Butterflies in November

SEVENTEEN

On the threshold of a new life, it is important to shed all the things you don’t need. Any clothes that can’t fit into one case go to a charity, as do any of the furniture or household appliances that have been allocated to me. As I make a list of my belongings, I am greatly relieved to see they only fill half the squared sheet of a copybook. I would never have imagined such a great sense of liberation. I don’t even need to call a van; the boxes all fit into my back seat over two trips down to the harbour. Just three floors up and there they are, tidily lining the wall in front of the sofa bed in my studio, until I decide to pick them up again and move once more. I’m left sitting with nothing but the bare essentials, although unfortunately I can’t find the cream whisk I was going to use to make mousse au chocolat for Auður when she pops by for a visit.

As I’m struggling to open the front door downstairs, with a box balanced on my knees, my neighbour suddenly appears on the landing of the second floor and rushes in his black socks down the newly washed linoleum, which reeks of ammonia, to open the door for me. He then offers to help me carry the box up to the third floor. He looks like he could be in his fifties and smells of alcohol and aftershave. He gives me a brief summary of himself on our way up the stairs:

“The boy was three when we split up, he’ll be seventeen in nineteen days’ time, then he’ll get his driving licence and the two of us are going off on a hunting trip. He’ll be driving the old banger, while his old man takes it easy in the back seat with his flask. We made a deal when I paid for his driving test that he would drive me geese-hunting. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better, to catch up on things, we’ve waited such a long time for this.”

He has entered the kitchen now and taken out a measuring tape, while I arrange my things.

“If you moved the fridge and got rid of the shower, you could get a small bathtub in here,” he says, measuring vertically and then horizontally, before pulling out a little notebook and scribbling into it with a pencil.

“You girls are so much into bubble baths, I know your type,” he says roguishly as he expertly strokes the white-varnished doorway with the palm of his hand. If we were slightly more acquainted, he would already be at work.

A short while later my neighbour is back knocking on the door again, with a bottle of Captain Morgan rum in one hand and a gold-framed photo in the other. It’s a picture of a drowsy-looking and acned boy with a choppy mop of hair, disproportionate limbs and a headband stretched above his eyes, which fails to fully conceal the bigness of his ears.

I’m in no mood for talking and politely decline his offer of rum. I thank him once more for his help, impatient to see the back of him, so that I can get back to enjoying my solitude again and ponder on my immediate plans for the future.

“Yeah, well I just wanted to reiterate what I said to you earlier, welcome to the building as a fixed resident. It’s always nice to know there’s a woman up the stairs.”

Ten minutes later he is standing in the doorway again, this time with a recipe book under his arm. I give him two eggs from my shopping bag and milk.

On his third and final trip he appears with pancakes and a sugar bowl. I put my papers down to accept the rolled pancakes. He is not going to invite himself in, however, because he is wearing a parka and on his way to the video store to return a DVD which he pulls out of his pocket to show me.

“Can’t say I liked it much,” he says, holding up No Man’s Land.

The film rings a bell, all about a war without winners.

“You just didn’t know who to root for, there were no good guys or bad guys. You couldn’t even tell who the main actor was,” he says, pointing at a list of names on the case by way of proof.

Then he sticks the DVD back into his pocket and cracks his knuckles.

“Right then, better get this film back.” When I’m on my own I normally just make traditional Icelandic pancakes with rice pudding leftovers.