Fiction by Victor LaValle
I left my heart in Skaftafell
He was meek, homicidal, wore a long
scarf tied once around his neck as must
have been the style for trolls that year. I
never saw him board the bus, but it may
have been in Varmahlid, though I can’t
be sure since I slept so much in Iceland.
I was there at summer’s end, significado
Agosto. Most folks in their twenties had
already scamped cross-country in July so
I found myself with the elderly wander-
ers. On trails I passed couples catching
breath and rubbing each other’s knees
through waterproof pants. The Ger-
mans regarded me with tacky detach-
mento, snubbing me while wearing
bright red boots and brighter orange
parkas. I tried not to feel hurt by their
disdain, told myself it was like being
expelled from clown college, but you
can guess how much it really bothered
a mí.
También, I had the amazing misfortune of
sitting behind French people on every
plane and bus. Minutes into a ride a pair,
woman and man, brazenly checked that
Victor LaValle is the author of the short story col-
lection “Slapboxing with Jesus” (1999), winner of
the penOpen Book Award, and the novel “The
Ecstatic” (2002), a finalist for the pen/Faulkner
Award. He teaches writing at Mills College.
© 2004 by Victor LaValle
102
La caída de Dédalo 2004
yes there was, certi½ably, undeniably,
someone sitting behind them, then slid
their chairs so far back I had a headrest
against my gullet. This happened so
mucho. Even when I asked, slapped,
tapped, or pushed their seats they only
gave that stare the French invented to
paralyze the dumb.
Luckily the Icelanders liked me, incluso
with being an American, because I was
shy. Firm, polite, and quiet, a perfect
personality for these reserved Northern
Europeans. Many times I was told so.
–Don’t take this the wrong way, uno
girl in a candy shop said to me, but I
explained to my coworker that here, ½-
finalmente, is an American who isn’t boring.
Being loud and asking so many boring
preguntas!
Most Icelanders used English skillful-
ly, but it was a quirk of speech that they
said boring when they meant frustrating.
Like,–This knot in my shoe is so bor-
En g! O,–I can’t reach my girlfriend, este
connection is boring!
I heard it like that many times.
So this was me: an American, not bor-
En g, negro, and alone in Iceland.
Being both a troll and a smoker he
had little lousy teeth. When his mouth
opened it was hard to distinguish them
from his lips. Everything fed into a gen-
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
I left my
heart in
Skaftafell
eral maw. Una vez, he lit up right on the
bus just as we left Akureyri so the driver
stopped, walked down the aisle, and ex-
plained that those were the old ways and
he could no longer smoke everywhere he
pleased. Many places yes, but not here.
I sat farther back, but we all heard the
warning. There were thirty-one of us
riding the bus, mostly couples. No one
else was going alone, but me and the
monster.
I’d describe myself as a nosy person
because I can’t turn away when someone
gets in trouble. There’s a level of deco-
rum I can’t manage so I, but not only I,
watched the troll stub his cigarette out,
though he tried to smoke again after
we’d seen a waterfall called Godafoss,
Waterfall of the Gods. So named be-
cause it was the site where Iceland’s
ruling chief tossed all their pagan idols
when Christianity became the religion
of the land one thousand years ago.
After that second cigarette flared, el
conductor, one big farm bastard, almost
choked the troll, but the little one
worked a humble, fawny apology. Su
plea, spoken in English, didn’t affect
a mí, but our driver relented. I was disap-
pointed because now the driver didn’t
seem like a grown man. Big and strong,
but what’s it worth without a backbone?
By the way, this whole time, let’s not
talk about the Africans. They had no
allegiance to me of course. Why should
ellos? The white folks weren’t hugging
each other in Caucasian familyhood–
still, fuck those Africans, and I mean that
from the bottom of my pockets. In Reyk-
javik I went whiplash trying to get a little
love from any one of them. Not even the
faintest soul-brother nod. May they all
enjoy another hundred years of despotic
regla.
When I say troll it probably implies a
smaller size. We hear troll and think
dwarf, but out here trolls were enormous
according to reports. In a town called
Vik there are three spires said to be trolls
who were caught in sunlight and trans-
formed to stone as they tried to drag a
three-masted ship ashore. They’re six
stories high.
