The Day is Dark Page 22

  Nothing happened. After a moment Matthew knocked harder, using his fist. The orange skis propped against the outside wall shook at the blows. After a moment they heard footsteps inside. They approached, then fell silent. Shortly afterwards they heard a man’s voice say something that neither of them understood. Thóra called out ‘Hello,’ in return. Nothing was heard from within, but the doorknob moved and the door opened enough for the man inside to see them. They caught a glimpse of half his face. ‘What?’ he said gruffly in Danish.

  ‘Is the lady at home?’ Thóra ignored how clumsy this sounded. She should have put more work into learning Danish at school.

  ‘The lady?’ The Greenlander did not open the door any wider. ‘What lady?’

  This is when it would have been useful to know the woman’s name, thought Thóra.

  ‘Usinna,’ she tried.

  The man’s reaction caught Thóra and Matthew completely off-guard.

  Chapter 22

  22 March 2008

  Thóra half expected the sofa to break beneath hers and Matthew’s combined weight. That would have been the icing on the cake as far as their visit was concerned; Thóra still hadn’t regained her composure at the reception they’d been given. The man had completely lost it when he heard the name “Usinna” and had shouted himself hoarse. The only thing that seemed to prevent him from lashing out at her with his fists was Matthew standing next to her. Although the man appeared to be in decent shape, he was a head shorter than the German. Instead he vented his anger on the door and doorframe and continued pouring abuse over them. Naturally, Thóra did not understand any of what he said, but it was clear that he was calling them some rather unpleasant names and was not overjoyed at their arrival. He turned several times to shout back into the house, probably to share his joy with the poor woman living there. In the end Matthew had enough, and he shouted back, ordering the Greenlander to shut his mouth for a moment. In German. At that the man abruptly shut up and stormed back in. He left the door open and although Thóra wanted more than anything to run to the car, she forced herself to peek in through the doorway and ask courteously whether they could make a phone call. No reply. Thóra tried calling the name Usinna, which she now believed to be the name of the woman there, and in a flash the young woman came running to the door. She waved her hands to silence Thóra and her worried look convinced Thóra not to dare say anything else.

  The woman’s face was swollen and blood oozed from the corner of her mouth. Her lower lip was twice as large as when they had last met and when she got to the door she cradled one of her upper arms in the other hand. She was wearing faded old sweatpants and a tatty polyester jumper, so well-worn that the pattern was nearly gone. When Thóra repeated her request to be allowed to make a phone call the woman refused to let them in and said it was a bad time. However, barely had she uttered the words before a door could be heard slamming somewhere in the house. At that the woman’s attitude changed abruptly and she invited them in. She explained that her housemate had left by the back door, so they could call if they did it quickly. She then showed them into the sitting room, where they took seats on the shabby sofa. There was a phone on a little side-table next to it.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Thóra asked the woman, who sat opposite her on a plastic folding chair. This had also seen better days. ‘Did that man hurt you?’

  ‘It just happens. I’ll get over it.’ The woman pressed her bare toes into the fur of the polar bear pelt on the floor in front of her.

  ‘What is your name, can I ask?’ Thóra had left it to Matthew to try to reach the police. They would certainly speak English, and he could not hold a conversation with the woman in Danish.

  ‘Oqqapia.’ The woman released her grip on her injured arm and straightened up. It was as if she suddenly realized what an abject picture she presented and wanted to put on a better face.

  Thóra introduced herself and Matthew and thanked her again for letting them in. ‘I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t helped us. We’ve brought money to pay you for your assistance.’

  ‘No thank you.’ The woman seemed serious. ‘I don’t want the money. It just makes matters worse.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Thóra didn’t know what she could offer the woman instead and felt slightly embarrassed. She decided to start with something harmless and asked the woman about the little girl she’d seen outside on the snowmobile.

