The Greenhouse (11 page)

The landscape is changing; there are round hills ahead, and mountains appear in the distance. The sunflower fields are behind us now and we’re back into thick woodlands. The road is wet, so I focus on my driving; we’re both silent. Some blinking blue lights appear ahead of us, so I slow down and shift into first gear as I approach the luminous plastic cones that have been placed in the middle of the road. A police officer in a rainproof fluorescent vest stands in front of the car and signals me to drive up along the edge of the road onto the gravel, passing a car that is missing its front half, as if it had suddenly been severed in two. There’s a trail of oil on the road. I drive painstakingly slowly past the scene of the accident; the front of the car has vanished as if it has been swallowed by the forest. I spot another fluorescent-vested policeman off the side of the road and see him lift a leg off the ground; it has a man’s shoe on it and black socks. He’s holding the leg right in front of my car and uses his other hand to signal me to drive on. As I drive past, I see the other half of the car and a semi-view of the bodies still sitting upright inside it, an elderly man and woman, tastefully dressed, all spruced-up in fact, sitting erect, side by side, like a couple that has been sitting silently at the dining table together for decades on end. No trace of blood, their ashen faces seem unscathed, like dummies in a wax museum. Most shocking of all, I feel no repulsion, and yet I’m not an insensitive person. Instead, I very calmly try to picture myself in the lives of this couple on the road, as if I were trying to solve an important riddle, but no matter how I approach the enigma, I just can’t picture myself sitting beside the same woman for decades on end, whether it be in a car or at a dining table.

What if I were to meet the same fate on this road? If I, say, crashed the car into a tree and the windshield smashed all over us and we, the actress and I, were to die side by side? What would the mother of my child think when the news appeared? Perhaps some traces of us would remain in the woods, the soaked final scene of
A Doll’s House
maybe? The rescuers always overlooked something. Or, just as likely, the pages would be placed in a plastic bag and Dad would receive these mysterious pages he wouldn’t understand.

I look at the girl. She’s sitting with her hands on her lap, her eyes full of tears.

—There now, I say touching her shoulder.

—There now, I say again and stroke her cheek.

Now that we’ve witnessed the results of a fatal accident together, one could say that we have a shared experience behind us. What’s more, I’ve already shared the experience of my child’s birth with her, so, all in all, our joint experiences span six hours, sitting side by side in the car, having covered the two most important events on the path of human existence—birth and death, the beginning and end. If she were to suddenly ask me out of the blue in these last sixty miles of the journey if I wanted to sleep with her I wouldn’t say no.

When I turn back onto the national highway, I drive past the stationary van that drove down this forest road in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the driver was looking for a radio station that played light classical music. Through the rearview mirror I can still see the glow of blinking blue police lights in the rain.

A brief moment later, I have to pull up on the side of the road again, into a clearing in the forest, this time to throw up the meat sandwich I ate earlier today. I don’t feel well and if I hadn’t just had my appendix out, I might have thought a new fit of appendicitis was developing.

I kill the engine and we both step out of the car. I’m in my white shirt and I’m cold. Crickets can be heard and all kinds of small creatures, and the scent of the undergrowth is overwhelming in the drizzle.

—There now, she says, it’s all over.

I feel it’s appropriate to walk about ten yards away from the car to throw up the remains of the sandwich. Ten to fifteen yards, that’s about the same distance that members of captured rebel forces are required to walk when they are escorted from a truck before being executed.

—There now, she says again when I’ve finished throwing up, stroking my shirtsleeve. Then she takes my hand and leads me into the woods.

—Let’s just get some air while you’re recovering.

This is her home territory; maybe she’s been here before with the owner of the inn, her father, to shoot a stag. I’m shivering because I’m in my shirt, like a man strolling straight out of a concert into the woods in his concert shirt.

We forge our path through clusters of dead twigs, bending branches full of dewy juices, until we finally sit against the trunk of an oak tree that is probably a thousand years old. You only have to peel the bark a little to find it rife with life, an entire community of ants.

—Have you always had that name? she asks.

—What do you mean? Do you change your names as you grow older?

She laughs. I laugh with her.

I pick three horse chestnuts and stick them in my pocket; then I remove a light green venous leaf from the actress’s shoulder and pluck several straws off her before we sit in the car again.

When I reach the end of the journey with the girl, she places a hand on my shoulder and directs me into the town I had originally intended to bypass. She tells me that, in addition to the drama school, the town also hosts a clown’s school and famous circus, as well as being the producer of a renowned blue cheese. I turn five times to the right until I come to the building that she lives in, close to the famous historical center.

—There, she says, bursting into a sudden flurry of activity, we’ve arrived.

It’s raining on the windshield, and in some odd way it feels like I’m breaking up with a girlfriend or something, even though I’ve no direct experience of anything like that. She wriggles in her seat, with her hand still on my shoulder.

—Are you in a hurry? she asks. Do you have to get to your destination by a specific time?

—No, not exactly, but I have a long way to go yet, I add, to give her a more assertive answer. I’m guarding myself against surprise questions, potential requests; women often have plans and organize things ahead of time without you even realizing it.

—No, I was just going to ask you if you wanted to stay, she says. I share an apartment with another two girls who are with me at the school, so there’s plenty of room for you, too.

I ponder on whether there can be any danger in accepting the invitation to stay, whether it might affect my future plans. People who pop up in your life for just a brief moment can have a greater impact than those who sit there for years on end. Experience has taught me what an insidious and fateful effect coincidences can have.

—Seriously, she says, adjusting her hair and tucking a lock under her ribbon. It’s getting dark anyway so it’ll be night soon.

—Yeah, thanks, I say, deciding to share the apartment with the three actresses. In any case I’ll be gone before they wake up.

—There’s just one thing, she says. My roommates are vegetarians, I hope you don’t mind. For the dinner, I mean. We’ll probably have spinach lasagna tonight.

As we’re stepping out of the car, she suddenly says:

—What did you call that plant that’s like a trampoline again?

I do my best not to wake up the girls while I’m preparing to leave. They don’t have to be at school until the afternoon. Before I go, I fold the sheets and blanket and place them on the mattress on the floor under a poster of a movie star in a shapely black dress, with drooping almond eyes, eyelashes like butterflies, and black tresses. Then I write a few lines to the three tenants to thank them for the fun evening and spinach lasagna and stick the note between the unwashed glasses on the kitchen table. So far chance seems to have thrown quite a few companions my way on this journey through the rainy forest, such as this actress and her friends. Dawn is at the point of breaking when I dash out to the trunk and fetch one of the two foreign rose plants with three pink buds, and then stick it beside my farewell note on the kitchen table. There seems to be a fair deal of chaos in these actresses’ lives, which is clearly reflected in the leftovers and dirty dishes in the kitchen. On second thought, I take the dishes and glasses and place them in the sink, wipe the table clean, and tidy up a bit so as to highlight the rose a bit better.

Although my mind occasionally drifts back to the movie star as I slowly drive the Opel over the mountain road and then down into the lowlands, I feel it’s good to be alone again; the physical proximity of a girl can throw a wrench into the works. For even though I don’t maybe think of sex all the time, I’m feverishly trying to work out the connection between myself and my body, as well as my body and the bodies of others. The next time I stop to consult the map, I move the rose cuttings out of the trunk and place them on the floor beside me. By now they’ve survived a flight, a stay in the hospital in sterilized plastic glasses, and fairly rudimentary storage conditions in the trunk and backseat of the car, for what will soon be over twelve hundred miles.

Since Dad is constantly worried about me, I give him a call from a phone booth at a gas station once I’ve crossed the border. When he’s finished asking me about the weather and the traffic conditions on the roads, he tells me that seven depressions have crossed the country in about as many days. Then he tells me that the halibut soup was a great success and that he’s now thinking of tackling Icelandic haggis.

—Just like your mom made it.

—The haggis season is another six months away.

—I just wanted to tell you well in advance. I think we need to uphold your mother’s traditions. Not least for Jósef.

I’ve no recollection of Jósef ever taking part in the haggis preparation, but Mom let me sew the sheep’s stomachs from when I was nine.

—This renovation mania is just something else, he then adds.

—How do you mean?

—Thórarinn, Bogga’s son, keeps on changing things in his apartment. As soon as something is two years old it has to be replaced. This renovation mania just isn’t natural. Like, there can’t be the slightest trace of age on anything. You could almost convince yourself that you could avoid dying if you spent your whole life replacing cables and fittings, says the electrician who still has the same light blue kitchen unit that he put together when Mom first moved into the house.

—You’re not short of pocket money, are you, Lobbi?

—No, I’m fine.

—And you’re not lonely on your journey?

—No, no.

—And people are helpful?

—Yeah, yeah, people are helpful.

In fact it’s true. People are incredibly helpful. I’m inclined to think that humanity is, broadly speaking, good and honorable, when given a chance, and that people, on the whole, do their best. If the person I ask hasn’t heard of the place I’m looking for or doesn’t know the way, he still tries to give me some directions to continue. At worst it might mean going astray in the mountains for a few hours because people can’t stop themselves from being helpful. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to cross three borders in the Opel without any hiccups since I dropped off the girl, eat various types of pâté and chocolate when I’m hungry, and sleep three nights with a roof over my head in about as many countries. Because I’m traveling alone I often have to stop to check the map. The only problem is that the map doesn’t tell you how steep the roads are, just the distances in miles and you wouldn’t want to be suffering from vertigo driving up the final thirty miles of a winding mountain road. The curves are terrifyingly sharp, and I thank god for the mist that prevents me from seeing the bottom of the valley below. In fact, it isn’t until I reach my destination that I realize there’s also a road beneath me in the valley. There’s very little traffic; I only meet one white car in the final miles up to the village.