— Good girl, I say out loud.
She stands by the edge of the bed, smiling from ear to ear, on her unsteady little legs, which she is beginning to learn how to use, dimples under her chubby knees.
Even though I’ve washed everything with lemon detergent, I’m not sure I want her crawling on the floor. The floor is cold and I can’t be sure she won’t find something that she might want to stick in her mouth.
— No, no, I say, don’t crawl on the floor.
I pick her up and position her like a puppy on all fours on my double bed.
— Crawl here, I say. I give clear messages, sentences limited to two or, at the most, three words: subject, verb, object. And then, almost in a whisper, I try out these new unfamiliar words for my mouth, as if they are a new definition of myself, as if, from now on, they will become the essence of my new life:
— Daddy’s girl can crawl here.
The child repeats the game and, legs first, sinks back onto the floor.
I pick her up again and put her back on the bed, grabbing her around the waist. She automatically goes on all fours, crawls to the edge of the bed at full speed, then turns around and sinks her legs down to the floor again. It takes her half a minute to repeat the trick. By the fourth time I’ve picked her up and put her down on the bed, she’s getting tired and annoyed. She’s had enough of this game and is irritated by the limits I keep placing on her freedom and exploration options. I’m tired, too. Her mother hasn’t been gone twenty minutes yet, and I’ve already run out of ideas of things to do with the child. Don’t nine-month-old children ever potter about on their own for a bit? I’m wondering if she should have a nap. Her mother said she sleeps for three hours in the afternoon. Didn’t I ask her how often I needed to change her or did I forget? Did she answer me? Isn’t it time I changed her now?
Fifty-one
Half an hour later there’s a knock on the door again. I think it might be my neighbor who has come to collect the iron I forgot to return to her yesterday. It’s Anna again.
She wavers in the doorway with her case in her hands.
— I was just thinking, she says, casting her eyes to the floor, that’s if you’ve no objections, of course, she continues as if trying to pave the way for what is about to follow, that I could just as easily finish the thesis here instead of going away. While you’re getting to know each other, it’s better for Flóra Sól as well, I mean, that she gets used to you while I’m here as well. That’s if you’ve got nothing against it, she says, sounding insecure; she’s feeling bad because she doesn’t want to leave.
— Of course, I’d sleep on the sofa in the sitting room, she quickly adds, so you two could have the bedroom. Then she hesitantly steps in and bends over to pick up my daughter, who is playing with a cube, as if to emphasize that the child can’t be without her. She takes a few steps back toward the door with the child, while she’s waiting for my response and also because, formally speaking, I haven’t invited her back in yet. Strictly speaking, she has already handed the child over to me. My daughter looks at her mother full of understanding, and I sense she’s showing her solidarity; they’re both staring at me from the door, the mother and daughter, waiting for my reaction.
— I could also stay in the guesthouse, she says, looking straight at the floor. She has a beautiful throat and neck.
— In any case I’d be at the library during the day.
Because I can see how bad she’s feeling, the only thing that occurs to me is to put her mind at rest and gently touch her arm. Then I say:
— You can stay here, and there’s a slight tremor in my voice.
I’ve just splattered it out without thinking about how quickly my life is changing.
— Thank you so much, she says softly. So long as you’re sure it’s OK. She’s so clearly relieved, she almost looks happy.
First I offer her my bed and sleep on the sofa for one night, now I’ve just invited her to live with me and write her thesis. I should probably be asking myself what I just got myself into. What does it mean? That she is going to live with the child and me and teach me the ropes? And yet, deep inside, in some strange and indefinable way, I’m delighted.
— Would you like to just start on your thesis then while I take Flóra Sól out in the carriage? I say. You two can have the bedroom, I’ll take the sofa, I add.
She grabs her case and takes it straight into the room. Then she reemerges with a thick book under her arm, sits down at the kitchen table, flicks through some chapters in the middle of the book, and starts reading her genetics.
Fifty-two
I suffered from earaches as a child, so I fasten the blue bonnet with the lace brim around my daughter before taking her out, ensuring, however, that her two curly locks remain visible. Then I set off with the child on a tour around the village. There is no denying that the baby carriage and I attract plenty of attention; the reception I get from the villagers is very different and a lot warmer when I’m with the child than when I’m on my own. I also notice something I’d never really thought about before, and that is that there are no children wandering around this place; I’m the only person with a small child in the village this morning.
I prop up my daughter so she can look back at the pedestrians who are watching her. She attracts both admiration and interest on our first trip down to the bottom of the main street. The women seem to give me more attention in my first fifteen minutes with the baby carriage than they have in the entire approximately two months I’ve been here alone in the village. Women’s emotional lives seem pretty complex to me, and their reactions are often unpredictable. When I’ve finished pushing the carriage four times up and down the village street, I have the idea of taking my daughter into the church to show her the altarpiece with the baby Jesus that resembles her.
The uneven stonework on the floor causes the carriage to totter, so I leave it inside the church’s entrance under a painting of doomsday and take the pacifier with me. Still, I don’t expect anyone to object to the child being in the church, even if there is a mass going on. There are just a few old women on the benches. I don’t walk straight to the picture with the child, but sit at the back to give my daughter a chance to acclimatize herself to the semidarkness. Then we gradually make our way toward the chancel at the front of the church and I show her the first paintings, one after another, reading out the inscriptions for her. We take our time with each painting; the child is interested and agile in my arms. We look at Mary Magdalene with her long red hair; then I halt when we get to Saint Joseph. The painting shows a careworn old man with drooping shoulders, weighed down by life’s burdens. I put some coins in the box and light a candle. The inscription says that Saint Joseph was a loyal husband, as well as a devout and hardworking man. He was a foster father, I think to myself, and took on the responsibilities he was given. I’m not a foster father the way Joseph was; my daughter has the same kind of earlobes I have and a birthmark in the same spot of the groin. She’s the flesh of my flesh, if I can put it in theological terms. Nevertheless I feel some sympathy for Saint Joseph; he must have felt lonely in bed.
— My brother Joseph, I say jokingly. Then I remember the postcard I was going to send to Jósef because he likes to collect stamps.