The Tricking of Freya Page 7

  Once during the night I woke to the sound of Birdie and Sigga arguing in hushed Icelandic whispers outside my door. The only word I understood was my name, repeated over and over. Then I heard a clatter of footsteps on the stairs, a slam of the front door, a few revs of the engine on her old VW Beetle, and Birdie was gone. When Sigga opened the door to my room I pretended to be asleep, but all night long I lay awake waiting for the sound of Birdie's footsteps on the stairs. Instead she arrived at dawn outside my window trailing a cloak of feathers. She gathered me up in her arms, still naked and covered in white cream, and flew me out the window and over the lake, holding me in front of her like an offering. Yet she seemed not even to be touching me, her palms barely making contact with my back, and then we were floating, up and away into the lightening sky, the feathers of her cloak soothing the burned surface of my skin.

  6

  The next morning Birdie was gone still. The sun shone onto her empty bed, unmade from the day before. Birdie didn't believe in the daily making of beds. But her desk she had cleared before she left. All the piles of paper her Word Meadow-gone. Maybe she'd packed it into her suitcase. I stood in front of her full-length mirror in my nightie. Red face, neck, arms, legs against white cotton, a burning hot, striped candy cane. I heard a noise downstairs and my heart leapt-maybe Birdie had never left? Maybe she'd spent the night on the couch. But it was only Sigga alone in the kitchen making breakfast. The stove glistened silver, the sink gleamed white again, the cups and dishes that Birdie had piled up were now returned to their proper places.

  "Good morning, elskan." The morning seemed anything but good. Behind her round glasses, Sigga's gray-blue eyes seemed like snowballs, hardpacked and icy. She set a bowl of oatmeal onto the table for me, thick with raisins and topped in brown sugar and cream. I leaned over to take a bite and yelped: the rising steam stung my sunburned cheeks. I began to cry.

  "Whatever is the matter?" Sigga asked.

  "Where did Birdie go?"

  Sigga was silent a moment, lips taut. "Birdie took a little vacation."

  Wasn't Gimli already a vacation? Why would Birdie need to go anywhere else? I suspected Sigga of not telling me the truth. Was that the same as lying? Or maybe it was more like a game of pretend, a game I could play along with. "When is she coming back from her vacation?"

  "Any day now." For an instant Sigga's eyes softened and I could see the blue of them again. But I wasn't hungry. Birdie had taken my appetite on vacation. I swirled my oatmeal with a spoon while Sigga stood at the sink scrubbing the pot.

  "Do you believe in Freyja?"

  "You mean the goddess?" Sigga turned from the sink, her yellow rubber gloves laced in suds. "Elskan," she said. "Nobody believes in Freyja anymore. That was a long, long time ago. Now people only believe in one God. Or none at all."

  If no one believed in Freyja anymore, could she still wear her bird cloak and fly to other worlds? Could she still frolic in the waves with her brother, Freyr, and their father, Njord? How many people needed to believe in her before she could fly again?

  I believe in Freyja, I said. Only I said it to myself. Sigga turned back to the sink and I revisited my cereal, lifting large spoonfuls in the air, then tipping the spoon and watching the oatmeal slide glop by glop into the bowl.

  The Sigga-days had a rhythm the Birdie-days had lacked. I was not allowed out in the midday sun until my burn healed. Afternoons Sigga and I walked down Second Street to the library, where she worked part-time. The Gimli library was called Evergreen, a small one-story brick building under a group of pines. If I got tired of being quiet in the library, I was allowed to sit outside but only under the shade of the trees, where the sun couldn't reach me. Sometimes I lay on my back staring up into branches the green of Mama's eyes. Or I made piles of fallen brown needles, then dashed them with sticks. Mostly I stayed inside, sitting at one of the long tables reading silently, or following Sigga as she returned books to the shelves. It seemed everyone who came in the library asked after Mama. Some of them Sigga introduced to me, but instead of curtsying I stared at the floor in sunburned shame.

