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Fiction

The Husband and His Brother

By Björn Halldórsson
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
After his wife’s sudden departure, Böddi speaks to his brother over coffee in this story about regret, love, and family by Björn Halldórsson.
Listen to Björn Halldórsson read "The Husband and His Brother" in the original Icelandic
 
 

Jóhann was the first to stand up when the phone rang. He was glad for the interruption. His in-laws were over for dinner and they’d been talking politics. They were finishing their coffee, along with pieces of expensive dark chocolate that Ella, his wife, had arranged on a decorative plate. He’d just gotten the kids in bed and hurried into the hall to answer before the ringing aroused their curiosity. “Hello!”

There was someone on the line. He heard breathing, but no voice. “Hello?” he repeated, stretching out the “o” as though expecting an echo.

“Jóhann? Hey. It’s me,” said his brother on the other end of the line.

“Hi. What’s up?” He turned in the doorframe, waved to get Ella’s attention, and pointed to his coffee cup, which was going cold on the table. She got up and brought the cup over to him, and he squeezed the receiver between his ear and shoulder while silently mouthing “Thank you!” She stood next to him, waiting with a concerned wrinkle on her forehead until he gently patted her bare upper arm to send her back to her parents, shutting the living room door behind her. 

“I’m not bothering you, am I?” said his brother’s voice from the depths of the receiver.

“No, no. We’re just finishing dinner.” He lifted his cup and took a sip. Ella and her parents took their coffee black and drank it from tiny cups. He smirked as he pinched the doll-like handle. “Ella’s parents came over for dinner, but we’ve eaten—just having coffee now.”

“Yeah, okay.”

The line went silent. He wondered if Böddi had been drinking. “What’s up?” he said again, setting the cup and saucer down on the laminated phone directory, which was lying unopened on the buffet. Who still used a phone directory? he thought, as he waited for his brother to speak.

“Marion’s gone,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “She left.”

Jóhann tilted his head back toward the wall until the top of his head was touching the cold cement.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“She’s gone. I came home from work and she was gone.”

“Have you tried calling her cell?”

“No. If she wants to leave, what do I care?”

Jóhann closed his eyes. Opened them again. On the corkboard over the buffet there was a motley assortment of paper scraps with scribbled phone numbers, flyers, postcards, and photos. Family photos—mostly of Ella and the kids. There were pictures from vacations on sunny beaches abroad and camping trips around the country. There was only one picture of him. In it, he was sitting on a white plastic stool on the veranda in front of a cabin they’d rented a few years ago. His legs were crossed, and he was holding a green can of Tuborg, looking off at something in the distance. The color had faded; it was as bleached and pale as late-afternoon sunshine.

“Where’re you at?” he asked.

“At a bar, outside having a cigarette,” said his brother. “I had to get out of the house for a bit.”

“Okay,” said Jóhann. “Had you two been fighting or something?”

“Nah. Yeah, maybe a little. She’d been in such a weird mood lately. I came home and she was gone.”

“What about her stuff?”

“What do you mean?”

“Her stuff. If she left you, then she must have taken some stuff with her. If she didn’t, then maybe she just needed to get away for a bit. Is her stuff gone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”

“Then how do you know she’s gone?” asked Jóhann, trying to sound calm. Positive, like maybe this was all just a misunderstanding. “Maybe she went out to run an errand and got held up. Maybe something happened.”

“She’s gone.”

There was a heaviness in Böddi’s voice and Jóhann didn’t press the matter further. He held the phone close to his ear and thought about his brother as he stared at the corkboard on the wall and the photos of his family, and more particularly, the picture of himself sitting on the veranda outside the rented summer cabin, sipping a beer and watching the way the sunset illuminated the mountain on the other side of the valley.

“Ugh, I feel bad bugging you,” said the voice on the phone wearily. “I just needed to talk to somebody.”

“No, of course,” said Jóhann. “We’re brothers, man.” He felt like an idiot as soon as he said it. It was the kind of thing that shouldn’t have to be said. “Do you want me to pick you up?” he asked by way of redeeming himself.  

“No, just stay with Ella and them. I don’t want to drag you out in this weather. I just needed to calm down a little. I feel better now.”

“Are you sure? It’s no problem.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m gonna go home anyway.”

“Okay. You’ll take a taxi, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They said goodbye and Jóhann hung up, stood quietly in the hall for a moment thinking about his brother and sister-in-law and their marriage.  

It was silent when he came back into the living room. He sat at the table and noticed that Ella and her parents were staring at him. Anger welled up inside him. He was sure they’d been listening to his phone call.

“Who was that?” asked Ella. She smiled. She knew who’d been on the phone, no question.

“My brother,” he said.

“Everything okay?” she asked, but he wasn’t going to get into it right now, not in front of his in-laws, and so he just said yes and asked if there was more coffee.

***

They didn’t mention the phone call again until late that night, after her parents had left and he’d put the dishes in the sink to soak with a promise to himself that he’d do them before he went to work the next morning. She’d done the cooking, so it was his job to do the dishes—it was one of the many good-natured pacts they made with one another every day. They were getting into bed when she started quizzing him about the phone call. He told her what had happened as he undressed but lost his cool when she asked him for details he hadn’t thought to weasel out of his brother. He stood in front of her, half-naked, and threw up his hands. “I don’t know!” he shouted. “I wasn’t cross-examining him!” Their voices got louder and louder, but in the end, they managed to check themselves. Moments later, they were in bed, curled up under the duvet and holding each other tight.     

The next day, he left work early to visit his brother. He’d tried to reach him a few times during the day, both on his landline and his cell. He’d also called the office where his brother worked, but as he’d expected, Böddi had taken a sick day.

There was snow on the sidewalk and the cars on the street. Old, dirty snow that had been blanketing the city for several days. Jóhann parked and gingerly picked his way across the sheet of ice covering the driveway. His brother lived in a basement apartment that you entered from the back garden. The steps down to his door were slick with ice.  

It took Böddi a long time to come to the door. Jóhann alternated between ringing the bell and knocking on the matte glass. Finally, it opened, and Böddi stood in the doorway in a bathrobe and sweats, fuzzy slippers on his feet. He filled the entrance, even though he was stooped over. He was too big to live in such a small basement apartment. Like a troll under a bridge, thought Jóhann. He remembered how big his brother seemed when he stood next to Marion. She was from the Philippines and barely reached his shoulder. The brothers greeted one another, and Böddi turned on his heel and went back into the apartment with Jóhann trailing behind him.

It had been a long time since he’d been in his brother’s apartment. They usually only saw each other when Böddi came over to his and Ella’s for dinner. He’d always sit between the kids. Their giant uncle was a great favorite with Jói and Helga. They’d talk over one another, trying to tell him all the remarkable happenings that made up their school days, and after dinner they could always sweet-talk Uncle Böddi into swinging them around in circles or letting them airplane on the soles of his feet. After Böddi and Marion got married, she accompanied him to these family dinners. Jóhann could see her influence wherever he looked in the apartment. In the white Christmas lights draped around the mirror in the foyer and the small framed pictures of flowers sprinkled across the living room wall. There were also framed photos of Böddi and Marion and of her family in the Philippines. Much to Jóhann’s surprise, he also saw a picture of his own family that he recognized as an old Christmas card. He couldn’t imagine Böddi making the trip to buy a frame for it. He’d have made do with sticking it up on the wall or sliding it under a fridge magnet. It must have been Marion.

He started thinking about the many small changes he and Ella had noticed in Böddi’s behavior since he got married. Birthday presents for the kids were wrapped in colorful paper with pretty ribbons. He’d stopped going around in shirts with holes at the elbows and was always clean-shaven. Marion didn’t like the way his stubble scratched her face when they kissed, he’d told Jóhann with a roguish smile. Ella had even gotten a bouquet at work when she got a big promotion. The flowers were accompanied by a card with congrats from Böddi and Marion. The card itself was rather unusual. There was a picture of a dark-clad, kneeling woman on the front, golden rays shining around her head. Inside, above Marion’s neat handwriting and Böddi’s clumsy signature, were two lines of poetry printed in a language that Ella thought might have been Latin. They never figured out what the card said but were touched by the trouble Marion had taken and thanked her for her thoughtfulness the next time she and Böddi came to dinner.

The brothers sat at the kitchen table. The little basement window above them cast a gray light over the kitchen cabinets. Böddi pushed an empty pizza box aside on the table and offered coffee. “I only have instant,” he said. He turned on the tap to fill the electric kettle, but the sink was full of dishes and the water ran over the dirty plates and down onto the floor. He swore, shifted the pile of plates in the sink, and dried the wet spot by rubbing his fuzzy slipper over the puddle.

“I tried calling you,” said Jóhann while they waited for the kettle.

“Yeah?”

“I called your office. They told me you were home sick.”

His brother turned around with a coffee mug in each hand. “What did you say to them?” he asked, putting the cups on the table and spooning coffee powder into each before opening the fridge and taking out a carton. The sugar bowl was already on the table. Both brothers favored milky, sweet coffee.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I’ve used all my vacation days,” said his brother as he poured water out of the whistling kettle.  

“Okay.”

They took a moment to liberally sugar their coffee.

“I wish you wouldn’t have called my work,” said Böddi. “They might think something’s up.”

“Your phone was off.”

“It’s not like your job—I can’t just leave whenever I want and say I’m working from home.”

“That’s not what my job is like. I’m sure they didn’t think anything of me calling.”

“I just needed a little time to myself. I think it should be okay for me to call in sick like this, just this one time. My wife left me.”

“Okay,” said Jóhann, trying to calm his brother down. “I didn’t say anything.” They took another sip of their coffee and Jóhann asked: “Have you heard from her?”

“No,” said Böddi. He stirred his coffee, swirled his spoon around his cup, then dropped it on the table with a clatter. “I haven’t tried to get ahold of her.”

