The Tricking of Freya

by Christina Sunley

  Where was Sigga? At the center of it all, installed on a couch near the piano, receiving her guests one by one. In her blue silk dress, her silver hair neatly coiffed, her favorite double strand of pearls around her neck, our grandmother was as composed and elegant as any person could hope to be upon entering a second century of life. I wish you could have seen her, Cousin. Chatting and smiling, kissing cheeks and clasping hands, she seemed an utterly thawed and transformed version of the frozen sheet I'd stumbled across that morning.

  Next to Sigga on the couch was Halldora Bjarnason, tiny and still. Her cane leaned against her neatly crossed legs, her hands were folded diminutively in her lap, but her large brown eyes bobbed back and forth across the room like worried chaperones. Despite Halldora's keen watch, it was Stefan who spotted me first. He was beaming in his neatly pressed gray suit, and kindly made no mention of my lateness.

  "Freya, you look lovely."

  I did not. Or rather, not a Gimli kind of lovely. Prepare for my ghoulish entrance: everything remotely nice I own is black. It works in Manhattan, but in Gimli-well, I looked like I was dressed for a funeral in my long black skirt and black boots. Mama always said black didn't become me, not with my pale skin. But the dead only get so much say in this world.

  The next thing I knew, Stefan was leading me by the hand across the room to Sigga. The guests that surrounded her parted, the piano music faded to a tinkle. Was it because I was late, or I looked like a ghoul, or did everyone know I was the long-lost disgraced granddaughter? In any case, people stared. Suddenly I was the center of attention, in the very moment I'd most dreaded. Sigga's failure to recognize me earlier had chilled me, especially since both Halldora and Stefan had seemed surprised by her lapse. Maybe it was less senility than some awful kind of repression. Maybe she despised me so much she'd managed to actually erase me? If she failed to recognize me again ...

  "Elskan!" Sigga reached up with both hands to clasp mine, then motioned for me to sit beside her on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Halldora on the other side, pointedly tapping her watch. Was she intimating that it was late, that I was late, that Sigga didn't have much time? I decided not to care. Sigga was sparkling, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed.

  "Freya win," she said.

  It had been so long, Cousin, since I'd heard those words. Freya mine. In New York I am nobody's Freya. My eyes teared up; she knew me.

  "I'm so happy to see you! Just look at you!" Clutching my hands in her papery thin ones. Then, in a quavering voice, "I'm afraid I was a bit muddled this morning."

  "It was my fault, Amma. I should have called first."

  "Preposterous is what it is. How could I not recognize you?" She cupped my cheeks in her hands, fingers tremulous against my skin. "It's just, you've changed so much.... But Stefan and my dear Halldora have set me straight now. Tell me, dear, are you all right? I worry about you, alone in that city, with no family. . ."

  "I'm fine, Amma."

  Sigga nodded, doubtfully. In her view, it was not possible for a person to live far from family and be happy. "Tomorrow we'll have a good long visit, just the two of us." She leaned forward. "I have things I want to talk to you about. Family things."

  "Well ... my flight leaves tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow? But didn't you just arrive? Or am I confused again ... ?"

  "I have to be back at work on Monday." I hated to say it, partly because it was hardly true, I had weeks and weeks of unused vacation time, and partly because of Sigga's disappointment, which drained the pink flush from her cheeks. Even her pearls seemed to loose their shine.

  "I see."

  "But I can come to Betel first thing in the morning."

  "That will be fine." Though I could see it was not. "Now, tell me, have you spoken with Vera yet? She is so looking forward to seeing you."

