Invisible Love (16 page)

“What's your problem?” she went on in a more acrid tone. “Are you deaf? Are you stupid? Have you forgotten that you used to be able to speak Icelandic?”

Thor still did not react, eyes fixed on the screen, headphones on his ears. For months, Alba had only ever seen her son looking blue because, shut up all the time in this room, the only light he received was the turquoise light from his computer.

“Or have you left the human race? Have you mutated to join your digital world? Thor, I'm talking to you!”

This time, she had yelled.

He ignored her, still devoting all his energy to his game.

Reproaching herself for her reprimands, she resumed in a more even tone, although one still throbbing with irritation, “Thor, you've stopped being part of the family. I have the feeling I don't have a son anymore.”

He threw himself back on his chair, yelling, “Shit!” Then, recovering, he leaned in toward the screen and started tapping more quickly on the keys, tense and irritable.

Alba's sharpness changed to irony. “Oh, my darling, what happened? Were you attacked by a green scaly monster? A medieval knight? A soldier from the planet Zarg?”

He pressed a button on his console and laughed with joy, triumphantly.

Alba pretended to applaud. “Congratulations, you've just won a little immunity, even though you're not quite immortal yet . . . Obviously, it's more useful to succeed in a world that doesn't exist than in this one, more important to zap fictitious enemies than to listen to your mother.”

As he sang to himself, delighted with the nasty blow he had just inflicted on his opponents, she exploded, “I'm sorry we don't live in the United States, because there, I'd have the right to bear arms. Right now, I'd aim my gun at you, you'd be afraid that I'd shoot, you'd shit in your pants, and we'd finally be able to talk! Yes, Thor, with a gun pointed at your head, you'd be forced to look at your mother!”

A hand seized Alba by the waist, a mouth touched the back of her neck, and a pelvis was pressed against her buttocks.

“Alba, do you realize what you're saying?” Magnus whispered in her ear.

“Yes! Er . . . no.”

How good he smelled . . . Knowing she was soon going to stop being angry, thanks to her husband's beneficial embrace, she spat out her last venom: “Anyway, even if I'm talking bullshit, I realize that better than he does.”

They both gazed at the boy. Still plunged in a virtual universe, he was paying them no attention.

“We don't have a son, we have a fish in a tank. And I hate fish!”

“Alba, relax.”

Under the pretext of calming her down, he starting stroking her breasts. His fingers were thick, but as they lingered over the most sensitive points, their touch was delicate.

How selfish he is! He doesn't want to calm me down, he just wants to fuck me.
She was tempted to push him away when two things stopped her: the depressing sight of Thor frenetically pressing his thumbs on his console, and the smell of her man, an aroma of spicy ripe pear that, ever since the first day, had bound her to his powerful, muscular, sexually demanding body.

Like children hiding from their parents, they disappeared into their bedroom. In any case, even if the building was burning down, Thor would ignore her . . .

After their lovemaking and a quick shower, Alba had recovered the energy to confront daily life and announced cheerfully that she was going to make dinner.

 

*

 

When the smoked mutton with potatoes in white sauce was ready, she called Thor and Magnus.

Magnus came immediately, but Thor did not appear.

“Could you please check that your son isn't dead?”

Magnus dragged himself to the end of the corridor, ordered Thor to join them, came back, sat down at the table, and picked up his knife and fork. Confidently, Alba sat down opposite him and waited to serve.

“Did he hear you?”

“I think so.”

“Did he understand?”

“I don't know.”

“Doesn't it terrify you to have a zombie instead of a son?”

“It's the usual teenage rebelliousness. It'll sort itself out.”

“Are you so sure? In our day, nobody had a computer.”

“We had cigarettes, joints, alcohol . . . ”

“Are you trying to say that our son is addicted to his computer?”

“In a way, yes.”

“And aren't you going to do anything?”

He made an evasive grimace, groaned, then wearily grabbed the spoon and served himself.

“Aren't you going to wait for Thor?”

“I'm hungry.”

