The Greenhouse (28 page)

Once we’ve had some bread with cheese, like school kids eating their picnic, sitting silently opposite each other and sharing an apple between us and the child, I stand up to clear away the breakfast while Anna gets her clothes and books together.

When she’s ready and standing in the corridor, she locks me in an embrace and I think she must be able to feel my heartbeat, which fills the room and the buzz in my ears. Then she hugs the child; she doesn’t want us to accompany her to the station. I’ve never been good at good-byes; I didn’t even say good-bye to Mom.

I’m left sitting alone with the child, and I dress her. Then we sit over the gardening book together at the table and skim to my daughter’s favorite chapter, the chapter on garden ponds and streams.

—Ma-ma, says the child.

—Yeah, Mammy will come back later.

We’re looking at the streams when there is a knock on the door.

I immediately dash toward the door, glance in the mirror, and run a hand through my hair. It’s my neighbor from upstairs. She’s holding a large steaming dish, which she hands me without saying a word. I make out various types of fish, including shellfish and crab’s claws, protruding from a base of beautiful yellow rice, baked tomatoes, and onion rings.

—I’ll be straight back, she says and disappears up the stairs.

I hold the door ajar with my foot and see that Flóra Sól is following me at a distance on her little feet to see the guest. She stands in her knitted leggings and props herself up against the door beside me.

—Good girl, I say, and have both hands tied now as I stand in the doorway with a steaming dish.

Our neighbor quickly reappears with a cherry cake that she says is the dessert. Her face radiates when she sees the child, and she swiftly puts the cake down on the kitchen table so that she can greet her. Flóra Sól is happy with the visit, too; we never have guests. She lets go of the sash of the door and totters unassisted across the floor to get a date from a bowl on the table. Then she follows the same path with it back across the floor to the woman and hands it to her.

—I thought I might give you this because the young lady is gone, says the old woman. The child has to eat, even though Mammy’s gone.

I thank the old woman for the food, for her warm heart, as I put it in her dialect, because I’ve been taking a look at the chapters on manners and customs. Still I’m slightly worried she might want to linger, since I was planning to take the child out to phone Dad.

When the old woman has finished her cup of tea, I put my daughter into her woolen coat with the double row of buttons and stitched pockets and outdoor shoes.

—Shall we ring Granddad Thórir?

—Gran-da.

I don’t tell Dad Anna has left, and for once he doesn’t even give her a single mention, nor does he give me a weather report, or his usual lowdown on the conditions of the roads and vegetation either. But there’s a tension in him:

—I don’t know how you’re going to take what I’m about to tell you now.

—Have you met a woman?

—Have you turned psychic, boy? It’s not as if I met her yesterday, there was quite a prelude to it; she’s an old friend of your mother’s and mine.

—Well, you’ve mentioned Bogga every time I’ve called you; you’ve been doing the electric wiring for her and fixing her windows and she’s been inviting you for meat soup and glazed ham.

—Bogga has asked me to move in with her; she lives alone in the house.

Then Dad hesitates a moment.

—I would have wanted to continue living here, but I feel I don’t know how anything works without your mother.

Then he pauses before changing subject:

—How’s your little Flóra doing?

—She’s started to walk.

—And what about your rose garden?

—It’s turning into the most beautiful rose garden in the world again.

—That’s good to hear, Lobbi lad.

There’s another silence before he tackles the next bit:

—I’ve been thinking things over and I see now that I’ve been putting unnecessary pressure on you about your studies. If you’re happy, then so is your old man. Jósef is happy with his girlfriend, too, so I don’t need to have worries about my boys.

—No, you don’t have to have any worries about us.

—You know you still have your mother’s inheritance if you want to travel the world and visit more gardens.

Once my daughter has said
Granda
down the phone and I’ve said good-bye to Dad, I go looking for the priest. I have to tell him that my situation has changed yet again, that it’s just me and the child now, as it was supposed to be in the beginning anyway. We find Father Thomas in the guesthouse. I tell him Anna has left.

—Yeah, it isn’t always easy to understand feelings, he says, patting me on the shoulder. Then he pats the child on the head.

—Things normally get worse before they get better again, he says when we’re sitting opposite him at the desk. He moves the penholder so that it doesn’t block his view of the child and fetches the porcelain doll in the knitted blue dress.

—When everything is over there’s always some element that’s been overlooked, just like with Christmas preparations, he says skimming through his collection on the shelves.

—As you can imagine, there is such a vast selection of films about the unpredictable paths of love that it would take me ages to find them all on these shelves.

My daughter is tired and rests her head on my shoulder. I stick the pacifier into her mouth. Then I notice that a small clay pot has appeared on the desk filled with soil and green shoots that barely peep over the edge. I don’t ask about the species.

—Still though, if you give me a bit of time and pop in, say, this afternoon, I might have found some movies for you. I’d focus on some women directors, although they’re not free of irony.

