The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1968, Qupperneq 51

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
49
HER BOY
by BOGI BJARNASON
He began it by clawing, with his
tiny red nails, at his mother’s breast
when suckling. From that day on he
clawed at her breast, physically and
figuratively, at every turn. At first he
had not the strength nor the means
to hurt her very much, tender as her
breast was; but in time he cut through
the cuticle, where her heart lay shal-
low. As she gave him of her strength
and substance he acquired the means
to tear and, with her heart exposed,
he tore. But through it all she held
him to her bosom, smiling through
tears of pain; for a mother’s heart is
tender to the callow touch.
He was her boy; for had she not
(borne him—borne him in sin and
Shame and the agony of body and soul!
Yet not hers alone, for there was much
of his father in him. He had his
father’s cast of features, evident to the
mother at first sight, wrinkled and
beet-red as he was. But he inherited
more than a flat nose and thick lips;
he also had the cruel and treacherous
spirit of his sire. The mother was
mercifully spared knowledge of this
throughout the period of his puling
infancy, rejoicing in her new-found
love. It fell to her lot to learn of that
as the years went by. Lie was now Her
Boy; she would share him with no one.
Her past had been, almost uniquely,
a bleak and loveless past, with little
of youth and less of kindliness in it.
Always there was the work which had
to be done, much of it plain and
featureless drudgery. She had accepted
this without complaint and without
understanding, as the ox accepts the
plow. In consequence she was grown
up at age 'twelve and beginning to age
at eighteen. Without the groundwork
of comeliness which naturally and
necessarily blooms in the middle teens
of a girl’s life, she was at no time at-
tractive. At her best she was plain; that
was the best that could be said about
her. And but few troubled to say even
that much. Indeed, there was little oc-
casion to say anything about her. She
was Nobody.
Her origin was obscure. The people
with whom she lived and for whom she
slaved had brought her with them
from distant parts. That was as much
as she knew; that was as much as they
cared to impart. Her lot with them
was, indeed, a lowly one. It was that of
the original Cinderella, with this dif-
ference, that she had not the imagin-
ation nor the passions to even wish to
go to the King’s ball. Hence no fairy
godmother, no coach, no glass slippers.
She had not even the purring cat to
comfort her.
Withal it was a featureless existence,
with little of recompense. But deep
within her was that of which she was
not aware—the capacity to love great-
ly, and the capacity to sacrifice her-
self to serve that love. And because
bitterness had not yet thrust its iron
into her soul, it was inevitable that
her Prince Charming should be who-
ever first interested himself in her,
who first spoke a kindly word to her,
Nothing further was needed. In itself
that was a wholly new and wholly
delightful experience in her life. In-
evitably she gave herself into his keep-
ing and as inevitably she fell. It is
painful to have to record that he was
not worthy of that trust; that he