Butterflies in November

FIFTY-TWO

The boy wants to learn how to knit to be able to make socks for his unborn sisters. I’ve found a woman who can teach him garter stitching. She lives in the house next door to my sign language teacher’s, is eighty-six years old and every month delivers a hand-knit Icelandic woollen sweater with a reindeer pattern to the co-op. But I still feel I need to get Auður’s approval before buying the yarn and number three knitting needles. She thinks it’s the best plan she’s heard in a long time.

“I think he’s growing and getting taller,” I tell her, “the clothes I bought for him last month are getting too small; I think he’s stretched by about two centimetres.”

“New clothes often shrink in the wash. And what about you,” she asks, “have you met some fun people? Have you revived any old memories, done any long-line fishing on the pier?”

“I’m not sure I want to be taken care of,” I say.

“What do you mean taken care of?”

“The men here are so considerate; they want to fuss over me.”

The boy chooses a yellow ball of wool and a green one. So that the babies won’t be confused with each other when they lie side by side on the bed, he explains to me in sign language.

The old woman receives us in a spotted dralon apron and hunched back. She’s quite a lady, her neighbour tells me, a well of knowledge on premonitions and guiding spirits. We walk into a roasting living room; all the radiators have clearly been turned up to the hilt and the windows are closed. There are four woollen rugs on the floor. On the dining table there is a pile of thick-buttered skonsur pancakes with pâté and a plate of cookies. She’s done her Christmas baking, and I recognize some of Granny’s specialties: spesíur cookies, half-moons, vanilla rings, Jewish pastries and raisin buns. There are also marble cakes and twisted kleinur doughnuts, as well as bottles of soft malt and orange. Our contribution is a large box of chocolates with a picture of the Dettifoss waterfall on the lid. She takes it and says there was no need, before swiftly slipping it into a cupboard. I seem to catch a glimpse of other Dettifoss waterfalls beside the neatly folded bedclothes.

The boy knows how to behave and immediately sits at the laid table, after greeting the old lady, and spreads the napkin on his lap. The woman sits opposite him with the knitting needles and a ball of light green wool. They’re both wearing hearing aids and glasses. It transpires that she’s recently had a hip replacement, feels totally reborn, and has enrolled for a country line-dancing course. She asks me if we’re cold and if we can feel the draught; she’s had problems with her heating, apparently. By the time I leave them to go into the next house for my sign language class, Tumi is placing his third slice of cake on his plate and has downed half a bottle of malt, while the old lady has already knitted the first row of a light green sock.

The neighbour’s quilt smells of mild laundry detergent; I think he’s only been able to sleep there once since the bedclothes were last changed.