The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

by Sjón

  As Arsugaq’s birthday approaches, Mum gives her enough invitations for two classes. Arsugaq would prefer to celebrate it with just Mum and Dad, not together with a load of other children. But what can Arsugaq do when Mum has already made up her mind? “Mum decides!” is what Mum would say. As she stands by the school’s entrance and waits to be picked up, two girls walk past. Wrapped around each other, they walk arm in arm, the one girl’s hips moving in time with the other’s. Arsugaq studies them. How do they do that, she wonders. Perhaps I’ll get to try this with someone on my birthday.

  Once they have sung the birthday song, they eat the cake. “You must sit very still while you eat the cake. Try not to spill anything!” says Arsugaq’s mum in a strict voice. After they have eaten their cake, they wash their hands carefully before they start playing games. “Me, me …!” There are children everywhere, fighting over who gets to go first. They all want to win. They are arranged in a line for the competition to start. The miniature winners run around all over the house being smug. Arsugaq can’t stand it any longer. They are so obsessed with the competition that they have forgotten the birthday child. Arsugaq begins to cry, “… it’s mine!” She doesn’t understand. Why isn’t she the one who gets to decide what games they should play? She runs up to her room and throws herself down on her pile of toys, noting the dust that falls slowly around her. No one wants to be friends with me. They think I’m weird. They hate me. In the evening, Mum comes up and comforts her. She reads aloud to her from the Bible, before they pray together to God.

  Arsugaq sits alone in school. “That’s her, the one who had a birthday party and it was her mum who yelled when someone dropped some cake on the floor …” some of the girls whisper, as they walk past, giving Arsugaq a contemptuous look.

  Arsugaq is slim and slender. She gets called the abandoned child. When she answers a teacher’s question, she looks as if she is ashamed. When you see her walking from a distance, she looks like someone who is afraid of taking a wrong step. She appears very cautious. Her huge school backpack makes her tiny body appear even smaller. A child you have to walk around in big circles, because she is so fragile. And she knows how much it irritates Mum when she tries to make herself smaller, to hunch herself up, to go unnoticed. “For God’s sake, don’t stand like that, straighten your back!” Mum tells her off, only to enquire tenderly moments after: “… what kind of sweeties would you like tonight? Because you must feel like something sweet, right?”

  Mum and Dad disagree about the bills. Which bill is most important? What should we buy first? What do we need the most? Arsugaq can’t understand why they would fight about things like that. When they eat dinner, Mum doesn’t really feel like answering when she asks her about something. Why does Mum get like this sometimes? And when she asks Dad, he doesn’t say anything. The next day, Mum comes home buzzing with energy. She has lots of bags. She has bought a thick warm coat for Arsugaq because it will soon be autumn. “I don’t want one in black!” says Arsugaq. “Everyone has one like this. It was very expensive, you should be pleased. We’ll have to starve ourselves for the rest of the month!” answers Mum. “Yes, but,” says Arsugaq sulkily, “I just wanted one suitable for a princess.”

  One day Arsugaq is upset when she comes home from school. “Arsugaq, what is it? Tell me instead of behaving like that!” says Mum. At teatime Arsugaq is still upset, and Mum says to Dad, “… go on, pick her up and get her to cry, she just wants to have a good cry!” Arsugaq’s dad holds her firmly as he sits watching television. Arsugaq struggles, she wants to get away. She cries louder and louder and gets all sweaty from being held by Dad. Finally she screams, fighting against him. “Let go of me!” she shouts. “Do you feel better?” asks Arsugaq’s mum every now and then as she cooks the tea. Once tea is done, Arsugaq doesn’t want to eat, so Mum orders her up to her room. “Go up and play with your dolls. You’ll be a mum, when you’re older! Why don’t you play with your dolls when you have so many?” As Arsugaq throws herself down onto the floor between all the toys, she notices the dust that falls slowly around her.