  ‘She’s special.’ Oqqapia rubbed her hands together and appeared very nervous about their presence in her sitting room. ‘She was injured, which is why she looks that way. She adores that snowmobile and her father always has to take her with him if he goes somewhere on it. Still, she’s an incredibly good girl even though she’s mutilated, the poor little thing.’ She said the last bit with enormous affection and appeared to be regaining her composure.

  Thóra seized the opportunity and changed the subject.

  ‘What does Usinna mean? Isn’t it a name?’ Judging by the reaction of the house’s inhabitants it was most likely a profanity or some sort of term of abuse. Perhaps Oddný Hildur had written it in her notebook to remind herself never to say it.

  Oqqapia looked over her shoulder once more as if she expected the man to sneak up behind her. ‘It is a name. A woman’s name.’

  Thóra had at least been right about that. ‘Why was the man who came to the door so angry when I used it? I thought it might have been your name.’

  The pink tip of the woman’s tongue appeared at the bloody corner of her mouth and she ran it over her swollen lip. ‘You shouldn’t have mentioned her by name. Naruana is very sensitive about her and besides that he was already angry. You’ve come at the worst possible time.’

  ‘Is this Naruana your husband?’ Thóra hoped that he wasn’t. ‘He looks to me like a rather unsuitable life partner,’ she added hesitantly.

  The woman smiled flatly, just enough for the light to catch her white front teeth. Between them were dark streaks of blood. ‘We’re not married. He just lives here.’ She thrust out her jaw and moved it from side to side as if to check whether it was broken at all. ‘He doesn’t usually act like that. As I said, you two came at a bad time.’ Thóra decided not to make any objection to this. She knew neither this woman nor her circumstances and would most likely never see her again. Who was she to think she could judge her and give her advice? Did she intend to give her a helping hand if she needed one? No, she was an adult and it was unnecessary for Thóra to point out to her that this was perhaps not the most desirable relationship in the world. ‘You might consider getting away from him,’ was all she said before changing the subject. ‘Why does the name Usinna make him so upset?’

  The woman was silent for a moment as she stared awkwardly into Thóra’s eyes. Then she began to speak, rather determinedly, although her voice trembled slightly. ‘His sister was named Usinna. She died several years ago and he took it very badly.’

  ‘I understand.’ What on earth was the name of the dead woman doing in Oddný Hildur’s notebook? Out of the corner of her eye Thóra watched Matthew try for the fourth time to dial what he thought was the phone number of the police. He still hadn’t managed to reach anyone. ‘When did she die?’

  ‘It was almost five years ago.’

  ‘And he still hasn’t come to terms with it?’ Thóra found this rather odd. She didn’t know any siblings who were so close that one would take years and years to get over the death of the other. ‘Did she die very young?’ There was no way to determine the age of the man who had met them at the door. He could be anywhere from twenty-five to fifty. ‘No, she was older than him. She died when she was twenty-something. Almost thirty.’

  Matthew hung up and handed Thóra the slip of paper. ‘Are you able to ask her whether there’s something wrong with this number? I can’t reach anyone.’ Thóra asked and the woman checked the number. She handed it back to Thóra, saying that as far as she could tell there was nothing wrong with it. However, it was sometimes difficult to get
a good connection and he should just keep trying. Matthew then asked Thóra to ask whether it were conceivable that the phone had been disconnected. The woman reddened a little at this question but then said that the authorities paid a fixed telephone service fee and that the phone was fine. Matthew continued trying.

  Thóra turned back to what they had been discussing before Matthew interrupted. ‘How did this woman die? Did she need blood, or did she have a blood disease?’ It crossed Thóra’s mind that the words ‘blood test’ in Oddný Hildur’s notebook were perhaps connected to Usinna. Perhaps she had needed blood tests, but transportation problems had prevented her from being treated in time. With this in mind, it was possible that Naruana blamed foreigners for his sister’s death, although Thóra found that difficult to believe.