“Where do you think she is?”

“Don’t know. Probably with some girlfriend. I don’t know any of them. Maybe she just went back home.”

“But your phone’s been off. Maybe she’s been trying to call you.”

Böddi was in no mood for hypotheticals. “She left, okay?” he said, looking sharply at Jóhann. “She’s gone.”

Jóhann gave up. He spooned more sugar into his cup to try and disguise the bitter flavor of the coffee powder.

“How are the kids?” asked Böddi suddenly.

“Just fine. Jói graduated from kindergarten the other day.”

“Oh yeah? It’s been forever since I saw them.”

“It was actually kind of funny. They had a ceremony and everything. It’s just kindergarten, right? But the kids loved it. Helga’s a full-blown teenager now. Can’t abide a word we say. We’re so lame, you know.”

“They’re great kids.”

“I know.”

“I’d always hoped that Marion and I would have kids, too. Then Jói and Helga could’ve babysat for us and we could’ve all gone on holiday together and stuff like that.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been fun,” said Jóhann, trying not to let himself get pulled into his brother’s daydreams. But he couldn’t stop himself from adding: “You never know. Maybe you guys will get back together.”

“No. No, I don’t think so,” said his brother. His eyes were deep-set in his broad face. Such sensitive eyes. Jóhann remembered how Böddi used to flit them around when they were young and went to dances together, as if he were certain that someone somewhere in the room was making fun of him.

“How’s Ella?” asked Böddi.

“She’s fine. Busy at work.” It had been nearly a month since Ella had taken Böddi aside at a dinner and told him he had to stop calling Jóhann when he’d been drinking. She told Jóhann about the conversation the night after. Another person would have let it be. Not Ella—that wasn’t her style. She didn’t care for the silence surrounding the brothers and their family. Her people talked about everything. They yelled at the top of their lungs and said what needed saying. Jóhann couldn’t stand the way her parents and siblings fought in front of just anyone—and always the same bones to pick. He didn’t see the point of expending so much volume and energy, getting worked up about things that were never going to change. You loved the people you loved, and you had to take them the way they were.

That being said, he was upset when Ella told him about her conversation with Böddi. They got into a tremendous argument and, since the kids were staying over at Ella’s parents’ place for the night, didn’t hesitate to lay into one another. It was supposed to have been date night for the two of them—candles, good wine, and good food—but instead, Jóhann stormed out for a walk by himself. It’s what he did when he needed to calm himself down. When he got back, she’d opened the wine and started cooking. He set the table without a word and lit the candles in the tall, slender candlesticks on the table. They sat and ate in silence, slowly working their way through the bottle and taking turns refilling each other’s glasses. At the end of the meal, he lay his hand in the middle of the table, palm upturned on the white tablecloth, and she interlaced her fingers with his. He could never find the words to tell her how grateful he was for her incredible strength, for how protective she was of him and the kids. In the twilight of their bedroom, he rested his head on her breast like a small child.

“You two are lucky to have found one another,” said Böddi. “You’re such a good match.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jóhann. “You and Marion were good together, too,” he added, but Böddi shook his head.

“Nah, not like you two. We’d never even met until a week before we got engaged. Just texted and video-chatted.”

Jóhann nodded and tried to conceal his curiosity. It had been almost two years since Böddi came over after work. Jóhann was home by himself. Ella was at the gym and the kids at their music lessons. Böddi had come by with a late birthday present for his nephew, and while the brothers were sitting at the kitchen table with their coffee, he suddenly revealed that he had a girlfriend who he’d met online and was going to visit in Manila. Jóhann hardly knew what to say. So he took a sip of his coffee and said, “Whoa!” and congratulated his brother. When Böddi came back to Iceland a month later, he was engaged.

They were hesitant at first, he and Ella. Unsure of who was taking advantage of whom—Marion or Böddi. But after they met Marion and saw the effect she had on him, saw the way he acted around her, they decided that maybe this was the best thing for both of them. Marion was earnest and cheerful and coddled Böddi like a child. She was short and stocky, and whenever she and Böddi came over for dinner, she always found a way to pitch in with the meal prep, always helped with the clearing and washing up while Böddi sat with his coffee. It reminded Jóhann of their father, how he’d linger over his coffee while their mother hovered around him. Marion spoke English well but with a heavy accent and strange inflection. They all spoke English at the dinner table so as not to leave her out, but she told them often that she’d rather they speak their mother tongue. “To help me learn,” she said, in her broken Icelandic. She diligently attended a number of Icelandic classes where she met people from all over the world. Sometimes, she wouldn’t catch all of what Jóhann and Ella said, but it didn’t seem to bother her—she just smiled and shrugged and leaned back in her chair to let them know that she didn’t understand. It did, however, bother Böddi. He’d start fidgeting and then lean over to whisper an explanation in her ear.

“It was one of those dating sites,” said Böddi in the dusky kitchen. “It gave you all these pictures and names and hobbies and stuff like that. Pictures of men who were looking for wives, too. You could click on someone and message them. I looked at what some of the other men were writing about themselves, just to get an idea, you know? And some of them were pretty disgusting. Talking about what kind of women they wanted. Sizes and stuff.” The words flowed out of him in a torrent, as if he were relieved to finally spill his guts.

“What’d you say about yourself?” asked Jóhann, which made his brother squirm. “Just, uh, you know. The normal stuff. I wrote about who I was—my hobbies and work and stuff like that. Said I wanted to meet a good woman. A good-hearted woman.” He hesitated and then said: “People think that it’s some kind of trafficking operation, that these women are being bought. But it’s not like that. There’s no money in it—just people who want to meet each other and try to build a life together. Some of these girls, there’s not a lot for them there, and they want to get away and have a husband and a family. And most of the men are just guys like me who missed the chance to meet a woman and start a family when they were younger.”

Jóhann was uneasy listening to his brother. No one in the family ever talked about how Böddi and Marion met. He’d always thought they were all just being polite, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Is that how it was with Marion? She wanted to get away?” he asked, surprising himself with his own nosiness.

“Yeah, actually,” said his brother. “It wasn’t a bad thing, really. She wanted to live her own life. Didn’t want to live with her mother forever and couldn’t see getting married there. She didn’t have enough money to buy her own apartment, and it’s hard to rent as a single person. Not a lot available. Most people only want to rent to couples and families.”

“So she just decided to come here instead?”

“Yeah. She was tired of Cavite, felt like she was stuck there. That’s the city she lived in, a little city across the bay from Manila. When I went to visit her, we met in Manila and took the ferry over. She had her aunt with her to make sure nothing happened. When we finally managed to talk together in private, away from the aunt, Marion said she was looking at this whole thing as an adventure. She said we were going on an adventure together.”

He fell silent and looked at Jóhann.

“We knew what we were doing,” he said. “We knew we weren’t in love—not yet, at least. We thought that would come later. That together, we’d cultivate a love. I met her family. They’re really good people, the lot of them. Her dad’s dead, but I talked to her mom. She asked about my job and my apartment. Whether I owned a car. She was making sure I could take care of her daughter, you know? Her mom told me that she and Marion’s father had gotten married because their families wanted them to. They knew almost nothing about one another when they got married but cultivated a love between themselves. Just like we intended to do.”

The phrase “cultivated a love” sounded odd coming out of Böddi’s mouth, and Jóhann realized he was repeating something Marion had said, or—maybe more likely—something Marion’s mother had said to the two of them. It was a phrase that bore traces of sorrow and desperation; a mother’s dearest wish as she watched her daughter sail away with a strange man.

The brothers sat for a long time talking about Böddi’s trip to Manila, and about Marion. Böddi said he’d been taken with her as soon as he saw her picture on the dating site. That he’d recognized her by her smile the moment he’d gotten off the plane. He’d read what she’d written about herself on her profile and thought she seemed smart and self-assured. More mature than the other girls on the site, even if she was ten years younger than him. When they met the first time, they were silent and shy, like teenagers on their way to their first dance, her elderly aunt trailing behind them. After she agreed to marry him, there was a party with all her relatives. It was their last day together before he went home to Iceland to wait for her. Böddi called it a barbecue, but if his descriptions were anything to go by, it had been a much grander affair. He and Marion had sat side by side, surrounded by her family and holding hands under the table while people brought them grilled food on paper plates.

Listening to how his brother and sister-in-law met, Jóhann realized that Böddi had been waiting for an opportunity to tell someone this story for a long time. Had, in fact, told it to himself again and again until he’d perfected it. It was the story of the great romantic adventure that he and Marion had embarked upon together. But he seemed to have forgotten certain episodes or simply skipped over them altogether.

The phone calls began some months after they married, not long after Marion started making her own friends in Iceland. People in her Icelandic classes and other women from the Philippines who had come to Iceland to marry Icelandic men. Böddi had called Jóhann and complained that Marion wanted him to meet these girlfriends of hers and their husbands. They regularly made plans to meet at each other’s homes, traded off hosting dinner parties, and even rented out a hall and brought Filipino food, rented a band or a DJ, and danced late into the night. Böddi couldn’t stand these gatherings. The women all talked together and laughed, and he couldn’t understand anything. He was stuck with the husbands, who he said were all these loser types. “Sad sacks,” he told Jóhann on the phone. Once he started to refuse to go with her, the calls became long complaints about Marion never being home. She only wanted to be with her friends, not with him. He’d started going to bars, as if to even the score. He wasn’t just going to sit at home waiting for her, you know?

Even though Jóhann had all the background, he still couldn’t bring himself to deny Böddi the romantic image he’d painted of his marriage to Marion, just as during all those phone calls, he let Böddi talk and tried as best he could not to take a stance. He’d rarely thought about how Marion might tell the story of the way she and Böddi met or what she’d say about their marriage, tried to brush such thoughts aside.

