Here Be Icebergs

HERE BE Icebergs

Katya Adaui

HERE BE ICEBERGS

Translated by

Rosalind Harvey

Contents

HERE BE ICEBERGS

1. THE HUNGER ANGEL

2. IF ANYTHING EVER HAPPENS TO US

3. THE COLOUR OF ICE

4. ALASKA

5. THAT HORSE

6. WHERE THE HUNTS TAKE PLACE

7. THIS IS THE MAN

8. WE, THE SHIPWRECKED

9. LOVEBIRD

10. THE HAMBERES TWINS

11. GARDENING

12. SEVEN WAVES

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The object towards which the action of the sea is directed.

'ALASKA' in Aleut, one of the

Eskimo-Aleut languages

The boy has a way of leaving the house that tells

the old man there’s no way to stop him.’

Cesare Pavese

1. THE HUNGER ANGEL

68.

My mother brings me offerings on Sundays. The past returns in occurrences. She insists on furnishing me with new memories. Her own.

A month ago: Look what I’ve got for you. From a bag she removes a pair of little baby shoes. They look like they’ve been dipped in copper. Living fossils, seahorses. They were yours, you wore them in your first month. There are photos of you with them on – don’t you like them? My face, frozen in horror. Why don’t you take those books off the table and display them?

Last Sunday: I found your stamp album, it wasn’t stolen after all. You used to love the Magyar Posta stamps so much! And that time you gave us a talk on Australia in the living room and showed us all the kangaroo stamps.

It’s true: I love philately just as I love literature. Both show a version of reality, selective acts, counterfeits.

This Sunday: This might surprise you! She hands me a piece of paper.

Growth Chart and Record of Immunisations. My surname has a superfluous ‘G’. The handwriting is not either of my parents’.

Birth. Length: 19 inches. Weight: 7 pounds 14 ounces.

The last recorded date: 5 years old. 3 foot 11 inches. Weight: 3 stone 4.

The last four annual inoculations: Polio. MMR. Polio. Polio.

All hand-written, month after month. In my mother’s painstaking cursive. At the bottom of the page:

SQUIBB – Products Made Specially for Children

Confidence that Comes from a Century of Experience

I interpret these peculiar objects parachuting down onto me: you exist because of me. I cared for you. I loved you. Now it’s your turn: love me, care for me. I exist.

67.

I went to clean the maid’s room and guess what I found? All your maths exercise books. They’re the only ones you didn’t throw away.

66.

I miss your father. Don’t you?

I miss him in a quiet sort of way.

So you didn’t love him, then.

65.

Mum is good. I don’t know any longer if she is cruel or mad, but she is good. She gave us the best school, she gave us holidays.

You repeat everything she says, even today.

You just don’t get it. She’s old, she’s on her own.

She’s exactly how she wanted to be.

What happened to Dad was a shock for her, the poor thing. We’ll have to take it in turns to go and visit her. I can’t spend all my Saturdays looking after her. I want to see my husband, too. And I have to work. I’m going to Recife next month, to a conference on leishmaniasis.

Well, don’t do anything out of guilt.

It’s not guilt. It’s pity.

Your pity looks a lot like your guilt.

Yeah, maybe; perhaps it is guilt.

When we say goodbye, my sister never quite manages to say: You’re going? She says: You’re abandoning me?

The mark is the mark.

64.

My aunt: Your father confessed to me years ago that he once thought about committing suicide in his car. He stopped because he glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw you sitting in the back seat.

63.

My brother doesn’t work. I tell everyone he works. And what does he do? Oh, all kinds of things. Please don’t let anyone ask me how long it’s been since I last saw him, how long he’s been away for, whether he’s happy doing what he does. I don’t even know where he is right now. I could make up an entire backstory for him. I’ve even forgotten his voice; he did have one, clear as a covenant. How do I fit him into my life? I don’t know.

62.

I never hit you, darling, it was your brother.

He never hit me, but it’s in the past now, Dad. I’ve forgiven you.

What have you forgiven me for if I didn’t do anything to you?

Forget it, it’s in the past.

Just the same, forgive me anyway.

I brush his hair with my fingers. I smile. Kiss his forehead. Draw the curtains that separate us from the others. What you do think you have?

I’m not an idiot.

Come on, Dad, let’s talk. Tell me something.

Where’s your sister?

At the billing department, paying.

