The Tricking of Freya (25 page)

"This may come as a shock to you, Freya min, but Ulfur has been plotting against us this whole time."

"Plotting . . . ?"

"To steal Olafur's letters for himself. He wants to keep them in Iceland.
Did you see how eager he was to be rid of us? He never had any intention
of helping us find the letters. All ruse. I wouldn't be surprised if he is on his
way to the East now, to track down the letters himself. What a coup that
will be, another feather in the hat for the great scholar and recoverer of lost
manuscripts!"

"But aren't the letters ours?"

"Of course they are! But never forget: Ulfur is sly. He tricked the Danish
government into relinquishing Iceland's ancient manuscripts they'd possessed for centuries! Be prepared for slick legal maneuvering, claims that
the letters are his because they were originally mailed to Olafur's uncle Pall, and Ulfur is a direct descendant of Pall's. More important, he believes the
letters belong in Iceland, to Iceland. He may be able to convince others,
build a case for it. Remember what he said at the dinner party back in Reykjavik? That Olafur should be considered an Icelandic poet, not a North
American one? And don't forget his remark about the emigrants. Why
should we honor them, he asks! He despises us, Freya rnin. He despises
everyone who left and their descendants as well. No one should write in Icelandic but an Iceland-born Icelander. That's why he wants to suppress my
manuscript."

"He didn't like it?"

"Oh, Freya. You don't understand, do you? It's not about like or dislike,
literary merit. He won't admit that of course. Arnaleir, he called my manuscript!"

I felt an inkling of outrage at Ulfur, protectiveness toward Birdie. Word
Meadow was the sum of her life. Who was Ulfur to call it eagle muck?

"Ulfur is terrified of my brilliance," Birdie continued, as if she'd heard
my silent question. She was making her own slick case, wooing me to her
side, setting me up as her accomplice. "You have to look at things in context, Freya. Who has written any modern poetry of worth in Iceland? No
one! The would-be poets of today are weighed down by the old forms, by
the long-lost golden age of Icelandic literary prowess. It is only when Icelanders travel across the ocean that they can break free. Like Olafur, Skald
Nyja Islands. And now me. It's too much for poor Ulfur, to see all this liter
ary achievement taking place among the descendants of the emigrant traitors. And so he will suppress my manuscript, call it eagle shit, drive me
back across the ocean, while he steals for himself Olafur's letters and all
the lost poems they contain. He'll be the one to arrange and edit them, to
write the introduction, and to publish the collection to great fanfare! Oh,
certainly, he'll invite us to the celebrations. So he can gloat!"

"He told you all this, this morning?"

Birdie laughed. "A clever schemer like Ulfur reveal his designs? Never.
Too sly for that. That is why we have to act quickly, Freya min. We have to
get to the East before Ulfur does. Not because he thinks we'll be there. No,
I've convinced him we are on our way back to Gim i.

"But how will we get to the East without Ulfur to drive us?"

"The jeep, of course!"

"Ulfur said we could use it?"

Birdie laughed again. "So innocent, Freya. But the time for your innocence is over. No, dear girl, we do not have Ulfur's permission to take the
jeep east."

"You mean we're going to steal it?"

"Borrow, Freya, borrow. We'll return it when we're done. He'll never
know it's gone. The next thing Ulfur will hear of us is news from the other
side of the ocean, that the letters have been located and are in our possession!"