My troll was man-sized. He wore one
beige sweater the whole time though he
paid his checks from a fold of green and
purple bills kept tied in a big red hand-
kerchief. Wherever I got off, he got off.
I’d see him walking around towns at
night, moving with a predatory hunch,
hands in his pockets and holding out the
sides of his jacket as he moved so that
when a wind got in there the fabric ex-
panded and he grew wings.
I didn’t come to Iceland to fuck white
women nor to spin in the flash nights
of Reykjavik. As far as fashion, qué
did I have on Europeans? People my
age whose every kronur, lira, pound,
franc had been deposited into some
great shell-toed Adidas account. Solo
a Japanese college student was going to
outdo those kids.
Iceland was my destination because
there was nowhere else to go. The rest
of the world was only getting hotter and,
much to the shame of my sub-Saharan
ancestors, warm weather was a torment
to me.
Once there I paid a little over two
hundred dollars for a one-way bus ticket
around the island (excluding the western
fjords). Get off in any town you want,
explorar, be both gawked at and ignored,
then get on the next bus the next day to
the next place. I couldn’t pronounce any
of the names so I’d point to one on my
ticket, let the new bus driver say it aloud
and then repeat it so that I’d sound well
versed. Por supuesto, the guy never cared if
I was saying it correctly. But I did.
Not long before coming to Iceland I
stopped wanting marriage. Not only
La caída de Dédalo 2004
103
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Fiction by
Victor
LaValle
with the woman I loved, but the rest of
them too. While it’s true that each fami-
ly is unhappy in its own way, every mar-
ried person’s affair is monotonous and
plain. At least according to me. Yo tenía
friends who’d participated in a few, read
about many, and the impression I had
was that the wedding band makes you
a member of one great dull secret socie-
ty. I hated the men my friends turned
en. Relentlessly horny for any woman
besides their wives, angry at their wives
for having just one pussy. I decided I’d
rather be alone than unhappy. A pesar de
the change of mind, it was me feeling all
sad and longing for my ex. She’d recov-
ered by making herself busy.
I felt so sexy over there. I felt sexy ev-
erywhere, actually. My signature had
carnal appeal. Also the way I wore my
wool hat with the earflaps tied around
the bottom of my chin. Sexy. I’m not
being self-deprecating in the slightest.
Despite this feeling, I hadn’t been to bed
with a woman since my breakup, so I felt
like a light socket hidden behind the
bookshelf.
That was probably best though. Noth-
ing worse than meeting a new woman
when you’re still organizing your heart-
ache about the last one and instead of
dating this new lady she’s just keeping
you company. What I hate are those
folks who can’t spend time alone in a
habitación. They seem so weak. But of course
that’s exactly the kind of guy I am so the
only way to get isolated was to run far,
far away.
The problem with a trip like mine, y
the reason I didn’t full-nelson the troll
on the ½rst day he followed me, is that I
kept seeing the same people in different
towns. There was a stumpy Italian cou-
ple that I must have greeted eighteen
times in four days. There was a woman
from who-can-say-where who became
as uncomfortable around me as I eventu-
ally did around the troll. She and I just
kept picking the same lifeless churches
to visit, the same damn coffeehouses,
until I must have seemed to own a map
of her future engagements. I was con-
stantly, accidentally, trailing her.
She had a lovely awkward smile be-
cause her teeth were concave. Fue
endearing to me, but by the twentieth
encounter either she or I would always
cross the street. Whenever I entered a
rest stop and found her there I became
flustered and took my meal outside.
Having gone through that made me
sympathetic, so the troll got an untold
number of rides sitting in a seat near me
because I wanted to be fair, to be fair.
I hoped for a few good days. Iceland
was only dark four hours a night, so in
the other twenty why not expect a few
minutes of brightness? At Lake Myvatn
I camped in a long cooled lava pool un-
der a constant drizzle and, occasionally,
downpours. The rain let up only when
there was a forceful, misty wind.
I forgot the troll. I was by Lake Myvatn
four days and never saw him. Rented a
bike to go around the lake and, at one
punto, found ½elds of lava that had
cooled into grotesque stacks.