  And there was Vera. How long she'd been standing there I wasn't sure. I don't think I would have recognized her, an old woman in her mid-seventies. The same age my mother would have been. But Mama had grown old before her time, so I guess it makes sense that she died before her time. Vera appeared vigorous as ever, pulling me to her in a no-nonsense hug. Like Stefan and Sigga, Vera sends me Christmas cards every year, and most years I manage to send her one as well. Hers always contain an invitation to visit; mine never mention the possibility. Still we send the cards, back and forth, year after year, images of Christmas trees and angels and wreaths, best wishes for the season! No, I'd never been fond of Vera, Birdie had succeeded in turning me against her, and so I was surprised to find how happy I was to see her again. Dear Vera. A piece of my mother. She led me off to the side and cornered me with questions: how was I managing, was there anyone special in my life, was I really leaving the next day, would I consider staying longer, she would so love to have me stay with her in Winnipeg, and her boys too, who hadn't seen me in years, they were there, at the party, had I met them yet? She led me over. Men they were now, Vera's boys, both balding and in their forties, with teenage sons of their own. There, at the back of the room the boys I'd seen on my way in. Vera's boys had boys of their own. And what did I have?

  I began to he. I had to. It wasn't just Vera, it was everybody she and Stefan introduced me to. Here is Sigga's granddaughter. Meet Anna's daughter. I cringed, and I spun myself. Not in the old way, red-sneakered feet planted in the middle of our green postage-stamp lawn, twirling with propellerblade arms. A different kind of spin. I spun the life I'd like to have, or think I should have. A life where I show my photographs in galleries, am busy preparing for a one-woman show, live with a boyfriend who I'll probably marry sometime, when we get around to it. Kids, someday soon. Don't wait too long! Oh, I won't. Stefan overheard one of these conversations, arched his brow. A one-woman show? he seemed to inquire. I hadn't heard. No, you wouldn't have, I answered back silently. And then moved on. I was introduced to the director of the Icelandic Collection at the university library in Winnipeg and various members of the Icelandic Department. All who knew and admired my grandfather's work. Olafur, Skald Nyja Islands! It had been so long since I'd heard that name. There were people who knew about me and people who didn't. The people who didn't would make innocent remarks, like I never knew Sigga had grandchildren. Or Do you get to Gimli Often? The people who knew about my kidnapping and Birdie's suicide and my long neglect of Sigga, they were easier to pick out. Asked me fewer questions. Studied me more keenly. Or so I imagined.

  From the buffet I piled my plate with smoked lamb imported from Iceland, creamed potatoes, pickled beets, but the food I hardly touched. It was the beer that sustained me, loosened my tongue. One, then another. After my third I was ready for a cigarette. I found myself circling the outside of Betel for the second time that day. This time the air felt unmistakably autumnal, the sky black, the stars crisp. I took comfort in that: the day was nearly done. The party nearly over. Then I'd visit with Sigga in the morning, drive the rental hearse back to Winnipeg, and be airborne. It would all be over with. That wasn't so hard now, was it? I leaned against the building and lit a second cigarette. Out the window came the sounds of the party: the chatter of voices, the clatter of dishes and glasses, someone at the piano again, tinkering at a tune not quite remembered. And then I heard it. Unmistakable, Cousin, clear as ice. Two women, in lowered voices.

  "Ingihjorg's child," said one.

  "Oskilgetid," said the other. A word I didn't know.

  I edged closer to the window frame, but not directly in front of it. I didn't want to be seen. I wanted to hear more, and I did.

  "Birdie's, I tell you."

  "Don't speak of it."

  And that was it. A scrap of conversation. Then the piano rose over their voices and they were gone altogether. Ingibjorg's child. Birdie's, I tell you. What could they have meant, Birdie's child? I dropped my cigarette, picked it up, took one last drag, snubbed it out with my foot. Birdie never had a child. Someone else's child? But there was no other Birdie than Birdie. A child? I rushed back inside, to see who had b
een standing by the window, but by the time I entered no one was near the windows; everyone had gathered in the center of the room, around the birthday cake. A hundred candles lighting up Sigga's ancient face. "A hundred wishes for everyone," she announced. "Please, you all must help me." And so we did, as a group, blew out the candles on the three-tiered cake, in a single collective gust of goodwill. Stefan began a speech about Sigga, her long life, her many contributions to the community, her devotion to the library, not only to preserving the Icelandic literary tradition but to fostering the love of literature in new generations. "A librarian is the true heart of any community of Icelanders," Stefan concluded. "And the heart of Sigga Petursson is the richest, biggest, warmest heart-" He paused for a moment, and I wondered if he too had been drinking. "It is Sigga's heart that sustains us all!"

