become the very kernel of their own existence. I looked at the ground so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious to her how desperate I was, desperate because of something immaterial, an emptiness which came upon me, and she came to me and I felt a stinging, tingling sensation amplify in my stomach, I had no time to recover or gather myself, I ran a comb through my shock of hair, she was asking for my payment and the evening sun was on her face, Hvannadalshnúkur in the background, her cheeks flushed and glowing in the spring scents, nature come to life, she is the beauty within beauty, I thought, and I dived into my trunk, hunting for money to pay her—I invited the park ranger inside my trunk for caraway liquor while she waited, so she wasn’t standing there shivering, the weather cold though the sun shone, and she agreed, she said there was no need to hurry, there wasn’t that much to do this early in spring, I let the way she spoke go to my head, her voice ever so slightly broken, husky, seductive, I said I had been introduced to this liquor the previous day and was taken with it, I love caraway, said the park ranger, she introduced herself as Edda, I do not know what came over me, maybe it was a fear of science, I don’t know, my heart raged violently in my ribs like a caged mink, like a mink driven crazy by cruelty, like a mink which wants to bite the farmer in the throat and kill all birds and destroy the Icelandic ecosystem! … I introduced myself and there was this abominable burning in my chest and I began to tremble, succumbing to spasms, tugging at anything I could reach, this always happens when I’m infatuated, surely she has a boyfriend called Snorri or something, I thought, you cannot touch her, you must not think about it, I said to myself, unless she touches you first, first, I have to stop trembling, my teeth need to stop clattering so I can talk, I was looking for my money but I had no idea what I was doing, I was going to split asunder with all this emotion, I could not keep myself together, my rift plates were transverse, I myself was the glowing magma and I was running in all directions, the kernel that is missing from the upper atmosphere … Edda blushed and smiled, she is a Nordic beauty with perfect teeth, I thought, though I did not want to think it, a fine-figured bird, I was on fire with infatuation and death, charm gusted off her, I had invited her into the trunk and she had accepted. My penis is getting hard, I said, and she began to laugh. That night we lay together in the trunk and I fervently longed for the new day to never come, wishing I could stay in her arms until the destruction of the earth.
Kindly fetch the strumpet if he is so infatuated with her, Dr. Lassi told the Interpreter, it’ll help with his recovery. The eunuch doesn’t lack an erotic sensibility! We also have to allow some damn visits since we have transformed the hotel into a hospital … then we can change the hotel in Freysnes into a research center, too, because this is the site of an ancient farmstead and I am planning to finish the report while we wait for the amputee and his paramour … it’s just as good to have a visitor now as at a later time … it makes sense to let Edda be the first to tackle him today, he seems obsessed with her, he is always mentioning her in his delirium, she clearly occupies a place in his heart, remind me to have a section in the report about love, I tend to forget it and go directly to the erotic.