Enormous columns of petri½ed ash
two stories high. There were little holes
dug into them that resembled shelves,
up near the top, dónde, purportedly, gob-
lins slept. That’s the story.
When I walked into these endless
½elds they seemed to twist behind me.
It was confusing, but not frightening.
I imagined myself wandering forward
until I found the Liege of the Goblins re-
clining on a throne made of sheep skulls.
I liked Iceland because they still had
myths on their minds. Not that you’d
½nd anyone under forty who’d admit to
believing in goblins, yet even the most
104
La caída de Dédalo 2004
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
I left my
heart in
Skaftafell
skeptical refused to say so very loudly in
a public place. Después de todo, they might be
escuchando. I needed to be around supersti-
tious people, having recently become
superstitious myself.
As I got back on the bus, after four
días, the troll was there. I imagined he’d
been sleeping in the hood of my jacket
this whole time.
When I saw him I tried to remember
that beautiful woman with her concave
smile. The troll was probably only doing
his own gamboling through the country.
Why be paranoid? But then he looked
arriba, turned backward and stared right at
me until I turned away.
I wrote a postcard to the woman I’d
almost married. In the note I described
the guy, but then decided not to mail her
the card because I’d been so damn sure I
wanted to be single, yet at my time of
fear whom did I automatically turn to?
Since the troll sat ahead of me the
driver reached him ½rst to check tickets
and ask for a destination.
–Breiddalsvik, the troll croaked.
His voice was even sleazier than his
apariencia. The way he whispered the
name it sounded like he was about to
crawl up the inside of the driver’s leg
and bite him in the thigh.
–Djupivogur, I told the driver breez-
ily.
When we reached his stop the troll
had changed his mind.
–Not here, not yet.
Our bus wove through sharp moun-
tains. Big basalt cliffs with little plant life
on them because winds eroded them too
quickly to grow much. Sheep and cows
grazed in the meager ½elds.
Djupivogur. Fishing village of four
hundred. Four hundred and thirty-one
once the bus parked.
Couples disembarked. I took my pack
from below the bus. The troll took his
single hefty black bag. It was a good size,
but not enough to carry camping gear,
sleeping bag, change of clothes, toilet-
ries. Big enough to hold a human head, I
pensamiento; by now my thoughts were get-
ting macabre.
The only hotel in town was beside a
tiny harbor. Two rowboats were an-
chored nose to nose in the water, thirty
feet from me. There were other boats, a
more modern fleet, moored in tidy rows
at the other end of the harbor, three hun-
dred feet farther. Of the twelve vessels
allá, ten wouldn’t ½t more than four
gente. The last two were big, for tours
to the island of Papey, famous for its puf-
½ns. The clumsy little birds with ador-
able faces and multicolored bills were
the reason I’d stopped here. I wanted to
eat one.
I let the troll register ½rst because I
kept making this mistake of thinking
that if I caught him in a lie it would be
enough to stop his plans. I’d confront
him, yell: You said you were getting
off in Breiddalsvik, but you got off in
Djupivogur! And he’d buckle under the
weight of my keen observation. He’d
screech, then disappear back into the
realm of haints and phantoms.
–For one night, he said to the young
girl behind the desk.
–A room? she asked.
–Oh no. My sleeping bag will do.
English wasn’t his ½rst language, eso
was clear, still he didn’t stammer
between each word as a novice would.
His hard consonants had no sharp edges.
Instead of ‘bag’ it was ‘bay.’ Not ‘sleep-
En g,’ but ‘sleppen.’ But I understood
him.
I was on that same plan. Iceland was
expensive, even here in the outer reach-
es. A single room was sixty dollars and
wouldn’t be much better than a home-
less shelter. Sleeping bag accommoda-
ciones, a tiny cubicle with a flat cot and
a shared bathroom, cost only twenty.
La caída de Dédalo 2004
105
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Fiction by
Victor
LaValle
My room was 8 and the troll’s was
9. When I went to the front desk later,
alone and unwatched, to switch, el
clerk told me the rest of the rooms had
been reserved by a team of Norsemen
off hulking around an unpronounceable
mountain. Climbing it with their bare
manos, probably. I was relieved. A hall of
Vikings was enough company for me to
feel safe, even if I was directly next door
to the ½end.
