Reply to a Letter from Helga by Bergsveinn Birgisson

Author:Bergsveinn Birgisson [Birgisson, Bergsveinn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2013-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

9

Ever since that evening, I’ve been the one who didn’t go, the one who chose a little farm over love. I admit that sometimes it was difficult. Once, for instance, when I visited your farm as Hay Officer to inspect the hay and livestock, little Hulda came running to me and hopped into my arms. She was about three years old at the time, the poor thing, and knew me only in the way that kin recognizes kin by intuition and sense. An all-encompassing feeling of love poured over me. She had white tresses that sparkled in the sun—they were whiter than swans’ wings—and asked whether I wanted to play with her in the sandbox. In her pure kid’s voice, with wonder in her blue eyes. Then you came out and saw us in the yard; no doubt you remember this. You waved her away. Told her to stop footling around with strangers. That was the word you used—footling.

I went off to the sheep shed. Sat down on the pile of hay where we had made love not so long ago, or so it seemed to me; where what seemed like just moments ago, I watched your breasts bob on your rib cage like swans on the waves.

No matter how I tried to bear up, tears forced their way out of me like spots of blood through gauze. My sobs were distorted. I felt my will sink into my legs; they wanted to get up, march to your door, where I should say to you: “Let’s go.” These words alone. Let’s go. But I hardened my resolve. “Up onto the keel.” I thought of what kind of person I would become in Reykjavík. Destitute with you and three children. Could I love you—and your children with Hallgrímur—under such circumstances? Is it so certain, Helga, that everything would have been fine for us? I would have dug a ditch for you and filled it back up again, the same ditch all my life. I would have walked miles for you every single day, back and forth, wearing out pairs and pairs of shoes, just hoping to be able to touch you with a single fingertip. I would have eaten soap for you, if you’d asked me to. But to abandon myself, the countryside and farming, which were who I am; that I couldn’t do. It was just as well that I pulled myself together. As I was wiping away my tears there in the hay, Hallgrímur appeared in the doorway.

I admit that I sometimes wondered how I might get rid of him and make it look like an accident. That useless excuse for a farmer and lazybones in everything except maybe breaking mares. I thought about asking him to come help me fix the trailer coupler on the Farmall and seeing to it that the tractor kicked into gear—this happened often, by accident—with the throttle set on high, and backed over him before being able to stop. But these were just

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