As was often the case, he didn’t even really need to be there for the conversation. He nodded along as Böddi talked, making affirmative noises. The fridge door behind Böddi was covered with tickets and flyers and photos held up by decorative magnets. Neither Marion nor Böddi were in any of the photographs. They must have all been sent by her family in the Philippines. They showed newborn babies in their baptismal gowns and little kids in their best clothes. There were pictures from weddings and other such events where the men wore filmy white shirts with starched collars and the women colorful evening dresses. They smiled happily at the camera, as if they were all about to burst out laughing.  

“I thought you said all her stuff was gone,” said Jóhann.

Böddi had finished saying his piece and now sat with both hands clasped around his half-drunk coffee mug.

“What?” he said.

Jóhann had a hard time repeating the question, which had popped out of his mouth before he had time to think about it. But he asked again, stammering and mumbling.

“Her stuff. I thought you said that she had taken all her stuff. Yesterday when I talked with you on the phone.”

“Some of her stuff’s gone.”

“She left all her family photos?”

Böddi stared at him. His face, which had been open and happy while he told the story of him and Marion, now shuttered.

“She’s probably going to send for the rest of her things later,” said Jóhann, helpless against the silence that emanated from his brother.

Böddi nodded slowly.

“Yes, that’s probably it.”

Something had changed in the little kitchen. It was getting dark outside. Jóhann sipped his coffee, but it had gone cold. He kept a straight face and finished it anyway.

“Yes, well, I should probably get going,” he said.

“Nice that you could drop by,” said Böddi.

They stood up and clumsily embraced at the end of the table. Böddi followed him to the door. Jóhann shrugged into his jacket and wound his scarf around his neck. He hadn’t taken off his shoes when he came in and now saw that he’d tracked footprints across the floor. He opened the door and turned back to his brother.

“You should go back to work tomorrow,” he said. “Otherwise, they might think something’s up.”

His brother nodded.

Jóhann held the handrail as he walked up the slippery steps. When he looked back, Böddi was standing in the doorway. He was reminded again of a troll living under a bridge. They looked at one another, but neither said nor did anything to indicate that they even knew one another. Then Böddi closed the door.

At a red light on the way home, Jóhann suddenly had a vision of Böddi, walking from room to room in his little apartment, taking down all the photographs and flower prints, pulling clothes out of the bedroom closet, swiping makeup and lotion out of the bathroom cabinet, and stuffing it all into a black garbage bag.


“Eiginmaðurinn og bróðir hans,” from
Smáglæpir, © 2017 by Björn Halldórsson. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2021 by Larissa Kyzer. All rights reserved.

English Icelandic (Original)

Jóhann was the first to stand up when the phone rang. He was glad for the interruption. His in-laws were over for dinner and they’d been talking politics. They were finishing their coffee, along with pieces of expensive dark chocolate that Ella, his wife, had arranged on a decorative plate. He’d just gotten the kids in bed and hurried into the hall to answer before the ringing aroused their curiosity. “Hello!”

There was someone on the line. He heard breathing, but no voice. “Hello?” he repeated, stretching out the “o” as though expecting an echo.

“Jóhann? Hey. It’s me,” said his brother on the other end of the line.

“Hi. What’s up?” He turned in the doorframe, waved to get Ella’s attention, and pointed to his coffee cup, which was going cold on the table. She got up and brought the cup over to him, and he squeezed the receiver between his ear and shoulder while silently mouthing “Thank you!” She stood next to him, waiting with a concerned wrinkle on her forehead until he gently patted her bare upper arm to send her back to her parents, shutting the living room door behind her. 

“I’m not bothering you, am I?” said his brother’s voice from the depths of the receiver.

“No, no. We’re just finishing dinner.” He lifted his cup and took a sip. Ella and her parents took their coffee black and drank it from tiny cups. He smirked as he pinched the doll-like handle. “Ella’s parents came over for dinner, but we’ve eaten—just having coffee now.”

“Yeah, okay.”

The line went silent. He wondered if Böddi had been drinking. “What’s up?” he said again, setting the cup and saucer down on the laminated phone directory, which was lying unopened on the buffet. Who still used a phone directory? he thought, as he waited for his brother to speak.

“Marion’s gone,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “She left.”

Jóhann tilted his head back toward the wall until the top of his head was touching the cold cement.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“She’s gone. I came home from work and she was gone.”

“Have you tried calling her cell?”

“No. If she wants to leave, what do I care?”

Jóhann closed his eyes. Opened them again. On the corkboard over the buffet there was a motley assortment of paper scraps with scribbled phone numbers, flyers, postcards, and photos. Family photos—mostly of Ella and the kids. There were pictures from vacations on sunny beaches abroad and camping trips around the country. There was only one picture of him. In it, he was sitting on a white plastic stool on the veranda in front of a cabin they’d rented a few years ago. His legs were crossed, and he was holding a green can of Tuborg, looking off at something in the distance. The color had faded; it was as bleached and pale as late-afternoon sunshine.

“Where’re you at?” he asked.

“At a bar, outside having a cigarette,” said his brother. “I had to get out of the house for a bit.”

“Okay,” said Jóhann. “Had you two been fighting or something?”

“Nah. Yeah, maybe a little. She’d been in such a weird mood lately. I came home and she was gone.”

“What about her stuff?”

“What do you mean?”

“Her stuff. If she left you, then she must have taken some stuff with her. If she didn’t, then maybe she just needed to get away for a bit. Is her stuff gone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”

“Then how do you know she’s gone?” asked Jóhann, trying to sound calm. Positive, like maybe this was all just a misunderstanding. “Maybe she went out to run an errand and got held up. Maybe something happened.”

“She’s gone.”

There was a heaviness in Böddi’s voice and Jóhann didn’t press the matter further. He held the phone close to his ear and thought about his brother as he stared at the corkboard on the wall and the photos of his family, and more particularly, the picture of himself sitting on the veranda outside the rented summer cabin, sipping a beer and watching the way the sunset illuminated the mountain on the other side of the valley.

“Ugh, I feel bad bugging you,” said the voice on the phone wearily. “I just needed to talk to somebody.”

“No, of course,” said Jóhann. “We’re brothers, man.” He felt like an idiot as soon as he said it. It was the kind of thing that shouldn’t have to be said. “Do you want me to pick you up?” he asked by way of redeeming himself.  

“No, just stay with Ella and them. I don’t want to drag you out in this weather. I just needed to calm down a little. I feel better now.”

“Are you sure? It’s no problem.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m gonna go home anyway.”

“Okay. You’ll take a taxi, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They said goodbye and Jóhann hung up, stood quietly in the hall for a moment thinking about his brother and sister-in-law and their marriage.  

It was silent when he came back into the living room. He sat at the table and noticed that Ella and her parents were staring at him. Anger welled up inside him. He was sure they’d been listening to his phone call.

“Who was that?” asked Ella. She smiled. She knew who’d been on the phone, no question.

“My brother,” he said.

“Everything okay?” she asked, but he wasn’t going to get into it right now, not in front of his in-laws, and so he just said yes and asked if there was more coffee.

***

They didn’t mention the phone call again until late that night, after her parents had left and he’d put the dishes in the sink to soak with a promise to himself that he’d do them before he went to work the next morning. She’d done the cooking, so it was his job to do the dishes—it was one of the many good-natured pacts they made with one another every day. They were getting into bed when she started quizzing him about the phone call. He told her what had happened as he undressed but lost his cool when she asked him for details he hadn’t thought to weasel out of his brother. He stood in front of her, half-naked, and threw up his hands. “I don’t know!” he shouted. “I wasn’t cross-examining him!” Their voices got louder and louder, but in the end, they managed to check themselves. Moments later, they were in bed, curled up under the duvet and holding each other tight.     

The next day, he left work early to visit his brother. He’d tried to reach him a few times during the day, both on his landline and his cell. He’d also called the office where his brother worked, but as he’d expected, Böddi had taken a sick day.

There was snow on the sidewalk and the cars on the street. Old, dirty snow that had been blanketing the city for several days. Jóhann parked and gingerly picked his way across the sheet of ice covering the driveway. His brother lived in a basement apartment that you entered from the back garden. The steps down to his door were slick with ice.  

It took Böddi a long time to come to the door. Jóhann alternated between ringing the bell and knocking on the matte glass. Finally, it opened, and Böddi stood in the doorway in a bathrobe and sweats, fuzzy slippers on his feet. He filled the entrance, even though he was stooped over. He was too big to live in such a small basement apartment. Like a troll under a bridge, thought Jóhann. He remembered how big his brother seemed when he stood next to Marion. She was from the Philippines and barely reached his shoulder. The brothers greeted one another, and Böddi turned on his heel and went back into the apartment with Jóhann trailing behind him.

It had been a long time since he’d been in his brother’s apartment. They usually only saw each other when Böddi came over to his and Ella’s for dinner. He’d always sit between the kids. Their giant uncle was a great favorite with Jói and Helga. They’d talk over one another, trying to tell him all the remarkable happenings that made up their school days, and after dinner they could always sweet-talk Uncle Böddi into swinging them around in circles or letting them airplane on the soles of his feet. After Böddi and Marion got married, she accompanied him to these family dinners. Jóhann could see her influence wherever he looked in the apartment. In the white Christmas lights draped around the mirror in the foyer and the small framed pictures of flowers sprinkled across the living room wall. There were also framed photos of Böddi and Marion and of her family in the Philippines. Much to Jóhann’s surprise, he also saw a picture of his own family that he recognized as an old Christmas card. He couldn’t imagine Böddi making the trip to buy a frame for it. He’d have made do with sticking it up on the wall or sliding it under a fridge magnet. It must have been Marion.

