History. a Mess.

by Sigrún Pálsdottír

  I can picture Bjarnfríður examining these peculiar images, all without considering the historical context the captions provide, the tiny letters she doesn’t read beside the hugely stretched, shiny photographs, no different from the rest of the magazine’s millions of readers around the world.

  I lie awake, eyes closed. I know my friends are not yet going to bed; they’ll be sitting up in the paneled living room. Flames in the fireplace. On the dining table, candlelight and red wine in glasses. Whose idea had this trip been? Are they talking about me right now? Shouldn’t they be asking themselves what’s up with my thesis; most of them must know I should have finished two months ago? Bonný immediately comes to my defense and explains, in the manner of scholars, that the final sprint can be almost everlasting, while Ester wonders aloud whether I’ve been gone four or five years, Sigga A. says it’s been six, Sigga D. considers that normal, Tína thinks it likely that our homecoming is to do with Hans’s job, Bjarnfríður Una asks about the grant from the British Embassy and, in addition, but just briefly, about the student loan, Sigga D. emphasizes that I have come home because of illness, Bjarnfríður Una says that I have been as fit as a fiddle these past days, Tína that I have in fact been a bit, a tiny bit, distracted, Ester: “Nonsense,” Tína points out that Hans is the dominant one in the relationship, Bonný mentions my mother in connection with all this. “Huh?” Ester responds, “Why would the mother want her daughter home before finishing?” Silence. Until Bjarnfríður declares that it is important for me to “land” my thesis after what she calls my “artistic fiasco,” which startles me; Bonný reacts, too, moralizing in response to Bjarnfríður’s words; meanwhile, Guðbjörg is not quite sure what I have been studying. Another silence, longer than the previous. And it’s Bonný who breaks it, raising the question of whether this all has anything to do with the professor. It’s as though the group has been given a command from on high. They all look down at the table and take in Bonný’s suspicion, nodding their heads. All in line until Sigga D. declares that whatever may have happened to my thesis, it is likely to be a major breakthrough. Yes, Bonný says, she’s heard that too. And then they all look at each other and keep nodding. Everyone except Bjarnfríður Una: “Heard?”

  No, it’s rather unlikely that such a conversation is taking place at the cabin. More probably, something like this is going on: Ester has drunk the most, Tína hot on her heels; Sigga A. has drunk nothing because she is driving home tonight. Ester’s swift gulps probably gave rise to the discussion around the table about her own circumstances back home in the suburbs. Namely, that not so long ago her husband, the coach, had not spoken a word for three days after some loss in some tournament, and Tína does not consider the situation acceptable. Ester at first defends her husband, but the more she drinks the more she gives up and admits that this damn ball game has overbalanced her marriage and domestic life. Worse is the constant imbalance between disappointment and bottomless euphoria.

  “Isn’t the worst thing that this self-obsessed ex-sportsman, who couldn’t even be at the birth of his youngest son because of some game, has gotten obese?” I ask myself and roll over onto my other side. But of course, no one at the table can take note of my words from where I am lying alongside the calm, low, almost delicate snoring of Hans up against my right ear. On the contrary, it’s Bjarnfríður Una who steps up to the plate on behalf of the sports fanatic. Maybe to spite Tína. But everything settles down, as usual, and now that they’ve moved into the living room, I can picture Ester under a blanket with some Pepsi in a glass. She seems distracted. Bjarnfríður Una, however, has some political argument in preparation, following on from something said earlier, and this causes Guðbjörg and Bonný to go off and talk privately together. Sigga A. is, for her part, heading out. And after she has let the door bang shut behind her and disappeared into the darkness, headed through the underpass back to the city, back to the outskirts, back to a street with a strange name, back through the door of her modern white house, that box, back into the large, empty hallway where she will put her car keys on a metal table with glass top, a console table under the contemporary and colorful amateur abstract, while the heir to the cabin, Sigga D., suggests a game. That’s well received and Sigga goes into her parents’ room and fetches a board game that is kept in the upper bunk alongside other items meant for amusing oneself at the cottage. It’s the bunk across from her parents’ double bed where the old oversize doll still sits, a bizarre décor from the early seventies stretching out its arms toward patient Daði, who constantly had to remove it when he lay down to rest in the middle of the day in the rural peace and quiet, flopping his big, sturdy body on a shiny, smooth blanket.