  In the evenings we walked down to Gimli harbor and watched the boats returning with tubs of fish still flipping and flopping, squirming and slimy, startle-eyed. "If fish can't shut their eyes, then how do they sleep?"

  Now that Birdie was gone it was Sigga who put me to bed.

  "Nightie time," she'd say. I liked it when she said that, because it could mean two things: time to put on your nightie and time to say good night.

  "Would you like a story," Sigga asked, "or a rhyme, or a song?"

  "A rhyme."

  Tunglid, tunglid taktu mig ... she began reciting.

  When she was done I asked, "What does it mean?"

  Moon, moon, take me up. Carry me up to the clouds. Because there sits my mother and cards raw wool ...

  My sunburn began to peel in large flakes off my skin and still Mama had not come back to Gimli. Every day it was maybe tomorrow. That's what Mama would tell me on the phone. She called each night after dinner from Vera's in Winnipeg. Sigga wouldn't let me talk long. Talking could wear Mama out. Every day it was maybe tomorrow, but when tomorrow came to its end Mama only called instead of coming. I wasn't up to it today, Frey. I'm so sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

  So it was maybe tomorrow for Mama and any day now for Birdie.

  The rule was not to mention Birdie's name while she was gone. But I knew Sigga was thinking about her. When Stefan came by, they talked about Birdie in whispered Icelandic double secrecy-but I managed to figure out that Stefan was receiving phone calls from her. I decided that Birdie was not on vacation, she had run away from home. One night I dreamt she'd joined a circus. She stood on a platform in the middle of the ring, splendid in her cat-fur robe, glowing in the spotlight. People from the audience shouted out questions about the future. But there was only one question I wanted her to answer, and I was too afraid to ask. When are you coming home?

  It was six long days after my mother uncurled from her comma that she finally returned to Gimli. I wore a dress but not the one I'd worn to the fateful coffee party. And I refused to put on the patent leather shoes that had cracked the china cabinet glass. I never wanted to wear them again. Instead I sat barefoot, peeling strips of dead skin off the soles of my feet. The rest of my body had turned from red to tan. My mother didn't know about the sunburn. Sigga said it would only worry her so I never mentioned it on the phone. I wanted to get all the dead skin off before she arrived. But some pieces would not come unstuck.

  As soon as Mama stepped out of Vera's car I could see she was not the same Mama. Her face was pale and her wave was slow motion, fluttery and vague. I ran to hug her, but Vera held up her hand like a stop sign.

  "Gentle, Freya. You have to be gentle with your mother now."

  I stood in front of Mama and let her put her arms around me. "So golden," she said, stroking my face. "My little toasted marshmallow."

  It turned out Mama's balance was off and she tipped over easily. Light gave her headaches so she wore sunglasses all the time, even inside the house. Like a movie star but pale and sad instead of tan and happy. A few times she got dizzy and grabbed on to my shoulder or a chair for support. She said it felt like a stirring inside her head. I imagined an eggbeater whipping her brains into froth. Most of that first day she sat in a brown armchair in the parlor staring out the window. I tried to get her to play Crazy Eights but she kept losing track of the game. I could keep her playing War if I turned over her cards for her. But that made it feel like solitaire.

  Vera stayed for dinner and Stefan came too. It was a welcome-home meal for Mama of roast lamb with mint jelly, boiled potatoes, green beans slick with butter, doughy rolls hot from the oven. Vera and Sigga did most of the talking. Mama took small nibbling bites. I jiggled the mint jelly on my plate with a fork. I wanted to feel happy Mama was back, but it was hard to feel happy with this not-quite-Mama. I longed to see her spruce green eyes behind the sunglasses.

&nbs
p; Sigga was serving saskatoon berry pie for dessert when we heard the front door open then slam shut. A moment later Birdie was standing in the doorway to the dining room.

  "Greetings all!" she sang out. Then she saw Mama and stopped cold, taking in her wan face and dark glasses. "Anna?"

  Mama cringed and gave a little wave.

  Birdie was dressed in a brand-new outfit. It was the shortest skirt I'd ever seen, its magenta color nearly as shocking as its length. We all stared.