He started thinking about the many small changes he and Ella had noticed in Böddi’s behavior since he got married. Birthday presents for the kids were wrapped in colorful paper with pretty ribbons. He’d stopped going around in shirts with holes at the elbows and was always clean-shaven. Marion didn’t like the way his stubble scratched her face when they kissed, he’d told Jóhann with a roguish smile. Ella had even gotten a bouquet at work when she got a big promotion. The flowers were accompanied by a card with congrats from Böddi and Marion. The card itself was rather unusual. There was a picture of a dark-clad, kneeling woman on the front, golden rays shining around her head. Inside, above Marion’s neat handwriting and Böddi’s clumsy signature, were two lines of poetry printed in a language that Ella thought might have been Latin. They never figured out what the card said but were touched by the trouble Marion had taken and thanked her for her thoughtfulness the next time she and Böddi came to dinner.

The brothers sat at the kitchen table. The little basement window above them cast a gray light over the kitchen cabinets. Böddi pushed an empty pizza box aside on the table and offered coffee. “I only have instant,” he said. He turned on the tap to fill the electric kettle, but the sink was full of dishes and the water ran over the dirty plates and down onto the floor. He swore, shifted the pile of plates in the sink, and dried the wet spot by rubbing his fuzzy slipper over the puddle.

“I tried calling you,” said Jóhann while they waited for the kettle.

“Yeah?”

“I called your office. They told me you were home sick.”

His brother turned around with a coffee mug in each hand. “What did you say to them?” he asked, putting the cups on the table and spooning coffee powder into each before opening the fridge and taking out a carton. The sugar bowl was already on the table. Both brothers favored milky, sweet coffee.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I’ve used all my vacation days,” said his brother as he poured water out of the whistling kettle.  

“Okay.”

They took a moment to liberally sugar their coffee.

“I wish you wouldn’t have called my work,” said Böddi. “They might think something’s up.”

“Your phone was off.”

“It’s not like your job—I can’t just leave whenever I want and say I’m working from home.”

“That’s not what my job is like. I’m sure they didn’t think anything of me calling.”

“I just needed a little time to myself. I think it should be okay for me to call in sick like this, just this one time. My wife left me.”

“Okay,” said Jóhann, trying to calm his brother down. “I didn’t say anything.” They took another sip of their coffee and Jóhann asked: “Have you heard from her?”

“No,” said Böddi. He stirred his coffee, swirled his spoon around his cup, then dropped it on the table with a clatter. “I haven’t tried to get ahold of her.”

“Where do you think she is?”

“Don’t know. Probably with some girlfriend. I don’t know any of them. Maybe she just went back home.”

“But your phone’s been off. Maybe she’s been trying to call you.”

Böddi was in no mood for hypotheticals. “She left, okay?” he said, looking sharply at Jóhann. “She’s gone.”

Jóhann gave up. He spooned more sugar into his cup to try and disguise the bitter flavor of the coffee powder.

“How are the kids?” asked Böddi suddenly.

“Just fine. Jói graduated from kindergarten the other day.”

“Oh yeah? It’s been forever since I saw them.”

“It was actually kind of funny. They had a ceremony and everything. It’s just kindergarten, right? But the kids loved it. Helga’s a full-blown teenager now. Can’t abide a word we say. We’re so lame, you know.”

“They’re great kids.”

“I know.”

“I’d always hoped that Marion and I would have kids, too. Then Jói and Helga could’ve babysat for us and we could’ve all gone on holiday together and stuff like that.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been fun,” said Jóhann, trying not to let himself get pulled into his brother’s daydreams. But he couldn’t stop himself from adding: “You never know. Maybe you guys will get back together.”

“No. No, I don’t think so,” said his brother. His eyes were deep-set in his broad face. Such sensitive eyes. Jóhann remembered how Böddi used to flit them around when they were young and went to dances together, as if he were certain that someone somewhere in the room was making fun of him.

“How’s Ella?” asked Böddi.

“She’s fine. Busy at work.” It had been nearly a month since Ella had taken Böddi aside at a dinner and told him he had to stop calling Jóhann when he’d been drinking. She told Jóhann about the conversation the night after. Another person would have let it be. Not Ella—that wasn’t her style. She didn’t care for the silence surrounding the brothers and their family. Her people talked about everything. They yelled at the top of their lungs and said what needed saying. Jóhann couldn’t stand the way her parents and siblings fought in front of just anyone—and always the same bones to pick. He didn’t see the point of expending so much volume and energy, getting worked up about things that were never going to change. You loved the people you loved, and you had to take them the way they were.

That being said, he was upset when Ella told him about her conversation with Böddi. They got into a tremendous argument and, since the kids were staying over at Ella’s parents’ place for the night, didn’t hesitate to lay into one another. It was supposed to have been date night for the two of them—candles, good wine, and good food—but instead, Jóhann stormed out for a walk by himself. It’s what he did when he needed to calm himself down. When he got back, she’d opened the wine and started cooking. He set the table without a word and lit the candles in the tall, slender candlesticks on the table. They sat and ate in silence, slowly working their way through the bottle and taking turns refilling each other’s glasses. At the end of the meal, he lay his hand in the middle of the table, palm upturned on the white tablecloth, and she interlaced her fingers with his. He could never find the words to tell her how grateful he was for her incredible strength, for how protective she was of him and the kids. In the twilight of their bedroom, he rested his head on her breast like a small child.

“You two are lucky to have found one another,” said Böddi. “You’re such a good match.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jóhann. “You and Marion were good together, too,” he added, but Böddi shook his head.

“Nah, not like you two. We’d never even met until a week before we got engaged. Just texted and video-chatted.”

Jóhann nodded and tried to conceal his curiosity. It had been almost two years since Böddi came over after work. Jóhann was home by himself. Ella was at the gym and the kids at their music lessons. Böddi had come by with a late birthday present for his nephew, and while the brothers were sitting at the kitchen table with their coffee, he suddenly revealed that he had a girlfriend who he’d met online and was going to visit in Manila. Jóhann hardly knew what to say. So he took a sip of his coffee and said, “Whoa!” and congratulated his brother. When Böddi came back to Iceland a month later, he was engaged.

They were hesitant at first, he and Ella. Unsure of who was taking advantage of whom—Marion or Böddi. But after they met Marion and saw the effect she had on him, saw the way he acted around her, they decided that maybe this was the best thing for both of them. Marion was earnest and cheerful and coddled Böddi like a child. She was short and stocky, and whenever she and Böddi came over for dinner, she always found a way to pitch in with the meal prep, always helped with the clearing and washing up while Böddi sat with his coffee. It reminded Jóhann of their father, how he’d linger over his coffee while their mother hovered around him. Marion spoke English well but with a heavy accent and strange inflection. They all spoke English at the dinner table so as not to leave her out, but she told them often that she’d rather they speak their mother tongue. “To help me learn,” she said, in her broken Icelandic. She diligently attended a number of Icelandic classes where she met people from all over the world. Sometimes, she wouldn’t catch all of what Jóhann and Ella said, but it didn’t seem to bother her—she just smiled and shrugged and leaned back in her chair to let them know that she didn’t understand. It did, however, bother Böddi. He’d start fidgeting and then lean over to whisper an explanation in her ear.

“It was one of those dating sites,” said Böddi in the dusky kitchen. “It gave you all these pictures and names and hobbies and stuff like that. Pictures of men who were looking for wives, too. You could click on someone and message them. I looked at what some of the other men were writing about themselves, just to get an idea, you know? And some of them were pretty disgusting. Talking about what kind of women they wanted. Sizes and stuff.” The words flowed out of him in a torrent, as if he were relieved to finally spill his guts.

“What’d you say about yourself?” asked Jóhann, which made his brother squirm. “Just, uh, you know. The normal stuff. I wrote about who I was—my hobbies and work and stuff like that. Said I wanted to meet a good woman. A good-hearted woman.” He hesitated and then said: “People think that it’s some kind of trafficking operation, that these women are being bought. But it’s not like that. There’s no money in it—just people who want to meet each other and try to build a life together. Some of these girls, there’s not a lot for them there, and they want to get away and have a husband and a family. And most of the men are just guys like me who missed the chance to meet a woman and start a family when they were younger.”

Jóhann was uneasy listening to his brother. No one in the family ever talked about how Böddi and Marion met. He’d always thought they were all just being polite, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Is that how it was with Marion? She wanted to get away?” he asked, surprising himself with his own nosiness.

“Yeah, actually,” said his brother. “It wasn’t a bad thing, really. She wanted to live her own life. Didn’t want to live with her mother forever and couldn’t see getting married there. She didn’t have enough money to buy her own apartment, and it’s hard to rent as a single person. Not a lot available. Most people only want to rent to couples and families.”

“So she just decided to come here instead?”

“Yeah. She was tired of Cavite, felt like she was stuck there. That’s the city she lived in, a little city across the bay from Manila. When I went to visit her, we met in Manila and took the ferry over. She had her aunt with her to make sure nothing happened. When we finally managed to talk together in private, away from the aunt, Marion said she was looking at this whole thing as an adventure. She said we were going on an adventure together.”

He fell silent and looked at Jóhann.

“We knew what we were doing,” he said. “We knew we weren’t in love—not yet, at least. We thought that would come later. That together, we’d cultivate a love. I met her family. They’re really good people, the lot of them. Her dad’s dead, but I talked to her mom. She asked about my job and my apartment. Whether I owned a car. She was making sure I could take care of her daughter, you know? Her mom told me that she and Marion’s father had gotten married because their families wanted them to. They knew almost nothing about one another when they got married but cultivated a love between themselves. Just like we intended to do.”

The phrase “cultivated a love” sounded odd coming out of Böddi’s mouth, and Jóhann realized he was repeating something Marion had said, or—maybe more likely—something Marion’s mother had said to the two of them. It was a phrase that bore traces of sorrow and desperation; a mother’s dearest wish as she watched her daughter sail away with a strange man.