Oh, of course. Yep, spend away, you’ll get it all back from the insurance anyway, as you know.

Don’t worry about that. Do you want Mum to come and visit? Would you like to see her?

No, I don’t want her to see me like this, sick as a dog. I want to see my son. It’s been such a long time now.

61.

Don’t forget to cut my nails, she says, every Sunday. I cut Mum’s nails. They ping off in all directions. I don’t do this for anybody. Cutting nails disgusts me, like squeezing spots, whiteheads, like holding my head over the toilet bowl to puke. I balance her feet on my knees; she’s entrusting me with her comfort, not her beauty. She’s chosen me as her pedicurist. Our nails look alike, as all nails do, but they are ours: hers, hard; mine, a little softer. It must be because of the extra calcium – she never goes anywhere without her pillbox. I keep a few of the nails when she’s not looking, just as she still has a lock of my baby hair, a different colour to what it is now.

60.

You can’t marry him.

I love him.

No you don’t, you just want to get laid.

That’s not true.

You liar, you should be ashamed of yourself. What you don’t realise is that men only ever see you as a hole. Don’t get married. I’d rather you just shacked up with the man.

I move out the next day. I take my bedside table, a mattress. A box with all the letters and postcards I’ve ever received. My CDs. My books. Tickets from gigs and museums. My notebooks. So little life even in my collections, but this is what I am.

You’ll soon come crawling back with your tail between your legs, just you wait!

She shouts at me in the street while I help the driver to load my things faster into the van. You’re a whore, that’s what you are.

My sister. Where’s my sister? Where is she crying over us?

The book whose title names me: The Hunger Angel.

59.

Why are you calling her, Maurito? She’s a bad, bad girl. My daughter’s no good for you. You’ve no idea what she does to me. When are you coming round? I’ll give you a prayer card. You’re the only friend of hers I can stand because you’re a Catholic from a good family, like me. You and I are the same, you know. You love your mother, I’m sure of it.

58.

How could I not love your brother? He’s my child too, isn’t he? The problem is your father never loved him. They used to compete for my love.

57.

I ring your house and your mother tells me not to trust you because you’re bad. What is it with your old lady?

56.

Valeria comes back every summer. She keeps her promises. We recommend books to each other. Once – without knowing it – it turned out we’d been reading the same book at the same time. She writes to me:

Nena, I dreamed about you and now it feels like we were together just a little while ago. In the dream I was happy you were there, and at the same time I felt sad because you were about to leave. But you were close by and it was so lovely.

Our friendship values memory, shares a weight. We measure everything in relation to our day-to-day life: her house, my house. The families we would eventually cease to belong to. She wants to be an actress. I, a writer. When they see us chatting at the edge of the pool, the adults: Don’t they look lovely, always so relaxed.

They’re wrong. We’re practising how to endure everything life has in store for us.

55.

I get home from school. Mum is in bed. Anaesthetised eyes on high alert.

What was the operation for this time?

How do you know? Who told you?

She smells of formaldehyde.

I’ll show you – undo my blouse.

A long scar on her belly, the stitches thick, fresh. They sliced off her nipples, took out fat, sewed them back on. Or something like that. A DIY project. An autopsy.

My friend Jonathan did it for free. Don’t say a word to your sister or I’ll kill you.

Why did you have surgery? You had a nice body.

You said it: had, a long time ago. When you’re my age you’ll understand. It’s a tragedy to feel young, see yourself in the mirror, and realise you’re not.

When my mother goes to parents’ evenings, everyone stares at her. She is tall and blonde, her permed hair cropped short. She smokes like she’s in an advert, she is a red mouth producing clouds that seem to cocoon her, to do her good. Her chic skirts are paired with handbags and jewellery, everything matching: not so much dressed as linked together like a chain. I brim with pride. This woman is my mother and she is absolutely beautiful. Men shout at her in the street. She smiles at each and every tribute. Success is all your friends wanting to be adopted by your mother. At home, I find my mother’s ugliness offensive.

One day she comes back from work with a blue outline tattooed onto her eyelids, little dots of blood like red crusts of sleep. Her lips are surrounded by the raised rough skin of micro wounds.

What have you done to yourself?

They asked me to be a model at the hairdressers. The permanent eye- and lip-liner was free. I get everything for free. You know that everyone loves me.

Before going to sleep, she places her upper set of dentures