by Tory Bilski
Viv and I back up into the kitchen to discuss. “Is Pippa doing that to make us feel bad?” Viv whispers. “I bought her two little rubber curry brushes.”
“I only contributed a can of Cowboy Magic. It looks so cheap of me.”
“She must have spent a thousand dollars on those presents.”
“But it’s so over the top. She’s setting a standard I could never keep up with. Is she trying to buy Helga’s friendship?”
“You can’t buy Helga’s friendship. She is not materialistic,” Viv says.
This is Pippa’s third year with us, and I know how she really wants to be here, but I also sense she wants to be here without us. In horse language, she wants to push us to the outer edges of the pasture; she wants to drive us into the mountains all winter and never herd us back down in the summer.
I once took an archeology course in college and the professor spent his summers on digs in Canada, studying the paleo tribes of the Maritime provinces. He was writing out the names of each tribal group on a blackboard and the time periods when they inhabited the area, and all the supplanting or usurping of one group after another, when he stopped for a second. He turned to us and said, sadly, but resolutely, “It’s over turf, whether it’s the good hunting grounds or fishing shores. All wars are turf wars. It’s the history of humans. One group tries to replace the other.”
This is the modern-day version of it: Pippa trying to either usurp us, replace us, or somehow get in tight with Helga so she can secure an invitation without us. But as far as we knew, Helga only opened her guesthouse in the summer for us, Sylvie’s group.
Viv and I once composed a painstakingly careful email to Helga, asking if we could stay an extra two days at the end of our trip. She could pro-rate it, we would not bother her, we explained. We only wanted to walk and spend time in the sunshine. Helga’s response was to not reply at all. She simply ignored the email and the follow-up email, which is the typical Icelander way of refusal. Helga didn’t want to turn her farm into a horse-trekking B&B—or give any indication that the guesthouse was open for business. She was a professional trainer, not an inn hostess.
But maybe I am being too harsh on Pippa. Maybe staying alive another year and making it to Iceland another year is all that she is trying to do and we’re not on her radar for good or ill. Her left leg is wrapped in compression bandages, a result of recent bone surgery she had over the winter and fear of edema that can be caused by air travel. She sits in an armchair and props up her leg on a kitchen chair. I don’t know what the status of her remission is. She doesn’t talk about it and we know not to inquire.
And Pippa is a good sport when it comes to riding. The first two days she rides the chestnut gelding, Orn, and my experience with Orn is that he is a bumpy ride with a piggy-tölt that’s hard to break. I see her wincing in the saddle sometimes, but she never complains. Despite all my prior reservations about this woman, I do find myself admiring her stoicism. Despite her refusal to socialize with us or her questionable gift-giving motives, she is a true horsewoman.
After three days of riding, however, she is done, “regrettably so,” she says. She looks like she’s having trouble walking.
Sylvie also says she’s done. “I don’t have to ride, either. I’m gonna quit while I’m ahead.”
Viv says, “I ride all the time at home, I come here to walk and to soak up the light for the rest of the year.”
Viv tells me privately that she doesn’t like to take risks anymore. Sometimes we go too fast for her on the trail. “The older I get, the more I fear breaking my bones,” she says. “And the more I know, the more fearful I am.”
All three women decide to bag the riding for the rest of the week. And again, I’m left with this question: if we’re not here to ride, what are we here for? Pippa’s brusqueness? Sylvie spends all her time on her iPad, even in the car, doing crossword puzzles and keeping up with Facebook friends. And Viv plugs into her Audible books in the car and in the house. She says she’s happy spending the rest of the week walking in the sunlight. But I can meet up with Viv anytime back home to walk and talk. We don’t have to fly to Iceland to do that.
I try hard to suppress my frustration, but it takes a lot of rearranging my regular life to get here. Each year there are financial strains that threaten even the possibility of the trip for me. Each year it gets more difficult and more expensive to arrange my mother’s care when I’m gone. At work, our fiscal year ends the last day of June, and I worry that I might appear negligent by not being there.