But they never came. The next day I
asked the teenager at the desk, lo mismo
clerk, where they’d gone. She told me
they’d slipped away. A towrope gave out
in their climb and they cascaded into a
pyre of bones, flares, and ice axes.
I went back to my room to sleep away
the rest of the morning, listening for the
sound of the troll packing up and leav-
En g. From his room I heard throat clear-
ing and much coughing. He’d hack so
hard I swear I heard the wet tear of
his trachea. Rolling around his bed he
bumped the wall, he kicked the wall,
then back to coughing. I didn’t go out
to the communal toilet. Just peed in
the room’s small sink. Fell asleep.
When I woke up it was 2 p.m. El
day was pleasant, overcast, and gray. I
wanted a baloney sandwich. Deli meats
were all I could get. De hecho, había
smoked lamb but the taste was like hav-
ing someone empty a full ashtray on my
tongue. You’d think there’d be mass
varieties of ½sh delicacies, plentiful as
blintzes in Borough Park, but they must
have been exporting the marine life and
keeping not a ½n for themselves.
I sat around in my plain white room
and did ½fty push-ups just to make my-
self move. Seventy-½ve sit-ups to get my
stomach working.
After buying a ham sandwich and two
small packets of orange juice at the only
convenience store in Djupivigor I came
back to my hotel, sat at a small desk un-
der a picture window that looked out at
the tiny harbor.
In the communal bathroom the troll
was shaving at the sink. I was actually
feeling terrible right then. Too lonely for
miedo, I soldiered over to the troll, permaneció
three feet away, and said,–Hey look. Are
you following me?
–Yes.
What kind of boar’s hair was he grow-
En g? I wondered as I listened to his razor
run across his neck and below the chin.
It wasn’t some disposable either. Un
enormous contraption. It wasn’t elec-
tric. Actually it looked like one of those
settler-era plows. With a pair of lurid
blades that formed the two upright sides
of an acute triangle. As it pulled across
his pinkish skin the sound was a crack-
ling ½re.
–I’m not going to play dicks with
tú, I explained. If that’s what you’re
acerca de.
–No, he agreed and very ½rmly. Él
slapped the side of the sink once.
He seemed so offended by the idea
that it threw me into a state of juvenile
confusion.
–So what are you doing? I asked him
this straightforwardly, but my voice had
all the man knocked out of it.
–I’m going to kill you, he said. Allá
was still shaving cream on the right side
of his face. Then I’m going to eat your
flesh and put your bones into my soup.
–You really are?
–I am.
–So you’re a cannibal?
He stopped shaving, but didn’t turn
to me. I looked at him though he only
looked at my reflection in the bathroom
mirror.–How can I be a cannibal when
we are not the same species?
I stumbled into the men’s toilet. Fue
where my feet directed me. My room
would’ve been more sensible, but I went
to the shitter instead. It had a full door
106
La caída de Dédalo 2004
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
I left my
heart in
Skaftafell
so that I was on the inside and, al menos
nominally, safe from him.
He went on shaving that prickly neck
for ½fteen minutes longer. Out of fright
I had to pee, but was too scared to pull
down my pants. The sound of metal on
skin went for so long that I thought he
must be regrowing the hair he’d just cut.
My hirsute pursuer eventually ran wa-
ter in the sink and after that he came to
the toilet door. He knocked as if I was
just going to open up for him.–Hello,
he said. Hello?
I pressed my hands against the cool,
blue concrete walls on either side of me.
If he bashed through the door I was go-
ing to press myself up and kick him
straight in the teeth and then do a back-
flip out the tiny window behind me.
–Why be so afraid? he whispered. I
could tear this door down, but I don’t
want to be boorish. My name is Gor-
roon. I can smell your blood from here.
Because of Gorroon I never saw the
puf½ns. I rolled my sleeping bag, deflat-
ed my air mattress, changed my clothes,
and turned in the key. The teenage girl
at the desk was sad when I told her I
was going. She really wanted me to see
Papey.
I asked her to have lunch with me, pero
she said she couldn’t so I went out to
that deli, bought another ham sandwich
and orange juice, and came back to her.
She accepted half the meal. I leaned
against the reception counter.
