The Tricking of Freya

by Christina Sunley

  "There are things you didn't learn when you were younger," Sigga said finally. "But you're certainly old enough now."

  I got it then. Sigga wasn't planning to ask me anything. She was going to tell. Everything that happened. About Birdie. About Birdie's child. I wouldn't have to ask a thing. Or answer. I needed only to sit back and listen. All would be revealed. I relaxed into my chair. "I'd like that, Amma," I said calmly. "I think I'm ready now. Old enough. I have questions about it all."

  "Of course you do. How old did you say you are?"

  "Nearly thirty."

  "Oh, that's old enough, I suppose. Though a youngster compared with me! Anyway, you were too young before."

  I nodded.

  "The question is where to begin."

  Of course, I thought. That was always so, in anything to do with Birdie. Nothing was simple. Though Sigga seemed not in the least bit troubled by the prospect. For the first time all morning she was smiling. Odd, considering the topic we were about to embark upon. But not nearly as odd as what came next.

  "Are you aware, elskan, that on my side of the family we go straight back to Aud?"

  `Aud?" I sat up straight again. I'd never heard this name before. "Aud who?"

  "Aud who?" Sigga stared at me in disbelief. "Aud-the-Deep-Minded, that's who."

  I smiled uncertainly. Was Sigga teasing me? "I don't remember hearing about Aud. When was she born?"

  "I don't know exactly," Sigga answered. "Mid-eight hundreds, I suppose."

  "The mid-eighteen hundreds, you mean?"

  "No, I didn't mean that. Really, Freya." Sigga's stern librarian tone was back. "You're going to have to listen more carefully. Are you sure you're really interested?"

  Aud-the-Deep-Minded. Of course. Daughter of the Norwegian chieftain Ketil Flat-Nose, wife of Olaf the White, mother of Thorsteinn the Red, sister of Jorunn Wisdom-Slope. According to Sigga, Aud was not only deepminded but formidable. One of the original settlers of Iceland, she arrived without the protection of husband, father, or son but lost no time consolidating power and claiming land. I'll spare you the details, Cousin, as Sigga told them to me that day. You can read them yourself in Laxdaela Saga.

  Finally, just when I felt I could stand no more -I had not returned to Gimli, had I, to learn about Aud-the-Deep-Minded! Aud came to the end of her life. Never, Cousin, was I so happy to see someone die. But it was not a speedy death, no. Not the way Sigga told it. Aud invited her kin and all families of note from all over Iceland to the wedding feast she was holding for her favorite grandson, to whom she planned to leave her vast wealth. Regal still, though ancient, Aud was tall and stately, striding through the great hall, past the long tables of guests eating and drinking and toasting, and then without anyone noticing she exited the hall and entered her own sleeping closet, where she lay down with great dignity to die.

  "Remarkable," I commented.

  "Not really," Sigga replied. "Those Viking women, they were no frail flowers. And did what she had to do in her life."

  "Did Birdie?" (Not subtle, I agree. But I was desperate; I had been sitting with Sigga for over an hour and we were still in the ninth century.)

  "Birdie?" Sigga queried.

  "Yes, Birdie. Did Birdie do what she had to do?" I was referring to Birdie giving up her child. But perhaps Sigga thought I was referring to Birdie's suicide?

  "Birdie?" Sigga repeated, and I could see then the leap had been too much for her.

  "Ingibjorg," I said gently. "Your daughter."

  "I know perfectly well who Birdie is," Sigga snapped. "Why-"

  I'll never know what she might have said, or not said, next, because right at that moment someone knocked on the door. Yes, it was Halldora. The door had been open, so the knock was mere formality. I glowered at her in greeting, but Sigga's face lit up.

  "Why look who's here!" She clapped her hands lightly together. "It's my darling Halldora."

  Darling indeed. Uncanny, the woman's timing. She entered the room pushing a little wooden cart. Off the side of it hung her cane, on top of it a lace cloth, three cups on saucers, a plate of cookies. I had the distinct impression that Halldora had been standing outside the door for some time. Halldora-the-Snooping-Minded.

  "Isn't Halldora a dear? Every morning she brings coffee and we have ourselves a little visit. She's a spry one, my Halldora is. Of course, she's barely eighty that's young in my book! After lunch she pushes the reading cart around to all the residents who can't make it down to the library. She was a nurse, you know, for forty years. Oh yes, she makes herself useful, Halldora does."

  "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.

  28

  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?"