  In the morning Arsugaq doesn’t answer when Mum calls for her. Mum goes into Arsugaq’s room and gets a shock. Arsugaq has cut the hair off her dolls, removed their legs, arms and heads. Her bed is filled with dolls’ hair. Their legs, arms and heads are spread out everywhere. She has taken Mum’s make-up and painted the dolls’ faces. Mum is stunned with fear. Arsugaq, who is sitting in the middle of the floor, turns now to face Mum. She has cut off her own hair and made up her face just like the dolls’. Big red lips run across her face, and the excessive eyeshadow makes her eyes look like cold, dark stones. She looks up unaffected at Mum, whose scream now fills the room and filters out through the windows into the pale pink morning.

  The dust falls slowly around them.

  TRANSLATED BY JANE GRAHAM

  AVOCADO

  GUÐBERGUR BERGSSON

  SHE HAD POPPED OUT to the shops to buy an avocado for dinner. It was Christmas Eve and fortunately they were open until noon. She had forgotten the latest gastronomic fads yesterday and wanted to be like other arty people. Avocado had become a must among those who had been educated abroad. She no longer worked in their midst, but had studied overseas and maintained the fads, out of respect for herself if for no one else. Avocados were easy to find in shops and she had read that they were healthy and good for the skin and old people’s bowel movements. On this occasion she only needed one. It was just the two of them now; the sons were gone and ate with their own families. She had trouble walking, even though it was a short distance, but she set off to buy the avocado and other small sundries. It took some time to find a suitably ripe avocado. Most of them were hard. She grabbed them in her right palm, squeezed them and felt a tinge of satisfaction. A memory from her student years in London fluttered into her mind when she had met a black man in a park who leaned her against a tree and guided her hand into him to let her feel the weight of something similar in her palm. The memory lingered a moment. She stopped squeezing and calculated how long it would take for the avocado to soften if she wrapped a newspaper around it and placed it on the kitchen radiator. Finally she found a ripe one, but perhaps not ripe enough for the evening. She bought it and bit her knuckles for having left everything to the last minute. When she got home she enveloped the avocado in paper and laid it on the radiator. It made no difference because nothing tasted of anything any more, vegetables or fruit. Life had lost its flavour too, not least the arts. Then she began to wait for her son. He was going to fetch the old artificial Christmas tree in the attic for her; she couldn’t get up there any longer. Her husband had never troubled himself to help her with Christmas preparations, which he found idiotic. She agreed, but the custom had persisted since her childhood and while the kids were small, so she could do nothing else but uphold it, despite her husband’s opinions and her own. Which was why the artificial tree was needed. Her son arrived and gave her two strips of Danish Kringle, one with chocolate, the other with cream. He showed no favouritism for either of his parents and knew that his father didn’t want cream and his mother didn’t want chocolate. The only gratitude he got was a reprimand from his mother who told him he shouldn’t have bothered to bring them; she still had the leftovers from last year’s Danish pastries in the freezer. The son said he did it out of habit, but didn’t keep up the tradition in his own home—the kids wanted something else. He fetched the Christmas tree and ran his hands over it until the branches sprang out. Then he screwed the tree into its plywood stand and hung the last ball from his childhood on a branch. The others were broken; only one was left on which he had stuck white cotton to resemble Christmas snow. Once he had done that, he was about to leave but his mother asked him to wait and to sprinkle the oatmeal from the pan along the pavement for the birds. He promised he would and said it was lucky he hadn’t brought along his daughter, who had been a know-it-all from the day she could speak. Now she knew that oatmeal could wreak havoc on birds’ stomachs, causing
blockages and making them die of constipation in the bushes. “But still, we’ve always given them oatmeal,” said his mother and asked about her granddaughter whom she called her ewe and her grandson whom she called pet lamb because they had been so fond of Grandad and Granny when they were toddlers but never showed their faces now. Pet lamb was developing his ambitions as a film-maker and the ewe wanted to be an actress. Granny knew she would become one. She was also a know-it-all in her own way. Knowledge and know-how ran in the family because actors knew how to tackle every role in the theatre of life and on the stage. “I, a veteran actress, the daughter of an actor, should have given the ewe my support to help her fulfil her aspirations,” she said. The son then added that his daughter felt she had limited chances of getting into theatre and said the same about singing or writing books. “The arts are a very closed circle,” he said. “It all runs in family dynasties and cliques; the children of actors become actors or something in the theatre, the children of singers singers—even if they’re tone-deaf they get some job in music.” “Wasn’t I a famous actress?” his mother asked. “And your father a lighting designer. That should stand your daughter in good stead.” The son didn’t listen and continued, saying that it would be no better if it occurred to his daughter to become a writer. “Every author has grandfathers or grandmothers who have been writing for generations,” he said excitedly. “Artistic talent is innate, but the drawback is that talent deteriorates as arrogance grows with the sense of being entitled to praise!” the father called out from the sofa in the living room. “Now Dad