Flipping through, my thumb on the fore edge. Again and again. I reckon that one out of every three times the pages fall in such a way that the book opens where my secret lies
“The difficulty with this kind of management is of course integrating the practical aspects with those that bow to development and the artistic vision.” Trees form a frame around the face in the glass sphere so it appears bigger than the rest of the body. Mom is wearing a cream-colored shirt beneath a dark-blue woolen jacket, her hair silver gray and impeccable as ever. She looks around, steps a little closer, and when she reaches the door she looks straight into the peephole. Now I don’t dare open it for her, for fear she’ll fall directly in through the door; I simply look right into her eyes as she reiterates what she just said: “The hardest thing about this kind of management is taking part in shaping the field while at the same time serving those who actually lead the changes.” She has come straight from a board meeting at the Art Museum.
As she asks me how my headache is, she turns away and installs herself at the fridge. Notices the conference program fixed to the fridge door with a magnet on which is written:
Close some doors today. Not because of pride,
incapacity, or arrogance, but simply because they
lead you nowhere.
“Oh.” And from the movement of her nape I can tell Mom is rolling her eyes as she follows the saying. Then she looks down into an earthenware bowl with paper clips, small change, and used batteries. Into which I had tossed this fridge magnet my sister-in-law brought me with these words from her favorite author. Out of which Hans had retrieved it, entirely without thought, and used it to remind himself about an upcoming conference.
As if to brush away the wisdom on the fridge, Mom begins to talk about a group exhibition by some Nordic artists, which reminds her of the latest installation at the museum, and that brings her yet again to the newly installed exhibition by the aforementioned promising young mirror artist. But at that moment the coffeepot starts beeping, almost as if blowing a fulltime whistle to end her speech about the mirror-woman. And somehow—fortunately—that makes it difficult for Mom to pick up the thread again once we sit down at the kitchen table.
In the silence she looks into the air. At the ceiling. At the cracks that have formed there in the corner. Reaching along to the wall and down to the kitchen floor, toward a black discoloration on the floor, and she repeats her and Dad’s offer to assist us in buying a home. Dr. Theodor had not been in any position to maintain the home after his wife died, and everything needs ripping out and starting over.
Mom gets up and tells me she’s going to use the bathroom. As soon as she closes the door, I recall my one visit to this house. I wouldn’t even have been nine years old, but I remember it all, even if rather hazily. My mother was there with me; just the doctor’s wife was at home. They—the two doctor’s wives—were sitting in the kitchen; I waited for Mom in the hall by the entryway. I sat on some sort of bench that had a table affixed to it, looking through the half-open door opposite me. It was the door down to the basement. Staring through, I thought I saw something moving inside. I got up and went to check it out. When I pushed the door further ajar, I found a mural painted on the curved wall that descended with the stairs, women and men holding hands like they were walking downstairs. From their faces, one could assume that they were in the thrall of some kind of joy; some of them actually seemed to be witless with pleasure, and it made me scared but also a little excited. The picture covered the entire wall, and continued around the corner, so it was tempting to go down and see where the single file of people ended. But then I heard Mom behind me, and knew we were leaving. As I closed the door again, the lady looked at me with a wide smile, really a broad grin, and I understood immediately from that expression that she was referencing the wall people. That’s how I knew the image was actually there. And probably still is, under the light-green paint now covering the wall beside the steps down to the basement.
But what had they talked about in the kitchen, the two women? Most likely, thinking of it now, it was related to the daughter, my Mom’s childhood girlfriend. Hrefna The. She had gone abroad to study art and never returned, far as I knew. Perhaps that absence, and the silence about her, had everything to do with her dissolute life. That’s how I remember it.
