by Sjón
A few blocks later I noticed I was travelling in the wrong direction: south instead of north. I don’t understand how this came about. It really seemed so simple when I looked at the map.
The apartment was huge and elegant. The front door was opened by a fat black woman, who had a cigar in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other. So they can afford to have some domestic staff here, I thought, and I told her I had come to meet my father. The cleaning lady nodded and showed me into a well-lit lounge, with a lot of pictures on the walls and a three-piece suite over by the window.
Dad was lying on the sofa in a curious, hunched-up position.
He was much thinner than I remembered, and had lost nearly all his hair.
“Hello Dad,” I said.
“Wuff,” he replied.
I didn’t know what to say at all then.
“So you’ve gone and turned into a dog?”
“Wuff, wuff,” said Dad.
This was embarrassing, especially as the cleaning lady had stayed in the doorway and was watching with interest.
“Do you know where his wife is?” I asked, and the cleaning lady nodded and smiled, and then at once I understood that I had made a stupid mistake and felt myself going very red in the face.
“I’m very sorry.”
The woman laughed, loudly and hoarsely. “That doesn’t matter at all,” she said.
Dad had begun to swing his leg to and fro, his foot moving back and forth like a windscreen wiper in the air.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not at all,” said the woman. “He’s just wagging his tail.”
From now on, whenever I continue a letter to you, Mum, I’m doing so not from my hotel room, but from a room behind the kitchen in Dad’s apartment. I haven’t ended up here of my own accord; on the contrary, I tried to insist to the very last that I liked it at the hotel. However, it was no use. His new wife put me in the car and drove me to the hotel, settled my bill, packed my things in the suitcase and put both myself and the suitcase back into the car. She had already made up a bed into the bargain, put a potted plant on the windowsill and hung up a clean towel in the bathroom with my name written on a small label sticking above it.
She smokes her cigars continuously, hums to herself and takes charge; it’s pointless even to try contradicting her.
Why did you never tell me Dad had got married again to a black woman?
Not that it makes any difference, of course, but it feels a little silly, as if I’d been tricked in some way.
And now about Dad’s new wife … they’ve been married for years.
Her name is Melaine. She’s an amazing person. Dad’s condition doesn’t seem to worry her.
“Men get up to everything under the sun,” she says, and laughs her hoarse, hearty laugh.
When we eat, she dishes up the food onto Dad’s plate, cuts it up into small pieces and puts the plate on the floor alongside my chair. Dad then gets on all fours, picking up the pieces with his mouth. He chews them slowly and meditatively, at the same time looking at me continuously.
It feels odd. He has changed. He seems to have shrunk and funnily enough has something doglike about him. He chews and chews and swallows with difficulty, as if it was painful, and regards me with the melancholy, slightly anxious eyes of an old dog.
In actual fact, it feels damned unpleasant. Furthermore, I can’t get him to talk to me.
He never really has done, in actual fact, so I don’t know why it’s making me so bad-tempered at the moment. I remember when he paid us short visits at home, he always used to spill coffee on our tablecloths; “sorry” was practically all he ever said.
“Dad,” I keep saying, “why don’t you want to talk to me?”
He hangs his head limply and whimpers pitifully.
“Dogs have their own language,” says Melaine and laughs. She has a strange sense of humour.
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I ask. Dad crawls over to Melaine and rubs himself against her legs; she scratches his chest.
“There, there,” she wheedles.
It sickens me.
“You’ve never given a damn about me,” I say angrily. “Why should I feel sorry for you?”
He turns away. His body shakes and twitches all over. Then he crawls up to the toilet door and scratches at it with his hand.
“Good doggy,” says Melaine, and lets him in, closing the door after him and laughing again.
She never ceases to amaze me. This morning she appeared at breakfast in a silk skirt and suede jacket, with a white shirt and black bow, and had an elaborate hairstyle with small bows here and there. She looked like a cutting from a fashion magazine.
“I’ve got to go to work now, sweethearts,” she said and sailed out in a cloud of cigar smoke and expensive perfume.
What kind of person is she really?
I don’t like this.
Furthermore, she left me alone with Dad. I didn’t like that either.
He had sat down at my feet as usual, his head on one side. He looked at me searchingly and attentively, as if he wanted to imprint my face upon his memory.
“What does she do at work?” I asked in an indifferent tone, in order to coax him into beginning a conversation.
But he was silent.
“Dad, say something!”
He looked worried and wagged his foot apologetically.
He was beginning to irritate me.
“What kind of damn stupid idea is it to get me trekking halfway across the world, just so that we can sit here and stare at one another?”
He barked three times as if in protest.
He was beginning to do more than just irritate me.
“Lie down!” I commanded.
He blinked and looked frightened. Then he lay down obediently. I picked up a slice of bread and flung it across the floor.
“Fetch!”