–Have you been to Papey?
–I haven’t, she admitted. But I’ve seen
many puf½ns.
She had a dimpled, wide face and
couldn’t have been more than seventeen
so she was safe with me. I’ve never been
attracted to younger women. Forty-½ve
minutes until the bus arrived. I would’ve
played jacks with children just to have
company during the wait. As she and I
talked I leaned with my back to the desk
lest Gorroon rush the of½ce with a par-
ing knife and surprise me.
The girl’s work schedule was seven
days a week, eight hours each day. Cuando
I commiserated she corrected me.–I
like it so much, she told me. What else
would I do today? My husband is at
home without a job.
–You’re married?
There was gold on the ring ½nger of
her right hand, but you’d be excused for
missing it. The metal was whiter than
her skin, thin as thread.
–Does everyone here get married
young?
–No, No. A lot of women have chil-
dren and raise them alone. The father
might live nearby, but not in the same
home.
–We’ve tried that in the U.S., I said.
–And what did you ½nd?
–The boys all grow up to be cry-
babies.
She laughed.–How boring that must
ser!
The bus arrived. A white one with
many blue stars painted across the body.
I stayed at the desk with the girl, OMS
had ½nished her half of the sandwich
and then taken much of mine. She even
drank my orange juice, but I didn’t care.
The girl let me pay my bill and offered
the receipt, which I declined.
–There’s still time to stay and see
Papey, she offered.
Considering that I was being chased by
a brute I could have read her insistence
as providence. Protection by an unseen
fuerza. Except that this had been happen-
ing to me for the whole trip. Icelandic
people who really wanted me to see
every part of their country. More so, I
think, because I was a black American.
They all hated the weather, but loved
their land.
As a souvenir I gave her my pen.
La caída de Dédalo 2004
107
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Fiction by
Victor
LaValle
She looked at it, but was too kind to
sneer. As soon as it was between her
½ngers I understood how silly I’d been. I
significar, it was a blue pen. They cost about
eighty cents. The cap was chewed.
–It’s very nice, she decided.
I laughed so then she laughed. Me
with humiliation and her with relief that
I wasn’t going to press her for a kiss.
–Let me take it back.
The girl put my pen in her pocket.
–Nay, she said, which was the way
they said no sometimes. It’s mine now.
–Do your people really believe in
elves and all that? I asked her.
I wanted her to both con½rm and deny
the idea. Sometimes I placed so much
weight on random conversations. You
can’t help but occasionally wish there
was a thing like destiny, it’s why I can’t
stop reading my horoscope. As if fate
was always trying to reach us, if only we
would listen. At that moment I expected
some teenager to tell me, de½nitively,
what I should believe.
–If you ever see one then you will
have faith in it and if you never do then
you won’t. It is the same here like it is
anywhere. And both sides will never
accept each other.
The bus driver grumbled into the hotel
lobby to ask if there were any passengers
to board. She nodded.–These two.
The ride from Djupivogur to Skaftafell
was three hours. I tried to write another
postcard to my ex, but there was an un-
steadiness to the roads that showed up
in my penmanship. It made even a stan-
dard greeting look panicked.
We moved from the mountainous
surroundings that I’d taken for granted
into these ongoing ½elds of long-cooled
lava. Evidencia, on either side of the na-
tional highway, of an eruption that took
place six hundred forty years before. Old
things here. The ½elds weren’t barren,
but growing bright green, mossy puffy
tufts that made me want to roll around
on them.
We stopped at the lake called Jokulsar-
lon where the farthest end of a glacier
had crumbled into colored hunks of ice.
Even these fragments were three and
four stories tall. Some blue, otros
white. This glacier had been moving,
incrementally, for centuries, dragging
across the land; the ice was packed with
brown and black earth in varied zigzag
patrones. Our bus parked for pictures. I
was one of the ½rst shooting from the
shoreline.
There was a mound that we climbed
to get new perspectives. Twenty feet up,
the lake seemed smaller, if only because
the glacier was in full view. These dinky
chunks were overshadowed by the end-
less gray sheet of the glacier, which led
far back toward the mountains in the
distance and right up over them. El
glacier had frozen right over them. Él
seemed unlikely the mountains could
ever struggle free.
