The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

16 Gudjón and Dóra 2009

Simplicity is number one in this garage. Everything I need is here because I don’t need anything. Just drugs, food and the net.

Yeah, and cigarettes: seven a day.

My bed is an old but good hospital bed that got wheeled down the road from the clinic, all the way here, thanks to the initiative of some good women. I can adjust my back and neck, which I normally keep quite high. My pillow is propped up against a sturdy, windowless wall that faces southwest and shields me from all of life’s showers, like the man I never found. The wall opposite me faces northeast and contains a door with a glowing knob and, to the left of it, three small windows, high up. The one furthest to the left offers me a view of Lennon’s light pillar on dark autumn nights.

Then, on the left side, is a thin, non-soundproof partition, concealing the garage and Gudjón’s junk. To the right, along the eastern wall, is a kitchen unit with a sink, a refrigerator and hot plates, and my daily ordeal sits in the corner by the door: the toilet cubicle. It’s a strange society that we live in that forces its elderly to walk. I’ve repeatedly tried to point this paradox out to the girls – in the olden days, even the poorest of the poor had the right to defecate in bed! – but always in vain.

‘Sorry, we can only assist people with ILS.’

‘What’s ILS?’

‘Independent life skills.’

‘But I don’t have them, never had!’

I forgot to mention the bedside table, a four-legged antique from Grandad Sveinn and Grandma Georgía, carved out of the Danish family tree. On top of it I keep an ashtray, an heirloom from Dad, made out of German brass. Oh yes, and then there’s the antique desk chair by my bedside, which leans inexplicably forward. Awaiting visitors with infinite patience. I sometimes use it as a walking frame to help me along the Via Dolorosa.

All the fixtures are the fruit of Gudjón’s labours. Where would I be without him? In addition to the toilet, he set up the kitchen unit and partitioned off the garage, varnished the floor, and adjusted the lights. He’s a craftsman by nature, like every other Icelandic male. We’ve always been such a keen DIY nation. People are either knocking down walls, building verandas or fixing the wiring, all for the sake of patching up their marriages. But everyone knows that modern difficulties all stem from what I call male inertia. Marital problems didn’t exist until men stopped working at sea and started pottering about at home on weekends. Men have finally understood this themselves and try to fill all that unfortunate free time on their hands with imaginary urgent tasks. ‘I promised Gummi I’d help with the summerhouse,’ I heard him say on the other side of the partition the other week. Yeah. There’s obviously no marital hell in Iceland you can’t build a veranda over.