The brothers sat for a long time talking about Böddi’s trip to Manila, and about Marion. Böddi said he’d been taken with her as soon as he saw her picture on the dating site. That he’d recognized her by her smile the moment he’d gotten off the plane. He’d read what she’d written about herself on her profile and thought she seemed smart and self-assured. More mature than the other girls on the site, even if she was ten years younger than him. When they met the first time, they were silent and shy, like teenagers on their way to their first dance, her elderly aunt trailing behind them. After she agreed to marry him, there was a party with all her relatives. It was their last day together before he went home to Iceland to wait for her. Böddi called it a barbecue, but if his descriptions were anything to go by, it had been a much grander affair. He and Marion had sat side by side, surrounded by her family and holding hands under the table while people brought them grilled food on paper plates.

Listening to how his brother and sister-in-law met, Jóhann realized that Böddi had been waiting for an opportunity to tell someone this story for a long time. Had, in fact, told it to himself again and again until he’d perfected it. It was the story of the great romantic adventure that he and Marion had embarked upon together. But he seemed to have forgotten certain episodes or simply skipped over them altogether.

The phone calls began some months after they married, not long after Marion started making her own friends in Iceland. People in her Icelandic classes and other women from the Philippines who had come to Iceland to marry Icelandic men. Böddi had called Jóhann and complained that Marion wanted him to meet these girlfriends of hers and their husbands. They regularly made plans to meet at each other’s homes, traded off hosting dinner parties, and even rented out a hall and brought Filipino food, rented a band or a DJ, and danced late into the night. Böddi couldn’t stand these gatherings. The women all talked together and laughed, and he couldn’t understand anything. He was stuck with the husbands, who he said were all these loser types. “Sad sacks,” he told Jóhann on the phone. Once he started to refuse to go with her, the calls became long complaints about Marion never being home. She only wanted to be with her friends, not with him. He’d started going to bars, as if to even the score. He wasn’t just going to sit at home waiting for her, you know?

Even though Jóhann had all the background, he still couldn’t bring himself to deny Böddi the romantic image he’d painted of his marriage to Marion, just as during all those phone calls, he let Böddi talk and tried as best he could not to take a stance. He’d rarely thought about how Marion might tell the story of the way she and Böddi met or what she’d say about their marriage, tried to brush such thoughts aside.

As was often the case, he didn’t even really need to be there for the conversation. He nodded along as Böddi talked, making affirmative noises. The fridge door behind Böddi was covered with tickets and flyers and photos held up by decorative magnets. Neither Marion nor Böddi were in any of the photographs. They must have all been sent by her family in the Philippines. They showed newborn babies in their baptismal gowns and little kids in their best clothes. There were pictures from weddings and other such events where the men wore filmy white shirts with starched collars and the women colorful evening dresses. They smiled happily at the camera, as if they were all about to burst out laughing.  

“I thought you said all her stuff was gone,” said Jóhann.

Böddi had finished saying his piece and now sat with both hands clasped around his half-drunk coffee mug.

“What?” he said.

Jóhann had a hard time repeating the question, which had popped out of his mouth before he had time to think about it. But he asked again, stammering and mumbling.

“Her stuff. I thought you said that she had taken all her stuff. Yesterday when I talked with you on the phone.”

“Some of her stuff’s gone.”

“She left all her family photos?”

Böddi stared at him. His face, which had been open and happy while he told the story of him and Marion, now shuttered.

“She’s probably going to send for the rest of her things later,” said Jóhann, helpless against the silence that emanated from his brother.

Böddi nodded slowly.

“Yes, that’s probably it.”

Something had changed in the little kitchen. It was getting dark outside. Jóhann sipped his coffee, but it had gone cold. He kept a straight face and finished it anyway.

“Yes, well, I should probably get going,” he said.

“Nice that you could drop by,” said Böddi.

They stood up and clumsily embraced at the end of the table. Böddi followed him to the door. Jóhann shrugged into his jacket and wound his scarf around his neck. He hadn’t taken off his shoes when he came in and now saw that he’d tracked footprints across the floor. He opened the door and turned back to his brother.

“You should go back to work tomorrow,” he said. “Otherwise, they might think something’s up.”

His brother nodded.

Jóhann held the handrail as he walked up the slippery steps. When he looked back, Böddi was standing in the doorway. He was reminded again of a troll living under a bridge. They looked at one another, but neither said nor did anything to indicate that they even knew one another. Then Böddi closed the door.

At a red light on the way home, Jóhann suddenly had a vision of Böddi, walking from room to room in his little apartment, taking down all the photographs and flower prints, pulling clothes out of the bedroom closet, swiping makeup and lotion out of the bathroom cabinet, and stuffing it all into a black garbage bag.


“Eiginmaðurinn og bróðir hans,” from
Smáglæpir, © 2017 by Björn Halldórsson. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2021 by Larissa Kyzer. All rights reserved.

Eiginmaðurinn og bróðir hans

Jóhann varð fyrri til að standa upp þegar síminn hringdi. Hann var trufluninni feginn. Tengdaforeldrar hans voru í mat og þau höfðu verið að ræða pólitík. Kaffið var komið á borðið ásamt brotum af dýru, dökku súkkulaði sem Ella, konan hans, hafði borið fram á litlum skreyttum diski. Hann var nýbúinn að koma krökkunum í rúmið og flýtti sér fram á gang að svara áður en lætin í símanum vektu forvitni þeirra. Hann lyfti tólinu að eyranu og sagði: „Halló!“

Það var einhver á línunni. Hann heyrði andardrátt en honum fylgdi engin rödd. „Halló?“ endurtók hann og teygði óið eins og hann væri að vonast eftir bergmáli.

„Jóhann? Hæ, þetta er ég,“ sagði bróðir hans á hinum enda línunnar.

„Hæ. Hvað segirðu?“ Hann sneri sér í gættinni og bandaði hendinni til að ná athygli Ellu og benti á kaffibollann sinn sem stóð og kólnaði á borðinu. Hún stóð upp og kom til hans með bollann og hann klemmdi tólið á milli eyra og axlar til að taka á móti og bærði varirnar hljóðlaust: „Takk!“ Hún stóð og beið við hlið hans með áhyggjuhrukku á enninu þar til hann snerti hana létt á beran upphandlegginn til að senda hana aftur til foreldra sinna og hallaði síð- an stofuhurðinni á eftir henni.

„Ég er ekkert að trufla, er það?“ sagði rödd bróð- ur hans í niðamyrkri símtólsins.

„Neinei. Við vorum að klára að borða.“ Hann lyfti bollanum og saup. Ella og foreldrar hennar drukku biksvart kaffi úr litlum bollum og hann kímdi út í annað yfir tepruskapnum þegar hann kleip tveimur fingrum utan um dúkkulegt haldið.

„Foreldrar Ellu eru í mat en við erum búin að borða, erum komin í kaffið.“

„Já. Ókei.“

Það var aftur þögn í símtólinu. Jóhann velti fyrir sér hvort Böddi hefði verið að drekka. „Hvað seg- irðu?“ sagði hann aftur og lagði bollann og undir- skálina frá sér ofan á plastaða og óopnaða símaskrá  á skenknum. Hver notar enn símaskrá? hugsaði hann á meðan hann beið eftir frekari orðum frá bróður sínum.

„Marion er farin,“ sagði röddin á hinum enda lín- unnar. „Hún fór.“

Jóhann hallaði höfðinu að veggnum þar til hvirf- illinn snerti kalda steypuna.

„Hvað meinarðu?“ sagði hann.

„Hún er farin. Ég kom heim úr vinnunni og hún var farin.“

„Hefurðu reynt að hringja í gemsann hennar?“

„Nei. Ef hún vill fara þá er mér sama.“

Jóhann lokaði augunum. Opnaði þau aftur. Á korktöflunni fyrir ofan skenkinn hékk sundurleitt safn af miðum með niðurhripuðum símanúmerum, auglýsingapésum, póstkortum og ljósmyndum. Ljós- myndirnar voru fjölskyldumyndir, aðallega af Ellu og krökkunum. Þetta voru myndir úr fríum á sólríkum sandströndum í útlöndum og tjaldferðum innan- lands.  Það var bara ein mynd af honum á töflunni.  Á myndinni sat hann í hvítum plaststól á veröndinni fyrir framan sumarbústað sem þau höfðu leigt fyrir nokkrum árum. Hann var með krosslagða fætur og hélt á grænni Tuborg-dós og var að horfa á eitthvað í fjarlægð sem myndavélin náði ekki að fanga. Litirnir á myndinni höfðu dofnað og voru ljósir og fölir eins og síðdegissól

„Hvar ertu?“ spurði hann símtólið.

„Á barnum, úti að reykja.“ sagði rödd bróður hans. „Ég varð að komast aðeins út úr húsi.“

„Ókei,“ sagði Jóhann. „Voruð þið eitthvað að ríf- ast?“

„Nei. Ja, kannski smá. Hún hefur verið í svo skrýtnu skapi undanfarið. Ég kom heim og hún var farin.“

„Hvað með dótið hennar?“

„Hvað meinarðu?“

„Dótið hennar. Ef hún er farin frá þér þá hlýtur hún að hafa tekið eitthvað með sér. Ef ekki, þá þurfti hún kannski bara aðeins að komast í burtu, í smá tíma. Er dótið hennar horfið?“

„Ég veit það ekki. Ég kíkti ekki.“

„Hvernig veistu þá að hún er farin?“ spurði Jó- hann og reyndi að hljóma léttur og jákvæður eins   og þetta væri mögulega allt á misskilningi byggt.

