The Greenhouse Read online

  —I admit you and your mother had your own world that Jósef and I weren’t a part of; maybe we didn’t understand it.

  Lately Dad has been referring to himself and Jósef as a unit—Jósef and myself, he says.

  Mom sometimes felt an urge to go out and work in the garden or greenhouse in the heart of midsummer nights. It was as if she didn’t need to sleep the way other people did, especially in the summer. When I’d come home in the early hours after a night out with my friends, there would be Mom on the flower bed with her red plastic bucket and pink floral gardening gloves while Dad was fast asleep inside. Naturally there wasn’t a soul in sight, and everything was so incredibly still. Mom would say hi and look at me as if she knew something about me that I didn’t. Then I would sit beside her in the grass for a few quarters of an hour and pull up some weeds as a token gesture, just to keep her company. I might have had half a bottle of beer in my hand, which I’d prop up in the flower bed while I lie down, rest my chin in the palms of my cupped hands and gaze at the drifting puffs of cloud. Whenever I wanted to be alone with Mom, I went out to her in the greenhouse or in the garden; that’s where we could talk together. Sometimes she’d seem distracted and I’d ask her what she was thinking and she’d just say, “Yeah, yeah, I like what you’re saying.” And then she’d give me an approving and encouraging smile.

  —There’s no great future in gardening for a brilliant student like you.

  —Since when am I a brilliant student?

  —I might be old, lad, but I’m not senile. It so happens that I’ve kept all your exam results. Top of the class at the age of twelve. Top of your year at the age of sixteen, graduating with flying colors.

  —I can’t believe you keep that stuff. It was on top of a box somewhere in the basement. Throw that garbage away, Dad.

  —Too late, Lobbi, I’ve asked Thröstur to frame it for me.

  —You’re not serious?

  —So are you thinking of a university degree then?

  —No, not at the moment.

  —How about botany?

  —No.

  —Biology?

  —No.

  —Then how about plant physiology or plant genetics with an emphasis on plant biotechnology?

  Dad has obviously been reading up on this stuff. He keeps both hands firmly gripped on the wheel with his eyes glued to the road.

  —No, I’ve no interest in being a scientist or a university lecturer.

  I’m much more in my element when I’m in wet soil. It’s so different to be able to touch living plants; lab flowers don’t give off any smell after a shower of rain. It’s difficult to put Mom’s and my world into words for Dad. My interest is in what grows out of fertile soil.

  —Still, I want you to know that I’ve set up a little fund you can use if you want to continue your education and go to university. That’s apart from your mother’s inheritance money. Jósef is happy where he is, he adds. Of course, I’ll make sure he’s not short of anything.

  —Thank you.

  I don’t discuss the gardening any further with Dad. How can I tell the electrician that I might not even know what I want? How difficult it can be to make a decision like that, once and for all, at a specific point in one’s life?

  —You won’t get far on dreams, Lobbi, Dad would say.

  —You’ve got to follow your dreams, Mom would have said. And then she would have gazed out the kitchen window, as if she were surveying a vast dominion, and not just those few yards to the greenhouse and another few again to the fence. The entire garden was a single plot of swarming vegetation, and it was impossible to see beyond the fences through the rich tangle of plants, trees, and bushes; but it was almost as if she half expected guests from far away. Then she would empty the bag of prunes into a bowl, place it under the tap, and let water run over it.

  —It certainly beats being seasick on a small boat for months on end, Dad finally says.

  Four

  We continue to drive through the lava field in silence. I still feel the farewell dinner in my stomach and sense that the nausea that probably started with the green sauce is mutating into a persistent ache, right here in the middle of the lava field, not far from the spot where Mom capsized the car. I know the curve where the car lost control; there’s a small basin there overgrown with grass. I can picture the spot where she was cut out of the wreckage quite vividly.

  —Your mom shouldn’t have gone before me, sixteen years younger, says Dad as we drive past the spot.

