The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

the King James Bible. Preaching makes you powerful.
    “For I am his Word! His Word is me! Word up!”
    I almost regret that we take Saturday off. “It’s because Eurovision,” Goodmoondoor says. The annual European Song Contest will be on tonight, with Iceland taking part for the twentieth year, Croatia for the eleventh. Apparently this is the TV event of the year. “It has no purpose to be preaching tonight. Ninety-nine prósent of all the people are watching Eurovision. The streets are empty when it is. We will just have some old show in the air tonight.” And it’s also family reunion time; Gunholder and her brother Truster are both coming for dinner. Sounds like Thanksgiving.
    Truster is quite different from his sister. If she’s a swan, he’s a sparrow: A shy-eyed, thick-breasted fellow who is small and round, though one would call him strong rather than fat. He’s got working man’s hands and his strong fingers dwarf the needle and thread. His face is smooth save for white down that covers his upper lip. Still, he must be around twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. He hardly says a word and never looks up from his meal, but still I find his mere presence strangely soothing. I realize I would have a hard time following orders if they told me to take him out.
    “Truster is the name of a very nice Icelandic bird. He brings the spring,” says the woman of the house as she passes me the white, and very holy-looking, sauce.
    “It’s not Icelandic,” her daughter protests with heavy eyelids.
    “What do you mean? Truster?” Sickreader says with a big surprise. “It’s one of the most Icelandic birds. We even have a poem about him.”
    “Yeah, but Mom, it doesn’t mean it’s Icelandic. The bird’s only here for the summer. Most of the year it’s in France or Spain. Doesn’t that make it more Spanish than Icelandic?”
    “Spanish? How can you say such a thing? Truster is the most Icelandic bird we have.”
    “It spends more of its time in Spain.”
    “But his…his kids are born in Iceland. They are Icelandic citizens, and he must also be. He was also born in Iceland!”
    “Icelandic citizens? You speak like a racist, Mom,” Gunholder says.
    It’s hard to tell whether her parents understand the word, but her mother closes her eyes and purses her lips. Goodmoondoor rises from the table and walks over to a bookshelf and pulls out a volume. Sickreader tries to smooth things over by turning to Father Friendly:
    “I don’t know what you call this bird in English, but…”
    “It is ‘redwing’,” her good husband calls out, looking up from a slim dictionary.
    She thanks him and explains to me that the redwing is a “travel bird.” Gunholder rolls her eyes, but Truster just sits there, like a deaf sailor the family found on the beach this morning. His virgin cheeks are stained with a soft blush, as if they are trying to help me picture a redwing.
    “Or is it traveling bird ?” Sickreader continues. “What do you say? What do you call the bird that lives in two…”
    “I don’t know. Migration bird?” is my wild guess.
    Gunholder picks up on it with evil-eyed sarcasm: “Immigration bird.”
    We eat in silence. Truster has finished his meal and our eyes meet. Poor guy. When his parents introduced him to me they had strangely added that he was in love, like he was a retard.
    “Oh? And who’s the lucky one?” I asked.
    “Yes. She’s very lucky. And we also,” came the answer.
    I have to admit that all day long I’ve been looking forward to watching that stupid Eurovison Song Contest. It’s been six whole years since I’ve been able to see the program that saved my life. We gather on the big corner sofa, and Goodmoondoor turns on his flat screen. It’s live from Athens, Greece, and the atmosphere is not unlike that of a televangelist mega-mass: ten thousand people screaming with joy at the end of every song. Except after the Icelandic one. A trashy girl in a hooker’s outfit gets nothing but heavy booing. The song seemed OK, but her arrogance is definitely not going down with the Greeks. Actually, she reminds me a bit of Gunholder. I look at my hosts. Of all the secular acts, this one was probably the least godly, the singer wearing a devilish grin, as if she’d just slept with the producer of the show. Goodmoondoor looks at me with a complicated smile, as if he were a UN delegate and his prime minister had just peed at the podium.
    “It’s just a joke,” Gunholder