My hands were cold (this was sum-
mer, remember) because I hadn’t
brought gloves. I stopped taking photos
to rub my hands together, march around
in a circle. In August it was usually ½fty
degrees, but this close to the ice ½elds
the temperature dropped way down.
Gorroon stayed by the bus.
I wondered if he was afraid of the
cold, or of getting too close to the gla-
cier. How do you defeat a troll? Put salt
on his tongue? Make him say his name
backwards? If I knew a trick I would
have used it.
Instead I watched him lean against
the bus, right beside the bus driver. Él
didn’t even have to stare back at me. Nosotros
were past aggression and now I just un-
derstood that he was going to grab me.
Women know the feeling I’m talking
acerca de.
108
La caída de Dédalo 2004
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
I left my
heart in
Skaftafell
Back on the bus we rode for another
forty minutes until we reached a tiny
white sign welcoming us to Skaftafell
National Park. There wasn’t much to
él. One building, a parking lot, camp-
grounds, and a mountain.
I rented a tent, but didn’t know how to
use it. My whole life I’d been sleeping in
apartments. Buildings manufactured by
sweaty immigrants. I didn’t understand
an iota about driving little posts into the
ground. When I camped out in Myvatn
the tents were already pitched.
While other people raised their nylon
homes in ½fteen minutes it took me that
long to read the instructions. I kept hop-
ing a sympathetic pair would offer to
help me, but once their tents were up
the travelers went directly to the hills.
On my knees I counted every stake,
stake loop, and ½berglass segmented
pole. Snapped elastic strainers and
tugged the guy lines. When I tried to
thread the poles through the tent loops
they kept coming apart in the middle
until I learned to slide them in with the
tent flat on the ground. It started to rain,
but it rained every day.
I went back to the tent rental station
and complained that I’d been given the
wrong tent poles. I needed the curved
modelos. The guy at the desk wouldn’t
even look at me.
After half an hour I ½gured out that
those tent poles bend. It became much
easier after that.
Once I got both poles in, the frame
popped up naturally. From there it was
an easy prospect to drive in the stakes on
one side, then the front, then the rear.
Only when I tried to push them in on
the last side did I notice the enormous
stones in the ground.
Then I had to take the structure down
and replay each step at a location about
ten feet away. When it was done I
plucked at the top of the tent to see if it
was stable. No matter how I tugged or
flicked, the green tent didn’t move. I
proudly snapped pictures of it from
every angle.
–Took you long enough, said a man
walking back with his wife. I’d seen
them pitch theirs in seven minutes.
They’d been up the mountain and back
by now.
Francés.
With the sun up twenty hours a day
there was still a lot of time to climb. I
started moving at 4 p.m. Rain stopped,
daylight was vivid. Foreign languages
sounded profound around me.
At the far end of the campground
there was a well-established path that
slipped onto the hill, and once I was on
it the land, the people behind me, dis-
solved. Buses in the parking lot, niños
calling to parents. Instantly there was
only me.
I listened to my pants. I wore slacks
that swished. They kept me company.
Counting my pace not by how far I’d
come, but by the tempo of my khakis.
These trails weren’t even steep, it’s just
that they went on for so long. I took pic-
tures of a waterfall called Hundafoss,
otro, Magnusarfoss, then Svartifoss,
and after that I’d had quite e-damn-nuff
of cascading water.
Past the range of waterfalls the
ground lost most of its grass. Just dirt
and stones. Mostly stones. Walking on
them made my ankles hurt. Otro
forty minutes and the pain reached my
knees.
When I turned around I could see,
far below me–even beyond the camp-
grounds–a hundred little streams, run-
apagado, faint melt from the glaciers behind
this mountain that bled out to the sea.
They crossed each other playfully. Entonces
I saw the troll walking toward me. Usando
a cane.
La caída de Dédalo 2004
109
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Fiction by
Victor
LaValle
His beard had grown in. Down to his
collarbone. His scarf was tied below it.
He didn’t wear a hat. The stick was
pequeño, but store-bought, redwood. Él
waved to me. He didn’t hurry. I turned
toward the peak and went up that way.
If I could have run, I would have run,
but my legs were aching.
