we must make ourselves a settlement here, never return to Norway, here we will thrive in peace. So who took the land in Hérað? It will be interesting to see … Now, dear Interpreter, Dr. Lassi said, fetch me someone who knows all about the Skaftafell district, one of those Tvísker brothers, most likely Sigurður, he is such a knowledgeable guy, I can feel my report flourishing, I can sense the material simmering inside me, from settlement to present day, I just need to vent it, to give it form, this could even become a whole book, and a book entirely unlike anything anyone has ever written in Iceland, a medical history of Bernharður with biographical overtones yet mostly about the wound to his thigh and the amputation; a medical history with a biographical element but all wrapped up in national lore, even, my darling, global sensibilities, yes, yes indeed, I see it all flashing clearly before me, this book will not become irrelevant, the way books do because they are so homogeneous these days, only ever about someone, any one thing you could sum up in one sentence, as writers do when they’re asked what their book is about, What’s your book about? they’re asked, it’s about this, the authors answer, sure of their facts, but when I get asked what my book is about I’m going to answer with a single word: everything, everything, it is a global report about an individual and the world, about things in the world, all that’s subjective in the world … but what the hell should the book be called? Help me now, Interpreter, what to call this child? Our thing, it needs to be something subtle, but also descriptive, like Dismemberment … listen up, that’s it! Spare your brain cells, we’ve got our title, Dismemberment, no, stop entirely now, damn, that is a fine title, a keeper, alright by me, as people say nowadays; it just struck me suddenly from the realm of ideas like lightning strikes in the darkness of night in the wasteland! Above me a blinding, gloomy storm cloud grows, brimful of ideas, making lightning flash through the sky! Dr. Lassi said—and there I was, lying there listening to this conversation in order to memorize it, one side effect of butyric acid, Dr. Lassi said, is that everything that comes before the senses gets committed to memory: first butyric acid causes amnesia, then the super-memory in the body and brain get embarrassed and want to compensate a thousand-fold …
Report
about
DISMEMBERMENT
Biography (of sorts)
Medical history with national
& global information written by
Dr. Lassi
That’s what the book will be called, Dr. Lassi told The Interpreter, when the report is published in book form after having appeared in all the world’s major magazines. Or might it be better to call the piece Amputation? That’s more stylish and sophisticated …Am-puta-tion: am … I always have the radio set to AM; puta means whore and I love whores; -tion is action and we must act! … no, better to phrase it like this:
Report
about
Amputation & Castration
&
bio
graphic
medical history
with national and
international information
which was written down verified by trusty
sources by the country’s infamous regional
doctor Lassi
or is that too much? she asked as she wrote out the title on a sheet of paper and lost herself in it—but The Interpreter was itching, pulling at her skirt because she needed to fetch Sigurður Tvísker from down in the dining room …You must help me with this, Interpreter dear … Dr. Lassi read her mind and body language and told her to forget Sigurður for now, for the thing now is to write, don’t hunt down Sigurður immediately, but go away all the same, I’ll call you later if the patient babbles anything, right now I’m going to write a bit of the report, I’ve got my inspiration, although it’s strange how profound I am in your presence, it’s like you blow power and spiritedness into me—yes, you’ll have to be here while I write this report, I can pay you an inconsequential amount, how lucky I am to have you to turn to, I meet so many varied people from day to day in my line of work, I’m always on the go between farms in Suðurland, I have to geld here and dismember there, so I’m exhausted when I come home … my wife, I have to say, is an energy–suck; I get paralyzed in body and soul around her, so she can do whatever she wants with me, I become an object without will in her hands, she controls everything throughout our house and I’m just like a sausage over in the corner, first she drains all the energy from me, all vitality, then she can be in charge of everything in the household—but if I had a person like you around, life would be a thrill, would be fecund, you are an energista my dearest Interpreter, that’s what I’ll call you, you can see how imaginative I am around you, starting to create words, perhaps I’m inclined to pursue the humanities more than the medical sciences since I’m so smart as to be able to create concepts, that would be better for me, but stop prattling on like this, Interpreter, and fetch Sigurður, didn’t I ask you to? No, wait, what’s that Bernharður is burbling, just when I’m about to write, he’s squandering my inspiration, go get him water if he’s asking for water! then bring some more Brennivín for me, just order me a bottle at the bar, the bartender knows me if there’s any trouble, I’ll go see him tonight and pay the bill with my caresses, if he calls them caresses … No, don’t! Interpreter mine, if Bernharður says something remarkable we cannot afford to miss the information for the report, it might suffer perforations because of that, grow thin and full of holes, that’s not good science, the report must be tight and consistent … sorry I am tired, keep an eye on the bleeding while I write, I couldn’t write if you went, I’d get so afraid he’d say something and we’d miss it, it could be the core of the report, so we must not miss anything, nudge me if you see his bandage getting wet, if that happens we must add more toothpaste to the wound, now I’m going to write a bit, I always dreamed of writing, I’m always just about to write something more, there’s just never any time, there’s always things disturbing one, it’s like no one wants anyone to write, I always dreamed of becoming a writer, in some ways it’s childish to be a veterinarian, it’s what I always replied when I was asked as a child what I was going to be when I grew up, I said vet but thought writer, because people reacted to it better, I didn’t have to listen to some long-winded rebuttal; once when I was ten years old I asked my big brother for the loan of a two-króna coin and I bought a notepad and pen, I assumed the pose and felt the beauty of the world surrounding me as I began to stab the pen down, letters beginning to arrange themselves, the words taking shape from each other on the page, meaning accruing, the world opening up! Something so great, so different from what I’d ever experienced: I felt I’d become a magic-woman, a witch, even—but my mother looked over my shoulder and saw the top of the page with, in capital letters, The Biography of Lassi the Veterinarian, by herself, and she exploded with laughter and the whole family burst out laughing and the whole world exploded in laughter, tickled by these fantasies of mine, dead already, it became an entertaining story at every family event and all kinds of uncles and aunts with unfamiliar faces asked me about it and laughed this vile laughter that masked envy and greed; that went on for years, ever thus, ever the same, a mask for envy and greed, it’s still this way, indisposition, envy, and greed, people haven’t thought up anything new under the sun to torment me with. I long since ceased going to those ill-conceived family get-togethers. I’ve dismembered myself from my family, I turned into a teenager determined to rise from my dream’s death so I could have my revenge on my family; I began studying to be a veterinarian, but deep down I was planning to become a writer and record my own life as a veterinarian and how frustrating my family is, how narrow-minded