  "Hear, hear!" Applause. Someone began playing the piano, the same tune tinkered with moments earlier. But this time I recognized it: the Gimli Waltz. Sigga, I saw, was crying. With happiness, at the love that had risen up in the room for her? Or grief, that she had outlived the majority of her friends, her beloved husband, and worst of all, her two daughters? The party began breaking up. Vera helped Sigga back to her room, guests started collecting coats, saying good-byes. I wanted to say good night to Sigga, but I couldn't move. Birdie's child?

  "And you are Freya?" It was the elderly woman from the bakery, who indeed turned out to be Thorunn, Sigga's niece visiting from Iceland. "It is too bad we are only just meeting, Freya. I hear you are leaving tomorrow. I am leaving then too."

  "I'm sorry," I said. Had I done anything except apologize since I'd arrived in Gimli?

  "We met once before, Freya. I don't think you remember. In Akureyri, when you were in hospital, with Birdie."

  "I'm sorry," I lied. "I don't remember you. It was a difficult time."

  "Of course. We are hoping, you know, that you will come to Iceland again. To visit us. Sigga has many relatives there, we would love to have you, Freya.

  Iceland! At that point in my life, you could not have paid me to return to Iceland. Gimli was enough, more than enough. I nearly laughed. "That would be nice," I answered. "Thank you."

  "My mother always missed her sister so. She could never believe that Sigga would just leave like that, just pack up and move to another country! All her life she missed Sigga!"

  "Didn't Sigga visit?"

  "Only twice, in all those years. The expense, you know."

  I nodded. And then, maybe because I was a little drunk, I said, "My mother and her sister were never close. There was so much trouble between them."

  "It's like that sometimes, in families. Fraendur eru fraendurn verstir."

  Kin are worst to kin. I smiled. "Sigga used to say that. About the two of them."

  "We were so sorry to learn ... Both of them, imagine! And you without family. I do hope you will think again about this invitation to Iceland. We are quite serious, you know.

  Stefan offered me a ride back to my motel. That's when I remembered that I'd already checked out. My suitcase was in the rental car, parked in front of Oddi, so I told Stefan I'd decided to sleep at Oddi instead. And then declined his offer of a ride, graciously, I hoped. I felt unworthy of his company, certain that he was probably glad to see me go, sick of my lies and excuses. The truth was I needed to think. Clear Canadian air is good for that. A brisk Manitoba night, stiff breeze off the lake, a full moon to boot. It shone on me as I walked, it shone on me as I lay in my child-bed at Oddi. A shiny dime-silvery light blasting through the frail lace curtains. My head lay on one of Mama's pillowcases. I fingered the embroidery, the green vines and pink flowers. Manua! The moonlight did nothing to clear my head. Mama and her spruce green eyes and gentle touch, gone. Birdie with her pupils black and shiny as a vinyl jazz record, gone. As I child I'd found myself too often standing between the two sisters, the subject of yet another argument. Back then, it seemed only natural that they would fight about me. I was trouble, wasn't I?

  Or not. Maybe the trouble wasn't me, not who I was, but the fact of me. The fact that Mama had a baby and Birdie did not-anymore. Birdie had had a child. That's what the woman had said. Ingihjorg's child. Birdie's, I tell you. A vanished child. Stillborn? Given up for adoption? In any case, illegitimate, if a child can be such a thing. Oskilgetid, that word that had floated out Betel's window and into my ear: I'd looked it up in the Icelandic-English dictionary in Olafur's study when I returned from Sigga's party. Birdie never married. Mama married, Birdie had affairs. I'd always sensed that Mama was forced by some sisterly logic to share me with Birdie, because Birdie was childless. Sisters share. And if Birdie had had a child, and lost it, then ... it could explain things. Why Birdie took to me so, took over me so.

  I lay awake for hours in my child-bed at Gimli, twisting and shifting, displacing pillow and covers, trying to force-fit my long-limbed body into a space it had outgrown. That miraculous feat of shape-shifting known as growing up. I curled on my side, legs bent at the knees, my thighs, back, neck, and head curved into a half circle. The very line of my body resolved into the shape of a question mark.