  "It's the latest," Birdie announced. Her tights were pale lavender, her top a fringed tunic.

  "Where on earth?" Sigga said finally.

  "Not Gimli, you can be sure!" From the doorway Birdie lifted up a large shopping bag that said Eaton's in fancy letters on its sides. "You didn't think Crazy Aunt Birdie would return empty-handed?"

  Like a miniskirted Santa, she made her way around the table, presenting each of us with a gift. "Unwrapped," she apologized. "No time, no time!" She took a small white box out of the bag first. "For she who rules the roost!" Before Sigga could react, Birdie had pinned something to her dress: a silver and black brooch shaped like a crowing rooster. I thought Sigga might rip it off but she left it on, sitting stiffly with her hands folded in her lap.

  Next to Stefan's plate Birdie placed a small statue of a dog. "For our ever-loyal Stefan. And for the sweetest sister a girl could have ..." She pulled a box of chocolates from the bag and presented it to Mama, who reached for it with two trembling hands. "And our dear Vera." Birdie shook her head. "If only I'd known you'd be here! Nothing for you, I'm afraid."

  Then it was my turn. Birdie stood behind my chair. I couldn't see her but I could hear her excited breathing. "Little Freya," she murmured. "Darling girl." The next thing I knew she'd wrapped a scarf around my neck. It was light blue with a pattern of trapeze artists hanging from swings and clowns turning somersaults. I couldn't help but lift it in front of my eyes and marvel.

  "Thank you, Auntie."

  "Nothing but the best for our little gymnast," she crooned. And then, to my horror, she cried out in a high shrieking voice: I can do a cartwheel! Birdie, look me!

  In that moment I felt my first hate.

  It was Sigga who put me to bed that night because Mama didn't trust herself on stairs. "Nightie time," she said wearily.

  "Why did Birdie bring us presents if she's mad at us?"

  "Birdie does things that are hard to understand."

  "I thought when Mama woke up that meant she was fine."

  "Give her time, elskan. She had a bad fall."

  Then I was alone in the room. No story, no song, no rhyme. I reached under my pillow and found Mama's nightgown. Would she be looking for it? I couldn't bring myself to give it up. Tracing the embroidery with my fingers, I stared out the window into dark night. Moon, moon, take me up ... carry me up to the clouds ... because there sits my mother ...

  7

  In the days that followed Mama's homecoming, Birdie was eager to make amends. It was a pattern I would soon learn to recognize: rages and denunciations, followed by disappearances, concluding with a chastened period of trying to unburn bridges. Respectful to Sigga, solicitous to my frail mother, and toward me-perhaps fearing she'd lost my affection for good-an excess of auntly attention. Since my mother felt unsteady on the stairs, Birdie took it upon herself to put me to bed each night, plying me with bedtime stories the way other aunts might dole out candy. I was a greedy audience. Tales from Birdie's childhood, Norse myths, ghost stories, and sagas -I devoured them all, then begged for more.

  But there was one story I requested again and again. Birdie called it "The End of the World as Olafur Knew It," and she told it like this:

  "The infant who would one day become the grandfather you'd never meet was born in a turf-roofed farmhouse in the East of Iceland with two teeth cutting through his gums.

  "`Skaldagemlur!' cried his grandmother Ingibjorg, who was also the midwife."

  "What's a midwife?" I interrupted.

  "A woman who delivers babies. In Icelandic a midwife is called a ljos- modir, which means light-mother."

  "Were you named after Ingibjorg the light-mother?"

  "Indeed I was."

  "Are you a light-mother too?"

  "Me? No, I'm a word-mother. Now listen." She paused, then switched back into her story voice:

  And so Ingibjorg lifted the newborn in the air and bared his upper lip so his exhausted mother could witness the tiny nubs: a baby skald. Infants born with teeth were called skaldageinlur and destined to become poets. Or so it was said, and so some believed.

