The Tricking of Freya (38 page)

"Sveltur sitjandi krakum, fljugandi faer," Halldora said, and Sigga chuckled.

"What does that mean?" I asked, not wanting to rely on my rusty Icelandic.

"Sitting crows starve. Flying ones catch." Halldora looked smug.

That was Halldora, I decided, a crow. Flapping about in everybody's
business. "Well, I'm sure even the busiest crows need a vacation now and
then. How about for this week, I'll bring Sigga her coffee in the morning,
and Halldora can have a little break?"

"That's a fine idea, Freya," Sigga said. "She does go to a great deal of
trouble for me, my Halldora does."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I wouldn't miss our morning coffee for the world. Unless you don't want me . . . ?" Her huge brown eyes wobbled pathetically.

"Not want you?" Sigga looked truly shocked. "Of course you're welcome
here, dear." She reached out and laid her hand on top of Halldora's. "She's
practically family, Freya. That's how good she is to me. And speaking of
family Well, I'm happy to tell you, Halldora, that Freya has finally developed an interest in the family history!"

"And with relations such as yours, it would be a wonder if she didn't."
Halldora fixed her wobbling eyes on me. "Imagine, being the granddaughter
of the poet Olafur, Skald Nyja islands, himself. Of course, I never knew
him. I didn't meet your grandmother until after Olafur was gone from this
world. And on to the next."

"Actually," Sigga continued, "I was planning to tell Freya about my side of
the family. I've already documented Olafur's side fairly well, but of my
branch, well, I'm afraid she knows nothing. Although I didn't get off to a very
good start. Really, I didn't mean to go on about Aud-the- Deep- Minded."

"It's all right, Amma. But ... maybe we could talk about more recent
events in the family. Like Birdie."

"Birdie?" That same puzzled, tremulous question.

I had no chance to explain. Halldora interrupted, and not surreptitiously
this time. "There's no good in mentioning that subject," she scolded. "Too
upsetting. Now, Sigga, how about some coffee?"

"I brought vinarterta," I said, offering up the paper bag with a feeling of
defeat. "Only two, though."

"How lovely, Freya. Halldora and I can share a piece. At our age one's
appetite dwindles, you know. You take half my piece, darling. Isn't it fine?"

Halldora took a small bite. "Fine enough," she agreed. "For store-bought."

As if Halldora's stale little cookies and bitter coffee were any better. I
waited impatiently through their chitchat, the sipping and the nibbling, for
the moment when Halldora would leave and I could be alone with Sigga
again. But that was not to be.

"Nap time," Halldora announced, tidying up the coffee cart. "Sigga al
ways has a late morning nap."

Sigga smiled weakly. "I suppose I've worn myself out, with all that talking. I hope it wasn't too boring for you, dear."

"Of course not," I insisted. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"That's good. We have a lot to cover. You mustn't let me wander so!"

Back at Oddi I let myself wander so.

Stefan was planning to arrive in the late afternoon with a station wagon
load of empty cardboard boxes. Until then I drifted room to room, memory
to memory. Examining the evidence, which all pointed to one thing: it happened. Everything I'd so conveniently forgotten. But forgotten is the wrong
word. I've never forgotten anything; I simply choose not to remember. Memories sink deep if you let them. It's easy enough, the prerogative of only-child
orphans. No witnesses, no corroborators.

True enough, my way has costs of its own. Amnesia, estrangement: expensive practices requiring constant vigilance, relentless attention to the
gritty present. Photography helps. Each click is now, now, now. And moving
to New York was a good choice. There is nothing there to remind me of
Gimli or Iceland or even small-town Connecticut. Because New York is like
nowhere else, it's mercilessly reminder-free. I suppose that's why so many
flee there.

