History. a Mess. Read online

  Praise for

  Sigrún Pálsdóttir

  “Absolutely brilliant from beginning to end.”

  —Halla Oddný Magnúsdóttir, National TV

  “An amazing story…. A very memorable reading

  experience, and in spite of a serious undertone

  there’s a very finely tuned quiet humor.”

  —Júlía M. Alexandersdóttir, Morgunbladid

  “A complex and arresting novel where a super precise

  style and an ingenious construction come together.”

  —Nomination Committee for the Women’s Literature Prize

  “Like a cubist work of art.”

  —Jóhanna María Einarsdóttir, DV

  HISTORY.

  A

  MESS.

  Sigrún

  Pálsdóttir

  Translated from the Icelandic

  by Lytton Smith

  Copyright © 2016 Sigrún Pálsdóttir

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Lytton Smith

  First edition, 2019

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940953-98-4 / ISBN-10:1-940953-98-7

  This project and its translation are both supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts

  This project is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

  Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America.

  Text set in Garamond, a group of old-style serif typefaces named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamont.

  Design by N. J. Furl

  Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press:

  Dewey Hall 1-219, Box 278968, Rochester, NY 14627

  www.openletterbooks.org

  Contents

  S. B., Diary for 1642/1643. Bod. MS. 3971 (Pick) 8vo

  Six Hundred Pages Later In Another City: Reykjavík

  Hallway

  Then she smiles slyly, almost warmly, as she fetches a little book and holds it out toward me

  I set the manuscript down on the table and thought to myself it was probably the last time I’d handle the old tome

  So it’s not exactly a real conversation

  “Right,” he said, smirking as though he’d half expected me

  Renaissance Man

  I pretend to write. Then I start to write. To write off Diana

  And it’s Bonný who breaks the silence, raising the question of whether this all has anything to do with the professor

  Flipping through, my thumb on the fore edge. Again and again. I reckon that one out of every three times the pages fall in such a way that the book opens where my secret lies

  I no longer know if I’m watching or imagining what’s in front of me

  I have to admit that I don’t entirely understand where Mom is headed with these words. I’m not sure she knows, either

  He lay on his side in his suit the way he would at a picnic, though I’d never seen him lying like that on the living room floor before

  To my mother

  For my mother

  HISTORY.

  A

  MESS.

  S. B., Diary for 1642/1643.

  Bod. MS. 3971

  (Pick) 8vo

  This day, after I was redie, I did eate my breakfast.

  Day 201. And with these words, I had written this same sentence out two hundred and one times. And, following on from it, the paragraph comprising each journal entry. The task had already taken me about six months: despite the incessant repetition, the linguistic nuances in this cramped ancient manuscript were significant enough to cause me considerable labors. And still the result was always the same: nothing of note. Nothing but rigid, rather uninspiring testimony to a humble existence, an existence to which it was practically impossible to accord any greater meaning, even though it was 365 years old. But I was determined to finish, to keep following the thread. To keep scrutinizing nothing. And so I did until it hit me. Much longer than all the other entries, a piece that opened with one, and only one, heading:

  The day 203

  This was around noon, but by the time I had made my way through both pages, it was closing time at the library. I looked at my transcription. It took me a little while to fully realize what I’d discovered:

  This day, after I was redie, I did eate my breakfast. Went down finding my father gone to London. After I finished the picture of Lady Cowley in little I Painted over ye 3d Time a side face of Mrs Meriton. Lady Bucks picture done over with white poppy oil as thin done over as I could.

  That done Mr. Jones, who stayes at My Lords house, came hither to the Paynting roome for his final sitting of his picture done upon 3 qtr Sacking. Mr Jones sat with admirable and unvariable patience. He is a very excellent young man & by whose conversacon I learn to observe the very glancing of his eyes. Every lowly grace of his face. He sat for 4 hourse tell I had pfectly finisht ye face to my owne satisfaction. He thought his picture mighty like him and colored exceedingly rarely but the colouring of the face to be a little forced.

  Mr Jones being out of doors I did some thing about the house tell my father was back from his journey with a pacell of Pink made by Mr Petty and another of blew black and primed paper for study. After we supped on pease porridge and bread I went to Ye Chamber. After reading of the Humanitie I was busie fouldinge some linan and airinge clothes tell all most night. So to bed wher many sundrie distractions withdrew my mind so I was weak and had paine in my head.

  The custodian at the manuscript library, a young, athletic man, rested his hand lightly and just for a moment on my shoulder. Then he tapped the index finger of the same hand against his delicate watch. I closed the book at once, returned it to its box and gave it to him. I gathered my things together, rose from the table, walked out of the room, slowly passing along the long hallway, all the way trying to hold back the smile that played behind my lips. There was no doubt the creator of that famous portrait of Viscount Tom Jones was my diary writer, S. B. But could it be that S. B. was a woman? Busie fouldinge some linan and airinge clothes? A trailblazer? Had I just found a new beginning in the history of Western art? Frenzied jubilation thrilled through my body, words burst within me freighted with tremendous power, inside my head sentences and then pages formed one after the other so that by the time I stepped out of the building into the outside courtyard, my introduction was well underway.