  The child Olafur was raised on a farm called Brekka, which sat at the bottom of a cliff so tall and sheer and gigantic it made Brekka look like a tiny dollhouse. In summer, tall grasses and wildflowers topped the turf roof; in winter, lids of snow. Brekka belonged to Olafur's uncle Pall, a farmerpoet, and Olafur's family lived there with him because they couldn't afford a farm of their own. Times were lean in Iceland, people scrambled just to stay alive, and in the summer the farmers worked so hard there was little time for poetry. Winter was another story.

  Winter in Iceland, Freya min, was much longer and darker than here. Little work could be done outdoors-light was scant, the weather forbidding. Dark day after long dark day the Icelanders were trapped inside. How did they stand it? They read. Members of the household took turns reading out loud by the smoky glow of a lamp lit by whale oil: sagas and poetry and the Bible and newspapers and any books they could get their hands on. Books were passed farm to farm. The name for these evening readings was levoldvaka, meaning evening-wake. In Iceland in winter, words took the place of light.

  One night, after the evening reading, Pall took Olafur aside. He had taken a special interest in his nephew, who early on showed signs of the fate his grandmother had predicted for him. There was nothing Olafur loved more than the feel of a good rhyme, the words bouncing off each other like a pair of lambs butting heads in a bright green field. Like the Viking skald Egil Skallagrimsson, Olafur had composed his first poem at the age of three, and there was no stopping him after that. Nor did his uncle try, though he was careful to correct the boy's meter. Now, Pall had something else in mind.

  "Do you know the poem Voluspa?"

  "Of course I know it!" answered Olafur.

  "Recite it."

  Olafur could not.

  "My boy, you can't say you know a poem until you learn it by heart. A true poet brands the words of the best poems into his mind. He breathes them in and out. He speaks them from memory, he can recite them in his sleep. Voluspa is our most ancient poem: it tells how the world began and how it will end. It was composed in the oral tradition, in pagan times before Icelanders knew how to write. I want you to learn it by heart."

  "Isn't it very long?"

  "Sixty-some verses. If you memorize one each day, you'll know the whole by Easter. Then you can surprise everyone with a recital during the evening reading."

  The book was small enough to fit in one hand, to slip into a pocket, and Olafur decided to carry it with him everywhere. The spine was frayed at the top and bottom, exposing the yellowed binding, and the leather cover was worn soft as the underbelly of a newborn lamb.

  "How could the pagans know how the world would end if it hadn't ended yet?"

  "You know what Voluspa means?"

  Olafur shook his head.

  "It means Prophecy of the Volva. A volva was a woman who could see the future. It was she who looked back in time and told how the world began, then looked forward to foretell its end. But enough questions for now. Once you can recite for me the first verse without any mistakes, then you can ask more questions."

  Over the next week Olafur memorized the first verses. He learned about the beginning of time, when there was no sand or sea or surging waves, no earth, no heaven, nothing but the vast chasm called Ginnungagap. When Olafur lay awake at night, the nothingness of Ginnungagap terrified him, impossible to envision. But standing outside on a day when the entire sky
was the same shade of white-gray as the snow-covered valley, it was easier to conjure such nothingness, the earth forming itself from the body of a frost-giant.

  The memorizing of Voluspa became Olafur's secret pleasure. He whispered whole verses to indifferent sheep and into the ears of the winter-furred horses. In bed at night he started from the beginning and went through the poem entire up to that day's verse. To keep himself awake he moved his lips, a light whisper he hoped the others would mistake for prayer.

  Of course his favorite parts were the verses about Ragnarok, when the volva shifts into a deep trance and recounts for the god Odin the menacing events that would one day bring about the end of the world:

  Arm-rings and necklaces, Odin, you gave me To learn my lore, to learn my magic: Wider and wider through all the worlds I see.

  The volva goes on to predict that the ferocious Fenris Wolf will break its fetters and devour the sun, the fire giant Surtr will consume the wondrous world tree Yggdrasil, and the Midgard Serpent that has lain undersea tail in mouth, encircling the entire earth, will rise from the water, spewing poison and whipping up tidal waves of terror. All day long Olafur hears the haunting words as he goes about his chores, and at night as he tries to fall asleep.