And no, I'm not always successful. My dead don't allow it. They have
not moved on, my dead, to heaven or wherever. They're hangers-on. They
talk. Not u'hooooo-u'hooooo ghostly taunts but eerily precise voices: authentic accents, real-life cadences. Little things, usually. Fragments. Indeed, elskan, Birdie will comment. Oh dear, remarks Mama. These are not things
I can vanquish, or even guard against. And in dreams my dead run wild.
Even my no-man's-land father makes a cameo now and then in his rectangular black glasses. Birdie and Mama are regulars. I'm always losing track
of Mama, spending the entire night desperately searching for her like a
misplaced cane. Birdie, on the other hand (and she was always on the other
hand, wasn't she?) is the pursuer. Birdie comes after me in her salmon pink
coat, fomenting one of her god-awful scenes, and all I can say about those
dreams is thank heaven for morning.

But dreams are the very definition of ephemeral. Oddi provided me concrete proof, a veritable museum of memory-soaked artifacts. If I sat on the
green couch, next to me lay the child Frey stroking Foxy. The parlor chair
held Mama knitting and hymn-humming. At the dining table Sigga with the
Blue Book spread before her. Upstairs Birdie's bedroom and the raining type,
splick splack through the night. But I wasn't venturing into Birdie's room yet.
Maybe never. I studied the china cabinet: the three lower shelves were
crowded with blue-and-white willow china from Eaton's-replacements. On
the top shelf, the Lucky Dozen, spared by a seven-year-old's gaudy taste. The
survivors seemed to me now overly precious, full-bellied cups perched on
tiny legs like fat ladies in high-heeled shoes. The lime green one with pale
pink buds on the saucer. Blacky, with stars and a gold-lipped rim. Lord, Frey!
And Mama's down.

I was packing up the Lucky Dozen one by one in Bubble Wrap when
Stefan arrived, boxes in hand.

"Where should we start?" he asked.

"How about the kitchen?"

"Don't you think we should do that last? I mean, how will you eat?"

"With my fingers."

"Really, Freya, there's no need-"

"That was a joke."

"Yes, of course it was."

"We'll just save out a few plates and cups, some silverware I can use this
week. But the rest of it ..." I knew Stefan was right, the kitchen was the
least logical choice, but it seemed safest to me, the least Birdie-laden room
in the house. The kitchen had been Sigga's realm. I opened a drawer and began pulling out implements, wrapping them in newspaper. The wire
whisk for whipping egg whites into frosty peaks. The sturdy tines of the potato masher. Aluminum measuring spoons on a silver ring. As a child I'd
liked to nest them one inside the other. The mixing bowls too came nested
in a set of four, white with bright blue bands circling the rims. Three sizes
of measuring cups. Each object radiant with history, but somehow not sad
to the touch. Maybe because Sigga wasn't dead, yet. And when she did die,
she'd have lived a long life, not interrupted, like her one daughter, or discarded, like the other. I closed up the box and sealed it with tape.

"Are you sure you don't want to take any of this back with you, Freya?
What about this ponnukolrur pan?"

"I'm not much of a cook."

"Perhaps you'll want it when you get married, set up a house."

"Who says I'm getting married?"

"I just-" Stefan blushed beneath his gray beard.

"Anyone I'd marry would have even less of an idea than I do about how
to make ponnukokur. Besides, maybe I'm like you. Not the marrying type."

I looked up at him and he looked away, then hefted my box off the table
and into the pantry. "I think we can store all the boxes here, until we're
done."

I followed him into the narrow pantry. "What about Birdie?"

"What about her?"

"Why didn't she ever marry?"

"Not for a lack of suitors, I can tell you. I suppose she was too ...
volatile."

A lack of suitors. "She did have boyfriends?"

"So I heard. She never told me so directly."

I could see why; Stefan appeared embarrassed by the entire topic. I
pressed on. "Then she could have gotten pregnant."

"Ah," Stefan said. "Back on that again." He took a step toward the
kitchen. I did not move out of his way. I was sitting on the pantry counter,
legs bridging over to the opposite counter, casually but effectively blocking
his passage.

"I can't get it out of my mind," I continued.

