I Remember You Page 26

  Freyr shook his head. ‘No, nothing that simple, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I’ve always thought that someone’s death was never settled until his bones were buried in consecrated ground.’ The little white bud of the earphones seemed somehow incongruous in his ancient hands. ‘Maybe because my father drowned at sea when I was a boy. I thought constantly about where his bones might be lying, whether they would disappear under the seabed over time or whether someone would set eyes on them before they vanished completely. You have to remember that I was just a kid. As I got older of course it became easier to bear, but I would still leave this world more contented if his remains had been found. They certainly won’t be now, any more than the bones of the other thousands lying in watery graves off these shores.’

  ‘Do you think the boy perished at sea? Drowned?’ Although Freyr was sorry for the loss of the old man’s father, he wanted to stick to the topic for fear that the memories would overwhelm him; one old story would lead to another, and so on.

  ‘Actually, I really don’t know. All I know is that the sea-god Ægir rarely returns those who end up in his icy embrace. So it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s no other place around here that could hide such a secret for long. It’s been nearly half a century since his disappearance, and no unidentified child’s bones have been found in these parts. It’s not as if the town is surrounded by lava and rocks, where no one can go to search.’

  ‘But what if someone kidnapped him, murdered him and buried him somewhere? His remains wouldn’t necessarily be found.’ Freyr had difficulty finishing the sentence. These same thoughts had run far too often through his mind in connection with his own son.

  The old man shook his head sadly. ‘I think the world was better then and I find it hard to believe that such a thing happened. No one lived here – and hopefully never will – who could have committed such a deed. At the time people gossiped that Bernódus’s father might have beaten him to death, intentionally or unintentionally, and got rid of the body. He certainly had a free hand, if he was in that kind of mood. But I found it hard to believe and I never trusted those stories. The poor man didn’t have it in him, in my opinion, to do such a thing. He would have let the boy lie there on the floor in his own blood until he was found. Alcohol was the only thing that mattered to him.’

  ‘I got to see the old police reports on the case and it seems that an extensive search was made for the boy, all to no avail. The reports didn’t reveal much but one thing caught my attention: the boy’s mother was never mentioned. Was she dead, or maybe as much of a lost cause as the father? Did she just leave? I wondered about this particularly because it would have been typical for a child in his position to run off and try to find the missing parent, who his imagination had idealised. Then he might have died of exposure or in an accident. Wasn’t it winter?’

  ‘Yes, winter had certainly set in when it happened. But he hadn’t run off to find his mother, because she was dead by then.’ The man’s eyelids half closed. ‘She died several years before when she tried to save Bernódus’s younger brother from drowning. The child had gone out onto the ice after the fjord froze over and fallen through it, and the woman waded out after him. They both drowned there, and they say that that’s when Bernódus’s father lost his grip and gave in to drink and debauchery. He couldn’t cope with the loss and couldn’t bear to look at his surviving son, who’d had to witness the tragedy unfolding. Someone told me he blamed the boy, thought that he could have done something about it – which was absurd, of course; the boy would never have been able to save his mother and brother. He would have just followed them under the ice and died with them. I don’t know whether the drink gave the man this idea or whether the seed was sown when things started going downhill. But one thing is certain: he never showed his son any affection or treated him like a father should.’ The old man shut his eyes completely. ‘Believe you me, he had to live with his shame forever.’

  Freyr needed a moment to digest this. In this respect it was easier to speak to the older generation; short pauses in the conservation didn’t matter. ‘So the boy was blamed by his alcoholic father for the death of his mother and younger brother,’ he said thoughtfully, verbally putting the story together. ‘What tragic circumstances to grow up in.’ Freyr was even starting to suspect that the boy had committed suicide. ‘Didn’t he have a grandmother, grandfather, or other relative he could go and stay with?’