  Sigga sets a trivia board game on the table and I realize I am not going to fall asleep easily. Ester’s going to play, too. Tína puts her arms around her, and Bjarnfríður, who hadn’t been especially enthusiastic about the idea, plunks herself down beside them on a soft, bulky corner sofa, light blue, pale pink, dark burgundy, light gray, dark gray, moss green, forest green and beige. She lifts her beer glass to toast her friends, as though she’s trying to signal that a new chapter in this little trip is about to begin. Let’s roll the dice.

  The first question of the night is a geography one; it’s Sigga D. who asks Bjarnfríður, “What is the name of the canyon inland between Högnhöfði and Rauðafell …?”

  “Brúarárskörð,” blurts out the political candidate, reaching for a blue wedge that she slips into the wheel, where it sits fast once her rough forefinger has tamped it down, as if to emphasize her knowledge, how she has already taken the lead. And she is so proud of her answer that she doesn’t realize the next question is also hers to answer: “Who was the leader of the Puritans in the Civil War in England, 1642 to 1651?”

  The sound Bjarnfríður Una emits is meant to indicate the name has slipped her mind. She takes a big swig of beer to buy some time, but it’s no use because she doesn’t know the answer, evident enough from the expression on Tína’s face; she rolls her eyes as she names the commander.

  Ester’s turn. “Who became Icelandic men’s handball champions in 2010?” The suburbanite is all excited because she knows the answer, and she’s zealously embraced by her girlfriends as she drops an orange pie into her wheel. She rolls the die again, ready for another category. “What year was Elizabeth II crowned British queen?”

  “I don’t care,” says Ester, deciding to start talking about the surreal absurdist—that’s the influence of Guðbjörg, the realtor—that is crowns and scepters, but Tína sets down her empty red wine glass to point out that one does not have to watch history through the moralistic glasses of the contemporary moment, that such events have inherent interest due to their symbolism, their historical context, and …

  Tína doesn’t get to finish because Bjarnfríður Una, evidently indifferent to her monologue, has drawn a card and directs the question to Sigga: “What French writer is the author of these words: Everything leads us to believe that there exists a spot in the mind where the real and the imaginary cease to appear contradictory?” She squints her eyes to read the card and answer silently to herself.

  Sigga does not have the answer, and Bjarnfríður does not provide the French name, instead turning to the next question, directing it to Tína. Bjarnfríður looks at the card, glancing up in astonishment: “What famous novelist always addressed his mother as a man?”

  “Bjarnfríður, I’m on a yellow square.” Bjarnfríður Una begs Tína’s apology with a solemn gesture and looks back on the card. And she smiles: “Who was the first woman to serve as the speaker of the Icelandic parliament?”

  “First woman what? What does it matter?”

  “I don’t know whether it matters, but I would have thought you, of all of us, would consider it a duty for every Icelander to know it.”

  “A duty,” Tína replies, in a whisper; suddenly, her voice rises: “Is this some duty? For which Icelanders?”

  Buna holds ten stubby fingers up
in the air, trying to calm Tína, who now stands up and weaves a course into the bathroom. She firmly closes the door behind her, walks toward the sink, closes both hands around the rim and looks into the mirror, on a perfumed, heart-shaped pillow with lace trim that hangs from a wicker shelf full of cosmetics, old and new; beside it there’s a white plastic shelf, also full of massive bottles of laundry detergent. And behind them lies a rolled-up blue cloth. In the mirror, behind the despairing face of this self-scrutinizing, endlessly-searching humanist, a few toilet rolls can be seen in their hand-sewn dispensers; each roll has been placed in an embroidered fabric cylinder, though the patterns are hard to discern in the mirror.