Unbelievable, you say? It does appear ludicrous now, I admit, Birdie's
deluded cloak-and-dagger scenario. And yet at the time it seemed reasonable or at least possible to me. Birdie's thinking was still linear then, if obsessive; the extreme thought-jumping was yet to commence. Nothing she'd
said to me was beyond the scope of reality. I turned it all over in my mind as
we trudged through that strange terrain. I remembered Ulfur saying the
things Birdie now quoted, that Olafur should be considered an Icelandic
poet, not a Canadian one. That the emigrants had abandoned their nation
in its time of need. And it was true, too, that Ulfur was ambitious. So ambitious that he neglected his wife and children. And Olafur's lost letters
were clearly important. I'd seen the reaction among Icelanders whenever
Birdie had mentioned them. It all added up, well enough anyway. The fact
that I'd never liked Ulfur, the way he dismissed me as a mere American girl,
made it easier for me to swallow the bad things Birdie said about him. Ultimately, Birdie was terrifically persuasive, answering each of my questions,
quelling my doubts, then hooking me in by claiming she needed my help.
How, exactly, she didn't specify, but I felt a sense of importance I'd never
known. She appealed to my child's sense of utter uselessness in the world.
Now I had a role to play, a mission to accomplish. It was what my mother
and grandmother wanted for me. They'd saved their money so that Birdie
and I could take this trip, so that I could see Iceland, so that we could bring
Olafur's letters home. Birdie and I would be heroes. My past crimes would
be, if not forgotten, perhaps absolved. And so when Birdie asked, finally,
Do you still want to go back to Girnli? truthfully, I didn't.

And of course I was exhausted, my judgment was impaired. We'd been walking for hours, Birdie carrying my suitcase most of that time. At some
point she led us back onto the Thingvellir Lake Road, and the first car that
drove by slowed and offered us a ride. How strange we must have appeared,
carrying our suitcases on that deserted road, Birdie in her bright salmon
pink coat and matching head scarf. Birdie waved the driver off.

"Why can't we take a ride?" I protested. "Saemundur says it's safe to
hitchhike anywhere in Iceland."

Birdie shook her head. "Agents of the Wolf are everywhere."

I didn't like how she kept calling Ulfur "the Wolf." True, it was his name;
Ulfur does mean wolf in Icelandic. Animals are not uncommon first names,
a pagan throwback, I imagine. Hrafn (raven) is a common name, and so is
Bjorn (bear). But to call Ulfur Ulfurinn-the wolf was something different altogether. It sounded crazy. Sure, Ulfur was a bit arrogant and
pompous, but a wolf? And would Ulfur really send agents to follow us? Especially if he believed we were on our way back to Gimli?

I said nothing, kept walking; I hadn't forgotten the shoulder-shaking
Birdie had given me back at Thingvellir. Soon I began to stumble, then
tripped on a pothole and skinned my palms when I fell. When the next car
offered us a lift, Birdie accepted. The driver, a gruff farmer, made no attempt
at conversation. If he was an agent of the Wolf, he did a good job of disguising it, and left us at the summerhouse gate in under five minutes. As it
turned out, Birdie and I had covered nearly the entire distance from
Thingvellir to the summerhouse on foot, at least twelve, maybe fifteen miles
I'd guess, looking at the map of Iceland spread in front of me. Nothing to a
mania-fueled adult, but for a thirteen-year-old girl who'd spent a long midsummer's day delving into the forbidden-caving, drinking, kissing -then
enduring Birdie's god-awfulest scene, it had been a bone-tiring expedition.
My feet felt tender and blistered, my legs trembled as we slipped through
the metal gate and walked up the driveway to the little wooden cottage, now
dark and empty.

And there was the jeep glowing in the twilight, the keys dangling from
the ignition as if Ulfur had actually left it for our use. I walked past it up the
steps to the summerhouse.

"Where are you going?" Birdie called.

"To bed?"

Bed was not to be. "You have to start thinking, Freya min. What if Ulfur
hasn't returned directly to Reykjavik? What if he is on his way to the East
right now, hours ahead of us?"

"With Saemundur?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he's roped Saemundur into his plot. Saemundur's allegiances remain to be seen."

I had already decided not to tell Birdie about the kiss in the ice cave. It
was beginning to seem vitlaus to me: not crazy, but stupid, wrong. Why had
I squandered my first kiss on a boy I would never see again? A boy, as it
turned out, whose father was trying to bring Birdie down? And yet still I delighted in the scent of him that clung to his worn jacket. I traced its
patches, Holland's windmill, France's Eiffel Tower. Places Saemundur had
been. Birdie kept plenty of secrets from me, I reasoned. Could I not keep
this one from her?