  ‘The family wasn’t from here and I never heard mention of any other relatives. I expect he had some, but to my knowledge no one knew who they were. The accident that killed the mother and younger son occurred before Bernódus and his father moved here, so I never knew the mother or even met her. They were living in Hesteyri in Jökulfirðir when the mother and her child died.’ The old man lifted his head slightly from the pillow and turned to face Freyr directly. Blue veins stood out in his white skin, which was nearly transparent. ‘I never taught him, so I was never involved in his case, but all of us were certainly aware of him, as his situation was so distressing. And he became even more memorable after his disappearance. It really affected us teachers. The break-in at the school occurred soon afterwards, so it really was a difficult term.’

  ‘Remind me how much time passed between the two events?’ Freyr had lost track of the dates.

  ‘Ten days; a fortnight or so? I don’t remember precisely.’

  ‘Were they thought to have been related in any way?’

  ‘I don’t recall anyone ever suggesting it. I don’t see how they could have been.’ He turned away from Freyr and let his head droop. The depression that formed beneath it in the soft pillow was barely noticeable. ‘And I wouldn’t think it was likely.’ His voice had faded and although their conversation hadn’t been long, it was clear that he was tired.

  There was little to add to this and Freyr prepared to stand up and leave. He hadn’t really got anywhere, except that he was fairly certain that one way or another, the boy had followed his mother and brother and perished at sea. That was the most likely explanation, and more often than not the simplest hypotheses proved to be the correct ones. Before he stood up he asked one more question, partly in the hope that the man had recovered a little and they could talk for a bit longer. ‘Do you know whether Bernódus’s teacher is still alive? She might know something more about the case.’

  The old man shook his head weakly. ‘No, she died a long time ago. She died very prematurely, too. You’re several decades too late to get anything out of her.’

  ‘Did she die at around the same time that Bernódus disappeared and the school was broken into?’

  ‘No, no. It was quite some time afterwards. Probably around ten years later. She’d had to quit teaching because she lost her sight.’

  ‘Did she go blind from an illness?’ Freyr recalled that the teacher in the class photo had been rather young-looking, and would barely have been middle-aged ten years on from then. It was extremely unusual for people to go blind at that age from glaucoma or degenerative diseases, but of course there were other conditions that affected the eyes regardless of a person’s age.

  ‘No, it was an accident. She slipped on the ice in the spring, landed in a peculiar way on some fencing and damaged both her eyes so badly that they couldn’t be saved. She started acting a bit strangely afterwards, the poor thing; said that she’d been pushed, but numerous witnesses stated that no one had been near her. That was why I was asked to take over her class in the autumn. She had to stop teaching.’ The man’s hands twitched for no visible reason. ‘You could say that the accident led to her death, in fact, because later she stepped in front of a car. She had a white stick, but either she wasn’t careful or she became confused, and that was that. While I’m feeding you old gossip, I heard at the time that when they examined the body they discovered that she’d completely lost it, though I found it hard to believe. Just thought I’d mention it, since you’re a specialist in matters of the head and heart.’

&nb
sp; Freyr didn’t find this any worse a description of his specialism than the traditional one, psychiatrist. ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘The story goes that she’d inflicted wounds on herself that couldn’t be explained by anything other than mental instability.’ Freyr’s skin prickled unpleasantly. The old man yawned again, even more weakly than before. ‘Actually, she always seemed rather odd, and that’s maybe what started the rumours. She was moody, she favoured some pupils over others and was generally rather cold and uncaring.’

  Fearing he knew the answer, Freyr asked what he’d decided would be his final question: ‘What sort of injuries did she have?’

  ‘A cross. She’d cut a cross in her back. And rather neatly, too, I understand, considering she was blind.’

  Exhaustion finally overcame Freyr and the desire to fall into his own bed at home was overwhelming. He’d had enough.

