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Authors: Sölvi Björn Sigurdsson

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BOOK: The Last Days of My Mother
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Darkness sprawled across in the living room and Mother and Duncan fell asleep in his bed. I helped Helena pack warm clothes and a raincoat for her trip to Kingussie, the childhood haunt of the Knight in the Kilt. She had agreed to take him to the Scottish Highlands and spend Hogmanay with him at a hotel by Loch Laggan. Duncan had dismissed the idea at first, claiming it was silly to embark on a journey when you were as good as dead—what on earth for? But in the end Mother managed to persuade him to go.

“You'll be here when we get back, won't you, Trooper? Promise me?” Helena said when we carried the cases down into the hall and prepared to say good-bye. I had no answer so I just held her tighter, trying to fill the silence with the only certainty I had—that ahead of me lay events that I could neither handle, nor comprehend. “I know you'll be here,” she said and repeated. “I know you'll be here when we get back.”

And so the days passed until the new year. Mother wrote letters and had a final look at her tapes to make sure nothing was missing. I stayed awake by her side when she slipped into unconsciousness and prepared for the end, either perfectly guileless, or shivering from fathomless misery. We held on for dear life to the only thing that elevated the situation from this bewilderment: to, above all else, follow through with our plan. Maybe it did exist, a million light years from death—the place where people died satisfied and content, happy to shake hands with the Reaper. Maybe
it existed for people who where comatose, lost to the world and without thought, people who had disappeared into the darkness; but as long as life was still all that occupied the heart, each breath, and each thought, you didn't want to let go of it. I wondered what it would be like to continue being a part of this, to continue down this path that had helped Mother and I work a bit on the tangles and twists, accept the mistakes that Death left behind and the conflicts his predecessor, Life and its wonders, had brought us. In the end nothing would be explained fully, but at least the silence was not full of gaping wonder.

When I entered the house that last day of the year, Dr. Fred had already set up in the lounge. The camera was on, watching him pour silent death into a glass: 9 grams Pentobarbital, 15 grams Ethanol, 15 grams distilled water, 250 milligrams Saccharine, 11 grams Propylene Glycol, 65 grams syrup, and a drop of Anise oil. Mother had been given three 10-milligram doses of a suppressant since early morning to stop her from vomiting. She was lying in bed watching a Christmas Special on TV. It was
The Lord of the Rings
, a movie she had never understood and found tedious.

“Isn't this that film you were always watching when we lived on Spítala Street?”

“I can't remember,” I said. “But then I tended to be hung over a lot on Spítala Street. And then I'd watch TV. Do you remember? How often I was hung over? I think it was your home brew. It made me pretty sick.”

“Of course I remember, Trooper, you'd lie in all day watching war movies and eating Danishes. I've never understood all this ruckus myself. How come people enjoy this sort of thing? These disgusting slimy creatures for instance? And all this war nonsense?”

“It's the adventure, right?”

“Maybe, but I have to say that our adventure has been a lot more fun. All these things we did. I was thinking about it earlier, how long ago we set off from Spítala Street. And so much has happened. Just imagine if we'd never have come to Highland . . . or Hotel Europa? How would we have survived this? And all the things we've done. All these interesting and fun things that are down to you, my lovely Trooper. Because it's certainly not down to anyone else, the fun we had. Maybe there's one thing that's not absurd in that war movie of yours, and that's this Frodo fellow, the one with the broad neck—he reminds me a bit of you.”

“Oh?”

“Because he has to go through all this trouble with that ring. And it got me thinking: that is how it must have been for my Trooper. My cancer is like those slimy creatures and all the evil of the ring. My Trooper has to carry me through all of this to destroy it. I told Duncan about it and he thought I was quite clever to make the connection. He thought I didn't get the film at all—because I nod off during the battles. But don't you agree, aren't I clever to have realized this with you and Frodo?”

“You've always been clever, Mom . . . though I'm no Frodo.”

“Oh, yes you are, Trooper, you are so much more than all these fellows chopping down the slimy creatures. That's what I wanted to tell you, more than anything, my lovely boy, that you have done so well. The greatest hero of them all. You did more than anyone else would have done. And you forgave everything, everything I did. Even though I yelled at you. You did it all for me, my Trooper, you helped me more than anyone.”

That was the moment I started crying, and Mother cried too and leaned against me. We sat there for the longest time, holding each other, crying together in the living room in Highland, by the
window where the moon glowed in the sky and pulled at the waves by the Dutch coast, in time with the waves breaking in Iceland, clawing our old country back into the sea, like the hearts quaking in our chests.

“This is best way,” she whispered. “To do it while we're alone here. I told Duncan I would do it while he was away so it would just be you here with me, my super trooper. I want it now before the Morphine wears off or takes me into oblivion. I want to do it while I'm still conscious. While you're here with me.”

I took her into my arms and carried her across the living room, down the hall to the nook where the clock resonated steadily into the future, further into time where the doctor sat silent in the corner and kept to himself. It was just the two of us, my mother and I, two people beyond everything that had happened and everything that would never be forgotten.

“This way is right, my Trooper. It was all right from the very start.”

I lay her down on the bed and put the bottle in her hand. It was sherry on Spítala Street, stars sparkled over Highland in the frosty night and the shimmer of her breath flew in between everything as I sat there crying with her in my arms and the last day was done.

S
ölvi Björn Sigurðsson is the author of three books of poetry, as well as three novels. Most recently,
The Icelandic Water Book
was published in the fall of 2013. A translator of classical poetry, he has also received distinguished nominations for his translation of Rimbaud's
A Season in Hell
. His
Diabolical Comedy
, a modern take on
The Divine Comedy
, has been translated into Finnish, Swedish, and Danish.

H
elga Soffía Einarsdóttir grew up in Tanzania, and has since lived in Copenhagen, Barcelona, and Edinburgh. She has an MA in Translation Studies from the University of Iceland and has worked as a freelance translator and proofreader. Her translations (into Icelandic), include works by Zadie Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, and Lemony Snicket.

O
pen Letter—the University of Rochester's nonprofit, literary translation press—is one of only a handful of publishing houses dedicated to increasing access to world literature for English readers. Publishing ten titles in translation each year, Open Letter searches for works that are extraordinary and influential, works that we hope will become the classics of tomorrow.

Making world literature available in English is crucial to opening our cultural borders, and its availability plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant book culture. Open Letter strives to cultivate an audience for these works by helping readers discover imaginative, stunning works of fiction and poetry, and by creating a constellation of international writing that is engaging, stimulating, and enduring.

Current and forthcoming titles from Open Letter include works from Argentina, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Latvia, Poland, South Africa, and many other countries.

www.openletterbooks.org

BOOK: The Last Days of My Mother
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