  Out on the street, nothing was the same. I wasn’t the same. I could sense it in the slightest gesture, the way my arms swung back and forth, my hips moving rhythmically side to side, my hair billowing in the warm spring breeze, and by the time I had turned onto the path that leads to the church and had gone past a young man with a guitar—at which point I entirely surprised myself by letting a ten-pound note float down into his case—my thesis was fast taking shape. It was practically fully formed by the time I left the city center, those beautiful surroundings to which I belonged during the day and which made all my miniscule, dispensable thoughts about life in centuries past worth anything each day. Reflections which had hitherto somewhat lost their meaning when I, at the end of my workday, left the ancient buildings and headed home to the grim, inescapable existence that was my part of the city: Low-rise precast concrete houses. Grouped in long rows. Washed out in a monotone overcoat the color of cream. Seventies residences that seemed about to collapse under the conflicts taking place inside them.

  My neighbor slammed her front door behind her and strode rapidly away from the house while the shouting from inside her home fell silent. I do not remember how she responded to my greeting as we pas
sed; I was lost in my reflections, unaware whether I said hello to her, so deep was I in thought over the day’s discovery. By now, I had the whole introduction in my head. Time for the preface. I would, of course, express gratitude to Professor Lucy for having entrusted this large project to me, and to Dr. Caplan and his colleagues for their advice and for something I might call inspiration. To Mrs. Mary Howard for teaching me to read the old hand. And perhaps it would be right to mention all the help I’d received from people at the museum. The young custodian in the manuscript library? Presumably he would be helping me more in the foreseeable future. Was it going to be five years of work? For a moment, it even dawned on me to thank the professors at the Royal College of Art for having ruthlessly rejected me, an event that had indirectly pushed me toward this international discipline, art history, in which I was now bound to play a major role. No, the idea was just a bit of fun; better to nourish the joy now stirring inside me after the difficulties and disappointments of the past year. But next I would absolutely thank Dad and my friend Sigga. Possibly Bonný and Tína too, for being such a source of amusement and encouragement. And Hans, of course. Maybe for having made the decision to complete his own studies here, which meant I ended up in exactly this place and not somewhere else. No, surely I could find something better to say about Hans. There was time enough for that. But Mom? How to thank her? The answer was obvious, and came to me by the time I inserted my key in the lock on the flame-red front door: the thesis would, of course, be dedicated to my mother!

  I closed the door behind me. Hans wasn’t home. I stood in the middle of the living room, looked down at the beige carpet, and imagined the letters printed on the white page immediately following the flyleaf: To my mother. Then I heard a heavy thud from the other side of the thin partition wall, as though someone had kicked it: “Bugger!” My neighbor, getting ready for the evening. I lay on the couch, laced my fingers behind my neck. I looked at the card panels trying to free themselves from the ceiling above me, and thought that it would perhaps be more beautiful this way: For my mother.

  Six Hundred Pages Later

  In Another City:

  Reykjavík

  Hallway

  “And then what?” I’m the one asking the question. Here in my dressing gown. In a conversation I’m beginning to fear will have no end.

  “Well,” says my sister-in-law, vacantly, an automated prelude to what follows: “I simply pointed out to them that one way out of the problem was for everybody to sit down and write out all the things that trouble them about their working conditions.” There’s a short pause as she dangles her keychain ring from her middle finger and conceals it in her palm like castanets; she sets off along the hallway, taking slow steps as her lips let out these words: “For just as the written word can help people express complex feelings, through it we can also recognize and understand the insignificance and frivolity of the problems we face. Or, as they say, everything looks better on paper!”

  And now, all at once, I feel her words somehow directed toward me in particular, feel that I must now start writing down whatever nonsense I can—but then I stop thinking about it, because as my sister-in-law’s account of the bruised egos in her departmental meeting approaches its peak with a description of the excessive response one of her colleagues made to the idea of these “worry notes,” her statement that “everything looks better on paper,” I notice a door on the living room wall. It’s a door I don’t feel I’ve noticed before. I get up and stand deathly still while I stare at it before me, but my sister-in-law has reached the front door. She is now talking about baggage and boxes, all the metaphors of this hobbyhorse of hers and is more like herself than she was. Because, despite her social standing, despite being part of Icelandic academia, it’s unusual for her to use words like frivolous. Less so the written word, which is so clearly absurd in her case, but there’s no time to reflect on that now as I make my way out of the living room in her wake, heading toward the entrance, pondering this door in my head while waiting for her to show herself out.

