Should we have built a settlement on the cliff in Hérað? Ingólf asked his wife, Hallveig, at Arnarhvol, the area was certainly beautiful to look upon, but the pillars came ashore here in Reykjavík, here where there are hot springs, clean water, fish in the lakes and birds on the cliffs, a perfect harbor, fjords and green islands and spectacular views, the gods wanted this, I could not have imagined that before as we put to sea, we must make ourselves a settlement here, never return to Norway, here we will thrive in peace. So who took the land in Hérað? It will be interesting to see … Now, dear Interpreter, Dr. Lassi said, fetch me someone who knows all about the Skaftafell district, one of those Tvísker brothers, most likely Sigurður, he is such a knowledgeable guy, I can feel my report flourishing, I can sense the material simmering inside me, from settlement to present day, I just need to vent it, to give it form, this could even become a whole book, and a book entirely unlike anything anyone has ever written in Iceland, a medical history of Bernharður with biographical overtones yet mostly about the wound to his thigh and the amputation; a medical history with a biographical element but all wrapped up in national lore, even, my darling, global sensibilities, yes, yes indeed, I see it all flashing clearly before me, this book will not become irrelevant, the way books do because they are so homogeneous these days, only ever about someone, any one thing you could sum up in one sentence, as writers do when they’re asked what their book is about, What’s your book about? they’re asked, it’s about this, the authors answer, sure of their facts, but when I get asked what my book is about I’m going to answer with a single word: everything, everything, it is a global report about an individual and the world, about things in the world, all that’s subjective in the world … but what the hell should the book be called? Help me now, Interpreter, what to call this child? Our thing, it needs to be something subtle, but also descriptive, like Dismemberment … listen up, that’s it! Spare your brain cells, we’ve got our title, Dismemberment, no, stop entirely now, damn, that is a fine title, a keeper, alright by me, as people say nowadays; it just struck me suddenly from the realm of ideas like lightning strikes in the darkness of night in the wasteland! Above me a blinding, gloomy storm cloud grows, brimful of ideas, making lightning flash through the sky! Dr. Lassi said—and there I was, lying there listening to this conversation in order to memorize it, one side effect of butyric acid, Dr. Lassi said, is that everything that comes before the senses gets committed to memory: first butyric acid causes amnesia, then the super-memory in the body and brain get embarrassed and want to compensate a thousand-fold …
Report
about
DISMEMBERMENT
Biography (of sorts)
Medical history with national
& global information written by
Dr. Lassi
That’s what the book will be called, Dr. Lassi told The Interpreter, when the report is published in book form after having appeared in all the world’s major magazines. Or might it be better to call the piece Amputation? That’s more stylish and sophisticated …Am-puta-tion: am … I always have the radio set to AM; puta means whore and I love whores; -tion is action and we must act! … no, better to phrase it like this:
Report
about
Amputation & Castration
&
bio
graphic
medical history
with national and
international information
which was written down verified by trusty
sources by the country’s infamous regional
doctor Lassi
or is that too much? she asked as she wrote out the title on a sheet of paper and lost herself in it—but The Interpreter was itching, pulling at her skirt because she needed to fetch Sigurður Tvísker from down in the dining room …You must help me with this, Interpreter dear … Dr. Lassi read her mind and body language and told her to forget Sigurður for now, for the thing now is to write, don’t hunt down Sigurður immediately, but go away all the same, I’ll call you later if the patient babbles anything, right now I’m going to write a bit of the report, I’ve got my inspiration, although it’s strange how profound I am in your presence, it’s like you blow power and spiritedness into me—yes, you’ll have to be here while I write this report, I can pay you an inconsequential amount, how lucky I am to have you to turn to, I meet so many varied people from day to day in my line of work, I’m always on the go between farms in Suðurland, I have to geld here and dismember there, so I’m exhausted when I come home … my wife, I have to say, is an energy–suck; I get paralyzed in body and soul around her, so she can do whatever she wants with me, I become an object without will in her hands, she controls everything throughout our house and I’m just like a sausage over in the corner, first she drains all the energy from me, all vitality, then she can be in charge of everything in the household—but if I had a person like you around, life would be a thrill, would be fecund, you are an energista my dearest Interpreter, that’s what I’ll call you, you can see how imaginative I am around you, starting to create words, perhaps I’m inclined to pursue the humanities more than the medical sciences since I’m so smart as to be able to create concepts, that would be better for me, but stop prattling on like this, Interpreter, and fetch Sigurður, didn’t I ask you to? No, wait, what’s that Bernharður is burbling, just when I’m about to write, he’s squandering my inspiration, go get him water if he’s asking for water! then bring some more Brennivín for me, just order me a bottle at the bar, the bartender knows me if there’s any trouble, I’ll go see him tonight and pay the bill with my caresses, if he calls them caresses … No, don’t! Interpreter mine, if Bernharður says something remarkable we cannot afford to miss the information for the report, it might suffer perforations because of that, grow thin and full of holes, that’s not good science, the report must be tight and consistent … sorry I am tired, keep an eye on the bleeding while I write, I couldn’t write if you went, I’d get so afraid he’d say something and we’d miss it, it could be the core of the report, so we must not miss anything, nudge me if you see his bandage getting wet, if that happens we must add more toothpaste to the wound, now I’m going to write a bit, I always dreamed of writing, I’m always just about to write something more, there’s just never any time, there’s always things disturbing one, it’s like no one wants anyone to write, I always dreamed of becoming a writer, in some ways it’s childish to be a veterinarian, it’s what I always replied when I was asked as a child what I was going to be when I grew up, I said vet but thought writer, because people reacted to it better, I didn’t have to listen to some long-winded rebuttal; once when I was ten years old I asked my big brother for the loan of a two-króna coin and I bought a notepad and pen, I assumed the pose and felt the beauty of the world surrounding me as I began to stab the pen down, letters beginning to arrange themselves, the words taking shape from each other on the page, meaning accruing, the world opening up! Something so great, so different from what I’d ever experienced: I felt I’d become a magic-woman, a witch, even—but my mother looked over my shoulder and saw the top of the page with, in capital letters, The Biography of Lassi the Veterinarian, by herself, and she exploded with laughter and the whole family burst out laughing and the whole world exploded in laughter, tickled by these fantasies of mine, dead already, it became an entertaining story at every family event and all kinds of uncles and aunts with unfamiliar faces asked me about it and laughed this vile laughter that masked envy and greed; that went on for years, ever thus, ever the same, a mask for envy and greed, it’s still this way, indisposition, envy, and greed, people haven’t thought up anything new under the sun to torment me with. I long since ceased going to those ill-conceived family get-togethers. I’ve dismembered myself from my family, I turned into a teenager determined to rise from my dream’s death so I could have my revenge on my family; I began studying to be a veterinarian, but deep down I was planning to become a writer and record my own life as a veterina
rian and how frustrating my family is, how narrow-minded and judgmental, I have always felt that art runs in my blood even though there are no artistic neurons anywhere in my family, I’m so very different from them. Now, finally, now my parents are dead, I will allow my dream to come true, for why haven’t I done it before? In reality, it isn’t possible to do anything in this world until everyone is dead and one finally gets some peace—when all those who have placed obligations on your shoulders are finally dead, you are free and can make your dreams come true, although then you’d be alone in the world, unable to achieve anything. I never wanted children, just to be kind to animals and care for them in this evil human world, prevent them from suffering and cruelty, but it’s proved impossible to escape my family, I’ve been forced to cause many animals to suffer and worse, so much worse, I have been forced to castrate them and kill them, to castrate animals, Interpreter, that is an unspeakable horror … and I cannot get out of this, it has often occurred to me to castrate myself as a deliberate punishment, a payment for all the eunuchs I have made, to remove my uterus, because these are undeniably crimes, crimes against animals, crimes against nature, crimes against life and crimes against God! …You have selected a good job, how noble it is to interpret between people in this post-Babylonian world of ours, Dr. Lassi said, her face clouding as she looked wearily up at the ceiling light, causing shadows to thread shallow wrinkles around her eyes, making her look intensely disordered and cruel, her youth and dreams eaten up the way suburban street systems eat up nature. I have sometimes looked at myself, feeling a pressing need to justify myself, to have self-belief after a hard day at work, and have told myself I’m an interpreter, interpreting between humans and animals, and my wife tells me to cook and clean, she does it indirectly, I come home and nothing has happened at home since the morning, she has been at home all day watching TV, she commands me, dead tired, to cook and clean and I tell her I’m an interpreter between humans and animals, and then I clean and cook food and do it with good graces … but I’m no interpreter, I’m more like a predatory animal, this job isn’t the way children imagine it, I think all veterinarians planned to become veterinarians as children and fixated on the dream and never found a new dream amid the idea-destroying weight of their home environment; it is a dream that arises when children have somewhat lost faith in humanity or, more accurately, their parents, who are humanity’s representatives among children, and so children stop loving mankind, their parents, because they see their parents as executioners; instead, they direct their love to animals, to the animal kingdom, children find harmony with dumb animals and their suffering, although they’re not dumb, all animals have their own language and gestures, it’s just the interpreters are missing, not yet arrived, if I can’t understand German or Viennese, how can I understand pig? And when I step into my childhood dream of giving animals my love, I find I must castrate and kill them, castrate them and kill them, day in and day out, inject them full of drugs and filth; the childhood dream bursts in the adult nightmare, for veterinarians and for everybody else … the adult world is horribly brutish, my Interpreter, it is too late for me to become an author, if my dream had been nurtured when I started my biography at nine years old, I would have become a writer, everyone is always trying to destroy others’ dreams, my parents destroyed my dream by making fun of it, instead of encouraging it, you must start early if you want to flourish as an artist, there’s no time for anything else, you need to start your education at an early age and never stop, I am not talking about school education but self-study, the peace to pursue one’s interests like the Tvísker brothers have been able to, having never busied themselves with farming except for sheer pleasure, they would not be the scientists and artists they are today if they had been required to farm or carry out some other duty; if I’d been invited to write the story of my life when I was a little girl I’d have become an author and lived my dream instead of living in a nightmare as a vet, unceasing, how badly I’ve spent my time, spent my life badly … and now I’m hungry, can you fetch sandwiches or something, and get Sigurður on the way, my Interpreter, sandwiches now and Sigurður from Tvísker, now we need to put the big truck in the report, I first need to disperse my thoughts before I can collect myself in intense concentration, I don’t feel I can write right now, perhaps I can glean something from Sigurður while we have ourselves some sandwiches, put the time to use, instead of eating while staring into the air, we can find out something useful about the history of the Skaftafell district, perhaps when the phone lines were laid across Skeiðarársand, I don’t want salad or anything like that, just ham and pineapple, I think gleaning Sigurður’s words would be a glacial marker on the way to bringing the report to fruition, crossing the choppy, moving glacier that is writing, preferably white bread, and I could become a writer and stop having to castrate and kill animals, but my real dream, my dream is to get out of my dream, though then someone will take my place and continue to torment the animals, so it’s just as well that I do it, I want the sandwich toasted, animal suffering is a cog in the mechanism of society, you can’t stop the wheels, although that sanctimonious bore is always saying so on the radio, over and again, that reedy-voiced little fatso, can’t remember his name, also a jug of water and some glasses, Sigurður’s full of interesting information, he’s a really good and talented man, no ketchup or anything disgusting like that, it’s staggering that these Tvísker siblings are such intelligent people, perhaps it’s because they don’t waste their time farming but attend to their studies, I wish I could lose myself in study, you hear farmers and farm-dwellers say, but we need to attend to the livestock, attend to the livestock and attend to the livestock, always on the run from studying, or how else would we all live? Interpreter, off you go now, it’s just that everyone wants to be like them, like those gifted fellows without progeny, it’s said there’s mental illness in the family, now I’m going to stop castrating and killing and I’m going to apply myself to study, apply myself to creative writing, my dearest lady, my man! Applying oneself to writing is the most exalted and most sinful thing, worse than castrating and killing, I’m headed out of the ashes and into the fire, but who settled Öræfi? I’m going to ask Sigurður as we eat a sandwich, I know Ingólf Arnarson lived here a year or two at Ingólfshöfði but scholars don’t consider that settlement, so what’s settlement? My books are all at home, I want to travel with my books, to install bookshelves in the folding camper or pop-up camper or whatever it’s called, but my wife denies me even that, I was going to pack several essential books for the journey to Öræfi, including The Settlement of Skaftafell & its Governing by Einar Öl. Sveinsson, that first-class piece by a first-class scholar of those first-class pillars, it would have been better to leave a toothbrush than The Settlement of Skaftafell & its Governing, I’ve read it before, but a long time ago, I know the book well but that’s not the point, I’ve brushed my teeth often enough, I would not have to disturb Sigurður if I had the book, you follow, although everyone benefits from disturbing Sigurður, one grows more accomplished from proximity to him, a man spends his time well in the presence of smart people it says in The Brothers Karamazov, something like that comes to mind, I cannot remember who said it, whether it was Ivan or Alosja rather than Dimitri, it would have been good, time well-spent, looking that up, my wife took all the books out the camper van and put them back in their places in my office, she considers books to be furniture, or junk, she said that the family was headed on a trip together and I was not going alone on an outing with my books—but what family? Just her and her abominable poodle, I admittedly neglect them for my work, my endless work trips that take me the length and breadth of Suðurland, and, yes, by reading when I’m finally back home, it’s possible to watch TV together but not to read books together, unless we each read to one another, though I do not want to hear my wife spoiling the text of The Settlement of Skaftafell & its Governing by Einar Ól. Sveinsson, destroying a book which is so precious to me, she goes back to the TV and li