He obeyed. He crawled over to the slice of bread, took it in his mouth, crawled back and placed it at my feet.
This made me furious.
“Lie down!”
He lay down.
“Sit!”
He sat up.
We carried on like this for a while and at an ever-increasing tempo, until he was panting, sweating, and his face began to turn white; this was terrible. I couldn’t bear it, I wasn’t able to stop and I didn’t know how I would be able to resist finally whipping him up into the frenzy of excitement like a dog, so I forced myself to say, “Dad, for heaven’s sake.”
He crept laboriously over to the sofa, and lay down there, just panting.
“Dad, just what the hell do you want from me anyway?”
He didn’t answer. He lay there, wheezing, as if he was thinking of dying.
I spent the rest of the day at a big art gallery nearby, in order to avoid seeing him.
It’s true I’ve never liked looking at paintings, as you know. While I was wondering around amongst all the Madonnas with sheepish faces, I suddenly got the feeling I had done this before with Dad. At the same time, I remembered I’d once had a dark blue winter overcoat with a furry collar. The coat sort of tumbled into my consciousness, as if it had been lurking there for years, just waiting to make itself noticed, and suddenly there it was, with its golden-brown collar, chequered lining, deep pockets and shiny metal buttons, which Dad was trying to do up, but I didn’t want him to and began to scream. We were standing on a wide flight of stairs with a lot of large paintings on the walls and it echoed when I screamed, and strange people stared at us.
Did he used to take me along to galleries at some point in the distant past?
By the way, you haven’t got any photographs of us, pictures from that time. That seems strange. Have you hidden them away somewhere?
I stopped in front of a painting and stayed there a good while.
It was called Leda and the Swan, and portrays a naked woman with her arm around a swan, which is sensuously holding onto her one nipple with its beak. Zeus has disguised hi
mself in one of his tricks. The woman looks lecherously pleased, as if she very well knows who she’s fawning upon.
Zeus turned into a swan in order to fulfil his desires.
Had Dad turned into a dog in order to get what he wanted?
Melaine didn’t come home until towards midnight. Dad kept out of the way all evening, to my great joy. I opened the door to their bedroom slightly and saw him lying in his basket. (She’s put a big round basket in one corner, where he huddles under an old blanket.) I sneaked up to him. He had pulled the blanket over his head. There was no movement at all. What the hell do you do here in town if an old dog goes and dies? I thought, carefully pulling the blanket back over his face, and suddenly I felt something wet rub against my fingers.
He had licked my hand.
And there he lay, smiling like an idiot.
I sat down in the lounge and opened a bottle of gin. I managed to consume a great deal before she returned.
“Greetings from Washington,” she said gaily and lit up a fresh cigar from the stub-end of the old one.
“What on earth is this really all about?”
She undid her bow, and unbuttoned her shirt right down to her stomach, loosening her belt, gasped and said, “Is what about?”
“Dad, for heaven’s sake. Things can’t go on as they are.”
“What do you mean?”
“But he’s ill, can’t you see that?”
She nodded.
“You’ve got to get hold of a doctor.”
She puffed away at her cigar and suddenly burst out laughing. “A vet, you mean?”
She laughed so much, she was on the verge of choking. “Actually, it was a good job he turned into a dog,” she said, “and not a seal, for instance, otherwise I should’ve had to keep him in the bath for the remainder of his days.”
She was also beginning to irritate me.
“It’s strange that you don’t put him on a lead and take him out to the park,” I said.
She looked at me in surprise. “Well, I’m damned,” she said, “I never thought of that.”
The following morning, before I’d had time to get up, she knocked on my door.
“Rise and shine,” she called out gaily, “we’re going out for a walk.”
Dad was on all fours in the hall. She had secured a collar around his neck, and fastened a lead to it. It looked stupid, and seemed like a dream.
I went back into my room and pulled the covers over my head.
After a while, I heard scratching at the door. I hid my head under the pillow. The scratching sound went on and on. Suddenly the pillow was lifted from my face.
“He won’t go anywhere without you,” said Melaine.
I just stared at her. “You must both be stark, raving mad.”
But she just laughed as usual. “You take him down. I’ll bring the car around.”
An old lady was in the lift, glancing through a newspaper. Dad crawled in on all fours. I kept hold of the leash. Please, I thought, say this is totally insane. However, the old lady didn’t take any notice. She glanced at us, without seeing us.
The doorman smiled in a kindly way, as we passed by his desk. “Lovely weather we’re having,” he said. “Everything OK?”
“Yes, certainly,” I replied. “This is just my father who’s turned into a dog.”
“Oh really,” he said. “Have a nice day.”
The weather in this city is just as mad. It had suddenly become glorious high summer. People were lying half-naked, sun-bathing on the lawn in Central Park.
“The police will come and take him away,” I said.
“They’ve got other things to do,” she replied.