„Kannski skrapp hún út og tafðist eitthvað. Kannski kom eitthvað fyrir.“

„Hún er farin.“

Það var þungi í rödd Bödda og Jóhann sagði ekki meira um málið. Hann hélt símtólinu þétt að eyranu og hugsaði um bróður sinn á meðan hann starði á korktöfluna á veggnum og á myndirnar af fjölskyldu sinni og sérstaklega á myndina af sjálfum sér þar sem hann sat á veröndinni fyrir utan leigubústaðinn, sötraði bjór og fylgdist með því hvernig sólsetrið lýsti upp fjallshlíðina hinum megin í dalnum.

„Æi, mér þykir leitt að ónáða þig,“  sagði röddin  í símtólinu þreytulega. „Ég þurfti bara að tala við einhvern.“

„Nei, auðvitað,“ sagði Jóhann. „Við erum nú bræður.“ Honum leið kjánalega eftir að hafa sagt þetta. Maður átti ekki að þurfa að taka slíkt fram. „Viltu að ég komi og sæki þig?“ spurði hann til að reyna að bæta fyrir.

„Nei, vertu þarna með Ellu og þeim. Ég vil ekki vera að draga þig út í þetta veður. Ég þurfti bara aðeins að létta á mér. Mér líður betur núna.“

„Eru viss? Það er ekkert mál.“

„Nei, þetta er allt í lagi. Ég er hvort sem er að fara heim.“

„Ókei. Þú tekur leigubíl, er það ekki?“

„Jú, auðvitað.“

Þeir kvöddust og Jóhann lagði á og stóð kyrr á ganginum stundarkorn, djúpt sokkinn í vangaveltur um bróður sinn og mágkonu og hjónaband þeirra.

Það var þögn þegar hann kom aftur inn í stofu. Hann settist við borðið og tók eftir hvernig Ella og foreldrar hennar störðu á hann. Reiðin blossaði upp innra með honum. Hann var sannfærður um að þau hefðu verið að hlusta á símtalið.

„Hver var þetta?“ spurði Ella. Hún brosti. Hún vissi efalaust vel hver hafði verið í símanum.

„Böddi bróðir,“ sagði hann.

„Er allt í lagi?“ spurði hún, en hann ætlaði ekki að ræða þetta núna fyrir framan tengdaforeldra sína og játti bara og spurði hvort það væri til meira kaffi.

 

Þau minntust ekki aftur á símtalið fyrr en seint um kvöldið, eftir að foreldrar hennar voru farnir og hann hafði lagt leirtauið í bleyti í vaskinn og lofað sjálfum sér að klára það áður en hann færi í vinnuna morguninn eftir. Hún hafði séð um eldamennskuna svo uppvaskið var hans mál, upp á það hljóðaði einn af þeim mörgu góðlátlegu samningum sem þau gerðu sín á milli á hverjum degi. Þau voru að fara upp í rúm þegar hún spurði hann út í símtalið. Hann sagði henni fréttirnar á meðan hann afklæddist og snöggreiddist þegar hún reyndi að spyrja hann út í smáatriðin sem hann hafði ekki haft fyrir að ná upp úr bróður sínum. Hann stóð hálfnakinn fyrir framan hana og fórnaði höndum. „Ég veit það ekki!“ sagði hann. „Ég var ekkert að yfirheyra hann!“ Þau hækkuðu raddirnar stig af stigi en tókst að lokum að hemja sig. Fyrr en varði voru þau komin upp í rúm, kúrðu undir sænginni og héldu þétt utan um hvort annað.

Daginn eftir fór hann snemma úr vinnu til að heim- sækja bróður sinn, eftir að hafa reynt nokkrum sinnum að ná í hann í bæði heimasíma og farsíma. Hann hafði líka hringt á skrifstofuna þar sem bróðir hans vann en eins og hann bjóst við hafði Böddi tekið sér veikindadag.

Það var snjór á gangstéttinni og á bílunum í göt- unni. Gamall og skítugur snjór sem hafði legið yfir borginni í nokkra daga. Hann lagði bílnum og gekk varlega yfir klakabreiðuna í innkeyrslunni. Bróðir hans bjó í íbúð í kjallara hússins sem gengið var inn um frá bakgarðinum og þrepin niður að dyrunum voru ávöl og hál af klaka.

Það tók Bödda nokkurn tíma að koma til dyra og Jóhann hringdi á víxl dyrabjöllunni og bankaði í matt glerið. Hurðin opnaðist að lokum og Böddi stóð í gættinni í baðslopp og joggingbuxum og með loðna inniskó á fótum. Hann fyllti upp í gættina þótt hann stæði álútur. Hann var of stór til að búa í svona lítilli kjallaraíbúð. Eins og tröll undir brú, hugsaði Jóhann. Hann mundi hversu stór bróðir hans virtist vera þegar hann stóð við hlið Marion. Hún var frá Filippseyjum og náði honum varla í öxl. Bræðurnir heilsuðust og Böddi snerist á hæli og gekk inn í íbúðina með Jóhann í humátt á eftir.

Það var langt síðan hann hafði komið inn í íbúð bróður síns. Þeir hittust að jafnaði bara þegar  Böddi kom í mat til þeirra. Þá sat hann til borðs á milli krakkanna. Stóri frændi þeirra var í miklu uppá- haldi hjá Jóa og Helgu. Þau kepptust við að segja honum frá merkilegum uppákomum sem drifið höfðu á daga þeirra í skólanum og eftir matinn var alltaf hægt að plata Bödda frænda til að taka þau í kleinu eða flugvél. Eftir að Böddi og Marion gift- ust hafði hún fylgt honum í þessi kvöldverðarboð. Jóhann sá áhrif hennar hvert sem hann leit í litlu íbúðinni; í hvítri jólaseríu sem var vafin í kringum spegilinn í forstofunni og í smáum, innrömmuðum blómamyndum sem héngu á víð og dreif um stofuveggina. Þar voru einnig innrammaðar myndir af Bödda og Marion og af fjölskyldu hennar á Filippseyjum. Sér til undrunar kom hann auga á mynd af sinni eigin fjölskyldu sem hann kannaðist við af gömlu jólakorti. Hann gat ekki ímyndað sér að Böddi hefði gert sér ferð til að kaupa ramma sem passaði utan um myndina. Hann hefði látið sér nægja að festa myndina á vegginn með kennaratyggjói eða smeygt henni undir ísskápssegul. Marion hlaut að hafa séð til þess að myndin væri römmuð inn og hengd á vegginn.

Honum varð hugsað til þeirra mörgu smáu breytinga sem hann og Ella höfðu orðið vör við í fari Bödda  síðan  hann  kvæntist.  Afmælisgjöfum handa krökkunum var pakkað inn í litríkan pappír með fallegum borða. Böddi hætti að ganga í skyrtum með götum á olnbogunum og var ætíð hreinrakaður. Hann hafði sagt Jóhanni með strákslegu brosi að Marion þætti óþægilegt hvernig skeggbroddarnir rispuðu hana þegar þau kysstust. Ella fékk meira að segja sendan blómvönd í vinnuna þegar hún fékk stöðuhækkun. Blómunum fylgdi kort með heillaóskum frá Bödda og Marion. Kortið var reyndar allsérstakt. Framan á því var mynd af dökkklæddri konu sem kraup á kné. Gylltir geislar ljómuðu í kringum höfuð hennar. Inni í kortinu, fyrir ofan netta rithönd Marion og klunnalega undirskrift Bödda, voru tvær prentaðar ljóðlínur á tungumáli sem Ella hélt að væri latína. Þau komust aldrei að því hvað stóð í kortinu en fyrirhöfnin og velvild Marion í garð þeirra snart þau og þau þökkuðu henni hugulsemina þegar þau Böddi komu næst í mat.

Bræðurnir settust niður við eldhúsborðið. Litli kjallaraglugginn fyrir ofan þá varpaði gráleitri birtu á eldhússkápana. Böddi færði til tóma pitsukassa á eldhúsborðinu og bauð upp á kaffi. „Ég er bara með instant,“ sagði hann. Hann skrúfaði  frá  krananum til að fylla rafmagnsketilinn en vaskurinn var full-  ur af leirtaui og vatnið flæddi yfir óhreina diskana  og niður á gólf. Hann bölvaði, færði til hauginn í vaskinum og þurrkaði upp bleytuna með öðrum fæti með því að nudda loðnum inniskónum yfir pollinn.

„Ég reyndi að hringja í þig,“ sagði Jóhann á meðan þeir biðu eftir katlinum.

„Já, er það?“

„Ég hringdi á skrifstofuna. Þau sögðu mér að þú værir veikur heima.“

Bróðir hans sneri sér við með kaffikrús í hvorri hendi. „Hvað sagðirðu þeim?“ spurði hann og setti bollana á borðið og skóflaði í þá kaffidufti, opnaði síðan ísskápinn og tók út mjólkurfernu. Sykurkarið var nú þegar á borðinu. Bræðurnir kunnu báðir að meta mikið af sykri og mjólk í kaffið sitt.

„Ekkert. Ekki neitt.“

„Ég er búinn með alla frídagana mína,“ sagði bróðir hans og hellti í bollana úr hvæsandi katlinum.

„Ókei.“

Þeir blönduðu ríflega í kaffið.