is pitching in!” said the son. “Don’t listen to him,” said the mother. “If you hadn’t given up acting, you could have got my daughter on the stage,” said the son. “You trained in London, which was regarded as a big deal in your day.” The mother didn’t answer, while the son carried on, saying that when artistic events got poor reviews, it was regarded as harassment and gender-based violence, especially if there were actresses involved. “Stop it!” the mother ordered, but the son wouldn’t stop. “My daughter says critics work from a preconceived mindset and write their reviews accordingly …” “Stop it!” the mother ordered. The son didn’t stop but continued: “Now everything is supposed to focus on crises. Middle-aged men working out their issues and women being raped on top of vibrating washing machines in front of their children.” The mother shook her head. She pretended to be well acquainted with matters that weren’t new and yet were always unfamiliar and said: “Maybe I should have continued, but I wanted to be a woman and have you. In my day women were expected to accept the female virtues of motherhood. That was the only true role. I didn’t listen to your father. He wanted me to continue on the stage and to carry on himself as a lighting designer.” “You’ve never listened to me except to indulge me, because physically you’re lustful, but you don’t have the same lust for art. It’s vital to be seen to have a burning desire for that!” the man yelled from the living room. He had moved from the sofa into the recliner and was fiddling with the settings. “Still, I got a gold medal in the school in London in a class with Sylvia Stone. She became famous on the stage but got no prizes at school to begin with because of her slurred diction. Then it became fashionable, even in the role of Desdemona. But despite her fame, Sylvia ended up working in a pub and drank herself to hell. They wrote a book about her. What about me? Won a gold medal like a model student, awarded by a foreign board, and then came home to become nothing.” “Isn’t it the same story everywhere?” said the son. “That’s what the world’s like. All records have been broken. Even in sports. Then what? Things have to be turned on their head—they hold Olympics for the disabled, allow actors who can’t act to act and allow the tone-deaf to sing with crappy whining voices.” “I can’t be bothered to listen to this, heard it all before,” said the mother. “Stop quarrelling with your mother!” the father called out and asked his son to explain the controls for the chair to him, it was all so complicated. “Just countless buttons, no results.” The son went over and pressed the chair so abruptly that his father’s legs were almost catapulted over the back of it. “Are you trying to kill me?” the father asked. “This is the posture I was in when I was adjusting the lights in the theatre.” “I’m off,” said the son and added: “Mum, should I buy a piece of jewellery for my wife from Gulli?” “He’s long dead,” said the mother. “Your dad often went to him to take a look. He occasionally gave me trinkets.” “I mean his son, who’s also called Gulli.” “Goldsmithery obviously runs in the family then,” said the mother. The son wanted to add that Gulli junior was known as Gulli Blow-job but kept his mouth shut. On the way out he felt an urge to say “blow-job” to himself, and it occurred to him to pop into Gulli’s workshop if there was no one in the store. He felt he deserved a blow-job from Gulli; to ease his conscience towards his wife, he would buy her a ring at a Christmas discount. Gulli and he had met on a dating site and corresponded before gaining each other’s trust. The members of the dating site remained anonymous, but he was cautious and didn’t fancy stumbling on his brother or father or cousin in quickie-land. Gulli said that such things happened, but not to worry, it would go no further; everyone is complicit in what is not a crime, unless people believe that sin lies between one’s legs and that nature and pleasure are punishable offences. “No one in the shop suspects anything is going on in the workshop,” said Gulli at their first encounter, telling him not to be so scared of himself; this was a pleasure not a crime. “Don’t go giving your wife a present after every golden moment with me. She might start to suspect something. Gifts often give rise to suspicion rather than joy. Then you’ll be crying in a crisis, not me. I fearlessly blow my way through life with a wife and kids.” It was dark by the time the son left his parents. In the lift he met a man who always seemed to be there whenever he came for a visit. As he stepped outside, he saw his mother at the kitchen table by the window. She didn’t look like a former actress, but rather a librarian with grey hair that dangled over her cheeks. Thinking about it, he felt she had never been a real mother, but had just played the role in the theatre of marriage. It triggered a vacuous feeling in him and he decided to shake it off with Gulli, after which he was bound to be in a lighter mood when he met his wife and children. He had paused below the window; his mother seemed to sense his presence, although she could barely see in the dark. She waved. Then she started to carry things to the living-room table, while her husband tried out the controls again. He had managed to master the recliner by the time the food was ready and moved to the table unaided. The starter was avocado. The woman had sliced it in two and de-stoned it. They sat opposite each other in the glowing red candlelight. The man was about to dig into the avocado, but gave up and said: “I can’t handle your food. This is inedible.” “Yes,” the woman agreed. “No point in talking about it.” “What, then?” he answered, irritated, pushing his plate away. “Could it be true what they’re saying on the news, that Christ is having a sex change to move with the times and being turned into a woman in the New Space at the National Theatre?” she answered.

