“My good brother Jesus, the friend of every child…”
Grimur was wrong about Mikkelina being retarded. Simon had a feeling that she was more intelligent than the rest of them put together. But she never said a word. He was certain she could talk but did not want to. Certain she had chosen silence, from the way she was just as scared of Grimur as the others were, perhaps more so because Grimur sometimes talked about how they ought to throw her on the rubbish dump with that pushchair contraption of hers, she was useless anyway and he was fed up with watching her eat his food without doing anything around the house except be a burden. He said she made them a laughing stock, the whole family and him too, because she was a moron.
Grimur made sure that Mikkelina could hear when he talked like this, and he laughed at her mother’s feeble attempts to curtail the abuse. Mikkelina didn’t mind him ranting at her and calling her names, but she didn’t want her mother to suffer for her sake. Simon could tell that when he looked at her. Mikkelina’s relationship with him had always been close, much closer than with little Tomas, who was more of a puzzle, more of a loner.
Their mother knew that Mikkelina was not retarded. She did regular exercises with her, but only when Grimur was not there to see it. Helped her to limber up her legs. Lifted her withered arm, which was twisted inwards and stiff, and rubbed her paralysed side with an ointment that she made from wild herbs from the hill. She even thought that Mikkelina would be able to walk one day. She put her arm around her and tottered with her back and forth across the floor, urging her on and encouraging her.
She always spoke to Mikkelina like any other normal, healthy child, and told Simon and Tomas to do the same. She included her in everything they did together when Grimur was not at home. The mother and daughter understood each other. And her brothers understood her too. Every movement, every expression on her face. Words were superfluous, even if Mikkelina knew the words but never used them. Her mother had taught her to read and the one thing she enjoyed more than being carried out to lie in the sun was reading, or being read to.
And then one day the words started to come out, the summer after the world went to war and the British army set up camp on the hill. When Simon was carrying Mikkelina back indoors out of the sun. She had been exceptionally lively during the day, wiggling her ears and opening her mouth and poking out her tongue. Simon was about to put her back on the divan in the kitchen, because evening was falling and the weather was cooling, when Mikkelina suddenly made a noise that startled her mother into dropping a plate into the washing-up bowl, where it broke. Forgetting for an instant the terror that would usually fill her after such clumsiness, she spun round and stared at Mikkelina.
“EMAAEMAAA,” Mikkelina repeated.
“Mikkelina!” their mother gasped.
“EMAAEMAAA,” Mikkelina shouted, rolling her head around in wild rejoicing at her achievement.
Their mother walked slowly towards her as if unable to believe her own ears, then looked, open mouthed, at her daughter, and Simon thought he could see tears filling her eyes.
“Maammmmaa,” Mikkelina said, and her mother took her out of Simon’s arms and laid her slowly and gently onto her bed, stroking her head. Simon had never seen their mother cry before. No matter what Grimur did to her, she never cried. She shrieked in pain, called for help, pleaded with him to stop or otherwise suffered his blows in silence, but Simon had never seen her cry. Thinking that she must be upset, he put his arm around her, but she told him not to worry. This was the best thing that could ever have happened in her life. He could tell that she was crying not only about Mikkelina’s condition, but about her achievement as well, which had made her happier than she had ever before allowed herself to feel.
That was two years ago, and Mikkelina had steadily added to her vocabulary since then and could now say whole sentences, her face like a beetroot from the strain, poking out her tongue and dangling her head back and forth in such furious spasms from the effort that they thought it would drop off her withered body. Grimur did not know that she could talk. Mikkelina refused to say anything within his hearing and their mother concealed it from him, because she never tried to draw his attention to the girl, not even such triumphs. They pretended that nothing had happened or changed. A few times Simon heard his mother very guardedly mention to Grimur whether they ought to try to find help for Mikkelina. That she could become more mobile and stronger with age, and seemed to be able to learn. She could read and was learning to write with her good hand.
“She’s a moron,” Grimur said. “Don’t ever think she’s anything more than a moron. And stop talking to me about her.”
So she stopped, because she obeyed Grimur’s every word; the only help that Mikkelina ever received was from their mother, and what Simon and Tomas did for her by carrying her out into the sunshine and playing with her.
Simon avoided his father as far as possible, but from time to time he was forced to go out with him. When Simon grew up he proved more useful to Grimur, who took him to Reykjavik and made him carry provisions back to the hill. The trip to town took two hours, down to Grafarvogur, crossing the bridge over Ellidaar and skirting the Sund and Laugarnes districts. Sometimes they took the route up the slope to Haaleiti and across Sogamyri. Simon kept four or five of his little steps behind Grimur, who never spoke to him or paid him any attention until he loaded him with supplies and ordered him to carry them home. The return journey could take three or four hours, depending upon how much Simon had to carry. Sometimes Grimur would stay in town and not return to the hill for days.
When that happened, a certain joy reigned in the household.
On his trips to Reykjavik, Simon discovered an aspect of Grimur that he took a while to assimilate and never wholly understood. At home, Grimur was surly and violent. Hated being spoken to. Foul-mouthed if he did speak, and coarse in the way he belittled his children and their mother; he made them serve his every need and woe betide any shirker. But in dealing with everyone else, the monster seemed to shed its skin and become almost human. On Simon’s first trips to town he expected Grimur to act the way he always behaved at home, snarling abuse or swinging punches. He feared this, but it never happened. On the contrary. All of a sudden Grimur wanted to please everyone. He chattered away merrily to the merchant and bowed and scraped to people who entered the shop. He addressed them formally, even smiled. Shook their hands. Sometimes when Grimur bumped into people he knew he would break into guffaws — not the strange, dry and raucous laugh that he occasionally let out when he was vilifying his wife. When people pointed to Simon, Grimur put his hand on the boy’s head and said yes, he was his son, grown so big. Simon ducked at first as if expecting a blow, and Grimur joked about it.
It took Simon a long time to grasp this incomprehensible duplicity on Grimur’s part. His father’s new countenance was unrecognisable. He could not understand how Grimur could be one person at home and a completely different man the moment he left the house. Simon could not fathom how he could be sycophantic and subservient and bow politely, when at home he ruled as the ultimate dispenser of life and death. When Simon discussed this with his mother she shook her head wearily and told him, as always, to be wary of Grimur. Be wary of provoking him. No matter whether it was Simon, Tomas or Mikkelina who sparked him off, or whether it was something that had happened when Grimur was away and which threw him into a rage, he almost invariably attacked their mother.