The Tricking of Freya (34 page)

What could I say? That I'd only smoked because I believed Sigga to be
dead? I said nothing, just watched Halldora as she leaned over Sigga, who
had a startled expression on her face. Halldora clicked a button, and the top
half of the bed began to rise. "It'll be time for your bath soon. You rest until
then."

She motioned for me to follow her out into the hall, then shut the door
behind us, staring at me with her wobbling eyes, waiting for an apology, or
at least an explanation.

"Sigga's senile," I snapped, too angry to feign polite. "Why didn't you tell
me? When we met outside?"

"She's nothing of the sort," Halldora answered, leaning calmly on her
cane. "You just got her riled is all. Exactly what I've been trying to avoid."

"She thinks I'm my mother!"

"Well, she gets confused now and then," Halldora admitted. Her voice
had softened. "I'll set her straight on that point later. But she needs to rest.
I think you should go now."

Oh, I'd go all right! I pounded down the back stairs of Betel and out a
side exit propelled by a rage that would have done Birdie proud. Half an
hour later I'd checked out of my gritty motel room and was heading out of
town in the black van, speeding through the quiet side streets of Gimli, past
the quaint little cottages and neatly trimmed lawns. I was done with all of it,
this depressing little remnant of Icelandica, the grandmother who didn't
know me from a skunk, my crazy aunt, my long-suffering mother. I would
brook no more interference from the dead. It was time to close this chapter
of my life, shut the door on the past, any metaphor would do, the point was that I was on the verge of something truly new: that great black hole called
my future. Bring it on!

It was my sole and fierce intention to speed directly out of town. Luckily,
we are not ruled by our intentions, not conscious ones anyway. Instead, I
just happened to drive down the old block, and I couldn't exactly pass by
Oddi without stopping to look, could I? I had to see it, the old white farmhouse with the song-yellow trim on the corner of Second Street and Second
Avenue. Stefan had mentioned in his last Christmas card that Sigga was
thinking of putting the house up for sale, but whether it had sold or not I
wasn't sure. It looked shabbier than I remembered, not neglected exactly,
but in need of what Sigga would have called sprucing up. It had a sleepy,
musty look. The rosebushes had grown huge and rangy, the grass shaggy. All
the shades were drawn. If anyone new owned it, they weren't here at the
moment, though I knocked just in case. Not surprisingly, no answer. And
then, because we must always try doors we know to be locked, I turned the
handle. The door opened.

What I saw inside that house alarmed me. Not how much it had
changed but the simple fact that it hadn't. Even in the dim light of the parlor I could make out the familiar moss-green velvet couch curved like a
crescent moon, the china cabinet against the wall, the brass-plated clock on
the mantel. Beyond the parlor the white gleam of the kitchen. I stepped inside-

-and the lights flashed on and everyone jumped out from behind the
couch yelling Surprise! The two dead sisters, Birdie and Anna, arm in arm,
raising tiny glasses of cognac to celebrate my return. Sigga in her pearls and
gold-rimmed glasses clasping her hands in delight, and even the long-gone
Olafur, Skald Nyja Islands, lighting his fragrant pipe and chuckling at the
great joke of it. In a merry dance we reunited, living and dead alike, all
wrongs forgotten, chattering in a rush of Icelandic that fell over my ears
clear and sensible as water.

No, of course no merry ghosts came to greet me. I sat on the couch listening to the sound of dust falling. Then I wound the clock on the mantel
with its large brass key and the room filled with its gentle ticking. I ran my
finger along the gilded frame of the painting that hung over the mantel, a nearly abstract landscape of Iceland, swirls of black lava and green hillsides. Birdie's purchase, appreciated by no one but herself.