With Eve’s farm sold and her horses dispersed all over the country, I rarely get to ride in the Berkshires anymore. Although Sylvie anticipated importing Sonneta, Helga wrote her midyear that the filly had to be put down, something was wrong with the horse’s pastern joints and she would never be rideable. Sylvie keeps two Icelandic horses at a barn twenty minutes down the road from her. One horse is twenty-two years old with a bad case of spavin and shouldn’t be ridden. The other horse is a rescue, similarly old and shouldn’t be ridden because he has a nasty habit of walking off trail and backing up into trees. Often they get ornery and lethargic because New England pastures are riddled with deer ticks and the horses carry a fluctuating amount of Lyme titers. Once the titers reach a certain high level—her horses tend to cow-kick at that point—they are prescribed a round of antibiotics.
When I see the two horses out in the pastures, which is only a small contained field surrounded by forest, I can’t help but think how diminished they appear. They are overweight and dispirited. They bear little resemblance to the horses of Iceland and they are hardly a replacement for riding in Thingeyrar.
Frieda is willing to take me with her as she trains her horses on the trail. And she is willing to give me lessons in the arena. But it’s not the same this year. Nothing is the same. I’m tense in the saddle. I can’t loosen my hips and I pull at the reins too readily. I’m terrified of Loki, and I decline to ride any new horse. And when I go to saddle up the old, dependable Gnott, she skitters away, breaking free of her halter rope, and trots out of the barn, done with me.
Frieda says, “You don’t seem here. You are not here with us, with me or the horses. You are not enjoying yourself. You are not you. And the horses, they sense that.”
Horses are a mirror. You can’t lie to a horse. They are mind readers. They pick up the nonverbal signs—that my body is rigid, my hands shaky, as I try to put on the saddle girth. They pick up tone of voice—my throat-constricting vibration that signals tension and fear. My trusty Gnott looks at me and runs. Horses can’t save me if I am shut down.
On our last night at Thingeyrar, Helga sends us to Oli’s in Holar. Oli has just returned from guest teaching at a university in Uganda, and invited us to dinner. This is the most exciting event of the week. We even dress up for it, meaning we put on our nicer sweaters, and the pants and the shoes we wear on the plane. Viv spends an hour putting on makeup and doing her hair. Sylvie comes out of her bedroom wearing lipstick and eye makeup, with her hair pinned up in mini clips, à la Helga. Pippa comes out of her room in one of her thousand-dollar Icelandic sweaters. I put on lipstick instead of ChapStick and blow out my hair.
Pippa insists on driving. Viv whispers over the gravel crunch of the driveway, “I don’t know why she doesn’t let us drive. She can’t manage with a leg like that. She can barely walk.”
Pippa drives fast and furious. It’s supposed to take two hours, and we get there in an hour and fifteen minutes. I’m not sure if the heavy-footed driving is caused by her water-retentive leg or if she just wants to scare the shit out of us. Oli looks a little surprised to see us arriving ahead of schedule when he invites us in, and we already killed a half hour stopping at the historical museum in his town.
The Truth about Elves and Trolls
We’re sitting in Oli’s house on his orange leather sofa, a golden sun pouring in the window at eight in the evening. Oli sets out four shot glasses of amber-tinted aquavit—and Sylvie and I are the on
ly ones who imbibe. We have two each and then Oli fills the glasses again, probably not realizing we’re the only two drinking. A purple mountain glows outside the living room window, ringed in cloud wreaths, and the town sits, scooped out, shoveled out, at the bottom of the mountain. It’s a Tolkien town. The historical museum we stopped at featured a traditional turf house, which looked much like Bilbo Baggins’ dwelling. Coincidentally, on the coffee table, where our empty shot glasses sit, are the first and second books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one in English and another in Icelandic. This starts to add up to something, even in my slightly woozy mind.
I drink Viv’s shot because she doesn’t drink. Sylvie drinks Pippa’s because she’s driving, and she’s already enough of a risk on the road. Oli pours us another two shots and I am in another state of mind, and it is one of sheer contentment. The world is stilled or at least slowed. I sink deeper into the sofa. I smile at Pippa and realize I have been overreacting, petty, even paranoid. I have been reading her wrong. She hasn’t been rude to me, at least not purposely. I need to be more magnanimous toward her. I need to love people more, the way I love the aquavit. I cannot move or speak so I send out love vibes to everyone here with me. Why haven’t I thought of this before? All you need is love. Love is all you need. Plus this beauty and peace that has descended like the mist around the mountain here at Oli’s house in Holar.