When Mom comes back from the toilet, I ask her about Hrefna. Where she ended up, this old friend who negotiated from abroad a way for us to live in the apartment after we came back to Iceland. Mom claims to know almost nothing; she looks out the kitchen window. She gets up and moves over to it. Through the glass, I see the gardening woman briefly appear in her living room window. She vanishes and reappears. Like she’s walking in circles. About to ask Mom if she knows anything about this woman, I realize it’s not her she’s been watching. Mom is looking out into the garden. Dandelions cover the overgrown lawn, but in the midst of the negligence glints some rusty iron trash. I think it’s an old lawn mower. I look at Mom. She shakes her head, and I think it’s likely over something concerning Dr. Theodor’s last few years here in the house. Then she goes into the living room; I’m left behind in the kitchen.
Why do I have a headache, Mom? Why don’t you ask about it? I ask myself as I stand at the kitchen door and look through the dining room and into the room where Mom stands at the table. She’s holding a book and I see now it’s the one from the bottom of the heap on the table: Sex, Gender, and Subordination in Early Modern England. One of her first Amazon shipments. She rests her thumb on the fore edge and lets the pages fall from her fingers one after another. I’m about to rush over to her but instead retreat into the kitchen. I bang my head against the wall and try to make up my mind whether or not I should try to stop what might be about to happen, but by the time I’m ready to rush back into the living room and rip the book from her hands, she has put it back on the table. She looks at me, smiling but worried. Almost as sad as when she says goodbye to me.
It’s probably about an hour since she left. I’m sitting on the couch with the book in my hand. Sex, Gender and all that. Flipping through, my thumb on the fore edge. Again and again. I reckon that one out of every three times the pages fall in such a way that the book opens where my secret lies. A one-third probability that Mom saw the page removed from one book and hidden in the middle of this other book; a greater probability she immediately realized where that page comes from. But I cannot know for sure. I take out the loose page and do what I know I should not do. I fold it in half and slip it inside my notebook, in the pocket inside the cover. Snap the golden elastic.
I no longer know if I’m watching or imagining what’s in front of me
I take decisive steps out the alley, but once I’m back on the street, I stop suddenly. This probably isn’t a good idea. I turn around, bolt back, lift the lid off the trash can and am rummaging about in the rotting fruit and other food scraps when someone rubs my head gently and whispers: “I’m going. Your mother rang last night after you fell asleep.”
I push away any thoughts about her reason for calling and get out of bed. I’m sitting on the living room sofa. I look at the computer screen in front of me. No email from Lucy. He seems to have decided to no longer be part of my existence. That’s his problem, but on the other hand there’s a missive from a woman who’s trying very hard to be part of my world. This is the aforementioned Diana D. The message is further preparation for our first meeting, which is almost upon us, without any real awareness of it on my part, and thanks to my sister-in-law’s arrangement. To the Demolitionist assignment has now been added what the coach calls unnecessary baggage. Something it is imperative to get rid of before continuing on the path.
But I’m not going along any path. I’m not going anywhere. And although my difficulty is possibly, according to the metaphorical language of this dabbler, a kind of “baggage,” I’m not sure whether or not to accurately term it “unnecessary.” Nor is this baggage one I really pull behind me. It’s more like I push it ahead o
f me, since if I don’t do that I’d be forced to have it in tow indefinitely and such a thought is unbearable. What alternative would Diana D. propose for me in these circumstances? Thinking outside the box? But what box? The container that holds the manuscript? That brown case the young custodian never tired of setting on the table in front of me every single day for over a year? No, I’ll probably never escape out of that box.
I close my laptop. To be honest: I slam it shut. And the doorbell rings. The evangelicals? Again? I stand up and walk toward the door. But as I put my hand on the knob, I pressed my eye to the peephole. Mom. So early? That can only mean one thing. It’s up. She’s here to interrogate me!
I carefully let go of the knob and back away from the door, into the living room. I sit on the couch, leaning myself down on one arm to make sure I cannot be seen through the window. I know I should get back on my feet and open up for her but I just cannot shift myself and when she begins to knock on the door, it’s as if I’m paralyzed. But she will soon conclude I have gone on a morning stroll.
