The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir Read Free Book Online Page A

snow in the garden, the first footprints of the day, we dropped into the snow and made two angels; then I was going to show her the tomato plants. She was studying physiology and was interested in the genetics of plants on this particular night. It might have been five in the morning, and I no longer remember when we got into the greenhouse. There was always light on the plants, and the roses let off a sweet smell. As soon as we staggered into the greenhouse we were hit by hot, humid air, as if we were suddenly on the other side of the planet, inside the thick undergrowth of a one-hundred-square-foot jungle. The gardening tools were kept right by the entrance, and there was also an old sofa bed that I’d moved in there myself when I was studying for my exams, to be able to read close to the plants. And then it was never moved again. Mom also kept an old record player in the greenhouse, and her record collection was a weird concoction from various corners of the globe. Her watering can and pink floral gloves were there, too, as if she’d just popped out a moment. Not that I was thinking of Mom at that moment. We took off our coats, and I chanced upon a record with some kind of climbing plant on the cover, like some ornamental growth from an Indian palace garden, and we danced one close dance. I was used to dancing with my brother Jósef. We were probably talking about botany and, before I knew it, were starting to undress close to the green tomatoes. Most of the rest is blurred in my memory. For a moment, though, I thought I saw something glowing in the night, so strangely close, like a light beaming through the falling snow. For an instant, the greenhouse was filled with a blinding brightness, and the light pierced through the plants projecting petal patterns against my friend’s body. I caressed the rose petals on her stomach, and at the same moment we both clearly felt a whirlwind, like the sound of a fan that someone had just switched on. It wasn’t until much later that I remembered the detail of the whirlwind and started to think about that glow in the darkness as if it hadn’t been an altogether natural phenomenon. Immediately after it, we heard the voice of a man outside the greenhouse, standing beside the mound of snow. As I suspected, it was the neighbor holding a flashlight, calling his dog. When daylight broke there were two angels printed in the snow, linked together at the hands, like part of a chain of paper dolls. If Mom had been alive she would have stared at me over the breakfast table with a mysterious knowing air. And because I had no appetite for my breakfast, she was bound to have said that I was getting too skinny.
    —Or are you still growing? she’d ask, gazing up at her lanky son with a smile. She was always worried about the three men in her life wasting away and that I in particular didn’t eat enough. Then I didn’t hear from the expectant mother of my child for another two months. It was just around the New Year that she phoned to ask if we could meet in a café.

     

Fourteen
     
    I can’t really say that I’m in a decent enough physical state to be able to sleep with anyone at the moment. To be honest, I’d probably prefer the gardening book to take precedence over the girl right now. But can I say no, I’m sorry? Wouldn’t that offend her and make what follows pretty awkward?
    —Did you bring plants? she asks pointing at the rose cuttings in the hospital cups on the windowsill.
    —Yeah, those are rose cuttings from the greenhouse back home, I say. I’m taking them to the garden.
    —Does it have a special name, the rose?
    —Yeah, eight-petaled rose.
    —Where does this interest in plants come from? she asks.
    —I was more or less brought up in a greenhouse, I feel good in flower beds.
    I imagine her interest in gardening is limited and realize that, since I can’t really think of anything else to talk about, I might be forced to take our communication to another level, beyond