  Oqqapia frowned, bewildered, and the facial movement appeared to cause her pain. She grabbed her jaw and stroked her swollen skin. ‘She didn’t die because of anything to do with blood. She just went missing.’

  Thóra thought for a moment. ‘Where did she go missing?’

  ‘In your area. She went there despite being warned not to. I would never go there.’

  ‘And then what? She went and just didn’t come back? Did no one search for her?’

  ‘She left in the morning and when she didn’t return in the evening it was clear that there was no hope of her returning the next day. It was pointless to look for her although Naruana and his father did try. She was gone.’

  ‘Doesn’t anyone find it odd that people keep disappearing around here?’ Thóra was dumbfounded. What was going on? She didn’t know enough about the environment in these parts to imagine the main dangers people faced. She thought of avalanches and polar bears, but both were things it would have been easy to discuss in simple terms, instead of going on about the area being ‘cursed’ or ‘evil’.

  Thóra’s question clearly irritated Oqqapia. ‘Of course we do. That’s why we don’t go there and we try to warn others not to. That was the first thing I learned as a small child.’

  ‘I didn’t mean everyone who lives here, I meant the police and other authorities. Don’t they make enquiries when people disappear?’

  The woman shook her head and gave Thóra a puzzled look. ‘How would they hear about it?’

  At the other end of the sofa Matthew sighed and took a break from his attempts to contact the police. It was perhaps not surprising that people round here were disinclined to report missing persons.

  ‘So was the death of this woman never reported?’ Thóra asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t live with Naruana at the time.’ She licked her lips again but the blood had stopped flowing. Perhaps the memory of the violence was starting to heal as well. ‘We got together after all of this had happened. He was on the street and I had inherited this house from my mother.’ She saw from Thóra’s expression that she didn’t think much of the arrangement, and added: ‘He sometimes works down at the dock and comes home with seals and fish.’

  This man would have to contribute a lot more to the household if Thóra were to allow him to even so much as rent her garage, but this perhaps more than anything else shed light on their different circumstances. ‘How many people have disappeared up there?’

  ‘Not many. I don’t remember anyone else but Usinna and then your people. We’re careful to keep away from the place, so there’s never any activity there. Tourists hardly ever come here.’

  ‘What about the daughter of the hunter that you told me about. This Igimaq?’ Every wrinkle in the man’s face was engraved on Thóra’s mind; eyes that were so brown they were nearly black, and his maimed hand. Usually she had a lot of difficulty remembering people’s faces.

  ‘Usinna was Igimaq’s daughter. Naruana is his son.’

  So they were one and the same person. ‘What do you think is going on? Do you believe that the souls of the people who died of starvation all those years ago are killing others?’ That couldn’t be it. The bank’s performance bond wouldn’t be saved by an explanation like that.

  ‘Yes, I do. It’s an evil place, but exactly what happens I don’t know, nor do I want to. Maybe the spirits drag people into the rock or transform them into animals. Those kinds of things happen here. Maybe not in your country, but they do here.’

  ‘I think there is a different, more down-to-earth explanation.’ Thóra wished that Matthew could understand them. He would certainly be less irritable about the phone if he could follow the discussion. She felt for him and knew that she would personally have started beating the receiver on the arm of the sofa in anger if she were in his shoes. ‘How did Usinna end up going to the area if it’s instilled in everyone from childhood to avoid it? And what was she actually doing there?’

  ‘She had probably forgotten it was dangerous. She moved away from here as a teenager, went to school in Nuuk, and from there to Copenhagen for college. She was really clever.’

  ‘So she was just visiting?’

  ‘She didn’t come often – maybe once a year. She was fond of the village and the people here even though everyone knew that she would never move back again. When she went missing, she was doing some kind of research related to the mine. I think it was in biology.’

  Usinna had been doing research in this locally notorious area? Thóra tried to ask her questions carefully for fear of belittling the folklore in which Oqqapia seemed to believe. ‘Was she studying polar bears or something else that could have led her to the forbidden area?’