In the trunk, Edda got all steamed up, breathing excitedly. I had not been with a woman for quite some time and was worried I wouldn’t measure up, wouldn’t be able to perform adequately, to lick her up until she was all done, I couldn’t quell my thoughts, relax, said Edda, sensing my tension, telling me to be calm, I lay on my stomach and she massaged me, massaged my tremors away, I tried to plot out my moves, the techniques I should use, but that terrified me, the park ranger told me to relax, enjoy it, enjoy it, said Edda, just to hear her speaking those words in that voluptuous voice, it was like all the liquid had been wrung from my brain and sucked out of my head, down my spine to spit out my penis—all the burdens, the despair and anxiety, the evident embarrassment. Contentment flourished in my heart and joy filled my breast with its perfumed fragrance; in my mind I began to cartwheel up Mávabyggðir where I threw myself into a hidden crevasse to wait out a happy death worshipping the marvelous monstress Horny-Edda and all the world’s goddesses! … Sorrow gets stored up in the scrotum, Edda said, lying in the trunk, as does joy. After a brief moment, something took shape in my body, a feeling deep inside me that resembled swamplight; it slowly grew into a veil of mist, will-of-the-wisp enveloping me, then the fire broke out again and momentarily lit up the trunk from within, and then came the pyroclastic flow and so did I, utterly … ash and gravel … Edda spent the night with me in the trunk, but I woke her with my mouth’s caresses and she sighed loudly as she came out of her dream, she asked me to come inside her at once, I slipped my penis in and kissed her firm breasts and in response her nipples hardened and reddened, I nibbled at her nipples, Bernharður was saying, I nibbled at her nipples, he kept repeating, I nibbled at her nipples! That’s what he’s shouting, the Interpreter said … please stop, said Dr. Lassi, go on … Edda’s body tremored in response and she wrapped her legs around me, I thrust deep into her and she sighed so loud it rang out in the night’s silence across the Skaftafell campsite, she yelled yes, she screamed, she orgasmed and began to cry, we held each other tight, lying in a still embrace; some mysterious barrier, some dam inside me, had weakened, I felt I could no longer be as objective as I once had been, no longer a body; instead, I’d become subjective, a spirit, I felt I’d touched some ancient ecstasy, had left my body, up to now I’d been a bound manuscript but I’d become oral folklore … Ek em súbjektíf, I said to Edda, and tremblingly clutched for the caraway liquor, serving us drinks in two cups. She clinked my glass and said: better than prayer. I shook so much Brennivín slopped from the shot glass and Edda had to tip my head back and pour it down my throat. I was trembling all over and shaking, spitting the liquor out my nostrils—but then I swiftly calmed, my emotions bursting out so that I felt like I’d vanished into her wonderful being, disappeared from my own being, become the core of myself, I shook with fear, the slightest movement sent electric currents streaming through my mind, we locked eyes and I found security and beauty and terrific sexiness in her sensual eyes, she was so sturdy and compact, soft and firm, we were in thought and then she was on top of me, I was worried whether she was satisfied, she shook herself and groaned softly, then the sighs increased until finally the violent shaking overtook the trunk once again … we fell asleep wrapped around each other. Mávabyggðir could wait.
After resting, satisfied, I found myself brimming with a great store of ideas and noted them frantically in my notebook through the night while Edda slept. I lacked an introduction to my essay on Mávabyggðir and sat on the bed in the morning sun beneath the glorious mountain. Place names often describe the terrain or soil, I wrote in the notebook, place names can describe local conditions or landmarks themselves; really, one could say the place names are the landmark, symbolically; they are often formed by the lay of the land or its landmarks, the shape or relation of one place to another, they often give the hint of mineral strata or some other geological formations, or vegetation, they might describe color, can be metaphorical names, symbols, they are boundary markers, shore markers, the boundaries of pastures, they are taken from livestock, wildlife, from farming, from work methods or procedures, shipping routes and anchor points, trails, plentiful resources, travelogues, sundry incidents and events, battles, weather patterns, temporal markers, legends and oral histories, the names of people, doppelgangers, references to pagan religion, to Christian faith, the Church, political assemblies; place names are set upon landmarks and landmarks show people the way; place names are a testament to the people who settle a land or region, to their life, work, and thoughts; place names are precious cultural histories documenting ancient eras, our attitudes today, and a view to the future; place names are themselves people.
I heated up some coffee and put a big layer-cake on the table to mark the occasion of this glorious day of the Lord. A breakfast for heroes! I shouted to wake up Snorri’s-Edda. She stirred and said in a low voice: How many books you have in your trunk … She fumbled about, as though trying to get her bearings with what had happened. What, are they all national studies? Yes, I said, I got them at the used-and-rare bookstore, Bragi, my friend helped me choose them, more or less chose them all for me. A lot was going on around the Skaftafell campsite. Are there many people at the campsite? I asked. She answered that there were, relative to the time of year. It’s good to sleep in a tent, I said but Edda was staring dejectedly at the tart, her expression somewhat ambiguous, though you need a good tent, emerging from a tent is like being born, which makes sleeping in a tent the closest thing to undoing our amnesia about the time we spent in our mother’s womb; it’s important