  “I do not remember the woman’s name,” says Ester, from the other side of the partition, and Guðbjörg, who, like Bonný, is not playing, agrees with a shrug of her shoulders; just when Bjarnfríður is about to school her friends on the importance of this office, Tína comes storming into the living room. She has the blue roll from the white bathroom shelf in her hand. She stands in front of Bjarnfríður, unrolls the material, and holds it up in front of her face: “Do you know what this is?”

  Bjarnfríður leans back in the soft and dimly-colored seat, placid as water and rather clearer-voiced than the amount of beer she’s imbibed would suggest: “I believe it’s the Icelandic flag. The symbol of our country and nation.”

  “You can call it whatever you want,” says the actress, and with some force; she brandishes the flag at her side like she’s a matador: “but when all is said and done, it’s nothing but a tricolor scrap of fabric used to brainwash people like you!” Tína crumples the material and is about to drop it on the dining table, but suddenly stops and reaches for a white slip of paper that dropped onto the floor as soon as she raised the flag in the air. “No, this won’t do,” she mumbles, tearing open the folded note and reading, and then suddenly saying, loud and clear: “If the flag gets wet, it should not be folded and put away to store before it has had time to dry. Listen to that! Not before it’s had time to dry!” Then she throws it down on the table, curses, gives a hollow laugh and, as she tries to yank open the handle on the door to the terrace, bumps herself against an embroidered wall-hanging beside the door, onto which countless buttons from charities and organizations have been pinned; the hanging sways like a pendulum in a clock, almost knocking into some wine bottles that seem to hover, horizontal, on the wall, where they have been for some time now, ever since Sigga D. and her siblings gave her teetotal parents this futuristic wine rack. And the wall-hanging is still in motion on the wall by the time Tína is out on the terrace lighting herself a cigarette and Sigga Daðadóttir takes her father’s flag off the table and folds it like a tablecloth.

  In the meanwhile, Bonný has gone into her room, flung herself down on her bed with her phone, and sent her friend, that is, me, the one left behind in Reykjavík, this message: You are missing a lot, hon! Bonný puts the phone away and looks at the paneling above her head. Then she retrieves the phone and continues writing. She writes for some time. Her thumbs seem unstoppable.

  But even if my phone had been switched on at that moment, I would not have heard the pings: I’m under my blanket on my way to sleep with Hans’s bass snoring in my right ear. I know I am because my innermost thoughts no longer entirely cohere. The last one I have is the welcome fact that I will not have to wake up with my friends tomorrow morning. Wish them good morning in that country cottage which Time, with all its tasteless junk, has so ill-treated.

  I have no sooner rejoiced at my absence from the cottage than I’m startled by a loud crash right above me. I open my eyes and try to sit up but am obstructed and get nowhere. I lie back on my pillow and reach my hand up into the darkness. There are wooden planks above me, but the scant brightness that now slips into the room prevents me from believing for a moment that I am enclosed inside a coffin. In the distance, I hear whispers, then laughter, but low. Then silence.

  I look around. Below the boards I see red. On the wall at my feet hangs a picture. Two gypsies in red dresses dancing. Flamenco. In the background burns a fire. I know this picture. I have looked at it in the dark, it has appeared in my dreams, it has watched me and bid me good morning. And never has such a day failed me. This picture, presumably full of tragic and sorrow, calls forth a foggy memory about the endless joy of careless youth. But as soon as I try to figure out that memory, the image dissolves and once again there is nothing but red. I wipe my tears and try to remember where I’ve seen it before. Then I hear birdsong, then snoring, directly above me. I crawl out from under the boards to see who it is. In a bunk opposite the bed lies someone wearing an eye mask. I look back at the wall. The two gypsies. I hear laughter again, but not in the distance like before. Now the figure tosses and turns in reaction to the sounds. I see who it is. It’s Bjarnfríður Una.

