(National Hospital, Psychiatric Ward,
Children’s Hospital Trust, 02/04/1972)
~ ~ ~
All the women sit in the kitchen and talk. They talk about their jobs and some friends and what’s on their mind.
They tell stories about the old days. I love hearing how everything was in the old days. Back then, everyone was always drunk and lived in turf houses. Also, everyone was really poor and when they went to the movies they ate raisins instead of popcorn.
The women also know tons of stories about people who were total dumbasses as children. One woman, for example, kept peeing herself, even after she’d become a teenager. My mom looked after her and tried to break the habit by making her smell her panties whenever she peed herself. That would make her start to cry. Mom did an impression of her:
— Dob’t bake me smell dem, Gútta, dob’t bake me smell!
But Mom made her sniff her pissy clothes; eventually, she broke the habit, married some guy, and moved to Australia.
Another woman had a speech impediment and couldn’t say arr or ess until she was an adult.
— Hi, my name is Thalla Kwithtinthdóttiw!
They’re fascinating stories. The aunts talk animatedly and mimic people. And then they laugh.
Sometimes, though, they talk about serious things; they know all kinds of horror stories. Some are about people who have gotten injured and died or become cripples. And usually people are injured when they’re least able to afford it, so it’s an especially hard blow for everyone. People are always carefree and merry at the beginning of such stories, but their world comes crashing down in a single moment.
The moral of these stories is that, just because you think that everything is OK, and it definitely seems to be it, actually it often isn’t.
You lower your voice when telling such stories.
They also know stories that make my skin squirm a bit, stories about women who have gotten pregnant and had a baby which at first seemed okay, but then they began to suspect that something wasn’t right. Everyone told them that everything was fine and they were worrying unnecessarily.
— But she didn’t feel right…
And in the end, I always found out that the child was blind, or handicapped, or both.
— She said: Something’s wrong with the baby. No one else saw anything worth checking into. But they took it to the doctor and he looked at it and then it came out…
— It was a mango!
— Exactly. Because she was so old when she gave birth.
— But he’s very nice. Always tidy and clean.
Yeah, exactly. Mangos are usually harmless.
Salla doesn’t say Mong, but mango, like the fruit.
— Like when Halli and Áslaug had that boy…
— That was horrible!
— Yes, it must be awful to have such a deformed child.
— Tragic.
— It didn’t have any eyes! Then again, better that than to be stillborn.
They all nod and nod.
They know so many of these stories. And they know how to tell them. I stand at a distance, drinking in each and every word. It’s like the words are glue; they fix me there.
Some of the stories I’ve heard so many times I’ve got them memorized. But I still love hearing them again.
One story is about a little girl who was always biting other kids. Her mother was completely at a loss what to do, until she said to her:
— If you bite, I’ll hit you in the mouth.
And the next time the girl bit someone, the mother struck her on the mouth so hard it bled.
— But she never bit anyone again after that!
By far the most serious stories are about cancer. That’s very serious. Cancer is a very dangerous disease. It makes people get terribly weak and when Mom goes to visit them in the hospital then they’ve got skeletal faces and it’s like a concentration camp.
— There was nothing left of him, just skin and bones. It was horrible to see him.
— Just like a concentration camp!
Then people die, and it’s better to die than to live with cancer. It’s “good to go.”
I don’t find the cancer stories entertaining. I hope I never get cancer.
While they share stories, they drink coffee and smoke. Mom smokes Winstons. Salla smokes Viceroys, and Gunna smokes Camels.
I like Salla’s cigarettes best of all because she keeps them in a leather case. Indians keep things in leather cases.
When they talk, they also use words that no one else uses. It’s woman-speak. It’s like a code, like they don’t want anyone else to understand what they are saying. Stebbi and I sometimes use cryptography in our tribe of Indians. We use a notebook from the Landbank. The notebook is a little book you get when you open an account, a sort of booklet with saving tips. You can write all kinds of memos in the notebook. Cryptography is very cool. Each character has a specific symbol. Jón is written like this:
My mom sometimes uses strange, made-up words. If someone is angry, then he is foj. When I’m sick, she says I’m sloj. If I’m not sick, but am coming down with something, then I’m dommara-like.
— Is the boy ill?
— Yes, something’s laid him low.
— Is he sloj?
— Well, he’s burning up.
If something is absolute crap, it’s simply moj. And they know odder words, too. It’s fun to listen to them talk.
— Is that a new coat?
— Yes, thanks for noticing. Isn’t it lekker?
— Very smart.
— Gunnar got it for me from London.
— That’s quite a fancy coat.
— Both for special occasions and everyday.
— Isn’t it too long?
— That’s the fashion!
I’m never fashionable. The clothes I wear are principally durable.
— Well, the boy’s wearing fine pants.
— Yes, I got them from the megastore, Hagkaup.
— Aren’t they great?
— Yes, they’re very durable.
— Hagkaup has terrific stuff. And so cheap!
— He always rips the knees.
My pants are called Duffy’s; they’re blue jeans. Mom bought them on sale in Hagkaup. I have several pairs. I like wearing jeans. I also have corduroy pants. I’d rather wear jeans than corduroy. Indians can wear jeans if they aren’t wearing Indian pants. But no Indian goes around in corduroy.
They start in on the makeup. Mom stirs black mud in a coffee cup.
First they put rollers in their hair, then styling gel. Sometimes they also paint their nails. When they do, there’s a very peculiar and pungent odor.
They tilt their heads back. Mom puts cotton patches over the sisters’ eyes and then black mud on their eyelashes with a cotton bud. All the while they smoke and chat. They talk more loudly when their eyes are closed, as if they think that people hear worse with closed eyes. Gunna tells the story of an irritating woman who is working with her at The Sausage Folk. Mom and Salla know the woman and also find her annoying.
— She’s always being a tizpot about something!
— She’s naturally disappointed with things.