"Freya." He paused. "Don't you think I would have noticed, if Birdie was, if she ... carried a child to term?" He seemed satisfied with that
phrase. "Such things can't be hidden easily."

"But didn't Birdie disappear sometimes? She'd go off without telling anyone, for long periods of time?"

"Depends what you mean by long. It seemed long enough when we were
frantically wondering where she was and if she was all right. Every day is
long when someone is missing. But we're talking a few weeks at a time. She
was never gone long enough to bear a child."

The air in the pantry was still, musty. I knew I should let him out of
there, but I figured it was precisely there, in that narrow closet, that I was
more likely to extract the truth from him. "What about one of the times she
was hospitalized at Selkirk Asylum? Could she have borne the baby then?"

"She was only committed a few months at a time. Rarely longer."

"Ever?"

"Several times, yes," he conceded. "It always seemed to be after spending a summer in Iceland. Those trips unhinged her."

I knew all about how Birdie could be unhinged by a visit to Iceland. But
I had to stay focused. If Birdie had given birth after one of her Iceland trips,
that would be a way to narrow down the date. "When did she go?"

"Her first trip was sometime in the mid-fifties. She stayed mainly in the
East, with Sigga's niece Thorunn. Then again in 1961, I believe. And of
course in 1964, for the centennial celebration of Olafur's birthday. Sigga
couldn't make the trip, so Birdie represented the family."

"I know, she told me about that trip, the fanfare and the speeches, the
dedication of Olafur's monument. But she never mentioned being hospitalized after."

"An understandable omission. She was committed for nearly a year. Refused visitors the entire time. I thought she might never come out again."

Long enough to have a baby. But I said nothing. It was clear to me then
that if Stefan knew anything about Birdie's child, he wasn't about to divulge
it to me. And he looked so pained, so pale and aged. I climbed down from the
counter and let him pass. We talked little after that. I knelt on the kitchen
floor, rummaging into the backs of cabinets, sorting through baking dishes,
cake pans, Jell-O molds. Stefan reached into the upper cabinets, pulling
down old silver vases and cracked butter dishes.

A dear man, I heard Mama say. Indeed, Birdie added. And for once I
don't think she was being sarcastic.

When dusk fell, Stefan switched on the fluorescent light and surveyed
the room. "Mostly done here, I'd say. Guess I'll head off. Are you sure you're
all right? With staying here?"

"It's fine."

"Because if it's ... uncomfortable for you, you're welcome at my house.
I have plenty of room."

"I like it here," I lied. "Besides, I'm used to living alone."

"Okay then. And you're set for dinner?"

"I picked up some things at the market."

"Then how about tomorrow night, I'll make you a real meal. Out at my
house at Willow Point."

I stood at the door smiling after him. Mama was right, Stefan was a dear
man, practically family, and God knows I have little enough of that in this
world. But the moment I reentered the house I felt desolate. The kitchen
bleak in its bareness. I tried to heat a frozen lasagna in the oven, but soon a
putrid odor wafted out. As if some small creature had perished deep in the
stove's bowels, and now its stench was resurrected, burned back to life.

Sigga was not in her room the next morning when I arrived at Betel. The
bed was empty, loosely made, an old afghan my mother had knitted folded
at the foot of it. Out the window the harbor was empty as well. No boats.
Just water, still and blue.

"She's in the library. That's where we'll have our visit this morning."

My visit. I didn't need to turn around to know that it was Halldora.

"I'll take you down." Halldora was dressed in a dark brown pantsuit that
made her look smaller than ever. A tiny mushroom stalk with a poofy gray
mushroom head.

"That's all right," I said, as politely as I could muster. "I know where it is."

Halldora frowned. "That, child, is not the point. The point is that I've
been waiting for you to arrive so you can help me bring the book down. I
can push it all right, on my cart here. I just need you to lift it on for me."

"A library book?"

"No, my dear, your grandmother has requested that we bring downstairs
the Blue Book, it's that one on the third shelf up-"