  —No, she shouldn’t have gone before you.

  Mom had whims like that, going off to pick blueberries on her birthday at the crack of dawn, to some obscure favorite spot she had; that’s why she had to drive across the lava field. Then she was going to offer us—her boys, as she liked to call Dad, Jósef, and me—waffles with freshly picked berries and whipped cream. I realize now that it must have been hard to only have men in the house, not to have had a daughter, I mean.

  I give myself some time before I get to Mom in the car, capsized in the lava hollow. I give myself plenty of time to scrutinize the nature and glide around the spot a long moment, like a cameraman on a movie taking an aerial shot from a crane, before I zoom in on Mom herself, the leading lady this whole scene revolves around. It’s the seventh of August and I decide to make it an early autumn. That’s why I see so much red and glowing golden colors in the nature. I picture nothing but varieties of red at the scene of the accident: russet heather, a bloodred sky, violet red foliage on some small trees nearby, golden moss. Mom herself was in a burgundy cardigan, and the coagulated blood didn’t become visible until Dad rinsed it in the bathtub at home. By dwelling on the small details of the set design, like you might look at the backdrop of a painting before shifting your gaze to the main subject itself, I somehow manage to put Mom’s death on pause, and therefore postpone the moment of the inevitable farewell. The scene plays out either with Mom still inside the car wreckage, or she’s just been cut out and is lying on the ground. I decide that it’s on a level plain, the flat base of the lava hollow, as if the tops of two tussocks had been sliced off and grass had been sown on the wound; that’s where they very gently lay her down. In my mind she’s either still showing some sign of life or she’s dead. Dad is driving so slowly that I can check out the tree, which is still there where I planted it, a dwarf pine, my attempt to plant a wood in the middle of a rugged lava field, one isolated tree in the rocky barren landscape; that is how I sanctify Mom’s spot.

  —Are you cold? Dad asks, turning the heater on full blast. The car’s roasting.

  —No, I’m not cold.

  I do have a pain in my stomach, though, but I don’t tell Dad about it. He’d smother me in worries. Mom used to worry in a different way; she understood me.

  —Well then, Lobbi lad, we’re there now, see the planes?

  As soon as we reach the airport, the black blanket begins to lift off the mountain range, uncovering the first rays of dawn below it, like light blue wisps of smoke. The horizontal February sun reveals the dirt on the smudged windshield.

  My brother and Dad follow me into the terminal.

  Dad hands me a wrapped package as we’re saying good-bye.

  —You can open it when you land, he says. Just a little something that might remind you of your old man at bedtime.

  When I say good-bye to Dad I give him a firm hug, but not a long one, just a brisk embrace and slap him on the back like a man. Then I do the same to my brother, Jósef, who immediately recoils toward Dad and takes his hand. Then Dad takes a fat envelope out of his back pocket and hands it to me.

  —I went to the bank and got some cash out for you; you never know what can come up when you’re abroad.

  I fleetingly glance over my shoulder and see Dad leading my twin brother out of the terminal, Dad’s wallet sticking halfway out of his back pocket. They’re both in the gray waistcoats that Dad recently bought; it’s impossible to say which of the two is the best dressed. Jósef is my total op
posite in appearance, short, with brown eyes and dark skin, as if he’d just strolled off a beach. He’s so immaculately dressed that, if it weren’t for the color combinations of his clothes, my autistic twin brother could be mistaken for an air pilot. In the image I decide to store of him in my mind he is in a violet shirt with butterfly patterns. By the time it’s full daylight I will have left this brown slush behind me, and the salt of the earth will only survive in the form of white rings on the rims of my shoes.

