CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Oh patria mia, mai più ti rivedrò!
Mai più! mai più ti rivedrò!
O cieli azzurri o dolci aure native
Dove sereno il mio mattin brillò...
Or che d'amore il sogno è dileguato
O patria mia, non ti vedrò mai più.
Oh patria mia, mai più ti rivedrò!
(translation)
O my country, never more will I see you!
Never more, never more will I see you!
O azure skies, o sweet native breezes,
Where the morning of my life shone peacefully...
Now that the dream of love has vanished,
O my country, I will see you never more.
O my country, never more will I see you!
— O Patria Mia
From the opera "Aida" by Giuseppe Verdi
He lived for all of three days upon his island homeland.
On the first day, he trudged the concrete of Reykjavik. Seeking out the townhouse overlooking the bay, the one in which he had taken his very first steps, he found it had been knocked down and replaced with a designer coffee house. His secret gully below the copse of birch trees at the playground was still there, and he huddled inside it as he savoured the bitter taste of a designer latte in the cool Spring air.
In the middle of a grey city square was an iron statue of his mother. She was clad in the garb of Brynhildur. An idealised version of her face was tilted upwards, unseeing eyes cast to heaven as she sang out an imaginary aria. He touched her hand, it was freezing. Streams of businesspeople hurried past as he wondered how much of his father's money had gone into this ghastly effigy.
The city's largest cemetery was a forest of stones. It seemed the Icelanders had long forgotten their Viking roots, clinging to Christian custom as if it were their very own. After a short while, he found her grave— he had remembered standing under a naked Winter tree and throwing a bouquet upon the coffin as it descended into the pit. The cherubs on the headstone still stared down at the ground, and the unresponsive bones that lay beneath it. They alone would have witnessed his father digging her up and slicing her body open. It would have been mere hours after the boy had said farewell. One of the cherubs' wings had been ripped off by some vandal or another.
Instead of repeating his father, he merely placed another bunch of lilacs down beside the headstone.
On the second day, he quitted the humans, and went in search of his family. His feet now meandered across the stony, mossy inclines of the wilderness, following only his lighter whims and deeper instincts. He touched the rocks, imploring them to respond to him. He hoped that he would be able to hide with them, or at least call them out. Great bogs of blackened cloud kissed the horizon, and he chased the stark glimpses of sunlight. His breath quickened, his heart pounded, but as the light began to fade, not another elf had been seen.
As the milky blue twilight settled in, he miserably accepted his rejection by the Huldufólk. He felt he could almost hear their scornful laughter on the frosty wind. As he hiked back to the nearest town, Venus peered through the clouds and winked down at him. He saw some movement in a distant crag. It looked to his eyes like a small sheep, strayed from its flock.
On the third day, he sought out a compliant patch of earth. Traversing the wildnerness once more, he found a winding river— he guessed the soil would be softer in its vicinity. A few frightened rabbits darted away as he struck the ground with a spade. It did not yield.
All across the river delta he persisted, for hours and hours, straining to find a place where he could dig. Alas, even in the Spring, the Icelandic earth was hard and resistant. It would not accept her heart. Leaning on the useless spade, he sank to the frigid ground and wept for his mother's unquiet slumber. She, like her ruined half-breed offspring, would never be whole again.
At midnight, frozen through, he gathered up the glass jar, forsaking the spade and the earth, and headed along the river, towards the ocean.
Staring at the black waves, he could not help but feel a surge of anger at her. True to her race, she had spent all her life hiding. Hiding from her people behind costumes and arias. Hiding her leaf-shaped ears under bright lilac ringlets. Hiding from her lover in an opulent Reykjavik townhouse. Hiding her son from the truth. She had passed the curse onto him, and he hid underground, behind equally theatrical disguises, and kept his true intentions secreted away in the darkness. He had lied and protested and denied for so long, not even his kin could recognise his grey-green eyes and pale skin.
There was nothing left for him here. His cold, beautiful homeland had not responded to his cry. His final wish was for the first rays of morning sun to turn him to stone.