Then he switches topics and says that everyone in the monastery agrees that the garden is quite extraordinary. Although he doesn’t go as far as to call it a miracle, the transformation is far more spectacular than anyone could have imagined, and from what Brother Zacharias and others have been able to gather from some of the old manuscripts, the garden is once more as it’s described in the ancient books; its beauty equals the beauty of the heavenly mother of God.

—The eight circular rose groves around the pond elevate the garden to perfection, he says, arranging some papers on the desk.

—Yes, I say. My daughter has fallen asleep on my shoulder. I gently stroke her cheek.

—The monks can hardly bear the thought of being cooped up in the library with all that beauty within reach through the window now, he adds, leaning back in his chair and studying the sleeping child.

—People have been giving the monastery small donations, and we have a little bit of a fund, although it doesn’t really compare to the wealth of former times, he says, smiling at me. Up until now it’s mainly been used for the restoration of manuscripts, but we’ve agreed that it would be right to use a part of what has been collected to pay you a wage and for the maintenance of the garden. We’ve also thought of making the garden more accessible so that more than thirteen men can enjoy it, and even opening it up to tourists.

When I stand up with the sleeping child in my arms, he nods toward the flower pot with the frail green shoots and says:

—No, that’s not your rose species; it’s a future lily, if I read the writing on the packet of seeds correctly.

Father Thomas escorts us to the street; he probably isn’t expecting me to return in the afternoon. I have the sleeping child in my arms. As he’s shaking my hand to say good-bye, he suddenly asks:

—What’s your rose called again, the one you moved into the garden?

—Eight-petaled rose.

—Yes, eight-petaled rose, of course, I thought so. You should take a look at the rose in the window over the altar in the church the next time you’re passing; it has eight connate petals around its core.

We wake up early in the morning; it’s still dark outside. At some point in the night I lifted my daughter up into my bed and now she’s sitting beside me, looking around and in the air. Her mother’s scent still lingers in the quilt.

—Twi, twi, says the child, pointing at the dove with half a wing.

I turn to my daughter and she smiles from ear to ear.

—Shall we go home to Granddad?

—Gan-da.

—Does Flóra Sól want to walk on moss?

—Should Daddy pick crowberries for you?

—Does Flóra Sól want to try sitting on a tussock?

I carry her into the kitchen in her pajamas, fill the kettle, and light the gas. Then I put some oatmeal in the pot and tie a bib around the child while I wait for it to boil.

We don’t linger much after breakfast, but get dressed and go out. I put the child in the carriage it isn’t totally bright yet, and a peculiar reddish-blue mist hangs over the monastery in the still air.

When we get into the church I put the brakes on the carriage under the doomsday painting. I pick up my daughter, sit her on my shoulders, and we set off on a journey toward the sun, moving through the semidarkness at the very back of the church. We give ourselves plenty of time, stopping frequently on the way. I slip some coins into the jar for Saint Joseph and light a candle. I hold the burning candle with one hand and my child’s ankle with the other, carefully trying to ensure that the wax doesn’t leak. Slowly we move farther into the church toward the chancel where the sun is just rising, a flare of amber on the edge of dawn. Bit by bit, the delicate light narrows into a beam through the stained-glass window, filling the church like a shaft of translucent white cotton. My daughter remains perfectly still on my shoulders, and shielding my eyes with my hand, I look into the light, into the blinding glare; and then I see it, way at the top of the chancel window, the violet-red eight-petaled rose, just as the ray pierces through the crown and lands on the child’s cheek.

Audur Ava Olafsdottir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1958. She studied art history and art theory in Paris and is a lecturer in history of art at the University of Iceland and a director of the University of Iceland Art Collection. She has curated art exhibitions in Iceland and abroad, for example, at the Venice Biennale, and written about art and art history in various media.

Audur Ava is the author of three novels, a book of poetry, and a play. The first novel,
Raised Earth
, was published in 1998.
Rain in November
was published to rave reviews in 2004 and received the City of Reykjavik Literary Award.
The Greenhouse
, published in 2007, won the DV Culture Award for literature and a women’s literary prize in Iceland and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Award. Since
The Greenhouse
was published in France in the autumn of 2010 under the title of
Rosa Candida
, the book has attracted a great deal of coverage in the French media and received unanimously good reviews. In September 2010, it received the
Prix de Page
literary award as the best European novel of 2010. The
Prix de Page
award is determined by a group of 771 bookstores in France where the book was on the best-seller’s list for five consecutive months. The novel was also nominated for three other literary awards in France, including the prestigious
Femina
award. In January
The Greenhouse
won the Canadian
2011 Prix des libraires du Québec
award. Audur Ava Olafsdottir published
The Hymn of Glitter
, a book of poetry, in 2010, and her first play will premiere at the National Theatre of Iceland in September 2011.

Audur Ava Olafsdottir’s middle name, Ava, was adopted a few years ago as a tribute to the blind medieval French saint, Ava. Audur Ava Olafsdottir lives and works in Reykjavik.