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 and judgmental, I have always felt that art runs in my blood even though there are no artistic neurons anywhere in my family, I’m so very different from them. Now, finally, now my parents are dead, I will allow my dream to come true, for why haven’t I done it before? In reality, it isn’t possible to do anything in this world until everyone is dead and one finally gets some peace—when all those who have placed obligations on your shoulders are finally dead, you are free and can make your dreams come true, although then you’d be alone in the world, unable to achieve anything. I never wanted children, just to be kind to animals and care for them in this evil human world, prevent them from suffering and cruelty, but it’s proved impossible to escape my family, I’ve been forced to cause many animals to suffer and worse, so much worse, I have been forced to castrate them and kill them, to castrate animals, Interpreter, that is an unspeakable horror … and I cannot get out of this, it has often occurred to me to castrate myself as a deliberate punishment, a payment for all the eunuchs I have made, to remove my uterus, because these are undeniably crimes, crimes against animals, crimes against nature, crimes against life and crimes against God! …You have selected a good job, how noble it is to interpret between people in this post-Babylonian world of ours, Dr. Lassi said, her face clouding as she looked wearily up at the ceiling light, causing shadows to thread shallow wrinkles around her eyes, making her look intensely disordered and cruel, her youth and dreams eaten up the way suburban street systems eat up nature. I have sometimes looked at myself, feeling a pressing need to justify myself, to have self-belief after a hard day at work, and have told myself I’m an interpreter, interpreting between humans and animals, and my wife tells me to cook and clean, she does it indirectly, I come home and nothing has happened at home since the morning, she has been at home all day watching TV, she commands me, dead tired, to cook and clean