The Greenhouse

Sixty-five

Once a week there is a food market in the village, which all the farmers in the area bring their produce to. Sometimes there is also walking livestock, especially hens and other feathered creatures, so I grab the opportunity to take my daughter to see them. The market resounds with voices, bustle, and the cold smell of blood.

— Twi, twi, says the child, pointing at the bloody poultry hanging over our heads.

Just as I’m standing there under the plucked hens, I have a flashback of part of a dream I had last night. In the dream I was shooting a wild bird, although I’m far from being a hunter by nature. I doubt if I could kill an animal, I certainly couldn’t kill any young ones, but if the animal were a fully-grown male animal and the purpose were to feed my family — I’m now reasoning like the father of a family — then there’s a chance that I might kill it fearlessly and even look my prey in the eye. The dream might have something to do with the inner nature of man, Mom would say, with a mysterious air. So I still have Mom by my side to chat and discuss my dreams with.

We move farther into the section where the hares and rabbits are hanging, and I push the stroller through a forest of animals. My daughter leans against the back of the stroller to gain a better view of the hares dangling over her with their drooping heads. They don’t seem to have planned for any tall guests at this market, so I have to stoop under the hairy ears.

I’m not thinking of anything in particular, which is when I’m struck by this preposterous idea, which comes to me like a cat lying on its back with its rubbery pink paws in the air, begging for its belly to be stroked. All of a sudden I can easily see myself as a married man, getting married even, in a church, and see that being with the same woman for the whole of one’s life might be a goal worth pursuing, not necessarily to do anything in particular, but just to be in the same room as her. I’d be willing to bathe the child, change diapers, and have her in her pajamas when her mom came home from the research institute. Then I’d rub almond oil into my daughter’s rosy cheeks so that when she was kissed, my wife would smell the almond oil on her. Then one of us would walk behind the other’s coffin. Unless, of course, we both departed at the same moment, like that couple on the country road; there would be rain and mist on the windshield, and I would be on the point of turning the fan on full blast when, at the same moment, a truck would swerve onto the highway.

I see the trader talking to me, but don’t immediately hear his words.

— Do you want the bigger one or the smaller one? he asks, daddy hare or mammy hare? He is holding the hooked pole he uses to take down the hare carcasses when customers request it. Flóra Sól is all eyes as he yanks the hairy animal off the hook.

— Oh, oh, she says when she sees the animal isn’t moving.

I’m so absorbed in my own uncensored and premature fantasies about marriage that I’m seriously thinking of buying a hare. My gastronomic skills are far from being good enough to be able to handle anything as complex as that, though.

But the trader categorically affirms that it’s easy to cook.

— A two-year-old could cook this blindfolded, he says, if I understood the dialect correctly. I suspect that might have a deeper meaning in the local vernacular.

He says he’ll prepare the animal for me so that all I have to do is butter it with mustard and stick it in the oven.

— That’s it, he says, with a very convincing air as he sharpens his knife.

— For how long?

— Between one to two hours, depending on when you get home, he answers, skinning the animal.

Two hours before dinner I unwrap the skinned violet animal enveloped in wax paper and start cooking. I follow the man’s instructions to the letter and butter the animal with mustard both inside and out. But the thing that takes the longest is figuring out how the gas oven works. Because this is such an unfamiliar recipe I can’t try out any adventurous side dishes. Instead I boil some potatoes and vegetables and make a red wine sauce, similar to the one I’ve made several times with the veal.

When I place the dish with the hare on the table, I sense my female friend is surprised by this evening’s menu.

— Food smells good, she says, looking hesitantly at the meat. Is that rabbit?

— No, hare, I say.

My daughter is visibly excited and claps her hands.

— Twi, twi, she says, miming a bird with her hands.

— Our little harlequin, I say, wondering how I’m supposed to go about cutting the animal I’ve just cooked into consumable units. Anna saves me the bother and cuts the meat; then she cuts it even farther into tiny morsels for eight teeth.

The mustard hare isn’t exactly bad, but it has a peculiar bland taste, that’s exactly the way Anna words it.

— Special, she says, having a second helping, nonetheless. I think it’s quite possible that Anna will eat anything that’s put in front of her.

— I’m sorry for being so busy over the past weeks, she says. I haven’t cooked anything since I got here. I’m no match for you, you’re a fantastic cook. Where did you learn how to cook?

She’s in a dress; this is the first time I’ve seen Anna in a dress. Our daughter is also in her yellow floral dress and best shoes and she’s wearing a bib. They’re both wearing hair clips and look as if they’re celebrating something together. It occurs to me that Anna might have a birthday, that I know practically nothing about her, I don’t even know when my child’s mother’s birthday is.

— No, she says, I had my birthday just before I came here, in April. There was just that kind of food smell in the air that made us decide to dress up for the occasion.