es about all day and stares at it in the campsite between browsing about the Visitor Center, looking at postcards, lapping down ice creams, shitting in the bathroom … In modern society, we have to do everything ourselves, so there’s no way for anyone to become a real writer or real scholar, let alone a polymath, no one in modern times has the potential to become a generalist, that’s the past, it’s not so much that infinite specialization has set knowledge and science and philosophy into the shredder, rendering science nothing but a pile of strips nowadays, it’s rather there is no time, they are clever, those brothers Tvísker, they divided the studying between them so that together they are one great polymath; you have no time in these modern times, you have to do everything yourself, despite all the machines, appliances, all this stuff which makes you think you don’t have to do anything except be a master of all of it, cradling oneself in a rocking chair and sucking a pipe and thinking about the deeper questions of existence or even trifling questions, modern appliances let you think they are doing it all and that you yourself have nothing to do, but a person is constantly in a frenzy in their household, if you aren’t constantly in a frenzy the appliances send you an accusing glance so you are always guilty of not being in a frenzy with the appliances, and when you’re in a frenzy over these domestic devices, you’re guilty of not doing your literature and science, of not using the time to gain knowledge instead of being this damned slave to domestic appliances, for modern man is a slave to technology, to nothing else, everything intended to relieve human activity has made it heavier: as well as needing to know everything, you need to do everything yourself, in the past there were many people in a home and each had their role, now everyone is alone at home and has the task of doing everything; in fact, no one is at home any longer because all of us are out serving the State. Where formerly one cooked dinner, another tidied, one raised the kids, the shepherd herded the sheep, things were clear, now everything is so unclear, now everyone feels insulted, particularly women if reminded of a domestic role, there cannot be any division of labor, everyone has to do everything, know everything, and no one can be at home during the day because that would be State inequality, though no one does anything and no one can be anything but a domestic slave and nothing sensible comes from nothing … it will be nice to meet Sigurður from Tvísker, I want to tell him I’ve been a subscriber to his magazine Skaftfellingur from the beginning, although my wife was against it, because we aren’t from Skaftafell district but rather Rangárvalla district, so couldn’t I subscribe to Rangvellingur? But there is no magazine called Rangvellingur, there is the magazine Árnesingur from Árnes district but I don’t care to read it, then there’s the magazine Goðasteinn which Þórður published out in Skógar, a regional magazine for Rangvellings which bridges the gap between Rangárvalla district and Skaftafell district, a truly wonderful magazine in every way, especially the old issues, as always, I was a subscriber for a bit, kept it a secret from my wife, who thought it too extravagant to subscribe to both journals, even though she buys tons of magazines, ones that are for the sake of the household, she said, useful magazines everyone could enjoy, magazines one could look at but not just ones for me alone, my magazines were magazines for eccentrics and oddbirds, my wife said, and there was little point saying I got neither pleasure nor use out of her Life, Modern Living, The Week, Betrayal & Treachery, House & Dwellings, Massage & Home Living, Drink & Luxury, Seen and Heard, Scent & Smell, Domesticity, Improvability, The Ball of Yarn & Its Fate and so on and so forth, this bloody woman’s garbage, what’s more, she wanted to subscribe to Channel 2, that’s where I had to draw a line! What about subscribing to National Geographic? I asked, isn’t it fascinating? but she indicated that it isn’t … I want to tell Sigurður from Tvísker that Skaftfellingur is an outstanding magazine and I found his articles the most interesting, most informative and best written, I would like to tell him without any posturing, without buttering him up or getting caught up in affectations, I want to tell him this sincerely because I feel this is so profound, always, one is always playing some role, no matter what one does, no matter what one says; I will absolutely be putting on a pose, to my own inconvenience, when I tell Sigurður how much his writing affects me; I need to make sure I’m understood, to get the truth across I need to play a certain role. Strangely, when I’m castrating and killing I need to be in a role, identity is nothing but a role, I’m not the same at work as when I’m home with my family, sometimes you take the embers of your work-self home, which doesn’t sit well with those playing their home roles—it’s like a character caught between plays, but these are always our roles, oh, how exhausting they are, each role altering with each repetition, becoming a distortion of itself: something existed once but repetition has distorted it. I gear myself up for the role of speaking with the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Agriculture gears himself up for the role of talking to me, this preparation takes place backstage. Being yourself is definitely a role. I can only castrate and kill when I’m in my work role, a government service role, a domestic service role, talking to my mother, or making love, I can only castrate and kill if I am in my work role, and believe me, I am quite trained in this, one role takes over from another, you don’t like yourself in every role, in my home I’m barely a person, my wife sucks so much energy that I can’t wait to leave home for work, the worst thing is that I’m my best self in the role of the veterinarian, castrating and killing, in those moments I’m so strong, straightforward and purposeful, no nonsense, all the world in its right order, things working logically by themselves, the universe stable … of course the world is not at all in safe order and nothing is logical and nothing stable, I do what I need to, though deep down I despise my veterinarian role above all, perhaps that’s how it is with everything, that what you most love you hate in your heart, a subject authors understand, don’t they have a love-hate relationship with their fictions? So I’ve heard, and I thought it strange at first but now I understand it, for that’s how I am these days, my friend, a person in a role, empty inside from having devoted her life to castrating and killing, all as part of her own dream … I’m not a veterinarian, I’m an executioner …
Oraefi Page 4