  I get out of bed and walk to the door. I open it gently and peep out the crack. I can smell coffee. Then I hear Sigga’s laughter, Bonný’s whispering. I close the door and am planning to throw myself back into bed and go back to sleep and so go straight to Reykjavík, but it does not seem possible, because by now Bjarnfríður’s arm is dangling all the way down from the edge of the bunk, preventing me from getting back in. I take her palm, her stubby fingers and well-groomed nails, varnished but clipped, and try to somehow tuck the arm back onto the bunk; as I do, the door opens behind me.

  “Good morning!” says Sigga, lively but not too loud.

  They come together, one after another, emerging from their rooms, and there’s no evidence last night’s events are going to linger. Not one word about Bjarnfríður and Tína’s conflict; they seem in the best of moods. After morning coffee, it’s decided we should go for a walk.

  We drive to the valley off the big fjord. We leave the cars and walk through the small canyon to a river across which lies a tree trunk. Ester goes over first with all the certainty of someone responsible for others. Tína tiptoes behind her, then Bjarnfríður Una who almost slips off the trunk, asking whether there wasn’t once a rope for supporting oneself. Bonný and Guðbjörg and Sigga follow. I’m last.

  We head along the river. Toward the waterfall. Along the path for about half an hour until we’re treading on unstable ground, it feels almost like it’s breaking apart. We walk out onto the cliffs and see a good two hundred meters of waterfall down into the narrow gorge. But we can’t see the whole waterfall so Sigga and Tína inch us out onto the edge of the cliff, which drops down a little. I go ahead, lying on my stomach, and they are right behind me.

  The sun is so high that the rays reach the far end of the canyon. Through the sparkling foam, I think I can see a gleam in the bottom if I shift myself closer to the edge. The girls do not stir; they are squatting down. Then I hear someone shout, wondering whether we should really keep going. It’s Ester. I place my palms on the ground and am getting to my feet when my right foot slips on a rock and I slide down, toppling onto my rear over the edge of the cliff and scrabbling at the surface, which is nothing but loose stones, I cannot get myself back up.

  I give out a choked cry and at once they’re all beside the cliff’s edge. Sigga reaches her hand toward me, while Tína holds onto her hips. Bonný and Ester are behind them, and I think they’re holding onto Tína who orders them to go back because she needs to get a better grip on Sigga. I cannot see Guðbjörg as I stretch my hand toward Sigga and Tína, but behind the group, somewhat above them, Bjarnfríður Una stands out against the sky. She seems stiff, not exactly out of fear, more on account of something that looks like worry. Worry about her own reaction at this moment? Or some anxiety connected to wider issues arising from this crisis? As though she is thinking of the fallout, of how I’ll slip further down and finally fall into the gorge; as though she is deliberating who would be responsible. Trying to assess what my curiosity will cost the group? Society? And now I feel like I recall Ester and the others’ conversation a moment ago when walking up the hill, a conversation about an accident that occurred at an al
together different place in another ravine where a foreign couple were traveling ten years or so ago. What had happened? Did the woman fall into the canyon? Did she survive the fall? Was she found? I did not catch it all, all I can say is that people searched for her over several days; riffing off that fact, they, or rather Bjarnfríður, started to talk about travel insurance and other similar things while I tried not to hear but still did. And now I realize that Bjarnfríður is mulling over her words as she stands back from the cliff edge, and this causes her face to deform. And the smile that now moves across it is thin and strained; I’ve been tugged back up to the top and collapse into the arms of Sigga, around whom Tína’s arms reach, and so on and so forth.

  With tears in our eyes but still laughing, we walk away from the waterfall. From there we go back across the river and down to the cars. We do not discuss my slip further, but Bjarnfríður Una avoids meeting my glance for the rest of the trip.

  How often can you go over and over a dream in your mind until the scenario begins to crack apart, its images crumbling, their lifetime becoming nothing more than the moment it takes to call them up? I lift myself up from my pillow with the image of a landscape in my head: a cliff gully in appalling brightness. Then I lie back with a strange lightness in my heart, not really knowing why, as the landscape runs together with the first thought of the day. And is thereby forever gone.