to not able to stop herself and her laugh expanded to a deep throated belly laugh as she felt the horrors of the last few days wash off her as the laugh increased in magnitude.
Einar started to laugh along with her and said, “Are you laughing at this silly game?” as he continued to laugh with her.
Lana's laughing slowly subsided and she said, “No it's not that, I’m loving the game. I just needed to laugh the last few days have been very stressful. And yesterdays close call was just the icing on the whole thing. I could feel a tension building up inside me. I needed that. Thank you Einar.”
“So one final guess, what do you think the mystery object is?
“Some sort of flower?” Lana said.
“Sorry nil points for you. It was freshly cut rhubarb stalks,” he said as he placed the bunch of stalks into her hand. “I have a huge patch of them growing in one corner of my farm. I give most of them to an aunt who lives in the next town and she makes jam out of them.”
Lana ran her hand along the stalks and felt the ridged and curved surface under her fingertips. She raised a stalk up again and inhaled the bright green smell of citrus and berries. “I’ve never had rhubarb before,” she said putting the stalks in her lap.
“You are missing out. This stuff is amazing with brown sugar and strawberries. Maybe you can come over sometime and I could cook you up some,” he said.
“I’d love to try some genuine Icelandic rhubarb,” she said as calmly as possible. Back home if someone invited you over to their place to hang out and eat it usually meant only one thing, hooking up. Over here everything could be different, maybe in these small rural communities people were more open and friendly and Einar would offer the same level of hospitality to anyone. Lana tried to tell herself all this whilst also secretly hoping it was something more.
“Are you ready for the next one?” he asked as he rustled at through the bags contents again.
“Bring it on. I’m feeling confidant about this one,” Lana said.
“Ok take a smell of this,” Einar said as ripped open a package and he held it under her nose.
The strong crisp smell of sea air and the dry pungent smell of fish wafted out of the bag. Lana smiled and said, “I know this one. Its dried fish.”
“Very impressive. Full points for you. This particular batch was caught off the coast of Vik and dried on my farm. I have an outdoor frame for drying fish that has been in use for over a hundred years. Have you tasted it yet?” he asked,
“No not yet. I saw some at the bus station in Reykjavik. They smelled a lot stronger than this one.”
“Different fish have different aromas. This here is cod, some of the other types of fish we dry can be a lot more pungent. Are you ready to try another one? This is the last one,” he said.
“Bring it on,” Lana said smiling.
She heard the click of a bottles seal being broken and then the stringent smell of alcohol filled her nose. “I can smell a waft of strong booze and some sort of spices. Is it an Icelandic vodka?”
“No. You are very close,” he said.
She sniffed the bottle again and said, “Is it a type of schnapps or an aperitif. Some sort of spiced blend?”
“You are very good at this,” he said and Lana could hear the happiness in his voice. “In english its called the black death. It's a traditional schnapps that we drink when eating dried fish or fermented shark. Its made with caraway seeds and is very strong, it helps to mask the taste of the shark if you don't like it. We drink a lot of it during our traditional celebrations in February. We hold great banquets containing all types of ancient foods enjoyed by our ancestors. All the fine food is eaten and washed down with copious amounts of black death.”
“Thanks for doing this for me Einar. It feels like its been such a long time since I could relax and forget my troubles for a while. I really appreciate you hanging out with you me. You don't have to hang around and keep me company for too long,” Lana said hoping for the complete opposite.
“I’m in no hurry to go, you are fun to be around. What are you planning to do once your eyes have healed?”
“I have no firm plans really. I think we are going to stay a few weeks in Vik, maybe hang around for the fisherman's festival and then move on and do some travelling around the country. What about you, do you do anything during the summer with your wife?” Lana asked.
“I’m not married. I came close last year, only a few weeks away from the big day. I found out she was sleeping with my best friend for over a year. I was completely oblivious to it, or maybe I was just too dumb to pick up on the obvious hints. When I finally found out it was like someone stamped on my heart. I was devastated. I lost my best friend and the woman I was going to build a life with all in one day. I’m not proud of what I did when I found out, after every thing was out in the open they left the country and I think they are both living in Spain running a bar. The next six months were a blur. I only started to feel like I was coming out of that dark tunnel a few months ago,” he said.
“What did you do when you found out?” Lana asked.
“I’d rather not talk about it, the whole thing wasn't my finest hour. Have you ever been heart broken?”
“Nothing that could compare to your story. It will probably sound childish in comparison to yours,” she said.
“Go on tell me, all personal pain is valid,” he said.
“It was my final year in high school. All through school I was one of the invisible kids, you know the kind, the ones who never warranted any attention from bullies or made any waves that would threaten the popular kids. I was part of a whole underclass of teens who existed in the school and nobody really paid any attention to them. I had been gawky and a little weird looking most of my time in school and it wasn't until really my final year that I started to mature. I was a very late bloomer and interest from the opposite sex never manifested until the last few months before I finished. There was a boy I was in love with, actually probably more like obsessed with. Nate Jackson was a football player and was liked by most people who knew him. I don't think he had ever spoken more then five words to me in our whole time in school together. I was invisible to him and yet I foolishly thought I had a chance with him. We were in a biology class when our principal came in to announce the prices for our prom tickets. During the middle of the principals announcement Nate turned around in his desk and looked straight at me and smiled,” Lana let out a laugh at this point, “Thats all he did, was flash me a smile. Straight away I jumped on the idea that he was going to ask me to the prom
and just as quickly I dismissed it as an impossible dream. Then I would double back and ask myself why did he smile at me. Every day in school was more painful then the day before as we marched closer and closer to the prom. My heart nearly beat its self out of my chest every time I passed Nate in the corridor thinking this would be the time when he asked me. Two weeks before the prom I heard that he had invited Tracy Mandelay the peppy people pleaser to be his date. The smile was never for me it was for Tracy Mandelay who sat three rows behind me. It all sounds trivial now saying it out loud, but I was absolutely wrecked. I think I cried solidly for a week after that.”
“Who did you go to your prom with?” he asked.
“I never went. I made a big deal to my friends and family that I wasn't interested and that it was a stupid old fashioned institution and I would have never wanted to go. Inside I was shattered that I couldn't go.”
“Do you have a boyfriend now,” Einar asked.
“I’ve had one or two in college. Nothing too serious. I don't really have time with my course work load.”
“What are you studying in college?” Einar asked.
“Art history. It's not the most practical degree, but my dream is to someday open my own gallery and art space so I think its applicable. My parents didn't think so when I choose it. My father wanted me to go into the family business,” Lana said.
“Which is?” Einar asked.
Lana mimed cutting something lying across her lap and smiled in Einar's direction.
“Butchery?” Einar said and started to laugh.
“Close and very similar. Surgery, my father was the top surgeon in his field. Or at least he used to be,” she said trailing off.
“What happened to him?”
Lana could feel the barriers she had built up coming slowly down as she talked to Einar, he exuded easy going charm and she felt like she could tell him anything even though she barely knew him. He was a good listener and before she knew it she was telling him everything about her father.