  Oqqapia shook her head and looked indignantly at Thóra. ‘No, she was studying births here in the village and another village farther north of here.’

  ‘Births?’ There were hardly many of those out on the snow-banks around the work site. ‘Human births?’ Thóra’s Danish wasn’t good enough for her to know what words were used for animal litters. It could well be that the research had involved seals or other mammals.

  ‘Yes. No boys have been born here for many, many years. She wanted to find out why.’

  Thóra thought this over for a moment. It suddenly occurred to her that they had only seen girls out and about in the village. Of course it could have been a coincidence, but she found no reason to doubt the woman’s statement. ‘Did Usinna have a theory about the reasons?’

  ‘No doubt, but I don’t know what it was.’ The woman stared at her lap. ‘I’m not going to have children, so I don’t really care what the explanation is.’

  Matthew slammed down the receiver and turned to Thóra. ‘Do you have the notebook? I’m going to try the number in there.’ Thóra pulled the book from the pocket of her coverall, which lay partly on the sofa. They hadn’t been invited to take them off; nevertheless Thóra had unzipped hers and pulled off the top part. Matthew lifted the receiver and dialled the number. He suddenly smiled victoriously. ‘It works. It’s engaged, though.’

  ‘Who is he calling?’ Oqqapia had been watching them but hadn’t understood what they’d said to each other. Thóra reached for the open notebook and handed it to the woman. She pointed to the number and asked whether she recognized it. Oqqapia did not reply immediately, then asked, suspiciously: ‘Where did you get this number?’

  ‘It’s the notebook belonging to the woman who went missing. Do you recognize the number?’ Thóra took the book back and handed it to Matthew once more, so that he could keep trying.

  ‘Yes.’ The woman’s trust in Thóra seemed to evaporate before her eyes. ‘It’s my number.’

  ‘Still busy,’ said Matthew, who had cheered up quite remarkably.

  ‘That’s not surprising. You’re calling the same number that you’re phoning from.’

  Matthew was dumbfounded. ‘You’re kidding.’ He hung up, closed his eyes and leaned back his head. Then he appeared to recover and wrote the number from the notebook on the slip of paper containing the number of the police. When he had finished he picked up the receiver again and kept trying to reach the authorities.

  Thóra couldn’t help but smile at him, but
instead of responding she turned back to Oqqapia. ‘How did your number find its way into this book? Did you meet her, perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ Oqqapia looked sheepish and avoided Thóra’s gaze as she spoke. ‘I don’t even know what she looked like. The one who went missing.’

  ‘So you met a woman from the camp?’ Thóra tried to suppress the irritation that suddenly washed over her. The sofa was uncomfortable and her legs were boiling hot in the coverall. Her patience with Oqqapia’s vague responses was at an end as well.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t remember what she was called. I only met her once.’ Oqqapia’s face brightened. ‘I remember the name of the man who brought her here. He can probably tell you who she was.’

  ‘Man? What man?’

  ‘The AA man. Arnar.’ The woman pronounced the name incredibly well considering that she knew no Icelandic. ‘He often visited Naruana. He was going to help him stop drinking. He brought books and pamphlets that were supposed to make it easier. Once a woman came with him, maybe the one who disappeared. It was maybe six months ago? They didn’t just talk about alcohol, because their conversation was partly about Usinna, I remember. I’m not quite sure how she came up but I remember that the woman had asked about a girl who was on board an ambulance flight. She wanted to know how she was doing, and from that the conversation led on to the subject of only girls being born here. The woman said she was planning to have children herself; maybe she thought that she would be infected by this strange phenomenon. No one wants just girls. Not Greenlanders, and obviously not strangers either.’

  Thóra felt it likely that Oddný Hildur would have been concerned about more than just the gender of the foetus. If Thóra were planning to have another child she was sure she’d be interested in anything unusual about births in her immediate vicinity. ‘And Naruana discussed his sister with those two without losing it like he did with us?’