When I think sufficient time has passed, I get up from the couch. I’m headed toward the hallway to ascertain whether she’s really gone when I hear a key being put in the lock. That blows me away for a moment; I’m more afraid than angry. I look around and before I know it I have put my hand under the tapestry, opened the door and pulled myself inside. And I dare not close it because Mom is now coming inside. She stands a short moment in the hallway, then walks very deliberately into the living room. I push the door open a few millimeters and look out across the living room floor. Her well-made, sensible footwear gives me a shocking fright: cognac-brown loafers with pebbled rubber soles that curl up over the heel. Designed to spare the leather when one’s foot is on the gas pedal in a shiny new car. Mom stands in the middle of the room and looks around. I see now she has her arms full of stuff. I pull myself further back from the crack and lean against the far wall. I’m not really thinking, just drawing deep, fast breaths. Then I peek again. She has gone up to the window. She is fitting new curtains. As she promised.
There’s nothing I can do but sit against the wall and wait. After a while I move toward the cracked door again. The living room is in darkness behind the thick curtains, but Mom is still there. I see her shape as she sits on the couch and looks around. Then she leans across and strokes the lid of my computer. She stands up, but before she walks away from the table she reaches down to the sofa and fetches something lying there on the cushion. My notebook. She has it gripped between her thumb and forefinger and strikes it firmly against her other palm. Just when I think she’s about to release the golden elastic and open the book, she looks straight ahead. And before I manage to close the door all the way again, I see her looking in my direction. She takes some steps this way, approaching quite close, making me throw myself back from the gap in the door, pressing myself up against the wall, trying to vanish. I close my eyes and cover my ears, but that does not prevent me from hearing her take hold of the handle. I push my hands still tighter against my ears but nonetheless hear when she closes the door. I feel I can almost hear her adjust the tapestry and smooth it out against the wall.
I lie on the floor in the dark and listen to my rapid heartbeats in cold silence. A mild pulsating starts up inside my head. I know I have to get out of here and get my medicine but I cannot be sure Mom is gone. I won’t move until I’ve heard her close the front door again. I hold my head and hope for the best.
Within the darkness I hear a sound. A hum that little by little turns into a singing voice. It sounds faint and far away. I hear it as a recording. The voice is high, but there’s a hum in the recording that muddies the quiet accompaniment via clicks that beat fast like the spatter of frying butter in a pan. It sounds like an old recording. I open my eyes and look up but there’s nothing. On the wall opposite the door I see the gold frame hanging. But it is much further away from me now than before; the room is much bigger than before. I stand up and sense something brush my shoulder, but when I feel about behind me there’s nothing.
I move toward the frame. It takes approximately five steps. My movements are reflected in the glass. But it’s not a mirror. There’s a picture behind the glass. And when I squint, I see it a little better. A thin countenance framed in shoulder-length, dark brown, wavy locks, a lace-trimmed collar on a black dress: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits. September 2-August 3 19. A poster from an art museum.
I bend down and press my face against the glass to better ascertain the date, but it’s like the characters shift. I put my hand on the glass and get to my feet and back away a few steps. Something inside the image moves. In the dark background of the poster, behind the young man’s visage, someone is standing. I have to make up my mind what the devil is happening, because otherwise I’ll go mad from fear. But I may already have done so: what moves inside the picture is not behind the glass. It’s reflected in the glass. It’s standing behind me.
