Free The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir

head to open the trunk so that he can fit it in there.
    —For you, the daughter interprets.
    He wants to show me the contents of the box first so he comes right up to me with it, tipping it slightly. I count twelve bottles of red wine.
    —Our own production, says the girl.
    The labels on the bottles carry a fine ink drawing of the parish church with the master’s family name under it. This is probably the wine I drank one or two bottles of last night.
    —It’s the least I can do for the lift, says the father.
    The favor for the daughter is valued at twelve bottles. He wants to put his wine into the car himself, but once I’ve made it clear to him that there’s no room in the trunk because of the plants and he has scanned the car, he decides to place the box on the floor in the back. Then he appears once more on the driver’s side and gently knocks on the glass with two fingers. I wind down the window again, and he stretches his arm into the car with something clasped in the palm of his hand that he squeezes into mine. Cash.
    —The food and the lodging is on the house, and the rest is for the gas, he says with a chirpy air. I’ll just say safe journey then.
    Some legs wriggle into the car and the daughter blows some more kisses to her father, having just said good-bye to her mother on the steps. Then they wave to each other and I see the man shrinking in the rearview mirror as I drive down the side road. The daughter kneels on the passenger seat with her back to the windshield and her hip up against my shoulder until her father fades from view. I instantly regret having agreed to take her with me in my moment of weakness.
    —Put your belt on, I say, pointing at the seat belt and illustrating my simple sentence with an appropriate gesture. She looks at me with a reluctant air, but then breaks into a beaming smile, puts her leg down, and clicks on the seat belt. Now that I get a chance to take a better look at the girl I can see she really looks like a budding movie star.
    —Just as you desire.
    Just as you desire. I mull that line over in my head, wondering if there might be any hidden meaning in that “just as you desire.” Wondering if I can also apply that “just as you desire” to other things and what things those might be. And if I did apply it to other things would she then accept my desire? When I’m back on the pilgrim’s road I, nonetheless, take my right hand off the steering wheel to shake her hand and formally introduce myself.
    —Arnljótur Thórir.
    She smiles at me.
    This dainty actress’s handshake is tight and firm. Before I manage to reach any conclusion, I wonder, as I shake her hand, whether I’m likely to sleep with her at any point over the next two hundred and thirteen miles.
    I haven’t been driving for long along the highway when she bends over and pulls a red box out of her drama student bag, not unlike a kid’s school lunchbox. She opens it, takes out a sandwich, wraps it in a white napkin, and hands it to me. Then she takes out another one for herself, also wraps a napkin around it, and sinks back into her seat. Looking into the sandwich in my hand, I see it contains slices of meat, and this less than half an hour after I finished my three-course breakfast, and half a day since I completed the biggest meal I’ve ever eaten.
    Then my twig-skinny co-passenger pulls a pile of papers out of her bag, tucks her legs under her on the front seat, and I see her memorizing a script. She’s silent for the first fifteen miles as she learns her part.

     

Twenty-one
     
    It’s not that having another person sitting in the passenger seat beside me bothers me in itself, so long as she remains silent and just reads her words, and sits reasonably still. In any case, it’s clear that I’m going to be sitting beside this actress for the next six hours. I peep at her; right above her long, thick eyelashes there is a very fine black streak of eyeliner. In fact, she reminds me of a familiar