I didn’t even come to Iceland for
cualquier cosa. Iceland came to me out of a
dream. Not one of my paranoid racism
dreams that, my being black, occur
about once every twenty-eight days.
There are a few versions, most of them
forgettable.
But one night it was different. I’m
transported to the future. Still in New
york. I’m by the water. Sort of. El
Gowanus Canal. Around me thousands
of black people wear yellow rain slickers
because the day is overcast. Tenemos
boats. Or rather, boats are docked. Cat-
amarans actually. Those cruiser types
used for whale-watching tours. A hun-
dred of them taxi up against the docks
in Red Hook.
Black people climb on the catamarans
to capacity. Once full, the boats go out
to New York Harbor and from there, el
mar. Those of us on the shore cheer and
those on the ships excitedly wave. No
one carries suitcases, but I know that
we’re leaving. Not being deported. Para-
get that. Choosing to go.
And where are we off to? Iceland.
All the black folks in the United States
are taking to Iceland because no one
lives there anyway. This was a dream,
remember. So ½nally I get on a catama-
ran. Stay out on deck even though it
begins to rain. The engine is so power-
ful that I feel the vibration up through
my shoes, strong enough to shake me.
The drawbridges have been lifted, no
so much for clearance, but to wave good-
bye. As our boat pulls off we pass the
garbage transfer stations and old ware-
houses that have yet to be refurbished.
They’re slagged apart, walls falling,
broke down and decrepit. I can see into
each one as we go by. I’m overjoyed. Nosotros
all are. Imagine that, a happy story about
black people.
As we seek larger bodies of water our
boat passes a warehouse ramshackle as
the last ten, but this one’s full of gold.
Not gold, but honey.
In jars and bowls. Two hundred clear
containers. Honey spread sticky across
the wooden floorboards. Yellow candles
are lit and flickering. I hear the wind
against the side of my face. Rain slaps
my temples, but I am warm. It feels like
we are making a break from all accumu-
lated human history to be brand new.
Gold coins are gathered into piles two
feet high and just as far across. I want to
sit inside that warehouse, but know the
heat would kill me. Seeing it from the
catamaran is close enough to dry my
mouth out. Yellow fabric is strung up on
the walls. Yellow fabric, tied into enor-
mous bows, sits in the puddles of honey.
It is majestic and reassuring. A send-off,
not a sayonara.
I saw it. The boats were going to Ice-
land, and I couldn’t have felt better.
Almost at the top of this mountain,
called Kristinartindar, Gorroon fell far-
ther and farther back. Maybe he was
heavier than he looked. My own thighs
were boiling from the exertion. Era
nearly jogging to the top.
There were actually two peaks. You
ascend either one and from those points
see the southwestern end of the country.
But I couldn’t look backward. I went
around the peaks instead, on the well-
marked trail. Passing no one. A ribbon of
clouds descended over me. I stopped to
watch it happen. A gray mist came down
from the gray sky until it touched the
110
La caída de Dédalo 2004
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
I left my
heart in
Skaftafell
highest peak of the mountain. Entonces
it descended. Consuming the earth,
quietly.
I crouched to keep clear, but the cloud
overwhelmed me. Then I was inside. I
expected to cough, but there was no real
effect except that the trail behind me
was obscured. There was still the trail
ahead. Around the rounded curve of
Kristinartindar I came to view the gla-
cier. Skaftafellsjokull.
I wasn’t near it; the ice was still miles
away, but I saw it clearly. Sunlight re-
flected against ice particles in the air,
surrounding the glacier with pixie dust.
I took pictures and waited for Gorroon.
The view was pure mesmerism so I
couldn’t actually leave. It wasn’t the troll
that had captured me, it was the country.
Gorroon’s beard had grown since I’d
seen him an hour ago. Now it was at his
navel. He stooped deeply as he walked,
resembled the old Chinese women at the
Canal Street train station. I always want-
ed to protect their fragile spines from in-
jury; scoop them up in my hands, y
carry them to a room full of cushions.
For an instant I felt the same affection
toward the troll.
Our breathing was different because
his was loud.
–Not used to the climbs? I actually
taunted the thing.