Over the arm of Sigga's rocking chair lay a gray-and-white striped shawl
my mother had knitted the summer I was ten. I remembered one evening
Birdie expounding on the special properties of Icelandic wool, how it naturally repels water, insulates the sheep against snow. Burly sheep with curling horns, nibbling moss from the lava-crusted hillsides. Without those
sheep, Birdie claimed, the Icelanders would never have survived to see the
twentieth century, we'd have perished like the Greenland colony, vanished
without a trace. Did we know that to this day there are more sheep than
people in Iceland? We owe our lives to those sheep! Bless the sheep!
Baaaaaaaaah! Birdie trilled in perfect imitation. Baaaaaaaaah!

I screamed. I was not expecting a man's footstep on the stairs to startle
me from my sheepish reverie. But this time, I recognized his voice instantly.

"Terribly sorry, Freya. Terribly. To frighten you like that!"

It was Uncle Stefan, more slender even than I remembered, a lanky giant who ducked his head as he came down the stairs. He looked as professorial as ever in his cream-colored cardigan with knobby buttons, his camel
brown corduroy slacks, his black-framed glasses and well-trimmed white
beard. A square, Birdie had called him, behind his back. But he, at least,
knew who I was, and I found myself relieved to see him. He switched on
the standing lamp with its fringed shade, another one of Birdie's acquisitions. "Lovely to see you, Freya!"

I was still too spooked for words. He motioned for me to take a seat on
the couch. He was packing things up, he explained. Sigga was finally ready
to sell.

"I just saw Sigga. At Betel."

"I figured she sent you over here, to see if there's anything you want. You
can have any of it, of course. Except Olafur's things. Those are all being donated, the books to the University of Manitoba, and his personal effects, his
writing desk, his pen and inkstand all of that I'm reconstructing for the
museum.

"Museum?"

"The New Iceland Heritage Museum. It's opening next summer. A
whole room is to be dedicated to Olafur, his life and work. It takes up most of my time, now that I'm retired. In any case, we'd be honored to have you
back for that momentous occasion."

I started to laugh, then realized it was momentous, at least to Stefan.
He'd devoted his life to this little niche of history.

"And your grandmother-she must have been so happy to see you!"
He said this warmly, with not a twinge of the you're- a- dis grace- ofa-granddaughter treatment I'd received from Halldora. Though I hadn't
forgotten that Stefan's emotions tend to be tucked well below the surface. I wanted to answer him in kind, but my tone came out sulky as a
six-year-old's.

"She was happy to see me, all right. But that's only because she doesn't
know who I am. She thought I was my mother."

Stefan seemed genuinely surprised. "A natural enough mistake, I suppose, at first glance."

"It wasn't first glance. It was the whole visit. She's lost her mind. She
even thought that ... Birdie is still alive." This last piece of information
was difficult to speak, hard too, I saw, for Stefan to hear.

"Sigga's been more forgetful lately, Freya, but I wouldn't say she's lost her
mind." He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Though I can see why you might
find such an incident disturbing. However, I'm fairly certain she'll snap out
of it. Perhaps the stress of tonight's event. It's not every day a person turns
one hundred. And speaking of" he pulled an old-fashioned watch chain
from his pocket "there are preparations still. I'll leave you here to poke
around. The party starts at six."

That was the moment to tell him I was heading out. I owed him that
much at least. "Actually, I'm not sure I'm-"

"Everyone will be glad to see you, Freya. Including Sigga. I'll make sure
she knows who you are this time." He smiled wryly. "Did you know that one
of your Icelandic relatives will be there?"

I shook my head

"Thorunn Bjornsdottir, Sigga's niece. She's the daughter of Sigga's sister,
Stefania. I don't think you've ever met her."

I cringed: the silver-haired woman from the bakery! That must have
been Thorunn. I had met her before, and I don't mean at the bakery in
Gimli that afternoon. She was one of Sigga's People who had visited me at the hospital in Akureyri after Birdie and I had been rescued from Askja.
Not a memory I cared to revisit. Wasn't Gimli enough?

"Thorunn," I repeated. "She came all the way from Iceland for Sigga's
birthday?"

"Marvelous, isn't it? You'll like her. She's been here a week already, visiting with Sigga every afternoon, catching her up on all the relatives. No
wonder Sigga got confused when you showed up today!"

