Butterflies in November

ONE

Thank God it wasn’t a child.

I unfasten my safety belt and leap out of the car to examine the animal. It seems to be pretty much in one piece, totally unconscious, with a dangling neck and bleeding chest. I suspect a crushed goose heart under its oil-soiled plumage.

Papers flew out of their folders as I screeched to a halt, translations in various languages are scattered on the floor, although an entire pile of documents has remained intact on the crammed back seat.

The good thing about my job — and one of the perks that I never hesitate to remind my clients of — is that I deliver everything to them in person, drive over to them with proof-read articles, theses and translations, as if they were Thai noodle salads and spring rolls. It might seem old-fashioned, but it works. People like the tangibility of paper and, for one brief moment, to glimpse into the eyes of the stranger who has, in some cases, peered into the essence of their souls. It’s best to deliver right before dinner, I find, just as the pasta is reaching cooking point and cannot be left a second longer, or when the onion has been fried and the fish lies waiting on a bed of breadcrumbs, and the master of the house hasn’t had the good sense to turn off the heat under the frying pan before answering the door. In my experience that’s the quickest way to get through it. People don’t like inviting guests into a house smelling of food or to get sucked into a discussion with a stranger when they’re standing there in their socks or even bare-footed, in the middle of a narrow hallway crammed with shoes and surrounded by squabbling children. In my experience these are the ideal circumstances in which to settle a bill with the least likelihood of people trying to persuade me to knock off the VAT. As soon as I tell them I don’t take credit cards, they put up no resistance and swiftly write me a check and grab their delivery.

When people come to me in the small office space I rent down by the harbour, they normally give themselves plenty of time to ponder on my remarks and convince me of their good intentions, of their in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, and precisely why they decided to word things in the way they did. It’s not my job to rewrite their articles, they tell me, pointing out that in such and such a paragraph I skipped nine words, but simply to correct typos, as one of my customers put it, as he was adjusting his glasses and tie in the mirror in the hallway and flattening his sideburns.

The idea wasn’t to oversimplify complex concepts, he says, the article is geared to experts in the field. Even though I had refrained from making any comments on his dubious use of the dative case in his Dam Project Report, I did wonder whether the word beneficial, which cropped up more than fourteen times on one page, might not occasionally be replaced by alternative and slightly more exotic adjectives, such as propitious or advantageous. This wasn’t something I said out loud, but simply a thought I entertained to perk myself up. Once these issues have been settled, some men like to say a little bit about themselves and also to ask some questions about me, whether I’m married, for example, and that kind of thing. On two or three occasions I’ve even toasted bread for them. I have to confess, though, that I didn’t write my ad. It was my friend Auður, who obviously got a bit carried away. Overkill isn’t my style:

I provide proof-reading services and revise BA theses and articles for specialized magazines and publications on any subject. I also revise electoral speeches, irrespective of party affiliations, and correct any revealing errors in anonymous complaints and/or secret letters of admiration, and remove any inept or inaccurate philosophical or poetic references from congratulatory speeches and elevate obituaries to a higher (almost divine) level. I am fully versed in all the quotations of our departed national poets.

I translate from eleven languages both into and out of Icelandic, including Russian, Polish and Hungarian. Fast and accurate translations. Home delivery service. All projects are treated as confidential.

I pick up the lukewarm bird I’ve just run over and assume it’s a male. By a cruel twist of fate, I recently proof-read an article about the love lives of geese and their unique and lifelong fidelity to their mates. I scan the flock in search of his widowed companion. The very last members are still waddling across the slippery icy road, towards the sidewalk on the other side, spreading their big orange webbed feet on the pavement. As far as I can make out, none of them has stepped out of the flock to look for her partner and I can’t see any likely match for the bird I’m holding in my arms. I have, however, recently developed the knack for distinguishing black cats on the street from each other on the basis of their responses to caresses and sudden emotional reactions. The thing that surprises me the most, as I stand there in the middle of the road, still holding the fairly plump animal by the neck, is that I feel neither repulsion nor guilt. I like to think of myself as a reasonably compassionate human being; I try to avoid confrontation, find it difficult to reject requests delicately put to me by sensitive males, and buy every lottery ticket that any charity slips through my mailslot. And yet, when I go to the supermarket later on and stand there in front of the butcher’s slab, I’ll feel the same rush of excitement I get before Christmas, as I muse on the spices and trimmings, and wonder whether the pattern of the Goodyear tire will be visible under the thick wild game sauce.

“Well then, good year to you in advance,” is what I’ll say to my guests at the surprise dinner party I’ll throw on a dark November night, without any further explanations.

I rip out several pages of a painfully tedious article about thermal conductors to place under the bird, before carefully lowering the carcass into the trunk. It’s obviously ages since I opened it, because I discover that it is almost completely full of paper towel rolls that I bought to sponsor some sports excursion for disabled kids — a good job I didn’t opt for the prawns.

The goose won’t suffer the same fate, because I’m about to spring a fun culinary surprise on my husband, the great chef himself. First, though, I was planning on taking one last detour to an apartment block in the Melar district to do something I’d told myself I would never do again.