“This might not look like the most eventful of towns to an outsider,” says the man, leaning on the counter with both elbows, “but that doesn’t mean that nothing ever happens. Couples split up, have their affairs and make a mess of their lives just as much here as anywhere else, no matter how stunning the nature may be. And occasionally, there are family tragedies that can never be fully explained. Those two brothers who lived on their own, for example. The one who survived was released on parole because the circumstances of the case were unclear, according to the police report. They said it was a case of accidental manslaughter, but the neighbours, who saw the scene of the crime, said it wasn’t a pretty sight and that they’d heard at least seven shots being fired. Those wooden toys are made by the brother who survived, at the old people’s home, or the Geriatric Health Centre, as they call it. That’s where he lives. You can buy one of those vans from him there.”
The man escorts me to the door as I slip on my hood and step out into the rain. I see through the rear-view mirror that he is standing in the yard by the petrol pumps, watching the jeep on its ascent towards the chalet. I think he’s talking into a mobile phone.
I carry the boy in my arms into the chalet. Before going to bed, we clamber down the ravine to brush our teeth in the stream. We stand there in the ice-cold water with our mouths full of foam and then spit it out and watch the white trail as it floats away.
FORTY-FOUR
So much needs to be bought. We need two duvets and bed linens. The boy chooses the duvet covers, a jungle with wild animals for himself and a pink flowery one for me, so that fields of nocturnal violets will expand in my arms in the mornings and spread across my tummy and breasts, as I stroke the quilt and ponder on how we should start the day, by going for a swim or paying a visit to the school library.
We also buy some new rain gear, thick sweaters and two pairs of leggings for the boy, a Barbie and Ken set with a caravan, cat food and rubber toys for the kitten, a football, colouring book and colours, a jigsaw, crossword magazine, several women’s magazines, some towels and swimming trunks and a set of red Christmas lights that work on batteries to put on the deck. I get Tumi to try on a pair of blue hiking boots with laces and he is allowed to walk around the store in them. I also buy him a new pair of boots, which are only available in size 26, so they should last him a good while.
I gently throw him the ball in the toy section, aiming for his arms. He creates a hollow for the ball to fall into by pressing his elbows against his stomach and holding out his hands, as I try to gauge the distance and amount of force required for him to catch it before tossing the ball, which draws a small arch in the air, like a film in slow motion. But he misses the ball, which rolls into the underwear and socks department. I’ll do it better next time and crouch down on my knees. I can manage playing with a child now, but he can’t manage playing with an adult.
I ask them if they have any bicycles with training wheels and am informed that there might be a red one in the warehouse left over from the summer.
“Because it’s winter here now,” the man at the warehouse explains to me, as if I were mentally challenged. I use the opportunity to order three gas heaters for the chalet.
Tumi is mesmerized by the sight of a small Santa Claus costume in the clothes corner and asks me questions I don’t quite know how to answer. It seems to be more or less the right size so we throw it into the basket.
“You can be Santa Claus’s assistant,” I say, although I’m not sure he understands me.
The Christmas books are in and I chuck them into the basket, practically buying all of them, with the exception of autobiographies, self-help books and a study on the genealogy of Icelandic horses. I place a novel that is set in the rain on top of the pile. It has a nice cover, but I’m not familiar with the author, nor, needless to say, is the shop manager, because only two copies of it have been ordered and it lay at the back of two towers of expected best-sellers. I also buy a book about the volcanic eruption of Mount Laki in the eighteenth century, some crime pulp fiction in English and a load of easy-to-read children’s books for the boy, as well as some copybooks for him to write his foggy window words in.
With the help of the store manager, I find a book on the rearing of boys. I merely need to skim through the book and browse through the headings, captions and blurb on the jacket to realize that what the boy needs, above all else, is a strong male role model. I might be able to teach him how to catch a ball and cycle, and to fry pancakes, tie his shoelaces and read, if he hasn’t taught himself already, and even to count up to five in Hungarian, but I can’t teach him the value of words, how to be strong in spite of oneself or how to fight an enemy army.
We’ve almost filled two carts by now; he pushes one, I the other. He shows a lot of responsibility towards the home and is very attentive, pointing at the things we need here and there and fetching raisins, rice, spaghetti, yogurt, eggs, marinated herring, cottage cheese, caviar, stone-baked flat bread, smoked meat, olives, brawn, eggs, smoked salmon and cod liver oil — he’s got quite a broad palate for a four-year-old. He also finds jars of vitamin tablets and helps me to find vegetables to make meat soup. There are four types: red cabbage, carrots, turnips and potatoes. The turnips are 1,000 percent more expensive here than in Krakow. Then he returns with some perfume to give me and puts it in the trolley. I allow him to and take my place in the queue in front of the meat counter.
People prolong their shopping to observe us, not least the boy, the pair of us. Tumi looks at me apprehensively, signalling with his eyes that I’m not allowed to stare back at them, not to make an issue of it. Three people ask me if I’m the woman with the mobile summer chalet. Most of them are quite friendly and nudge their children to encourage them to offer Tumi some sweets. Digging into the green cellophane bags they’re clutching in their hands, they hesitantly choose something that might have accidentally fallen into the mix, either too strong or too bitter, before formally handing it over to him with their sticky fingers.
Just as I’m about to reach the top of the queue, something rolls on the floor and the shoppers shift their gazes off the new arrivals to form a semicircle and look down at something glistening on the floor. It’s a brown button.
The shop assistant is trying to hand a woman a parcel of weighed meat over the counter, but she’s been distracted. Who lost that button?
Concerned and solicitous looks flash across people’s faces and inquisitive glances are exchanged, before all eyes settle on me. Virtually no one is dressed in clothes that have buttons; everyone is wearing comfortable and loose-fitting garments with elastic around the waist and ankles. Many of these villagers are related, but it is somehow deemed unseemly to behave in an overly familiar manner in the local co-op. It takes considerable practice to be able to pretend to be strangers to each other for five minutes, to keep one’s kin at bay for a moment, and feign not to have the faintest idea that the person standing in front of them in the queue took a solitary walk down to the pier last night and, at exactly ten-thirty on that same evening, kicked an empty beer can into the ocean. At any rate, they feel no need to run up and throw their arms around their childhood friends and cousins every time they bump into them.
The man serving at the meat counter appoints himself as group spokesman and asks if I’m the woman with the summer chalet.
“He’s a straight talker,” a woman whispers to me, acts in the local amateur dramatics society apparently and practically knows Jóhann Sigurjónsson’s entire repertoire inside out. But his most memorable performance was in the role of Lennie in Of Mice and Men. His female customers have hardly been the same since and obviously entertain fantasies of him stroking their smooth hair and touching them all over.