  TRANSLATED BY BRIAN FITZGIBBON

  SOME PEOPLE RUN IN SHORTS

  SÓLRÚN MICHELSEN

  ARUNNER ASKED ME ONE MORNING on my way to work, “Hey, you. Can you tell me what time it is?”

  I replied, “Ten to.”

  “To what?” he asked.

  I stared at him briefly. “To eight,” and added an “of course” under my breath.

  Had it been any other time of day, I might not have found it so self-evident. But at eight? When everyone was rushing to get to work on time?

  “OK. Thank you. I know neither day nor hour.”

  He shook his head and carried on running.

  I went on my way, more than a little confused. Questions tumbled around my brain like bumblebees.

  “It’s also Wednesday, 18 October. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  I toiled away my eight hours and, truth be told, had forgotten all about the incident when I passed the
pitch again and spotted the guy still running.

  “Hey, you. Can you tell me what time it is?”

  “Ten past five,” I replied.

  “Morning or evening?”

  I found myself staring at him again. “Evening,” I said curtly.

  “Thank you. Must run.”

  He ran on. I noticed a track on the pitch where he had been circling all day.

  I headed home, but thought a lot about the man. Actually, to be honest, I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

  For how long had he been running, seeing as he didn’t know what day, let alone time, it was? Had he been running for so long that he had completely lost his wits? Or was he a foreigner? Was he perhaps one of these roaming aliens who had taken human form? Perhaps he was lost. Who knows? Wound up in Gundadalur when he was supposed to take part in some intergalactic marathon. Programmed wrong.

  I had always wanted to travel in time like that. But I would want to decide for myself where to go and who to visit.

  Later that evening I went for a walk. I hadn’t planned on walking that way, but without realizing I had taken the same route as in the morning. The closer I got to the pitch, the more I regretted my choice of route. I didn’t feel like walking past it, so I just peeked around the corner of the spectators’ shelter to find out whether he might actually still be running.