I imagine that Viv and Pippa, who aren’t drinking, must surely feel it, too. They glow in the sunlight. When I glance at Sylvie, her eyes are closed and her face bears that beatific smile. I get drowsy looking at her and sink deeper in the sofa. Sylvie might be napping, and I wonder if I could do that, too. The room is warm and I hear the metal din of pots and utensils, and Oli’s voice asking us if we want some Icelandic caviar. “I love caviar,” I tell him. And he brings out a small bowl of it with crackers. He refills our shot glasses and Sylvie, midway through downing it, holds it up and says, “What’s this called again?”
“It’s aquavit, or aquaveet. Water of life.” That’s about the limit of my Latin.
“Ah, water of life,” she says, as if that rings a bell.
My mind is buzzing from this water of life; my body is inert and my tongue is stuck, but my heart, let me tell you, my heart is singing. Love vibes all around. With just a little help from the water of life, I’m channeling my inner Eve—positivity, openness. If she can’t be here, I’ll be here for her, or I’ll be her here. Finally, Viv does her Viv thing: she finds Oli in the kitchen and asks him a lot of questions. Her questions, and his answers, are an overlay to my harp-like heart.
Oli’s wife, Gita, comes home from Akureyri where she attended a conference on the fish economy of the Arctic States. She has new glasses, a sleek new asymmetrical hairstyle, and wears a business suit. She looks full of information and important doings. She names the other delegates at the meeting: Siberia, Lapland, Greenland, Finland, Norway, Alaska, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. It’s like a map of my geographic desires. Thule is calling. Viv asks Gita a lot of questions, questions I wish I could ask, but she’s doing a better job of it. Oli calls us to the dinner table. I float there. He puts out a meal of onion quiche, mushroom bisque, tomato salad, and rolls. He has performed his kitchen magic.
Pippa says it looks delicious and thanks him for making it all vegetarian.
“That’s so nice, it’s all vegetarian,” I say, and pop a dinner roll in my mouth.
Viv likes the menu, too, and states thus.
“He made it for you, too!” I pass her the tomato salad, and the heavy dish wavers in the air until she unloads it from my hand just in the nick of time.
Oli opens a bottle of red wine, a bottle with a cork, no less. I rarely see wine in a bottle in Iceland; it’s always from a box. He goes around pouring it into everyone’s glass. I’ve lost count of how many shots of aquavit I had, so I must say “no,” better say “no,” I must politely refuse and say, “None for me, thanks.” But he’s hovering the bottle over my empty wine glass, and instead I say, “Yes, please, thank you!”
Gita talks about the Sami people’s beliefs, and the topic turns to cultural interpretations of the supernatural. “My favorite topic,” I say, and spoon mushroom soup into my mouth, or the approximate space around my lips—it takes a bit of practice after all the aquavit.
“Why is it your favorite topic?” I’m not sure who has asked that; I am busy with my bisque, and I can’t look up or I’ll miss my mouth again. I should be able to figure it out by deductive reasoning: was it in a British accent? An Icelandic accent? American? Too late, the evidence is gone.
I decide to address the table in general. “Because I’ve had a few encounters with the supernatural.”
Sylvie seems to come alive. “Oh, you have?” she asks, as if she doesn’t remember.
“I definitely heard the ghosts in the bedroom at Helga’s guesthouse.” I’ve had other encounters, but it seems showy to bring them up all at once.
Sylvie says, “That’s right. Does everyone know the guesthouse is haunted? Not only did she”—pointing at me—“have an encounter, but Eve felt them caress her arm, and Allie woke up and saw a woman in old-fashioned clothes sitting on the end of her bed.”
“I didn’t know that about Eve and Allie.” I shake my head and reach for the onion quiche.
