The Greenhouse (5 page)

Although the apartment is on the top floor and the window is closed, the hubbub of city life reaches my bed—beeping cars, shouts, and calls—it all seems so close. Dusk is quick to fall, the sky turns blue at around six, and the city plunges into darkness.

The window overlooks a narrow yard, with a view from the bed of a lit-up neighboring apartment across the way, a kitchen with no curtains, and a dining room, which I guess must be about only twelve feet from my bed. It’s like looking at a doll-house from which the front wall has been removed, offering a sample view of the family life inside. This is the third time in one hour that my female neighbor on the other side of the yard appears in the kitchen dressed in nothing but her underwear. I watch her butter two slices of bread and put cold cuts on them. It’s as if the absence of curtains has never even crossed her mind, and at least once or twice, she seems to be looking straight at me. Her panties are a violet red, and she’s holding the slice of bread in one hand. Then she briefly steps out of frame, and when she reemerges she’s in a dress and there’s a man standing with her in the kitchen, taking stuff out of a shopping bag. The girl could be my age, and I immediately substitute myself for the boyfriend. Assuming I could make a miraculously rapid recovery, I would be open to the possibility of getting to know her better if the opportunity were to present itself. Not that I can imagine the opportunity ever arising, though. Nevertheless, I entertain the fantasy of an encounter with her. I might, for example, need an egg—because I do know how to fry an egg—so I might knock on her door. That would mean, of course, having to go down the six floors of my building, out onto the street, passing the shop that sells eggs, and then into her building. And since I don’t have a key to my neighbor’s front entrance I’d have to find a way of hopping in with one of her unsuspecting neighbors when they were entering and then climb the six flights of stairs to knock on the door to her apartment. I conjure up other ways of approaching her. The simplest thing, of course, would be a chance encounter in the bakery.

—Come on, she’d say, dragging me by the hand across the paved courtyard. Let’s go up to my place. Once she strokes my hair in the same way that she stroked her boyfriend’s a few moments ago, I’m not sure I’d have anything to say to her. I ponder on whether my experience of six women is a lot or a little for a man of my age. Is it above average, just average, or way below average?

I open the window and the smell of food whets my appetite. I decide to rummage through the kitchen to see if there’s anything to eat, and I look into two cupboards. My brief search reveals some rye crackers and packets of asparagus soup. I grab the rhubarb jam from my backpack and eat three crackers with jam while the soup is boiling. I’m taken aback by the quantity of kitchen implements my friend has; she seems to have four of everything. Then I open the cupboard where the crockery is kept and look for some drink receptacle. The cups have floral patterns and gilded rims; I’m scared of dropping her precious china and root through the bottom of the cupboard until I find a plastic cup to drink water from.

What would my home be like?—It takes two to make a home, Mom would say; the only thing I couldn’t live without is plants, although I picture myself more out in a garden than standing indoors. I’m not like Dad, who is a born handyman. He doesn’t wander into the garage without a tie or a phillips-head screwdriver and reducer close at hand. I’m not one of those DIY guys, like those family men who can do everything: lay pavement, do the electrical wiring, make doors for the kitchen cupboards, build steps, unblock drainpipes, and change windows, or smash a pane of double-glazed glass with a sledgehammer—all those things that a man is supposed to be able to do. If I put my mind to it I could probably do some of those things, if not all of them, but I’d never enjoy them. I could put up some shelves, but putting up shelves could never become a hobby of mine, I wouldn’t waste my evenings and weekends on stuff like that. I don’t picture myself screwing some shelves together while Dad does the electric wiring. My future father-in-law could turn out to be an expert floor layer, so the two fathers-in-law could plan things together, each with his own coffee thermos resting on my shelves. Or the worst thing would be if it were just Dad and me and he’d be teaching me things like I was his apprentice. The more I think about the idea of founding a home, the more I realize I’m not cut out for it. The garden is another story altogether; I could stay in the garden for days and nights on end.

Dad phones me as I’m finishing the asparagus soup. He wants me to confirm that I’ve eaten. Then he wants to know what was for dinner, so I explain to him that they advise you to eat lightly after an appendix operation and that I had asparagus soup. He tells me that he was invited to Bogga’s for lamb soup. Then he asks me about Thórgun and I tell him she’s just popped out. He wants to know if I’m recovering and I tell him I’m feeling a lot better. Then he asks if it always gets dark at the same time.

—Yeah, at around six.

—How’s the weather? he asks.

—Same as this morning, cloudy and mild, spring weather really.

—What’s the electricity like there?

—What do you mean? The lights work, I say.

I know zilch about electricity. Dad tried to teach me how to change a plug on the morning of my ninth birthday, and I remember how stunned he was by my lack of interest. It was as if I were telling him that I had no intention of becoming a man. When he asks me about the electricity, I get the feeling that he’s checking my manhood levels.

—I’ve never liked the darkness, Lobbi lad, says the electrician before wishing me good night.

