Iceland review - 2019, Page 123

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Iceland Review
amma. Your grandmother, I said. Your amma bought
them somewhere.” It was on a spring trip to Ireland
with the Touring Club. They’d taken the ferry to one
of the little islands in Galway Bay and, given there
wasn’t much industry left, they had a seaside market
with all kinds of tourist tchotchke there. Elenóra had
admired the coasters, which were made by an artist
who lived on the island and were nicer and consid-
erably more expensive than the bric-a-brac in the
other stalls. He popped out while she was browsing
at another stall and snuck back to buy them. Then,
months later, he surprised her with them at home
in Iceland on her birthday. She’d been astonished to
see them again.
“They’re so pretty,” says his granddaughter,
sounding like a little girl begging her parents for
a toy in a shop window. “What kind of flowers are
they?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” answers Sólmundur. “Some
wildflower, I expect.” There’s a bunch of elderflow-
ers in her coaster, their white petals as small and
delicate as butterfly wings. The boy picks up his own
and examines it. His has two bluebell sprigs criss-
crossed in the middle. He quickly loses interest and
puts the coaster back under his cup. At one point,
these coasters were all over the house. Elenóra
always had a glass of water or teacup beside her. Now
they’re just stacked on the table except for the one
that’s on the arm of Sólmundur’s TV chair. That one
has a spray of little buttercup petals and is generally
the only one he uses.
“Well, they’re really pretty anyway,” repeats the
girl and puts the coaster back under her cup, much
to Sólmundur’s relief.
“Yeah, nice,” says the boy.
The girl looks around the living room at the
paintings on the wall and all the statuettes and
curios that are arranged between the books on the
shelf and in the tall, glass case in the corner, memen-
tos from countless journeys with their travel group
back and forth across the world.
“Amma had such good taste, didn’t she?” she
asks them. “She bought such pretty things.” She
turns back around. “That reminds me. I meant to
ask you about something. Do you remember amma’s
necklace? The one with the colourful beads?”
Sólmundur crosses his legs. “Your amma had
a great deal of jewellery,” he answers. He should
know – he’d bought most of it himself. Was always
giving her necklaces and bracelets. After her
funeral, Sólveig accused him of never having known
any other way to tell her mother he loved her than
to spend money on her. “Which is why she wore all
those necklaces and trinkets you came home with.
She wore them for you.” It was clear from the heat in
her voice that it had been weighing on her for a long
time. That was their last real conversation – maybe
their only one – and he hadn’t even had it in him to
contradict her. It was as if she’d forgotten that he
and Elenóra had already gone through all sorts of
things when she came into being, not to mention all
the years after their daughter moved out. Children
think they know everything about their parents’
marriage, despite participating in such a small part
of it.
“You’ve got to remember that necklace,” says
his granddaughter. She gropes the air in front of
her, trying to grasp and shape the necklace that’s
so clear in her memory. “Amma wore it a lot. It had
these little beads and pearls on a thin chain – all dif-
ferent sizes and colours. She’d often let me play with
it and wear it when we came to visit.”
He knows exactly what necklace she’s talking
about. It was a birthday present. He bought it when
they’d just moved into their first apartment, a base-
ment hovel not far from Hlemmur bus station. It was
a cheap bauble, not nearly as nice as the jewellery
he’d yet to buy her. It was probably the memory of
that first home that explained why the necklace was
so special to Elenóra. She wore it a lot, even when
they were just pottering about at home. The girl
continues describing it and angling for informa-
tion. An image of her as a child suddenly appears in
Sólmundur’s mind: a little girl with thick, nut-brown
hair in a bushy Cleopatra cut around her smiling
face, a shapeless necklace wound twice around her
neck, prancing through the apartment like a pag-
eant queen in her grandmother’s high heels. Or was
that Sólveig in Elenóra’s shoes? Wearing Elenóra’s
necklace?
“I don’t remember,” he says.
“Okay, no problem,” says the girl. “I was just
wondering what happened to it. Amma kept it in a
little wooden box in her dresser with other jewellery
and little things. She told me once that I could have it
when I grew up.”
“I don’t remember it,” he says, and she nods and
looks at her brother, who is munching on another
piece of pastry. Elenóra’s jewellery is still in the
dresser in the bedroom in an old cigar box that they
brought home from Cuba. When he’d finally finished
the cigars, having given most of them away, she
scolded him for trying to throw out the box. “You
can’t just throw away something so beautiful,” she
said as she fished it out of the trash. She kept various
little things that were special to her in the box. Some
jewellery, but also letters and photos and a lock of
her mother’s hair that was tied with a thin ribbon
and wrapped in wax paper. Sólveig’s baby teeth were
also in there, in a silk bag from the perfume he’d
given her one Christmas. She found a use for every-
thing. The box still has a bit of a scent. The dry scent