  My sister-in-law has grasped the knob and is about to open the door, but hesitates an eternal moment as she realizes that she has forgotten to ask me how I’m doing. Her rhetorical question comes in the form of a suggestion that maybe I should use my sick leave, “I mean, this period of time,” to read her latest blogpost: “The Great Importance of the Present Moment.” She roughly explains the gist to me, guides the conversation to another topic, and reminds me to talk to “that Diana.” Finally wraps things up: “Alright, hon, talking cures.” She turns the knob without opening the door while she tugs, unsuccessfully, her tiny denim jacket’s bodice over her ample bosom and says: “The final spurt can be almost everlasting, I remember when I finished my own thesis and …”—and with this the front door opens. And with it the heavens open! Black clouds stand out against light pillows that stand out against the sunshine and the calm skies, and I stare into the open endlessness, into the beauty I once dreamed about depicting, and I cannot help but once again rehearse the event that put an end to all those intentions. But there is nothing to be done, and I start pondering something unrelated, not coming to my senses until the scattering of birds from a huge oak tree in the park on the other side of the street, swooping up into flight; I study my sister-in-law’s carefully ruffled chestnut hair as she takes heavy but carefree steps away from my house. Ready to wrestle with some new scientific mystery of human interaction and behavior. All the pregnant moments in time the confused people of this world forget to enjoy. The academic delegate for the growing business of mindfulness and life-coaching whose own existence is predicated on the message that each person’s problem is hidden from themselves.

  I close the door and push my face up against it. The great importance of the moment. I draw deep breaths and then walk, overly quiet, practically backward, into the living room. It’s no more than three or four steps. How can I have missed seeing this door in the six whole days I’ve been living here? Was it here yesterday? I don’t dare answer that question right away; I sit on the couch and retrieve the crumbled rectangle of paper, the business card my sister-in-law handed me, from my clenched palm; I caress it and try to smooth it flat.

  Díana D. Lárusdóttir

  Life Coach

  Member of The International Coach Federation (ICF)

  Fear is that little darkroom

  where misconceptions are developed.

  Right! I feel myself dissolving as I sit here trying to see myself through my sister-in-law’s eyes and in the company of the person named on the card. Who was she to say goodbye the way she had? Had she figured out my situation? As soon as I pose these questions, it occurs to me that her loquacity is a telltale sign she suspects I’m facing something more than a severe headache. That I have some kind of theoretical dilemma: “The final spurt can be almost everlasting.” Intuition, or drivel?

  For now, I lean toward the latter; I stand up and stick the card in my dressing gown pocket. I walk toward the door. It’s slightly shorter than the rest of the doors in the apartment. I run my fingers over the door’s plain surface, grab the handle and start to push it down. Then I break off, relaxing my grip; I bend down and gently put my face up against the door, one eye to the keyhole. At first, there’s nothing but darkness, so black it’s like there’s nothing inside, as though the wall is right up against the door. Eventually, the darkness dilutes and I think I discern a faint light a distance back. I straighten up and regard the door. I knock on the wall around the doorframe. Then I grab the handle quickly and go to open it. The door, of course, doesn’t budge. I start to shove and push the door, to pull at it, suddenly stopping when I sense someone standing behind me.

  My husband, Hans. In front of me, now. Me here with the door at my back. Where did he come from so suddenly, here in the living room with two shopping bags, his face at once questioning and smiling? “What?” I say. He replies, “What what?” Kisses me and smirks. Then he takes the bags into the kitchen. I trail behind
him.

  Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this door since we moved in? Perhaps for the same reason as the truth about my many years of research refuses to come to the surface: I cannot, of course, bring myself to think about it, no, not so much as put it into words inside my own head. And all around me there’s a wonderful silence, a momentary understanding that there’s been a little dent to my health, nothing more, that has caused my studies to have been suspended for the foreseeable future.

  I cut some vegetables, wondering how to find words for the topic. How to phrase this question: “What’s that door in the living room, Hans?” “There’s a door in the living room?” “Hans, did you notice that door?” “You know, I never noticed that door until today.” Perhaps it’s more than just a matter of phrasing, I think, and take the hot dish out of the oven; as we sit down at the table, I realize that time is running away from me. Or, rather, that it isn’t working in my favor: after having set the table, my opportunity to articulate my question has gone. Or am I deliberately second-guessing my words? Am I creating suspense and expectation out of the unsaid, seeking something to rack my brain over amid my intolerable existence? Might I have taken it upon myself to imagine a door, given the dead-end my life has run into? Unless, perhaps, this is the door of that “little darkroom” that houses all the false ideas only the Díana D.s of this world can correct.

  I look down at my plate. Nothing is about to happen here. How could my life undergo so much change in so short a time and yet return to the same conformity this absurd picture of the two of us here at the table suggests? I look at Hans chewing his food but hear nothing. So comfortable in his own skin, tender in some remote way, but when I tell him about his sister’s visit and everything she had to say, he looks at me in a way that says, despite everything, we’re in this together. Because Hans perceives the gap between me and the others, and nothing ties two people together more tightly than that kind of understanding. Even if that person can seem occasionally distant, like Hans, so lost in his world that if you don’t reach out, grasp hold of him, he floats away, as he’s doing now, as I’m letting him do. I’m still trying to figure out what his reaction would be if I reached out for him and laid my cards on the table. Cards on the table. I suspect that his reaction would be sensible. And prudence is no use to me now. My problem calls for a radical solution.