I finally pluck up the courage to dress Tumi in his blue winter overalls and to put on the balaclava he hands me, at least I can do that much. Temperatures have risen by eight degrees since yesterday.
“If the weather forecast is anything to go by, it’ll be puddle gear after the weekend,” says the woman, “we love our puddles, don’t we, Tumi?” Then she turns back to me again and says in a warm confidential tone:
“Some hate fighting, others love splashing. To be honest, we’re concerned about how little communication he has with the other children. Above all, he prefers to be left alone or to play with the girls in the doll corner. We’re trying to build up his self-esteem, but he categorically refuses to fight, there’s no hunting instinct in him, no conquering. He always stands at the back of the group, avoiding conflict. If he were a sea lion he’d be the first one to be slaughtered by the males and he’d never get to reproduce. Aggression needs a healthy outlet if it is to be channelled into creativity and we’ve tried different methods to toughen him up. Even though we don’t allow weapons, we turn a blind eye to the kids that use sticks as guns. Tumi, on the other hand, engages the sticks in a sign language conversation, one as granny and the other as grandad.”
“Bang, I’m dead,” the teacher exclaims to the boy as she falls to the ground, or rather feigns to, crouching down on her knees but then deciding to go no further. Then she swiftly springs to her feet again, dusting her knees and smiles warmly:
“The kids like playing cops and robbers.”
The boy slips behind me.
“Not Elísabeta and me.”
“Not you and Elísabeta,” she interprets for me, “isn’t that right?” She looks me straight in the eye as she speaks to the boy. “But Illuga Már, he likes being shot, doesn’t he? He likes playing dead, isn’t that right?”
TWENTY-ONE
Auður phones as we are on our way to the store for a basic weekend shop, stocking up for the kid. She tells me she is undergoing some tests and that they’ve put a pressure bandage on her foot and are now examining other parts of her body, the mid-section, for example, which is actually the job of another department and belongs to another area of expertise. She can’t talk long, she says, but just wants to know if the boy is OK.
“And another thing,” she says, lowering her voice. “Could you buy me a bottle of red wine? The only beverage they offer with your meal in ward 22b is milk.”
One can spot the weekend dads a mile away. Even though they haven’t bought any food for dinner yet, at 7:30 on a Friday night, and they’ve yet to go home to cook for their exhausted children, they still find the time to ogle me and cast meaningful glances over the stacks of paper towel rolls. I’ve got my eyes on them too, but purely for practical reasons, to see what they buy and how they go about it — which is why I pick one out of the herd and decide to follow him, some guy with two timid children sitting in his cart in overalls. I study the manner in which he arranges items in the cart, how he first chucks them to the sides of the children and then piles the merchandise under their knees: whey, Superman yogurt, bananas, hopping sausages, children’s cheese, Little Rascal bread, milk, kindergarten pâté, alphabet pasta and Cutie cookies. He wedges some packets of cold cuts between the children, and stacks paper towel rolls over their boots.
When I try to recall what it was like to be a child, nothing significant comes to mind. It does, however, occur to me to buy some oats, since Dad always used to make porridge for my brother and me in the mornings; it was about the only thing he could cook. I then add some roasted chicken drumsticks, simply because the boy indicates to me that he wants them. Then he points at a jar of olives, he wants olives with the chicken. Once we’re in line for the checkout, I add a Ken doll in a swimsuit with a child in his arms, because I notice Tumi staring at it at length. If memory serves, childhood was all about yearning for the things one couldn’t have. I’m not about to let that happen to my protégé for just one weekend. It’s not nearly as complicated as I imagined, shopping for a child. I simply buy the things the kid wants; he either shakes his head or nods.
On the way home, I pop into the video store around the corner. I was lucky I got to keep the DVD player, Nína Lind has a new one of her own. While I’m torn between two films, which the transvestite working behind the counter emphatically recommends — both for singles or divorcees, he says — the boy is quick to choose his own.
I step into the adjacent shop where a young man with a lot of gel in his hair, shaped into a cone, sells me a lottery ticket. Tumi chooses the numbers. I hoist him up to the height of the counter where he skilfully ticks five boxes with a badly sharpened pencil.
“We’ll go fifty-fifty on the winnings,” I tell him, “you’ll get your half,” but he’s too busy concentrating on his writing and doesn’t even seem to realize that I’m talking to him.
“The winnings are sevenfold this week and a chance is always a chance, no matter how slim it may be,” says the young man behind the counter, who seems to be more mature than his pimples might suggest. We walk out with The Lion King and La Pianiste, the sadomasochistic masterpiece that isn’t suitable for sensitive viewers, but will remain indelibly imprinted on the minds of those who are not, according to the blurb on the case.
TWENTY-TWO
I take the boy out of his shoes. He seems content and, in almost no time at all, finds two hiding places in the minute apartment, one in the shower and one inside the cupboard. His focus immediately shifts to the boxes and I give him a signal to let him know he’s welcome to take a look inside. Then he suddenly appears in front of me, clutching with both hands a glass of water that is full to the brim, and puts it down on the table. He vacillates and strokes his earlobe before sliding his hand up the sleeve of my sweater, searching for my elbow, and finally caressing my hair with the palm of his little hand. Vanishing for a moment, he swiftly returns with a comb and pair of scissors, standing motionless in front of me with a questioning air. I understand this much.
“You can comb my hair,” I say, “but not cut it. I’m letting it grow.”
So far our communication has greatly exceeded all expectations. I sense a growing communion and understanding between us. Strictly speaking, a woman with a child requires no other company.
After watching The Lion King one and a half times, I place him on the couch, which I can’t be bothered to pull out into a double bed. We share the same quilt. He chews on a corner of the pillow and sucks on the duvet cover. Once he has fallen asleep, I leave the room to double-lock the front door to ensure he doesn’t escape on me. The books from the boxes have been stacked into tall twin towers on the floor.
It’s raining and windy. A window someone seems to have forgotten to shut is banging somewhere. It occurs to me that the owner might be off working on a night shift. My balcony, which under normal circumstances can just about hold a kitchen stool and a book, is inundated. The drainpipe is cluttered and the electricity flickers. It’s a huge responsibility, being with a child. After checking that he is still asleep, I slip outside to try to free the balcony of some of the slush and ice to prevent my temporary home from flooding. A woman armed with a dustpan is attempting a similar kind of operation in a building across the way. On every floor, in fact, some sleepless woman seems to be wrestling against the elements and potential flooding.
The child is restless and kicks the duvet off every time I try to tuck him in. I’m worried he’ll catch cold, which is why I stay awake and pace the floor, monitoring his sleep. His breathing is making me anxious; it seems to have slowed down, abnormally, as if he were holding his breath or simply not breathing at all. I gauge his breathing in relation to the normal rhythm of my own, there’s no comparison. But then, just as I’m about to intervene, the boy suddenly sucks in a very deep breath and his chest begins to heave. I gently pull the duvet back, ever so slightly, to be able to follow the contractions of my protégé’s ribcage, although I can detect no breathing from his nostrils and mouth. It takes me half the night to become acquainted with the child’s breathing patterns, until I finally fall asleep with a cushion and chequered woollen blanket on the floor.