The Greenhouse

Forty-two

As I’m about to set off for the garden the following morning, Father Thomas knocks on my door to say he has some results on the matter.

— The body is discussed in one hundred and fifty-two places in the Bible, death in one hundred and forty-nine, and roses and other forms of plants in two hundred and nineteen instances. I counted them for you. Plants took the longest; there are fig trees and grapevines hidden all over the place. The same applies to fruit and all the types of seeds.

He hands me a semi-crumpled sheet of squared paper with three columns of figures, and points at the totals he has double underlined at the bottom of each one, to corroborate his words; these three figures say everything that needs to be known about what lies in my heart.

— There you have it in black and white, he says. The body, death, and roses, as if he were presenting some old pulp fiction paperback to me.

— You should look into it when you get a chance, he adds. The sheet only contains a load of numbers that have been written with a blunted pencil, no scriptural references or page numbers.

Then he says:

— Let’s have an espresso and a bun before you go off to the garden.

As we’re heading toward the café, Father Thomas suddenly remembers something else.

— There’s also a letter to you, he says, pulling an envelope out of his pocket and handing it to me. It’s not Dad’s handwriting, although I wouldn’t put it past him to send me a whole handwritten speech by post, on top of our conversations on the phone. Father Thomas points at the stamp and asks me about the bird.

— A snow bunting, I say.

The letter is from Anna, one-and-a-half pages written in big letters. I race over the pages and then read them again carefully. She gives me the latest news on my daughter, who’s growing well, has six teeth and two more on the way. She’s a wonderful girl and such a luminous child, a real light, she writes. She winds off by asking me to ring her as soon as possible and includes a phone number. I needn’t be worried, though, she says, it’s just something she wants to ask me about. Attached to the letter are two new photographs of Flóra Sól, about nine months old. She is in blue, padded overalls with a white hood, and stares at the photographer with big bright eyes. I glance at the postmark; the letter was posted eight days ago. I last saw my child and her mother two months ago when I was saying good-bye to them.

— Is everything OK back home? Father Thomas asks.

I glance at the clock. It’s a quarter to eight, a bit early to call home. I’ll wait till the afternoon when I’m finished in the garden.