  Chapter 25

  Katrín had never rejoiced so much at any sound as at the din that now came from outside. Líf’s laughter at something Garðar said convinced her that the owner of the hand was no longer standing on the porch. She dared to open her eyes and felt her heartbeat slow down and her breathing become stable. The odour of fish offal seemed to have gone and she enjoyed breathing normally again, after the stench had filled her nostrils. Unlike other odours, she hadn’t grown used to this one; instead it had intensified until Katrín felt as if she had a piece of rotten fish covering her nose. As her fear had increased, so the pain in her foot had diminished, but now that the terror seemed behind her, the pain returned in waves, both there and elsewhere on her bruised body. But most of all she felt like weeping with happiness when the vague outlines of Líf and Garðar appeared in the dark kitchen doorway, their arms full. ‘Weren’t we quick?’ Líf placed two rolled-up sleeping bags and a plastic bag full of things on the floor without entering the room, then started untying her walking boots. The dull scent of cigarette smoke filled the room and Katrín was happy to breathe it in; it was much better than the newly vanished smell of rot.

  As far as Katrín was concerned, they couldn’t have been gone any longer, but she didn’t have the heart to say so. ‘I can’t begin to describe how relieved I am to see you. Did you bring the candles?’ Her longing for light was probably no less desperate than Líf’s for nicotine. Her voice quivered to an embarrassing degree and after Líf put on her furry slippers, took a candle from the bag and lit it, Katrín knew that it was her own deathly pale face that caused Líf to take one step back and exclaim in surprise. ‘My foot is killing me,’ she muttered. ‘And there was someone outside. Just before you came.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Garðar walked in, half limping himself. His sore heel was apparently playing up again after the day’s walk and the trip down to the doctor’s house. ‘We didn’t see anyone.’ He sat down opposite Katrín at the kitchen table and placed a white medicine bottle in front of her. ‘Take four. You should feel better afterwards.’

  ‘Doesn’t she get anything to drink with that?’ Líf looked around for water or juice, but the limited light from the candle did little more than cast shadows beyond the kitchen table.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Katrín took four white tablets from the bottle. They seemed unnecessarily large and when she put them in her mouth it was as if all the saliva drained from it, forcing her to make a real effort to swallow them. ‘How long do they take to work?’ She didn’t ask what she was swallowing, nor did she feel like reading the label on the bottle. The only thing that mattered to her was to reduce her intolerable pain.

  Garðar watched her take the pills. ‘Half an hour. Something like that. Maybe less, since it’s been so long since we ate.’ His brow was furrowed with worry; there seemed little left of the cheerfulness that had accompanied him and Líf to the door. ‘Tell me what you saw. We’ve got to take precautions before we sleep, if that little bastard is around.’

  Líf’s laughter also seemed remote when she said in a trembling voice: ‘What precautions? What can we do?’ She pulled the chair closer to the table. ‘Why didn’t we go and stay at the doctor’s again? We could just as easily have helped you down there, Katrín.’

  ‘I can’t go anywhere. Maybe tomorrow, but now I would have to hop on one foot and I wouldn’t trust myself to do that. You two could hardly carry me and all the stuff back down. How would we cross the stream, for example?’ Katrín’s pitch continued to rise and she stopped before she started sounding like a banshee. ‘We’re not going anywhere now. My foot is killing me again.’

  Garðar’s frown had deepened. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll sleep in shifts. One child can’t handle all three of us. His only weapon is surprise, and the only time he could really do us any harm is when we’re all asleep.’ Garðar pulled the candle closer to the centre of the table. ‘We have enough candles now and it’s easier to stay awake that way than when everything’s pitch-dark. I’ll take the first watch, and I suggest you go straight to bed. It’s silly for us all to be awake if we’re going to do it this way.’

  ‘I wonder what he wants from us.’ Katrín was too drained physically and emotionally to have an opinion on Garðar’s idea, much less to suggest any other solution. She was immensely relieved not to have to make the decision and would even have accepted one of Líf’s ridiculous suggestions, so long as she didn’t have to walk anywhere. ‘I mean, why is he hanging around here? He hasn’t given the impression of wanting to steal anything; he’s had enough opportunity to do that, and he’s not looking for companionship or help.’ She sighed. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  Líf looked over her shoulder as if she expected to see the boy staring at her through the window. On the other side of the pane was sheer darkness. ‘The boy isn’t alive. Why don’t we admit that? It’s not as if the situation would get any worse.’