  Five

  It’s precisely at the moment when the plane is lifting off the runway and shooting away from the frosty pink snow that I feel a distinct jab of pain in my stomach. I lean over my neighbor to catch a final glimpse through the porthole, of the mountain below, like violet mounds of meat splattered with streaks of white fat. The woman in a yellow polo presses herself back against her seat to give me the full view of her window. But I soon grow tired of measuring her breasts against the string of craters and lose interest in the view. Although I should be feeling lighter, the pain in my gut prevents me from full-heartedly appreciating the sense of freedom that is meant to accompany being above everything that is below. I’m conscious of—rather than actually seeing—the black lava, yellow withered grass, milky rivers, corrugated terrain of tussocks, marshes, fields of wilting lupin, and beyond that an endless stretch of rock. And what could be more hostile than rocks; surely roses can’t grow in the middle of broken rocks? This is undoubtedly an extraordinarily beautiful country, and although I’m fond of many things here, both places and people, it’s best kept on a stamp.

  I stretch into the backpack shortly after takeoff to see how the rose cuttings are faring at an altitude of thirty-three thousand feet. They’re still wrapped in the moist newspapers, which I adjust around the green shoots. The fact that I accidentally chose an obituaries page is no doubt apt, considering my current physical state, and also a demonstration of how coincidences can work in subtle ways. At the moment in which I’m detaching myself from the earth below, it’s not unnatural to be thinking of death. I’m a twenty-two-year-old man and bound to sink into contemplating death several times a day. Second comes the body, both my own and that of others, and in third place there are the roses and other plants, although the exact order in which I ponder on these three things may vary from day to day. I put the plants down again and sit in the seat beside the woman.

  In addition to the pain, which is now turning into a throbbing ache, I feel a mounting nausea and bend over, clutching my stomach. The sound of the engines reminds me of the fishing boat and how nauseous it made me feel in those four months of constant seasickness. I didn’t even need a rough sea; the moment I stepped onto the boat my stomach started to surge and I lost all my bearings. As soon as the steel hull started to amplify the sea’s vibrations and sway to its rhythm against the wharf, I’d burst into a cold sweat, and by the time we’d raised the anchor, I would already have thrown up once. When I was too seasick to sleep I’d go on deck and peer into the fog, watching the horizon swell up and down, as I tried to steady the waves. After nine fishing trips I was the palest man on the planet; even my eyes were a floating, watery blue.

  —That’s the snag about being red-haired, the most experienced crewmember had said, they always get the worst seasickness.

  —And they rarely come back, said another.

  Six

  The air hostesses scuttle between the seats; legs in brown nylon stockings and high-heeled mules are now in my direct line of vision as I crouch in a crash-landing position. They’ve got their eye on me and shuffle up and down the aisle to check on me, dust the fluff off the back of my seat, offer me a pillow and blanket, adjust and rearrange.

  —Would you like a pillow, would you like a blanket? they ask with anxious airs, slipping a pillow under my head and throwing a blanket over me. Then they move away again to discuss my case.

  —Are you sick? my neighbor in the yellow polo in the window seat asks.

  —Yeah, I’m not feeling too good, I say.

  —Don’t be afraid, she says with a smile, adjusting the blanket over me. I realize now she could be Mom’s age. There are three women tending to me on the plane; I’m a little boy on the verge of tears. I stretch in my seat and peer under the tinfoil lid over the tray of food. Then, when a hostess passes, I ask her what was in the meal.

  —I’ll check, she says and vanishes down the aisle.

  She doesn’t come straight back, however, and just to show the woman sitting next to me that I’m a well-brought-up fellow, which Mom would certainly confirm, I hold out my hand and introduce myself.

  —Arnljótur Thórir.

  And better still I dig into my leather jacket and pull out a photograph of a bareheaded infant in a green bodysuit. She might very well be thinking that it isn’t very manly of me to be traveling with flower cuttings wrapped in soaked obituaries and to be throwing up the in-flight meal, but I’m not going to give her a chance to ask me any personal questions or even to offer me chocolate, but stay one step ahead of her.

  —My daughter, I say, handing her the photograph.

  She seems slightly taken aback, but then gives me a friendly smile, fishes her glasses out of her handbag, takes the photograph, and holds it up to the light.