“I thought we observed good manners in this household.”

“Listen, Alba, Thor pisses me off, and frankly you're starting to piss me off too.” With these resolute words, he lifted the meat to his mouth.

Taken aback by such vulgarity, Alba found a thousand thoughts jostling in her head:
When he wants to sleep with me, he's much more polite
. . .
He doesn't give a damn about our son's upbringing
. . .
The big ape thinks only of his stomach and his dick . . . There are times when I hate him . . . If I go to Thor's room, I'll hit that boy . . .
 

She leaped up from her chair, went straight to the entrance of the apartment, opened the closet containing the electricity meter, and abruptly switched off the supply.

The apartment was plunged into darkness. There was a wonderful moment, a moment of great pleasure for Alba, when the place belonged to her again.

Then she heard Thor's whining moan: “Shit! What's going on?”

What a horrible voice! So nasal! He can't control it, it goes all shrill . . . That's not my son's voice.

“The power's gone off!”

And he's too lazy to get up off his chair, he just yells from his room!

“Hello! The power's gone off! Hello? Is there anyone there?”

Any normal child would call his mother and father. He just asks if anyone's there, as he was living with strangers.

“Hello? Isn't anyone going to fix it?”

Oh, fuck off, kid.

Thor emerged from his room and came down the dark corridor. When he saw his mother, he sighed, “About time.”

“About time for what?”

“About time you fixed it.”

“What do you think I'm here for?”

Thor's mouth opened.
He really is completely dumb.
 

“Yes, Thor, you heard me,” she raged. “Who exactly do you think I am? Your mother, or just the person who provides the electricity, pays the bill, and goes to press the button so you can escape into your game?”

He stood there dumbfounded. She decided to take advantage of the moment. “Come to the table. I have something to ask you and your father.”

He made an obscene noise, then stubbornly approached the meter and made to press the green button. She grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Don't touch, it's mine!”

“Are you crazy?”

“How would you know? I might have gone crazy ages ago. You haven't looked at me or talked to me in months.”

He tried to reach the meter again. This time, she slapped his hand. He jumped back.

“You . . . you hit me!” he said, rubbing his wrist.

“Oh, I'm glad you noticed.”

“But you've never hit me before!”

“And maybe I was wrong all these years. Shall we do it again?”

He moved his other hand around in a circle close to his forehead, as if to say that she was losing her mind, and walked back down the corridor.

“Thor, where are you going?”

“To get my things from my room.”

“Thor, I have something to discuss with you and your father.”

“I'm not staying in a house where I'm going to be hit.”

Alba ran to the dining room. “Do something!” she yelled at Magnus.

Glumly, Magnus cried out in a lazy, insufficiently firm voice, “Where are you going, Thor?”

“To Grandpa's.”

Alba grabbed her husband by the shoulder. “Stop him! Tell him not to do it.”

Magnus sighed. “Your mother and I don't really agree . . . ”

Thor walked the length of the corridor and hissed at them, “Too bad. Bye!”

The door slammed.

Alba and Magnus were still in darkness.

She turned her rage on him. “Congratulations! What a father! Such authority!”

“Leave me alone, Alba. If you think you're any better—a hysterical woman who threatens to buy a gun and shoot her son, and then goes and cuts off the electricity! I've never seen such pathetic behavior!”

He stood up, knocking his chair over as he did so.

“Where are you going? Magnus, I forbid you to leave! Where are you going?”

He put on his down jacket, then turned back to her. “To the sports club. I'll grab a sandwich over there. Then I'll bust a gut on the mat, just to forget this hellhole we're living in.”

The door slammed again.

Alba collapsed onto her chair, her head in her hands. “Oh, Jonas, how happy the two of us are going to be in Europe . . . ”

 

*

 

The next day, driving along the coast road was enough to cheer her up. As her car reached the hills, Alba had the feeling she was hugging the light, merging with nature.