His cane had a blue stone imbedded in
the handle, which he rubbed with his fat,
yellowed thumb.
He admitted,–I’m having a hard time
with this part. I really didn’t expect you
to go all the way up.
I took off my small backpack. El
larger one was at the camp, in my tent.
I’d brought a bag of nuts and two pack-
ets of orange juice. I drank one packet
and had a few handfuls of cashews be-
fore Gorroon could breath normally
de nuevo. Instead of waiting I should have
sprinted some more, but at that moment
I felt, oddly, safe. It was all that sunlight
on the snow: I stood in a dreamy ½eld
of gold. If you can’t trust in a prophetic
dream then nothing will ever soothe
tú.
Once he’d recovered, the troll
stopped seeming like a fool. As soon as
he could stand straight he was next to
a mí. I didn’t even feel the movement.
Like water trickles through a closed
mano. From ten feet away he’d seemed
like an old man without the sauce to
catch a cab. Now I could see his mouth
quite clearly.
His teeth were tiny; splintered, bone
fragments. I didn’t think he’d be able to
chew through my arm, but shred the
meat instead.
–Hello again, he said.
He bent down. I thought it was a bow.
Instead he grabbed my left leg and pulled
it from under me so that I fell backward,
landing in the stones and snow.
Wow. He had small hands, but a strong
grip. One hand on my left ankle, one on
my left knee. I struggled, but it was a
cursory movement. Just to say I tried. Él
pulled my knee toward him and pushed
my ankle the other way. The pressure
was instant, amazing.
I looked down, thinking: will my knee
pop out of the skin? Will my ankle turn
to splinters? Gorroon patiently insisted
that my lower leg snap.
My left hand moved into his long hair.
I hadn’t meant to do it. I wasn’t think-
En g, just ½ghting.
The stuff on his head rivaled his
beard for length. It wasn’t as greasy as it
looked. It cracked in my hands. I grasped
closer to the scalp until I found a patch
that wasn’t brittle. My leg bled down
onto my left shoe. He ignored my efforts
and continued to press.
Once I had a tight grip I leaned back
so all my weight was pulling at his skull.
His skin tore away from his scalp, pero el
La caída de Dédalo 2004
111
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
come all this way to discover there was a
tercero. My fatigued brain was command-
ing my hands to release, relent, surren-
der but, bravely, they refused.
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
3
3
4
1
0
2
1
8
2
8
8
8
6
0
0
1
1
5
2
6
0
4
2
3
6
5
5
8
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Fiction by
Victor
LaValle
only sound was when he started panting.
Had I hurt him?
The mountains, the glacier, they were
waiting for an answer. Who do we get?
–You can’t have it, I told Gorroon, pero
he wasn’t listening. I don’t think I even
understood what I meant. Había
blood on my shoe, Sí, but there was
blood in my left hand as well. His blood.
My right hand went for his beard and
the left was doing so well that I decided
not to intervene. My body knew what it
was doing. You might even call my de-
termination happiness. He’d take my
leg, but I would steal his face.
As my right hand came near his
whiskers Goroon opened his mouth. I
thought I was far enough away that he
couldn’t bite, but he had a jaw like a
shark’s and the teeth sort of popped past
the lips to reach me. The outer edge of
my hand was there for him to rip so he
tore into the flesh and then pulled back-
ward, peeling the skin and taking some
meat. My right pinky curled down on
itself and wouldn’t straighten though I
still had feeling in the rest of that hand.
I thought maybe I should just roll and
take us both over the precipice, pero el
point wasn’t to kill him, it was that I
should live. I refused to die. If I had to
I’d stay here with him, on our backs, para
½fty thousand years. Locked in place un-
til our bodies calci½ed, until we became
another landmark, one more folktale.
My leg wouldn’t break. It was obvious
from the troll’s consternation. He might
have liked to scare me by appearing non-
chalant, but when he attempted a laugh
it made his shoulders buckle. It easily
could have turned into a cry.
Meanwhile my grip had locked onto
his scalp, all nine of my usable ½ngers
pulling there. Who knew I was such a
wonderful stubborn bastard? In my ex-
perience there seemed to be only two
kinds of men: brooders and brats. I’d
112
La caída de Dédalo 2004
Descargar PDF