„Ég vildi að þú hefðir sleppt því að hringja í vinnuna mína,“ sagði Böddi. „Þau gætu haldið að það væri eitthvað í gangi.“

„Það var slökkt á gemsanum þínum.“

„Þetta er ekki eins og í vinnunni þinni. Ég get ekki farið hvenær sem er og sagst vera að vinna heima.“

„Vinnan mín er ekki þannig. Ég er viss um að þau voru ekkert að pæla í því af hverju ég var að hringja.“

„Ég þurfti smá tíma út af fyrir mig. Ég held það ætti nú að vera í lagi að ég hringi mig inn veikan svona einu sinni. Konan mín fór frá mér.“

„Ókei,“ sagði Jóhann og reyndi að róa bróður sinn niður. „Ég sagði ekki neitt við þau.“ Þeir supu aftur á kaffinu og Jóhann spurði: „Hefurðu heyrt í henni?“

„Nei,“ sagði Böddi. Hann hrærði í kaffinu, dangl- aði skeiðinni í bollann og lét hana falla á borðið með glamri. „Ég hef ekkert reynt að ná í hana.“

„Hvar heldurðu að hún sé?“

„Veit ekki. Ætli hún sé ekki hjá einhverri vinkonu sinni. Ég þekki þær ekkert. Kannski fór hún bara aftur heim.“

„En þú ert með slökkt á símanum þínum. Kannski er hún að reyna að ná í þig.“

Böddi virtist argur yfir að verið væri að eyða tíma í þessar vangaveltur. „Hún fór, ókei?“ sagði hann og horfði hvasst á Jóhann. „Hún er farin.“

Jóhann  gafst  upp.   Hann  skóflaði  meiri  sykri    í kaffið til að reyna að dylja biturt bragðið af kaffiduftinu.

„Hvað er að frétta af krökkunum?“ spurði Böddi skyndilega.

„Bara allt fínt. Jói útskrifaðist úr leikskólanum um daginn.“

„Já, ókei? Það er svo langt síðan ég hef séð þau.“

„Þetta  var  nú  svolítið fyndið.  Þau  voru með athöfn og allt. Þetta er nú bara leikskóli. En krakkarnir skemmtu sér vel. Helga er orðin algjör gelgja. Þolir ekki neitt sem við mamma hennar segjum. Við erum víst svo hallærisleg.“

„Æi, þið eigið svo frábæra krakka.“

„Já, ég veit.“

„Ég vonaði að við Marion myndum líka eignast krakka. Þá hefðu Jói og Helga getað passað fyrir okkur og við öll farið í bústað saman og svoleiðis.“

„Já, það hefði verið gaman,“ sagði Jóhann og reyndi að láta ekki draga sig inn í skýjaborgir bróð- ur síns en gat þó ekki stillt sig um að bæta við: „Það er aldrei að vita. Kannski náið þið saman aftur.“

„Nei. Nei, það held ég ekki,“ sagði bróðir hans. Augun lágu djúpt í breiðleitu andlitinu. Augun í hon- um voru svo viðkvæm. Jóhann mundi hvernig Böddi gjóaði þeim flóttalega í allar áttir þegar þeir voru ungir og fóru saman á böll, eins og hann væri viss um að einhvers staðar í salnum væri fólk að gera gys að honum.

„Hvað segir Ella?“ spurði Böddi.

„Bara fínt. Mikið að gera í vinnunni.“ Það var rúmur mánuður síðan Ella hafði tekið Bödda afsíðis í matarboði og sagt honum að hann yrði að hætta  að hringja í Jóhann þegar hann væri búinn að vera að drekka. Hún sagði Jóhanni frá fyrirmælunum kvöldið eftir. Annað fólk hefði látið það ógert. Ekki Ella, það var ekki hennar stíll. Henni hugnaðist ekki þögnin sem umlukti bræðurna og alla þeirra fjölskyldu. Hennar fólk talaði um allt og reifst hástöfum og sagði það sem segja þurfti. Jóhann þoldi ekki hvernig foreldrar hennar og systkini rifust fyrir framan hvern sem var, alltaf um sömu bitbeinin. Hann sá ekki tilganginn í að eyða svona miklum hávaða og orku í að velta sér upp úr því sem aldrei myndi breytast. Þú elskaðir fólkið sem þú elskaðir og varðst að taka því eins og það var. Engu að síður fauk í hann þegar Ella sagði honum frá samtali hennar og Bödda. Þau lentu í ógurlegu rifrildi, óhrædd við að sleppa af sér beislinu þar sem börnin voru í gistingu hjá foreldrum hennar. Kvöldið hafði átt að vera bara fyrir þau tvö, með kertum og góðu víni og mat, en Jóhann hafði rokið út í göngutúr í staðinn. Það var hans venja þegar hann þurfti að ná sér niður. Þegar hann sneri aftur var hún búin að opna vínflöskuna og byrjuð að elda. Orðalaust hóf hann að leggja á borð og kveikja á kertunum í löngu og mjóu kertastjökunum á borðstofuborðinu. Þau sátu og borðuðu í þögn, unnu smátt og smátt  á flöskunni og skiptust á að hella í glas hvort fyrir annað. Að máltíðinni lokinni lagði hann höndina á mitt borðið, sneri lófanum upp á hvítum dúknum, og hún tók um fingur hans. Hann gat aldrei fundið orðin til að segja henni hversu þakklátur hann var fyrir þennan mikla styrk hennar; hvernig hún hélt verndarhendi yfir honum og börnunum. Í rökkrinu í svefnherberginu hvíldi hann höfuðið á brjósti henn- ar eins og lítið barn.

„Þið eruð heppin að hafa fundið hvort annað,“ sagði Böddi. „Þið passið svo vel saman.“

„Já, ég veit,“ sagði Jóhann. „Þið Marion voruð líka góð saman,“ bætti hann við en Böddi hristi hausinn.

„Nei, ekki eins og þið. Við höfðum ekki einu sinni hist almennilega fyrr en viku áður en við gift- um okkur. Bara skrifast á og talað saman með vef- myndavélum.“

Jóhann kinkaði kolli og reyndi að fela forvitni sína. Það voru næstum tvö ár síðan Böddi kom við eftir vinnu og hitti á Jóhann einan heima. Ella var  í leikfimi og krakkarnir í tónlistarskólanum. Hann hafði verið að skila af sér síðbúinni afmælisgjöf handa Jóa og á meðan þeir sátu við eldhúsborðið með kaffi ljóstraði hann því skyndilega upp að hann ætti kærustu sem hann hefði hitt á netinu og að hann væri að fara í heimsókn til hennar til Manila á Filippseyjum. Jóhann vissi varla hvað hann ætti að segja. Hann saup á kaffinu og sagði: „Ja hérna!“ og óskaði síðan bróður sínum til hamingju. Þegar Böddi kom aftur heim til Íslands mánuði seinna var hann trúlofaður.

Þau voru tvístígandi fyrst, hann og Ella. Óviss um hvort þeirra væri að notfæra sér hitt; Marion eða Böddi. En eftir að þau hittu Marion og sáu áhrifin sem hún hafði á Bödda og hvernig hann hegðaði sér í kringum hana, ákváðu þau að þetta væri kannski þeim báðum fyrir bestu. Marion var einlæg og glaðlynd og snerist um Bödda eins og hann væri barn. Hún var lágvaxin og samanrekin og þegar þau Böddi komu í kvöldmat fann hún leiðir til að hjálpa til við matarundirbúninginn og tók þátt í að taka af borðum og vaska upp. Á meðan sat Böddi með kaffið sitt. Það minnti Jóhann á föður þeirra, hvernig hann sat og sötraði kaffi á meðan mamma þeirra snerist í kringum hann. Marion talaði góða ensku en þó með miklum hreim og undarlegum áherslum. Þau töluðu öll ensku við matarborðið til að hún yrði ekki útundan en hún skipaði þeim oft að tala frekar móðurmálið. „Til að hjálpa mér að læra,“ sagði hún á bjagaðri íslensku. Hún var iðin við að sækja ýmis íslenskunámskeið þar sem hún kynntist fólki hvaðanæva úr heiminum. Endrum og sinnum náði hún ekki öllu sem Jóhann og Ella sögðu en það virtist ekkert trufla hana, heldur brosti hún bara og yppti öxlum og hallaði sér aftur í stólnum til að láta þau vita að hún skildi ekki. Það var frekar að það truflaði Bödda. Hann fór hjá sér og hallaði sér að henni til að hvísla útskýringar í eyra hennar.

„Þetta var svona stefnumótasíða,“ sagði Böddi í rökkvuðu eldhúsinu. „Þeir voru með fullt af myndum og nöfn og áhugamál og svoleiðis. Líka myndir af körlum sem voru að auglýsa eftir eiginkonum. Svo gat fólk klikkað á hvert annað og skrifast á. Ég skoðaði eitthvað af því sem hinir karlarnir skrifuðu um sjálfa sig, svona til að fá hugmyndir, og sumir þeirra voru frekar ógeðslegir. Voru að tala um hvernig konur þeir vildu. Stærðir og svoleiðis.“ Orðin flæddu alls óhindruð, eins og því fylgdi léttir að leysa frá skjóðunni.

„Hvað sagðirðu um sjálfan þig?“ spurði Jóhann og sá hvernig bróðir hans fór hjá sér.

„Bara, þú veist. Þetta venjulega. Ég skrifaði um hver ég væri, áhugamál og vinnu og svoleiðis. Sagðist vilja kynnast góðri konu. Góðhjartaðri konu.“ Hann hikaði og sagði svo: „Fólk heldur að þetta sé eitthvað mansal. Að þessar konur séu keyptar eins og söluvara. Það er ekki þannig. Það er enginn peningur í þessu, bara fólk sem vill hittast og reyna að búa til líf saman. Sumar þessar stelpur, það er ekki mikið í boði fyrir þær þarna og þær langar að komast burt og eignast eiginmann og fjölskyldu. Og megnið af körlunum eru bara gaurar eins og ég sem misstu af tækifærinu til að kynnast konu og eignast fjölskyldu þegar þeir voru yngri.“

Jóhanni varð eilítið órótt við að hlusta á bróður sinn tala. Foreldrar þeirra og frændfólk minntist aldrei á það við hvort annað hvernig Böddi og Marion kynntust. Hann hafði alltaf haldið að það væri kurteisi að ræða það ekki en var ekki endilega svo viss lengur.

„Var það svoleiðis hjá Marion, að hún vildi komast í burtu?“ spurði hann og kom sjálfum sér á óvart með eigin hnýsni.

„Já, eiginlega,“ sagði bróðir hans. „Ekki svo slæmt samt. Hún vildi fá að lifa sínu eigin lífi. Vildi ekki búa hjá mömmu sinni að eilífu og sá ekki fram á að giftast þar sem hún var. Hún átti ekki fyrir að kaupa sína eigin íbúð og það er strembið að leigja einn þarna. Ekki margt að fá. Flestir vilja einungis leigja pörum og fjölskyldum.“

„Svo hún ákvað bara að koma hingað í staðinn?“

„Já. Hún var orðin leið á Cavites, fannst hún vera föst þar. Það er borgin sem hún bjó í, lítil borg hinum megin við flóann frá Manila. Þegar ég fór að heimsækja hana hittumst við í Manila og tókum ferjuna yfir. Hún var með frænku sína með sér til að passa að ekkert gerðist. Þegar við náðum loksins að tala saman í friði fyrir frænkunni, sagði hún að hún liti á þetta allt saman sem ævintýri. Að við værum að fara að upplifa ævintýri saman.“

Hann þagnaði og leit á Jóhann.

„Við vissum hvað við vorum að gera,“ sagði hann. „Við vissum að við værum ekki ástfangin, ekki ennþá. Við héldum að það kæmi seinna. Að saman myndum við rækta með okkur ást. Ég hitti fjölskylduna hennar. Þau eru mjög gott fólk, öllsömul. Pabbi hennar er dáinn en ég talaði við mömmu hennar. Hún spurði út í vinnuna og íbúðina mína. Hvort ég ætti bíl. Hún var að passa að ég gæti séð fyrir dóttur hennar, skilurðu? Mamma hennar sagði mér að hún og pabbi Marion hefðu gift sig að ósk fjölskyldna þeirra. Þau þekktust næstum ekkert þegar þau giftust en ræktuðu síðan með sér ást. Alveg eins og við ætluðum að gera.“

Hvernig Böddi sagði „ræktað með sér ást“ hljóm- aði skringilega í hans munni og Jóhann áttaði sig á að hann var að endurtaka frasa sem Marion hafði sagt eða, sem honum þótti líklegra, sem móðir Marion hafði sagt við þau bæði. Frasinn bar vott um sorg og örvæntingu; hinsta von móður Marion er hún horfði á dóttur sína hverfa á brott með ókunnugum manni.

Bræðurnir sátu lengi og ræddu um ferð Bödda til Manila og um Marion. Böddi lýsti því hvernig hann hafði séð myndina af henni á stefnumótasíðunni og umsvifalaust orðið hugfanginn af henni. Hvernig hann þekkti hana á brosinu um leið og hann kom út úr hliðinu á flugvellinum. Hann hafði lesið það sem hún hafði skrifað um sjálfa sig á stefnumótasíðunni og þótt hún virka klár og örugg með sig. Þroskaðri en hinar stelpurnar á síðunni  þrátt  fyrir  að  vera  tíu árum yngri en hann. Þegar þau hittust í fyrsta sinn voru þau þögul og feimin, eins og unglingar á leiðinni á sitt fyrsta ball, með roskna frænku hennar  í eftirdragi. Eftir að hún féllst á að giftast honum  var haldin veisla með fullt af ættingjum. Það var síðasti dagurinn þeirra saman, áður en hann fór  aftur heim til Íslands að bíða hennar. Böddi  kall- aði það grillveislu en af lýsingunum að dæma hafði samkoman verið hátíðlegri en svo. Þau Marion sátu hlið við hlið, umkringd fjölskyldu hennar, og héld- ust í hendur undir borðinu á meðan þeim var færður grillmatur á pappadiskum.

Á meðan Jóhann hlustaði á frásögnina af því hvernig bróðir hans og mágkona kynntust varð honum ljóst að Böddi hafði lengi beðið eftir tækifæri til að segja einhverjum þessa sögu og hafði sagt sjálfum sér hana aftur og aftur þar til hún var þaulæfð. Þetta var sagan af stóra rómantíska ævintýrinu sem hann og Marion réðust í saman. Hann virtist hafa gleymt vissum þáttum sögunnar eða vísvitandi hlaupið yfir þá.

Símtölin höfðu byrjað fyrir einhverjum mánuðum síðan, stuttu eftir að Marion fór að eignast sína eigin vini á Íslandi. Bæði fólkið á íslenskunámskeiðunum og aðrar konur frá Filippseyjum sem höfðu komið  til Íslands til að giftast íslenskum karlmönnum. Böddi hafði hringt og kvartað yfir því  við Jóhann að Marion vildi að hann hitti þessar vinkonur og eiginmenn þeirra. Þau mæltu sér mót heima hjá  hvert öðru reglulega, skiptust á að halda matarboð og leigðu jafnvel sal og komu með  filippseyskan mat með sér, fengu hljómsveit eða plötusnúð og dönsuðu fram á nótt. Böddi þoldi ekki þessar samkomur. Konurnar töluðu allar saman og hlógu  og hann skildi ekki neitt. Hann var fastur með eiginmönnunum sem hann sagði að væru hálfgerðir hallærisgaurar. „Svona sorglegar týpur,“ sagði hann við Jóhann í símann. Eftir að hann fór að neita að fara með henni, snerust símtölin upp í kvartanir um að Marion væri aldrei heima og vildi bara vera með vinum sínum en ekki honum. Hann tók að fara á barinn í staðinn, eins og til að jafna metin. Hann skyldi sko ekki sitja einn heima að bíða eftir henni.

Þótt Jóhann þekkti alla þessa forsögu gat hann ekki fengið sig til að neita Bödda um rómantísku draumamyndina sem hann dró upp af hjónabandi þeirra Marion, rétt eins og í öllum símtölunum þar sem hann leyfði Bödda að tala og reyndi af fremsta megni að taka enga afstöðu. Hann leiddi sjaldan hugann að því hvernig Marion myndi segja söguna af kynnum sínum við Bödda og hjónabandi þeirra, heldur bægði þeim hugsunum frá sér.

Eins og oft áður var hans varla þörf í samtalinu.  Á meðan Böddi talaði kinkaði hann kolli og jánkaði þegar við átti. Ísskápshurðin á bak við Bödda var þakin miðum og bæklingum og ljósmyndum  sem var haldið uppi með skrautlegum ísskápsseglum. Hvorki Marion né Böddi voru á neinni myndinni. Þær hlutu að hafa verið sendar í pósti frá ættingjum hennar heima á Filippseyjum. Á myndunum voru nýfædd börn í skírnarkjólum og litlir krakkar í samkvæmisklæðum. Þarna voru myndir úr brúðkaupum og öðrum slíkum viðburðum þar sem karlarnir voru  í hálfgegnsæjum hvítum skyrtum með stífpressuðum krögum og konurnar í litríkum ballkjólum. Þau brostu glaðlega við myndavélinni, eins og þau væru við það að skella upp úr.

„Ég hélt að þú hefðir sagt að allt dótið hennar væri farið,“ sagði Jóhann.

Böddi hafði lokið máli sínu og sat þögull með báðar hendur um hálftóman kaffibollann.

„Ha?“ sagði hann.

Það var erfitt fyrir Jóhann að endurtaka spurninguna,  sem  hafði  fallið  svo  skyndilega  af vörum hans að hann áttaði sig varla á að hann væri að tala upphátt. Hann endurtók orð sín stamandi og muldrandi.

„Dótið hennar. Ég hélt að þú hefðir sagt að hún hefði tekið allt dótið sitt. Í gær þegar ég talaði við þig í símann.“

„Það er eitthvað af dóti farið.“

„Skildi hún allar fjölskyldumyndirnar sínar eftir?“

Böddi starði á hann. Andlitið, sem hafði verið opið og glaðleitt á meðan hann sagði söguna af sér og Marion, lokaðist.

„Ætli hún sendi ekki eftir dótinu sínu seinna,“ sagði Jóhann, hjálparlaus í þögninni sem stafaði frá Bödda.

Böddi kinkaði hægt kolli.

„Jú, ætli það ekki.“

Eitthvað hafði breyst í litla eldhúsinu. Það var að verða dimmt úti. Jóhann saup á kaffinu en það var orðið kalt. Hann kláraði engu að síður úr bollanum og lét ekki á neinu bera.

„Jæja, ég þarf víst að fara að drífa mig,“ sagði hann.

„Gaman að þú gast kíkt í heimsókn,“ sagði Böddi.

Þeir stóðu upp og föðmuðust klunnalega við borðsendann. Böddi fylgdi honum til dyra. Jóhann þræddi á sig jakkann og vafði trefli um hálsinn.

Hann hafði ekki farið úr skónum þegar hann kom inn og sá nú að hann hafði skilið eftir sig fótspor á gólfinu. Hann opnaði hurðina og sneri sér að bróður sínum.

„Þú ættir samt að fara í vinnuna á morgun,“ sagði hann. „Annars kann þeim að þykja það eitthvað undarlegt.“

Bróðir hans kinkaði kolli.

Jóhann hélt sér í handriðið á meðan hann gekk upp sleipar tröppurnar. Þegar hann leit við stóð Böddi í gættinni. Honum kom aftur í hug tröll sem bjó undir brú. Þeir horfðust í augu og hvorugur þeirra gerði eða sagði neitt til að gefa til kynna að þeir þekktust. Svo lokaði Böddi hurðinni.

Á meðan bíllinn er stopp á rauðu ljósi sér Jóhann skyndilega fyrir sér hvar Böddi gengur á milli herbergja í litlu íbúðinni og tekur niður ljósmyndir og blómamálverk, fjarlægir föt úr svefnherbergisskápnum og meik og krem úr baðherbergisskápnum og treður öllu í svartan ruslapoka.

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