After saying good-bye to Dad and sending my regards to Jósef, I get into the pajamas they both gave me and lie under the girly duvet. The sleeves and legs are a bit on the short side. Since my operation I’ve been thinking a lot more about the body, both mine and the bodies of others. When I say the bodies of others I mainly mean the bodies of women, although I notice men’s bodies, too. I wonder if my increased awareness of the body might be a side effect of the anesthetic I had four days ago. My tummy is still sore, but nevertheless I feel incredibly lonely under this quilt. The best thing I can come up with is to grope myself, check my body to feel I’m still alive. I start off by feeling its individual elements, as if to persuade myself that they’re still a part of me. Although I’m clearly condemned to a period of solitude while I’m recovering from the appendix operation, I can nevertheless tangibly feel the longings of my male body. I can’t sleep, and my mind begins to wander. I even wonder if I should have gotten a phone number from the brown-eyed nurse who took care of my rose cuttings and helped me into bed on that first night, the one with the butterfly in her hair. Or the one who helped me into the shower and changed my bandage afterward.

The following morning there’s a strange cloud in the sky, shaped like a child’s bonnet with a frilly rim. Having pulled through my death and resurrection, I’m back on track again, and when I gently press the stitches, the pain is almost completely gone. It automatically makes me look at things differently at the beginning of a new day.

—All it needs is sleep and time, Mom would have said.

I can’t say I feel any longing to go home, that there’s anything pulling me there. Perhaps it’s unusual for a twenty-two-year-old man to be feeling so ecstatic about being alive, but after the misfortunes of the past few days I feel there’s cause for celebration. There’s no such thing as an ordinary day so long as one is still alive, so long as one’s days aren’t counted. The plants seem to be doing well on the windowsill; some tiny, white, almost invisible root threads are beginning to form. I decide to get dressed and to go out and buy some food.

The moment I get back in with some bread and salami sausage, the phone rings. It’s Dad. He asks me how I am and if I’ve had any breakfast yet. Then he asks me about Thórgun again and the weather. I tell him about the strange cloud formation, and he tells me they’re still being blasted by the harsh northern wind and the grass is withered. Then he says:

—Guess what, your graduation photograph fell off my bedside table and the glass broke.

—There never was any graduation photograph of me.

I didn’t have a graduation cap when I graduated. But Mom took a photograph of me in the garden that day. Mom was smart. Then she took a picture of Jósef and me together. He held my hand, as usual; I was a head taller. In the end Jósef took a picture of Mom and me, by the fire lily bed, in which we are both laughing.

I don’t know whether he’s losing his hearing or whether Dad just chooses to ignore some of the things I say to him.

—I was adjusting it when it fell on the floor. Thröstur at the frame shop is putting it in a new frame, slightly bigger than the one it was in. He agreed with me that it could take a bigger mounting, the white passe-partout will compensate for the absence of the cap.

I no longer have the energy to talk to Dad.

—I chose a mahogany frame.

—Well, I’ll have a better chat with you later, Dad.

—Are you happy with mahogany, son?

—Yeah, perfectly happy.

I’m on vacation until my stitches are removed, so I can just lie in bed and read. I read all day. In the evening I dig my gardening book out of my backpack and quickly browse through the first chapter on lawns, the main concern of any gardener, then indoor plants, before I pause on the chapter on trimming trees. From there I move on to an interesting chapter about grafting, which has been difficult to find information on.

In fact, I don’t know what awaits me in the garden; there was nothing specific about the job itself in the letter. Although I’d rather devote myself entirely to the roses, I’d also be willing to trim bushes and cut the grass, as long as I get a chance to plant my rose cuttings in the soil. I did find it a bit odd, however, that the monastery I wrote to should ask me about my shoe size.

I’m reading about genetic changes in plants when a key is inserted into the lock and my friend appears in the doorway. I’m under the duvet.

—It’s freezing, she says without any formalities, didn’t you turn on the heater?

—I couldn’t figure out the controls.

—You just have to plug it in and turn it on, she says, taking off a red beret, unwinding the scarf around her neck, and slipping out of her green suede jacket. Then my childhood friend strips down to her panties and pink T-shirt, lifts up the duvet, and asks:

—Any room?

Personally I just don’t have the strength at precisely this point in my life, fresh out of the operating room as it were, to go through the steps required to lure a woman into bed. My friend’s early return has taken me totally by surprise and thrown me off guard. Had she planned to surprise me? Thorlákur, my ex-friend, would say that women never do anything without a plan.

I ask her why she’s come home so soon.

—You said you were only going to be here for a few days and that you were going to buy a secondhand car and head off for some garden, she says, surprised. I expected you’d be gone, she adds.

I watch her almost completely disappear under the duvet and sink into the mattress. She’s clearly going to sleep in the bed with me, and since there aren’t any other beds in the room you could say we’ve skipped quite a few steps in the getting-to-know-each-other-a-little-bit-better process.

—But I’m not pushing you to go, she says under the duvet.

—I had to have my appendix out, I say. The stitches will be removed tomorrow.

I tell her about my misfortunes, she shows some interest in the matter, but I pray to god she doesn’t ask to see the scar.