  ‘That’s enough of that nonsense, Líf.’ Garðar looked at neither of them as he said this. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, and there’s no reason to imagine the worst. Things are fucked-up enough as it is.’

  Katrín was in agreement with Líf. There was something more than a little peculiar going on, and it couldn’t be explained by the presence of any normal child. She was going to tell Líf this when a creak in the floorboards silenced them all. ‘Was that one of you?’ Katrín whispered, though there was no reason to lower her voice. ‘That’s how it started before.’ The sound seemed to originate there in the little kitchen.

  No one wanted to admit to having caused the noise. ‘Putti?’ Líf bent down and took the dog in her arms. ‘Was it him, maybe?’ She glanced around furtively and squeezed the little animal tightly to her chest. ‘Is he heavy enough?’

  ‘Are you kidding? He weighs as much as a cork. He wouldn’t make the floor creak even if he started jumping on it with all his weight.’ The creaking sound came again, now much more softly than before. Líf muttered something under her breath and in her attempt to move closer to them bumped the table; Garðar just managed to grab the candle before it toppled over. He held the candlestick aloft, illuminating the room better. Then he stood up and stared towards where the sound seemed to originate. ‘Don’t say anything.’ He focused his eyes firmly on the spot and when the sound came again he walked with the candle away from the table, towards the internal wall of the kitchen. There was nothing to see besides the damaged floorboards and the ends of the broken planks. Garðar was only one step away from the damaged patch when the creak came again, now so softly that they would hardly have noticed it if they hadn’t been completely silent. ‘There’s nothing here.’ Garðar seemed surprised. He bent down and swept the candle along the wall and floor in search of an explanation. When he stood up he was much calmer. ‘There must be something wrong with the foundations here. Do you remember the planks? Maybe the mould, or whatever it is, is damaging the wood and the house is shifting because of it.’ He turned round, satisfied to have come up with an explanation, but also quite worried since he knew he was the only one of them who h
adn’t given up on the house. ‘Damn it.’ He walked back over to them. ‘I think there’s nothing we can do but tear up the floor and see what’s underneath.’

  ‘Not now. Please.’ Líf had loosened her grip on Putti slightly and he struggled weakly in her arms, desperate to get back down to the floor. ‘What if there’s something under there?’

  ‘Like what? A ghost?’ Garðar grimaced and shook his head.

  Líf let Putti go and rearranged her jumper, which had been pulled out of place by the dog’s wriggling. ‘Or maybe a perfect breeding ground for an infestation of some disgusting fungus. I read online that you can become horribly ill breathing in that kind of fungal growth. It occurs precisely in old houses like this one. If I remember correctly, the spores float around in the air; they’re so small you can’t see them.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then we’re already affected, Líf.’ Garðar placed the candle back on the table and sat down.

  ‘Was there anything in the article about the fungus causing hallucinations?’ Katrín wondered whether what she’d seen and heard when she was alone in the house had been due to skewed perception from toxic poisoning. That would explain a lot of what had happened since their arrival at the house. If it was life-threatening, the fungus could also explain why the former owner had left the house and died outdoors somewhere. ‘Maybe we’re getting high without realizing it.’ A stab of pain that went all the way up her leg when she moved slightly in her chair didn’t suggest that she was all that doped up.

  ‘There was nothing about that, but it wasn’t a very scientific article.’ Líf seemed to cheer up at this weak hope that everything had a logical explanation, but she hadn’t thought it all the way through: if they were on some sort of mushroom trip, they were probably seriously ill. ‘Wow, that would be awesome! Then there’s probably nothing wrong here and we’ve just been imagining all this shit.’ She looked at Katrín’s leg, resting outstretched on a chair. ‘Except maybe this. I think you’re seriously injured.’