The Fires

by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir

Books often know more than the people who write them.

People struggle with the most unbelievable things without anyone being the wiser, they keep going to meetings, doing the shopping and brushing their teeth, even though no one would blame them if they spent their days curled up in bed, crying in agony.

It’s not like me to start imagining things—facts are good enough for me. What’s all this sentimentality?

disasters.

Why disaster?

Disasters become monotonous after a while—it doesn’t take long to get used to the end of the world.

But he’s right—what business does a middle-aged university professor have out in the world after midnight, other than to get too drunk, embarrass herself, knock herself off her academic pedestal?

Time, pressure, and resistance—that’s all there is to it.

I won’t apologize for the mess, I like being able to look at what I’m working on, that’s how I get all my ideas.

at work. He turns and smiles at me: You’re not bothering me in the least. You could never bother me. I’m happy to see you.

I don’t know if I’m crying from sadness or joy or terror, and it doesn’t matter.

I am in love with Tómas Adler, my life as I know it is over, and I haven’t even kissed him.

Hi, how was your day, dear? And I don’t tell him the truth. I don’t tell him that the world’s ended, that life as he knows it no longer exists, I’ve already transformed it into a lie. I just stretch the corners of my mouth, each in their own direction, and show him my teeth; this is what’s called a smile.

My feelings are irresponsible, irrational, I will make the effort and stop this nonsense; I am a responsible, grown woman, I make morally correct decisions.

I care deeply about my family, my husband, my home. I am happy. I live a good and comfortable life. I’m not going to let anything ruin that. Not even love.

TO LOVE IS TO LIVE IN CONSTANT FEAR

I focus on them, breathe in deep and swallow the sob in my throat, I’m not going to start sniveling, not here at work, not over this foolishness.

Sadness and guilt flood my mind and displace my thoughts, push them out of their logical channels and into some unfamiliar bog that’s riddled with dead ends and wrong turns, lose them in desire-tinged morasses and tangled dreams—I’ve got to shake off this senselessness, got to focus on improving the model.

Despair flows through me like a shock wave, I stand up from the computer, walk around my office, throw my arms around myself and convulse, rock myself like a child and fight back tears. My craving for him is like an addiction, he’s like a drug, I just have to get through the first days, and then I’ll be free. I just have to think about something else.

I cried because love is the most magnificent, most awful thing that happens to us, it turns the world upside down, robs us of our sense of security and fearlessness, it’s a crevasse that opens beneath our feet, an abyss, the terror of losing someone we love. And sitting there, weeping with my newborn child in my arms, I understood: To love is to live in constant fear.

I’m waiting to recover from him, like an illness, I tell myself over and over again that it’s just going to take some time to get him out of my system. It’s like detoxing, I intone, I’ve got to be able to stop loving because I managed to quit smoking. The sadness will subside, the longing ease with time, and in the end, I’ll stop feeling like I’m sitting at the bottom of a deep well, denying myself a glimpse of the light.

I can’t let my life and my family’s fate be ruled by feelings.

love doesn’t give a damn about concepts like goodness and fairness and justice.

right when you’ve started thinking about retirement, pensions, that’s when love appears out of nowhere and shows you its true nature. And love’s no kitten, oh no. It’s a searing-hot supernova, with fangs and claws and a tail that it whips around, leveling everything that crosses its path. It’s a comet that comes crashing into earth, throwing it off course, changing its axial tilt and reversing its polarity, flipping the entire world upside down so that suddenly our well-trod paths simply no longer exist but rather end in the void, and now I’m plummeting in outer space, falling, falling, falling, and nothing can catch me except the man I love,

Poets can prattle on about love, but I know her, I’ve seen her at work. Love is nothing but a natural disaster.

I don’t believe in God, I believe in the power of nature.

Are we going to put all our faith in these animalistic instincts, hormones, and neurotransmitters? Should I divorce my husband, dissolve my home, and endanger my children’s happiness, or should I wait for these neurotransmitter fluctuations to stop, go back to my secure and happy life, and put my faith in oxytocin?

Would you be able to bear the accusations, the guilt, if it came to light that you didn’t really love me? We were doing fine before we met, we were happy, we can choose to go back to that, or we can bet on an uncertain future together, based on disturbances in our brains’ neurotransmitters.

LOVE IS WORSE THAN DEATH

I’m in love, for the first time in my life, and love is the most terrible thing that has ever happened to me. Love is worse than death, worse than the end of the world. I have no control over anything, I can’t be trusted with anything. I neglect my work, betray my family, lie right to my husband’s face.

But he isn’t enough, my family isn’t enough for me, my happiness isn’t enough, I’m sacrificing everything for this terrible sickness in my heart, this unquenchable addiction, this god-awful love that’s sunk its claws into me and refuses to let go.

I’m so scared I feel sick, but I also feel an underlying relief, like I’ve been hanging from the edge of a cliff and am finally permitting myself to let go, make my peace with the unavoidable and plummet into the abyss to meet my fate.

Maybe it’s just cowardice that makes me say: Yes, I agree. It would be irrational not to try.

I’ve learned something, he says. You don’t have anyone. Not your spouse, not your children. You’ve got no one but yourself.

intelligence can be stupid and prideful too. It can give a person a false sense of security. Sometimes, it makes you think you have control of things that it simply isn’t possible to control. Sometimes, rationality is just an illusion—sometimes, you need to take other things into account: intuition, feelings.

field mouse

Love is the most dangerous thing that can happen to you. It ties you down and changes you, it erases you.

You have to decide whether you’re going to choose love or yourself.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR