The Greenhouse

Forty-three

I feel uneasy and also sense some insecurity in the voice of my daughter’s mother. She says she’s going to go abroad to take a postgrad in human genetics, but she has to finish her thesis first, after which she has to go to the college for an interview and find some accommodation for herself and the child.

She was wondering, she says — and her voice suddenly grows so faint that I think I’m about to lose the connection — if I could be with Flóra Sól while she’s finishing her thesis and preparing herself. It might be for like a month, she says in an almost tapering voice.

— She’s a very sweet and easygoing child, I hear her say.

Her request throws me completely.

— I also think it’s good for you two to get to know each other, Anna continues. After all, she’s your daughter, too, and you have to bear your part of the responsibility.

She’s right, I was partly responsible for the conception of the child. I’ve replayed that scene in the greenhouse hundreds of times in my head and think it must have been some stranger, some other man that must have done the deed.

— I can’t come home, I say, I’m stuck here with at least another month’s work.

— I know, she says quickly, I’d bring Flóra Sól over to you. Your dad tells me that you can pretty much set your own timetable, that you’re learning some rare dialect and thinking things over.

So that’s what Dad is saying, that I’m thinking things over. My gardening doesn’t even come into the equation.

I try one last card:

— The place isn’t exactly on the beaten track and it’s quite complicated to get here. I don’t think it’s a very suitable journey for an eight-month-old child.

— Almost nine months now, says Anna.

— Yeah, for an almost nine-month-old child, I say. After the flight, you’ve got to change trains four times and then take a bus from the next town because there are no trains here. There are two buses a day.

— I know, she says in a low voice, I’ve looked it up on the map. Flóra Sól won’t be a problem, she’s a very manageable child, as you’ll get to realize. It’s no bother traveling with her, she eats when she’s hungry, sleeps when she’s tired, and always wakes up happy. She also likes observing people and following what’s going on around her. She’s never been abroad, says Anna, as if this were a vital ingredient for the development of a nine-month-old child.

I somehow get the feeling that the decision has already been made, that the mother of my child will come with my roughly nine-month-old Flóra Sól and that I won’t be given any chance to think the matter over. She’s obviously thought this over inside out; Dad must have surely given her his backing in the decision and encouraged her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d even planted the idea in her himself. I can almost hear him say it:

— Sure, it’s a piece of cake, Dabbi.

Just as my life is starting to flow effortlessly, the garden having undergone a great transformation, and I am beginning to be able to exhale simple phrases in a new language, this has to happen. There are only two options for me: to say yes or no. I’ve never been any good at final or categorical decisions that rule out any other possibilities. Or at least not when there are people and feelings involved.

— Could you think about it and give me a call tomorrow? she asks. I sense her unease; she seems to be worried, as if she were already starting to wish she hadn’t called me. I don’t feel particularly good myself. That’s women for you. They’re suddenly there in front of you, on the threshold of a new life with a child in their arms, telling you that you’ve got to bear responsibility for a poorly timed conception, an accidental child.

— I’ll pick you up at the station, I say as if someone else is speaking through me, it’s too complicated getting here by bus.

There’s silence on the line, as if my response had somehow thrown her.

— Don’t you want to think it over and call me tomorrow?

— No, there’s no need, I say and feel how unlike myself I am. Without having any idea of what role Anna has just cast me in or what taking care of the child entails, I don’t want to disappoint the mother of my child or let my daughter down. It’s only fair that I should share responsibility for the child with her mother. I was even present at her birth, although it would be too far-fetched to say that I delivered her or that I was of any use.

— Thank you for taking it so well; to be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. I had no other choice, she says finally, almost in a whisper, as if she had written me the letter as a last resort.

— There’s just one other thing: I’ll bring everything but a bed; do you think you could get a cot for Flóra Sól? Just for a while, it can be secondhand.