—Can I see the scar? She’s as excited as a child dying to see a puppy.

Thank god I’m in the pajamas Dad gave me, even though they reflect the taste of a man who’ll be eighty in three years’ time.

—Nice pajamas.

—Thanks.

I pull back the pajama trousers, just far enough to reveal the scar. Which is quite far down, way below my stomach.

She bursts out laughing. Literally everything about her is new to me and surprises me.

—Didn’t you have braces at school?

—Yeah, thirteen to fourteen.

She takes off her glasses and places them on the bedside table. This is her way of saying she won’t be reading in bed. I’m still holding my book with a finger stuck inside the chapter on genetic changes in plants.

The thing that throws me the most is seeing my friend without her myopic glasses for the first time, seeing the eyes that have been hidden behind those thick lenses. It’s as if they’ve never been exposed before, like she’s premiering her eyes for the first time. She couldn’t be more naked without her glasses.

—Are those nearsighted glasses? I ask, shifting the spotlight to the strength and thickness of the lenses in the hope that it will distract my mind from the fact that I’m in bed with my ex–schoolmate who has practically no clothes on. I’m still hoping the glasses can save me and lead us on to the next natural step in our conversation.

—Yeah, minus six on both eyes.

—Have you never considered laser treatment?

—Yes, I’ve been thinking it over.

I feel a hot shudder moving into my stomach in the cold bedroom and break into a sweat. The pain in my gut has given way to some other kind of feeling.

—Haven’t you got some gardening job? she asks. Didn’t you say you were going to some rose garden?

—Yeah.

Actually I’m not just heading to any garden, but to a garden that has centuries of history behind it and that’s mentioned in all the books about the most famous rose gardens in the world. Some of Father Thomas’s letter of reply was a bit hazy and vague, but I was warmly welcomed.

—And weren’t you working at sea?

—Yeah.

—What happened to the Latin genius?

—He just evaporated.

She switches subjects.

—Don’t you have a child? she asks.

—Yeah, a seventh-month-old girl, I say, but this time resist the temptation to pull out the photograph and show it to her.

—Aren’t you a couple, you and the mother?

—No, we just had the kid. It wasn’t planned. She was actually a friend of a friend of mine, do you remember Thorlákur? He had a real crush on her for a while, that’s how I met her, mainly because he talked about her nonstop, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.

—Didn’t he go into theology?

—Yeah, so I hear.

—So you’re not running away from anything?

She talks like Dad.

—Not at all.

We lie there motionless for a moment, each of us on our own side of the bed. She shuts up. We both shut up.

It was the first winter after Mom died, on my twenty-first birthday, and we’d kind of broken away from the group, Anna and I. It was well into the early hours, and it was snowing. When we stepped into the crunching snow in the garden, the first footprints of the day, we dropped into the snow and made two angels; then I was going to show her the tomato plants. She was studying physiology and was interested in the genetics of plants on this particular night. It might have been five in the morning, and I no longer remember when we got into the greenhouse. There was always light on the plants, and the roses let off a sweet smell. As soon as we staggered into the greenhouse we were hit by hot, humid air, as if we were suddenly on the other side of the planet, inside the thick undergrowth of a one-hundred-square-foot jungle. The gardening tools were kept right by the entrance, and there was also an old sofa bed that I’d moved in there myself when I was studying for my exams, to be able to read close to the plants. And then it was never moved again. Mom also kept an old record player in the greenhouse, and her record collection was a weird concoction from various corners of the globe. Her watering can and pink floral gloves were there, too, as if she’d just popped out a moment. Not that I was thinking of Mom at that moment. We took off our coats, and I chanced upon a record with some kind of climbing plant on the cover, like some ornamental growth from an Indian palace garden, and we danced one close dance. I was used to dancing with my brother Jósef. We were probably talking about botany and, before I knew it, were starting to undress close to the green tomatoes. Most of the rest is blurred in my memory. For a moment, though, I thought I saw something glowing in the night, so strangely close, like a light beaming through the falling snow. For an instant, the greenhouse was filled with a blinding brightness, and the light pierced through the plants projecting petal patterns against my friend’s body. I caressed the rose petals on her stomach, and at the same moment we both clearly felt a whirlwind, like the sound of a fan that someone had just switched on. It wasn’t until much later that I remembered the detail of the whirlwind and started to think about that glow in the darkness as if it hadn’t been an altogether natural phenomenon. Immediately after it, we heard the voice of a man outside the greenhouse, standing beside the mound of snow. As I suspected, it was the neighbor holding a flashlight, calling his dog. When daylight broke there were two angels printed in the snow, linked together at the hands, like part of a chain of paper dolls. If Mom had been alive she would have stared at me over the breakfast table with a mysterious knowing air. And because I had no appetite for my breakfast, she was bound to have said that I was getting too skinny.

—Or are you still growing? she’d ask, gazing up at her lanky son with a smile. She was always worried about the three men in her life wasting away and that I in particular didn’t eat enough. Then I didn’t hear from the expectant mother of my child for another two months. It was just around the New Year that she phoned to ask if we could meet in a café.