I stand still as a grave and look ever so cautiously behind me. But there’s no one. Just darkness. I look back at the glass. More movement. And now I see what it is. A woman. She’s in profile, standing straight as an arrow, arms by her sides, and in one hand she holds a handbag. The picture of the young man, the artwork, against the wall, begins to dissolve, the background comes to the surface, and I can now see that opposite the woman is a man sitting in a deep chair. Seen from my perspective, he is behind her, and so I cannot make out the foot of one of his crossed legs; suddenly his other leg swings across, alternately disappearing and reappearing from behind the woman, who is standing by a dining table. She has put her bag on the table and seems to be looking for something inside. Sometimes she makes a shooing motion with one hand; now and then something or someone outside the frame pulls at her dress. A shining shirtwaist dress. One that gleams and shines. She moves slightly to one side. With that, two things happen at once: the singing voice falls silent and I can see the man more fully. His face is still hidden behind the newspaper he is reading, but when I squint my eyes, the image becomes so impossibly clear that I can make out on the front page a large photograph: crowds gathered around a clock. I no longer know if I’m watching or imagining what’s appearing to me, but it seems to me that it could be the same shabby clock that has always been in the center of Reykjavík, used as both timekeeper and billboard. I cannot read the little letters beneath the picture, but the news headline suggests that about twenty-five thousand people are gathered here. At the bottom of this same page there’s another article. The start of the headline is hidden behind the man’s finger, but it finishes with: “Peace finally in the Middle East.” I measure these words against the photo of Reykjavík, the man’s timeless tweed, and the woman’s morning frock. But before I can get anywhere with those thoughts the woman walks across the picture and passes out of it. Then the man gets up from where he is reading; he looks toward the bottom corner of the image at something moving there. He lets go of the newspaper, without looking ahead, and slips out of the chair. He gets on all fours. He crawls across the living room floor. And out of the picture.
I tap on the glass but jerk my hand back when she reappears, the woman in the shirtwaist dress. Not from beneath the frame where she disappeared, but rather from inside the glass: she appears in the middle of the picture and turns to me but I cannot see her face, she half-conceals it, she shakes her head and turns to head out to the corner of the picture where the man crawled away. There she throws down her bag and lets herself fall to the floor; immediately she gets up again and heads straight ahead as though she’s going to emerge from the glass toward me with open arms. I look away and turn back but collide with some fabric, the white material I had seen hanging from the ceiling a few days earlier and felt brush my shoulder when I stood up from the floor a while ago. When I flail for the door handle I feel something gently touch my face. It’s a hand, and now it’s about to covers my eyes. Not from behind, but rather from the side, one palm on my face, the other on my neck. I try to break free, to t
ear the hand from my face, to knock it away from me with as much force as possible. But I achieve nothing, just beat at the soft fabric in front of me, which swings to and fro, away and back. I push the material aside to get closer to the door, but there’s no way past it, I seem to be trapped in here in some kind of tent; I lie down on the floor and try to crawl toward the door. But I cannot get out because now some slender hands have gripped me around the waist, someone tries to pull me back into the room. I cannot shake off the grip even though I kick out but I still somehow manage to stretch a hand up and grab the handle. But just as I mean to throw the door open and crawl into the apartment, I hear a familiar voice from the living room. I want to call for help, but hesitate for a moment, pulling the door to again, because now I’m not at all sure what is what.
“You sly old devil!” The words resound from the other side of the door, and at that very moment the grip on my waist is released. The ambassador of the ordinary, my sister-in-law’s husband, has exorcised the drivel in my head with these four words. Words he’s often used before in friendly ways, thoughtlessly. Unlike on this occasion: “I’ve come straight from the university, from a seminar held on account of the visit of a political scientist from Denmark. But where’s your wife?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” says Hans as he walks into the narrow crack that has now formed between the open door and the frame; he sits on the sofa, opposite his brother-in-law.
“Well, it’s not always easy to tell, is it? Where our women go off to,” the uninvited guest replies, laughing: “Or what they’re getting up to.” Hans nods his head, less convinced than he should really be considering that I’m hiding behind the door.
Hans’s brother-in-law inhales and I see in Hans’s face that he does not want to take part in the imminent private conversation. “Let me tell you, your sister, though she’s an expert in human behavior, is hardly the easiest person to be married to.” The lecturer has clearly had a few drinks.
History. a Mess. Page 6