  —Pretty child, she says. How old is she?

  —Five months old when that picture was taken. Six and a half now, I add. I feel like saying six months and nineteen days, but the pain in my gut won’t allow me to dwell on such details.

  —A beautiful and intelligent-looking child, she repeats, big bright eyes. She doesn’t have a lot of hair for a girl, though, I thought she was a boy, to be honest.

  The woman looks at me warmly.

  —As far as I remember she’d just woken up and they’d just taken her bonnet off, I say, that’s why the hair’s like that. Yeah, she was just out of the carriage, I add. I take the picture back and stick it into my pocket. I’ve nothing to add on the subject of my daughter’s lack of hair, so that topic has been exhausted. And this weird pain is rapidly starting to dominate all my thoughts. I have to throw up again, and when I close my eyes I have a flashback of the green sauce over the fried fish. My neighbor looks at me anxiously. I don’t have the energy for any further conversation so I pretend I’ve got other things to be thinking about and rummage through my backpack again. I dig out the book with my collection of dried plants and, as if I were being mocked by fate, immediately stumble upon the page with the oldest plants: the pressed six-leaf clovers, which were all picked on the same morning in our tiny yard back home. Dad thought it was significant that I had found these three six-leaf clovers on my sixth birthday, and saw it as a lucky omen for what lay ahead, at the birthday party later that day maybe, or some dream that would come true, such as a tree growing in the garden for me to climb on.

  —Is that a plant collection you’ve got with you? my female neighbor asks, visibly interested. I don’t answer but carefully fish out a clover and hold it up against the reading light; it’s the last one that’s still intact, delicate and fragile, eternity’s flower. I think I’m more than likely suffering from an acute case of food poisoning, but it’s no doubt symbolic of the state of my life that the stem of the plant is hanging from a blue thread.

  Seven

  —Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own? the hostess asks me as I walk down the aisle to the exit. You’re very pale.

  The moment I step off the plane, the head hostess taps me on the shoulder and says:

  —We tried to find out what food it was, two of us tasted it, but we’re not sure. Sorry. But it’s definitely either fish in breadcrumbs with a cream cheese filling or chicken in breadcrumbs with a cream cheese filling.

  An airport official writes an address on a slip of paper that I crumple in my clenched clammy palm.

  I’m in a city I’ve never been in before, my very first port of call abroad, and I’m curled up on the backseat of a taxi. The backpack is beside me, and the green shoots pierce through the
newspaper wrapping in the top compartment. On second thought, I’m not sure whether I’m alone in the taxi; I can’t exclude the possibility that the woman in the yellow polo might have escorted me to my destination.

  When the car stops by a sidewalk at a red light I can see people checking their reflections in my window as they pass.

  The driver occasionally glances at me through his mirror. He’s got a big Alsatian in the front seat with a slavering tongue dangling from its mouth. I can’t see whether the dog is on a leash, but his eyes are fixed on me. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, the car has stopped in front of a hospital and the driver has turned around in his seat and is looking at me. He makes me pay double for having thrown up in his cab, but doesn’t look particularly angry; it’s more of a scolding air, perhaps, for my irresponsible behavior.

  Eight

  First, I carefully put down my backpack, making sure the moisture doesn’t leak off the rose cuttings. Then I lie down, stretching out on the plastic-covered examination bench. Twenty-two years old and already at the end of the road, the journey’s over before it’s even started. It takes me a long time to write my name on the form, letter by letter, absolutely ages. The woman who is helping me to lie down in the fluorescent-lit examination room has shiny brown hair as well as brown eyes and is doing everything to assist me. I’m naked down to the waist and am now taking my trousers off. Is this how Mom felt, too, when she was dying out in the lava field in the arms of strangers? At any rate it’s clear that the day of my death will be a happy day for many of the inhabitants of this globe; by the time the sun has set, multitudes will have been born in my place and countless wedding feasts will have been held.