I climbed into the front seat of the jeep and waited. After a while Birdie
emerged from the summerhouse laden with provisions: jars of pickled herring, rye crackers, a flashlight, an unopened bottle of Brennivin, two sleeping bags, and a brown paperback book, which she handed to me. Iceland
Road Guide. "You're going to navigate, Freya. That will be your job." I studied the book's front cover. "Be on the safe side," it advised. "Use the Iceland
Road Guide."

As it turned out, my navigational skills would not be required for quite
some time. Birdie made a beeline for the East. Or as close to a beeline as
you can get in Iceland, which meant the Ring Road. Yes, finally, we were
taking the Ring Road, just as she'd promised on the plane. The glorious Ring
Road, from which one can see all the marvels of Iceland. If one stops. We
did not, except for infrequent and rushed breaks at various Esso stations.

"Our sightseeing days are over, Freya min. You might as well climb in
the back and sleep."

And so I lay curled on my side, hip sunk into the gap between the seats,
cheek pressed against the stiff leather seat cover, Saemundur's sleeping bag
opened on top of me, while half of Iceland half of the entire island!
disappeared behind us. The marvelous sights Birdie had promised to show
me, all vanished unseen. Disappointment stung my eyes, clenched the
back of my throat. I no longer tried to follow on the map, or consult the Ice land Road Guide. What was the point? There was only one: to get to the
East before the Wolf. Birdie drank hot coffee from a thermos spiced generously with Ulfur's Brennivin and drove like the maniac she was, pushing the
jeep to bone-rattling, heart-jostling speeds along the treacherous Ring
Road, which was in many places unpaved, unmarked, unlit, and even one-
laned. Einbreid Brit, the signs warned. As if a one-lane bridge could scare
Birdie, or a Blind Heid. Countless blind rises. Who knew what you might
meet over the top? More often than not it was nothing, no one. Iceland is
among the least populous nations on the planet. Even in the height of summer tourist season, we had the road practically to ourselves. Once I woke to
find us traveling through a fog thick as wool.

"Please stop," I pleaded. "It's not safe." I longed to Be on the safe side, use
the Iceland Road Guide. But there was no stopping Birdie. She plowed
through the fog until we slammed into something with a terrible thud. It
turned out to be a sheep. I heard its spiral horns crack on the pavement as it
fell. Saw blackish blood seep through its woolly chest. Birdie just backed up
the jeep, circled around it, and kept going.

"But what if it's hurt?"

"Of course it's hurt."

"What if we killed it?"

"Then it's dead."

"Don't you have to pay the farmer if you hit one of his sheep? That's
what Ulfur says."

"What Ulfur says?"

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned his name.

"Ulfur," she continued, "would like nothing more than for us to set up
camp by a dead sheep on the side of the road while he gets his wolf-paws on
Olaf ur's letters! Freya, Freya, Freya, crying over a sheep. Why don't you cry
over my Word Meadow? Why don't you cry over Olafur's lost letters?"

And on we drove.

The next time I woke it was five a.m. and the sun was streaming brightly
across the far horizon of the ocean and into the jeep. The road leaned perilously close to steep ocean cliffs, not a guardrail in sight. Just Birdie chugging Brennivin-laced coffee from her thermos. The steep twists and turns
made me woozy. What would keep us from plunging into the sea? Birdie,
reckless, yet keen, hugging the jeep around those curves hand in glove.

I slept a few more hours and woke again as we turned from the fjordjagged coast and began winding inland up a series of narrow switchbacks.
Out the jeep's back window swirled stupendous views of cascading
canyons. I turned forward again; I was sick of stupendous views. We passed
no one: no car, no building, no signs warning blind heid or einbreid bru, not
even a sheep. I must have dozed sitting up. The next thing I knew we'd arrived at Brekka.

Yes, the same Brekka where Ingibjorg the light-mother spied the newborn
Olafur's teeth and cried Skaldagemlur! The Brekka where Olafur's uncle Pall
challenged him to memorize the poem Voluspa. The Brekka where Olafur's
uncle and father debated the merits of emigration until Askja punctuated
their quarrel with a frisky quake, then erupted full-blown three months later,
blackening the sun and tricking little Olafur into thinking Ragnarok had commenced, the world's end begun.