“Are these your cigarettes, Jón?”
I put on a shocked face and opened my eyes wide like I was totally astonished that she could think I had any cigarettes.
“No,” I said, indignant.
“So, what were they doing in your trouser pocket?”
These were stubs I’d found and salvaged. I acted like suddenly I’d remembered something I’d forgotten.
“Wellll, I was keeping them for my friend.”
Mom heaved a sad sigh.
“Stop lying to me!”
“I’m not lying at all,” I muttered like someone who knows he is lying and everyone else knows it too.
I looked directly at her.
“Have you started smoking?”
“No,” I said.
I was trying to be as resolute and honest as I could, though I had started smoking. I was no longer just testing it out. I’d begun to think about cigarettes in the morning and to smoke before I went to school. Sometimes I wanted a cigarette so badly in the evening that I smoked out the window. And why couldn’t I? She herself smoked. When I was little, I tried to get her to quit smoking. It was after I found out how dangerous it was. I didn’t want my mom to get lung cancer like Gulli, her brother, so I threw her cigarettes in the trash. She didn’t give up smoking. Once I took a cigarette from her pack, stuffed firecrackers in it, and put it back in the packet. I did it to show her how dangerous smoking was. Then I hid myself and watched her smoke. She sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Then she drew a cigarette from the pack and lit it. The explosion was so intense that the cigarette ripped apart and soot and tobacco were spread everywhere. Mom was so startled that she screamed and struck the cup of coffee off the table so that it crashed to the floor and shattered. She screamed and then burst into tears. That startled me so much that I was paralyzed. I had not expected that there would be such a big explosion. Mom yelled at me:
“What’s wrong with you, child! Are you trying to kill me?”
I then explained to her why I had done it, that it was because it was dangerous to smoke and I didn’t want her to die. Then suddenly she stopped crying and started laughing. Then she stopped laughing and began to cry again, and so it went on like that. I stood like I was frozen in front of her. Was she having a nervous breakdown? Had I finally managed to over-exert my mother, and would this cause her to lose her wits? Would she be sent to Klepp and would I be blamed for everything? Would I be left all alone with Dad?
“Tell me the truth, Jón. Have you started smoking?”
My sister Runa smoked. All my friends were smokers. Smoking was cool. All actors smoked. Everyone who was in a band smoked. All punks were smokers. It was just jerks who didn’t. I decided to lay my cards on the table.
“Yes,” I muttered.
Mom nodded her head, and I felt relieved.
“I knew you’d started smoking. I’ve started to notice you smelling of smoke.”
I was silent. Did she perhaps feel that it was okay?
“I hate when you lie to me.”
“I know.”
She wasn’t angry because I was smoking, but angry that I was going behind her back and lying.
“How do you pay for it?” she asked.
I had no great difficulty getting cigarettes. I borrowed cigarettes from other kids and stole money from Dad’s wallet to buy packs myself.
“I just borrow,” I muttered.
She was no longer angry. She thought it was okay. She had only been angry because I was lying to her.
“What do you think your Dad would say?”
I could only imagine. He was against smoking and would definitely seize on this to the fullest. He would pretend he was hurt, that this was a great shock to him, that I had somehow hurt him personally by smoking. He would be totally astonished, he would hold my hand and stare ahead, appalled. Then would he tear up, look at me, and ask:
“Why do you do this to me?”
And I would answer as always:
“I don’t know.”
What can you say in response to that? How does one answer such bullcrap? But that was something I would have to go through now that this had become public. Dad grabbed every chance he got to nag. Nagging seemed to be what he most enjoyed. If someone said or did something that displeased him, he appeared to take it personally, like it was done deliberately to shock him. He nagged me, Runa, and Mom. He even tried nagging Mom’s sisters, but they didn’t listen. He nagged them constantly about smoking and, like that wasn’t enough, he also nagged them if he saw them with a drink in hand. Those times, he would get all amazed and put on his wounded look.
“What, are you drinking alcohol?” he said, and always looked at the clock.
They answered him, ever defiant:
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up, Kristinn!”
Dad could do all his annoying with just expressions and word choice. Wine became liquor and dope became narcotics in Dad’s vocabulary. Once he tore into Aunt Salla and said there was no difference between smoking and narcotics; he was basically saying that Aunt Salla was a drug addict. He preferred it that Runa never smoked in front of him, even though she was an adult. He never let Runa alone. He used the same techniques on her as on me, being friendly and annoying at the same time. Runa had smoked for many years, but he was always astonished to see her light a cigarette.
“What are you doing?”
She pretended not to know what he meant, although she knew full well. She always tried to turn the other cheek.
“What do you mean?” she asked, cheerfully.
“Are you smoking?” he said, with great uncertainty in his voice, like he refused to believe his own eyes.
“Yes, Dad, dear, I smoke.”
Then he was silent, and looked tenderly and oddly at her and said:
“But you promised me that you’d stop.”
Runa never remembered these promises, but she had indeed often promised this so that she didn’t have to listen to him nag any longer. Dad could always get you to promise something. Everyone except him forgot these promises straightaway. Although he forgot everything else, he didn’t forget those annoying promises. He put people in a position where they couldn’t help but agree with whatever he wanted them to. Sometimes he simply held you fast and didn’t let go until you were ready to promise anything. In most cases, you didn’t even know yourself why you were making the promise. A promise to be diligent, a promise to be good, a promise to be fun, a promise to tidy yourself up. A promise, a promise, a promise. The things people said and did hurt him so very much. Runa was letting him down by smoking. Once she stopped smoking for a while and told Dad about it to please him. Then she started smoking again a few months later. Dad was of the opinion that he had been personally betrayed. Runa never understood how he reached that conclusion.
“You’re making a liar out of me!” he yelped.
“How so?” she asked, surprised.
He was indignant.
“I told all my coworkers that you’ve stopped smoking, but you have not stopped. I was so proud of you. Now no one will believe a word I say. My colleagues will think of me as a liar.”
I saw my father before me as he told all the cops the great news that his daughter had stopped smoking. And how all the cops were really joyful on his behalf, how they all shone with happiness and excitement over this marvelous news. I saw my father knock on the chief of police’s door and tell him the good tidings. Then I imagined the chief of police springing to his feet and exclaiming:
“This truly is good news!”
That was asinine and weird, like most of what Dad said. I didn’t believe that my dad was such an idiot that he told everyone his daughter had stopped smoking. Nobody would care at all. But he took advantage of it just to try to make her feel bad. I’d at long last realized it. He lived entirely for nagging us, giving us bullcrap. Those were the only ways of interacting he knew, and he never acted any differently than the way he was when using us as the audience to retell something that had been in the news.