Viv wants to know why we haven’t ever told her about the ghosts, but I’m not fielding that question—creamy onion quiche is melting in my mouth.
Oli tells us that ghosts are common all over Iceland, and so are elves and trolls.
This might seem like a minor point in this discussion, but I think, or at least the aquavit thinks, that ghosts are more believable than elves and trolls, which are, obviously, more fanciful and the stuff of folktales. I don’t even consider them in the same family as ghosts—who would? But I need to be polite and listen. I’ve also finished most of the onion quiche, which prompts Oli to jump up and say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got another whole quiche in the kitchen.”
Gita continues, clearly in cahoots with Oli, “Not that long ago, a road crew built their road to avoid a boulder. They went out of their way to build the road around it. They didn’t want to disturb the troll who was lying in wait there and incur his wrath.”
After all these years, I can never tell if Icelanders are pulling my leg when they tell stories of elves and trolls. By most standards, Iceland is the most practical of countries, but the sagas and myths are still lodged deep in the modern psyche. I give a lot of leeway to the supernatural, like ghosts and past lives, thin places and feminine vortexes, but trolls? They are basically belligerent rocks that talk. They don’t make sense. At the moment, though, politeness and another helping of onion quiche stops me from asking Gita if she actually believes this stuff.
Oli and Gita continue matter-of-factly to explain the not-so-obvious.
“Trolls are giants. It’s the Icelandic word for giant. Trolls can only move in the night. If the sun comes out and catches them, they turn into boulders.”
“I thought they were boulders to begin with.”
“No, they are giants to begin with. They are always making trouble. Mostly with their engineering feats. They start moving things around so that roads and houses can’t be built.”
“And what are the elves?”
“Elves are invisible people. They are the beautiful people.”
“How do you know they’re beautiful if they are invisible?” I ask.
“You know because there are times when people can see them. You can corner one at a crossroad, for instance, and if you do, it will offer you everything to let it pass. There’s a story about an elf cornered by some guy and the elf offers him gold, silver, horses—anything to let him pass. But all the guy wants is sheep fat.” Oli laughs at this.
“Oh, I see.” I am nodding vigorously, but completely confused about the sheep fat. Why is that funny?
“Elves know the secret of the universe. If they tell it to you, you have to keep it quiet.
Or else.”
“Or else, what? They kill you?”
“Mishaps happen,” Gita says, wistfully.
I’m going with this. If some people are foxhole Christians, I am an alcohol-fueled believer in the supernatural of Iceland. I can’t believe I ever doubted the existence of elves and trolls. It is so obvious, especially from where I’m sitting in Holar, which feels more and more like the peaceable kingdom of Valinor.
“If an elf told me the secret to the universe I would never, ever tell a soul. I’m good with secrets, especially if it’s from an elf.” I feel as if I need to make that clear to the table. That I would be a good person for an elf to talk to and divulge secrets to if he or she felt so inclined.
And I am yearning to see one of those beautiful elves. I want to know the secret of the universe, but I’m also sitting back in my seat feeling pretty happy just knowing that there are elves out there that know the secret to the universe. And that there is a secret to the universe . . . because I have always suspected it.
Gita looks at Oli and says, “Icelanders love to tell stories. It’s our gift.”
Oli says, “Elves and trolls and such are the subconscious at work. These tales of the supernatural are a projection of dreams, or anxieties, that sort of stuff.”
Well, that’s a buzzkill. I want to believe in elves and trolls, not in my subconscious projections. I can feel myself sober up at the grim reality of life without magic. Luckily, Oli brings out dessert, his famous skyr cake topped with blueberries, to take away the dreariness of an elf-less world.
But then, later that night, as we are driving home on a mountain road, troll-like boulders are perched along the edge of a steep cliff to our right and to our left. We come to the crest of the road just as the blinding sun cuts at an angle that obliterates our vision, including Pippa’s, who is driving. She takes her heavy foot off the gas for once. She says, worriedly, “I can’t see the road. I can’t see where I’m driving.” If she steers to the right too much, we’ll hit a boulder or head right off the cliff. Too much to the left, there could be oncoming traffic. She stops the car in what feels like the middle of the road.