Around her was a symphony of blues: the ultramarine of the ocean, the periwinkle of the sky, the opal of the ice, the cobalt of the streams, the slate of the rocks, the turquoise of the tar and, finally, dominant although subtle, the almost almond shade of the snow.

The radio was broadcasting news of the eruption: it was still going on, there were more and more shafts of lava, but, for the moment, it didn't seem that the danger was getting any worse. When she left Route 1, which encircled the whole of Iceland, she moved onto roads where the snow had not been completely cleared, and several times her wheels almost got bogged down. She went as high as she possibly could, then, when she realized she was going to be stuck, switched off the engine and resolved to continue on foot.

After some twenty paces, she noticed her cell phone wasn't in her pocket. Retracing her steps, she looked inside the car, and searched between the seats: nothing.

She let out a laugh. What a godsend! Nobody would be able to contact her today. She was free and clear! Thanks to her forgetfulness, she was going to be really alone. For now, she belonged to no one but herself.

Lightheartedly, she resumed her ascent, rediscovering the elation of childhood, the feeling of being a tiny speck in the vastness of nature, unattached, impossible to contact, in danger . . . It was delightful.

Her heart beat faster with the joy of it.

Snow, stone, moss, mud, crushed lava: the ground echoed with many different familiar noises beneath her walking shoes.

An hour later, she came within sight of the cabin, huddled like a nest in the rocky landscape. There it stood, untouched.

At that moment, Alba told herself that she had deliberately exaggerated the danger from the eruption, which was actually quite some distance from here. She had probably just wanted an excuse to get away as soon as possible . . .

A breeze caressed her face, more a breath of air than a gust of wind. She stopped to contemplate the landscape around her. Filling her lungs deeply, she had the conviction that she was in her place. Iceland wasn't the end of the world, as Americans and Europeans thought, but the point where the world culminated, a land fed by the winds from the North Pole, Africa, Alaska, and Russia, a land desired by migrating birds, terns, ducks, and wild geese, a land where floating logs drifting from Norway landed after a long journey.

The house was waiting for her, its blood-red façade contrasting with the grim hills.

As she slid the heavy old key into the lock, Alba noticed that the paint was flaking and peeling. That would be a great way to spend the summer . . . She'd ask Jonas to come with her, and they'd have a lot of fun refurbishing this antique—if Jonas got his transplant, that is.

The cold had shrunk the wood, and it took time for the door to yield. At last, Alba went inside, and rediscovered the smell of the oil used for the lamps, the hams hanging from hooks above the sink, the hay in the mattresses that were taken out in the summer and on which they lay for hours enjoying the polar day.

For fear that she would die of cold, she lit a large fire then set about doing a little tidying. Without even realizing it, she devoted the rest of the day to this.

If she hadn't felt the need to clean the hanging lamp, she wouldn't have become aware that the sky had been getting darker for hours. As usual when she was here, she hadn't seen the afternoon pass! Was it because she was back in her childhood days, that time that seems to last forever, like a reflection of eternity?

Still she didn't move, taking as much advantage as she could of this respite, isolated by the weak, reddish glow of the flame within the shadowy vastness.

At eight in the evening, she turned everything off, checked several times that the fire had gone out completely, then reluctantly closed the door and walked back to her car. The path was less passable than when she had come, because, in this inky darkness, she couldn't see where she was putting her feet.

Once in the car, as soon as she had warmed herself, she switched on the radio and set off.

There was more news of the eruption. The authorities had announced that they were lifting the ban on access to the volcano, a sign that the situation was improving.

Alba drove idly, more concerned with daydreaming than with speed. Since the landscape was hidden in the darkness, she let her thoughts parade in front of her. She imagined herself in Geneva—Katrin had many contacts at Red Cross headquarters—in an apartment overlooking the lake, pampering Jonas after his operation. When you came down to it, her sister was right: it wouldn't be any problem professionally, she could draw just as well in Switzerland as in Reykjavík. As for her husband and her son . . . why should she give up on traveling because of them? They didn't deserve it. She laughed as she thought of new names for them: Thor the Lazy and Magnus the Cowardly.