I smiled gamely at Stefan's attempt to reassure me, but inside I felt defeated. My mad dash from Gimli, foiled. Thorunn had come all the way
from Iceland. Stefan was packing up my grandmother's house, a duty more
clearly mine than his. There could be no slinking away now, even for a
skunk like me.

After Stefan left I ventured upstairs, sliding my hand along the dark
wood of the banister as the stairs creaked underfoot. My palm came up
covered in a film of dust that made me sneeze. At the top of the stairs were
our two bedrooms, mine and Birdie's. I entered mine first. It was tinier even
than I remembered it, a closet practically. The lace curtains that had shimmered in the summer breezes hung gray and still. I sneezed again, and my
eyes started to burn from the dust. I began yawning, repeatedly, each yawn
triggering a deeper one. The mere thought of picking through Sigga's possessions depleted me. I stretched out on the little bed, still covered with its
puckered white spread, but my legs hung off at the knees. In the years since
my last visit I'd grown, changed, but into what I couldn't say. How could I
blame Sigga for not recognizing me? Most days I hardly knew myself. I
rolled onto my side in a fetal curl and slept.

Are you ready for Sigga's one hundredth birthday party?

I wasn't. I overslept, back in my little room at Oddi, and the party was in
full swing by the time I arrived. I stood a moment in the doorway of the reception room, the pride of the new Betel with its floor-to-ceiling arched
windows and gleaming piano, matching tables and chairs set off against the
spiffy shine of the floor. Nothing grand, as my mother would have said, but
very very pleasant. And lively. Maybe fifty guests. I'd expected a circle of
old ladies singing "Happy Birthday," like at the parties my mother and I had
attended during our Betel days. But that was the old Betel, and this was
Sigga. It was a swanky event, by Gimli standards. Buffet and drinks, even
live music-various old folks taking turns at the piano. And people of all
ages milling about. Strangers, or simply older versions of people I once
knew? Oldsters and youngsters, women with babies, a couple of teenagers
lurking by a back table. They reminded me of Vera's boys, from that long
ago coffee party. I could have gone to the beach with them; instead I'd
stayed behind and turned the fateful cartwheel.

Where was Sigga? At the center of it all, installed on a couch near the
piano, receiving her guests one by one. In her blue silk dress, her silver hair
neatly coiffed, her favorite double strand of pearls around her neck, our
grandmother was as composed and elegant as any person could hope to be upon entering a second century of life. I wish you could have seen her,
Cousin. Chatting and smiling, kissing cheeks and clasping hands, she
seemed an utterly thawed and transformed version of the frozen sheet I'd
stumbled across that morning.

Next to Sigga on the couch was Halldora Bjarnason, tiny and still. Her
cane leaned against her neatly crossed legs, her hands were folded diminutively in her lap, but her large brown eyes bobbed back and forth across the
room like worried chaperones. Despite Halldora's keen watch, it was Stefan
who spotted me first. He was beaming in his neatly pressed gray suit, and
kindly made no mention of my lateness.

"Freya, you look lovely."

I did not. Or rather, not a Gimli kind of lovely. Prepare for my ghoulish
entrance: everything remotely nice I own is black. It works in Manhattan,
but in Gimli-well, I looked like I was dressed for a funeral in my long
black skirt and black boots. Mama always said black didn't become me, not
with my pale skin. But the dead only get so much say in this world.

The next thing I knew, Stefan was leading me by the hand across the
room to Sigga. The guests that surrounded her parted, the piano music
faded to a tinkle. Was it because I was late, or I looked like a ghoul, or did
everyone know I was the long-lost disgraced granddaughter? In any case,
people stared. Suddenly I was the center of attention, in the very moment
I'd most dreaded. Sigga's failure to recognize me earlier had chilled me, especially since both Halldora and Stefan had seemed surprised by her lapse.
Maybe it was less senility than some awful kind of repression. Maybe she
despised me so much she'd managed to actually erase me? If she failed to
recognize me again ...