Dad crawled out of the back seat, down on the ground, and put his nose to the wind, sniffing with a contented expression. She took the lead and guided him to an expanse of grass.
I lagged a few paces behind.
A set of fat, bald twins rushed past, each holding a stopwatch.
“What wonderful weather,” Melaine called out over her shoulder.
“I don’t know you,” I muttered, and imagined a group of people gathering around them before long, and at least I wasn’t going to be standing there in the middle, looking ridiculous.
But no one took a blind bit of notice. People just glanced at Dad in a preoccupied manner and went on with their walks, as if dads who have turned into dogs are a completely commonplace phenomenon in this crazy city.
A few small children pointed at him and giggled, but that was all.
The only person who took an interest in him was the park keeper.
“Dogs are prohibited on the grass, Madam,” he informed us.
“Dear me,” said Melaine.
The keeper bent down and scratched Dad behind the ear. “What breed is it?”
“Mongrel.”
“Beautiful coat,” said the keeper, patting Dad on his thinning fringe. “Has he been castrated?”
“I don’t know,” said Melaine, “I got him from a lady who didn’t want him any more.”
“Yes,” said the keeper. “Dogs are loyal. It’s a different matter when it comes to women.”
Melaine nodded.
“Just imagine,” said the keeper thoughtfully, “and I thought I’d seen every possible kind of madness. Madam had better make sure he doesn’t foul the grass.”
I made off. I can’t stand it, Mum. I’ve got to get away from here.
All day I wandered around this big city where logic seems to exist only on the map. I had dearly wanted to ring you, but all the telephones were either being used or were out of order.
“Can I make a call to Finland?” I asked at a bar, but the bartender looked as though I’d asked for a call to the moon.
There’s a permanent shadow down here on the streets. The sky looks its best in the reflections of skyscrapers. I wandered aimlessly on and suddenly noticed I had arrived at the gallery again. Leda looks directly at each person looking at the picture. She has such a remarkable expression on her face; she is so perfectly aware of the person concealing himself in the guise of a swan. She knows what’s happening. She understands what he’s doing.
Ought I also to understand what Dad’s doing?
Towards evening a strange, bluish half-light descends on the streets, while the sky remains bright and clear. This is probably due to the exhaust fumes from the cars for the most part, but it’s quite beautiful.
“You’ve got to rebook my ticket,” I said.
“It’s a discount ticket,” she replied. “It’s not possible to rebook it.”
“Then you’ve got to buy me another one.”
“That will cost an awful lot of money.”
“I expect he can afford it.”
She looked at me in amazement. “Your father, you mean? What makes you think that?”
I thought of saying, “Because Mum said so,” but restrained myself.
“Look around you,” I said instead, “this places reeks of money.”
She was silent for a while and looked at the floor. Then she said, “This is my apartment.”
“So where has all Dad’s money gone?”
She didn’t answer. She drew on her cigar and looked at the floor.
This was unpleasant, as if she thought I ought to know the answer to my own question.
“I shall have a ticket by tomorrow,” I announced.
She sighed. For once she appeared worried, almost sad.
“He’s not going to like this,” she said.
“Who cares what a dog thinks?” I replied.
During the night I heard careful, padding footsteps on the landing outside my room. They weren’t her footsteps, but lighter and more shuffling.
Someone put a key in the lock. Someone opened the door of the room next to mine.
Someone turned on the light. Someone opened a drawer.
If it isn’t a burglar, I thought, then it has to be him.
And he’s walking upright.
The dog is walking on
its hind legs.
The wall seemed to be made of cardboard. I could hear someone breathing hoarsely and heavily, just like Dad.
Then there was another clicking sound, as if someone had switched off the light, left the room, closed the door, locked it and shuffled away along the landing.
Carefully and stealthily, I got up.
Someone had left the key in the lock.
I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night, either.
I have packed my things and in a few hours’ time I shall be leaving, so this letter, you see, Mum, will get to you quicker in my own inside pocket than it would if I put it in the post.
I’ve thought about a lot of things in the night.
There are one or two things I’d like to ask you about.
This, for instance: why did she say she’d got Dad from a lady who didn’t want him any more?
That can wait, anyhow. I’ll soon be seeing you.
The room alongside mine was a museum. There were photographs on the walls, drawings and letters which had been written on small pieces of paper, all framed; a lock of hair in a box on the writing desk, a toy car, an old school exercise book and some tattered children’s books.
All the photographs were of me. They were my drawings, my lock of hair—everything was mine.
I was standing, in person, in a mausoleum dedicated to myself.
There was a small bed by the wall. My dark blue winter coat with its fur collar was on the bed, as if someone had just recently put it there.
It was much smaller than I remembered.
There was an air ticket on the table in the lounge. Dad was lying on the sofa in the same position he’d been in when I’d first gone into the room.