  26

  Sigga's kitchen the next morning. Plates, cups, saucers stacked neatly in the glassed cabinets with the bronze latches that went cliclkety click, clickety click. The yellow Formica table with the bowed chrome legs. A row of tin canisters labeled in white cursive SUGAR, FLOUR, SALT. A glass Cadillac of a blender with a black rubber top. The kinds of things people in New York buy for a lot of money and call retro. I felt retro, sitting there with Stefan eating chocolate donuts and coffee he'd brought from the Gimli bakery. Retrograde to the old days, when Stefan would often drop by unannounced. Hoping for a visit with Birdie, happily settling for me or Mama or Sigga. On this morning he'd knocked loudly, then let himself in. "Sorry to disturb you," he'd called up the stairs. I was awake but far from up. "I'm hoping to get an early start on packing this place up."

  What a good man, old Stefan of the stiff upper lip, in his rust-colored sweater-vest and corduroy slacks. A man with no family of his own who devoted himself to minding other people's families. Teaching pimply high school students, researching obscure genealogies of common people, assisting old women who have outlived their relations. Or been neglected by them.

  "I appreciate you doing all this," I said, taking a sip of weak coffee.

  "It's nothing, just a couple of donuts."

  "No, I mean what you're doing for Sigga. Packing up the house. I wish I could stay and help." A lie. I wanted my buildings back, brick protection from gaping skies, streets thick with strangers, nights that are never truly dark, city lights burning brighter than mere and distant stars.

  "I wish you could stay longer too. It would do Sigga good. We worry about you, you know. We never hear from you."

  "Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Just busy, is all." Another lie, feebler than the last. But I would be busy, soon, I thought, remembering yesterday's resolve to emerge from hibernation, get on with my life. As soon as I returned to New York I'd start anew, will my life into its robust future. Abandon my basement sublet, for starters, maybe find an airy loft. Quit my miserable job. But for now I had questions. Ingihiorg's child. I figured I might as well ask him, this keeper of family trees, not to mention Birdie's lifelong friend. I took another sip of coffee, tepid now as well as weak.

  "Stefan?" I began breaking off little bubbles of Styrofoam from the lip of the cup. Just ask. If anybody knew it would be him. "Did Birdie ever ... have a child?"

  Stefan froze midbite. Then swallowed, brushed crumbs from his beard, and stared at me like I was mad. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean ..." I couldn't think of another way to say it. "Did Birdie ever have a child?"

  "You know she didn't, Freya."

  "I know," I admitted. "I mean, I thought I knew. But I heard something, last night. Some people at the party, talking. I overheard someone say something about Ingibjorg's child."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know, I was outside ha
ving a cigarette. I heard through the window."

  "Surely whoever it was didn't mean Birdie. Ingibjorg is a common enough name."

  "In Iceland, maybe. But how many do you know around here?"

  "Well, none, offhand. None still living. It's no longer so common around here. But in Iceland it's still very common. So maybe it was Thorunn. In fact, I think Thorunn's sister has a daughter named Ingibjorg, who has a child of her own. Ingihjorg's child. Mystery solved."

  "But I heard them say Birdie's name, too."

  "Be that as it may, Freya and it would not be surprising to hear Birdie's name mentioned at her mother's one hundredth birthday party-Birdie never had a child. It's nonsense. I would know. I knew her all her life. A pregnancy takes nine months. Don't you think I would have seen? It's not the kind of thing you can hide."

  We sat in silence for a minute. Then Stefan spoke again. "Really, Freya, I wish you would focus on present concerns. Consider extending your visit. It would mean so much to Sigga."

  "I can't. I told you that before." Guilt and resentment fused together, indistinguishable, my voice as indignant as if I believed my own lie. "I have to be at work tomorrow."

  "Freya, I hope you won't take this the wrong way. God knows you've been through a lot, losing both your parents, and your aunt so ... horribly. But surely you must see ... Sigga needs you."