‘Awful, I expect.’ Katrín heard the sadness in Garðar’s voice. Unless a miracle was about to occur, they would be in the same boat as these people in the middle of last century; they would lose their home in Reykjavík and be forced to shut its door behind them for the final time. The only difference was that she and Garðar would have to see their old home when they drove through the area, whereas the people in Hesteyri had moved far away and therefore were seldom reminded of what they had lost. Some time ago Katrín had resolved to avoid her old area when the time came for them to have to leave it. She didn’t want to see another family’s car in the driveway, other curtains in the kitchen windows, other furniture in the garden, and she knew that Garðar felt the same.
Líf came and stood next to Katrín and looked around. ‘But what were they supposed to do? There were no jobs to be had after the factory was closed and then it was pointless to try to go on living here, even though some of them might have been resisted the inevitable for a while.’
Just like her and Garðar. Katrín said nothing, but the words echoed in her mind. The miracle they needed to keep the property wasn’t going to happen; if they were really lucky they’d be able to hold on until the so-called ‘Key Bill’ was passed and they could return their house keys to the bank without any further financial consequences, unless the bank found a loophole in the new bill.
‘What’s that?’ Katrín pointed at the slope south of the settlement. On it was a large rock or pile of stones jutting towards the sky, apparently placed there by human hands.
Garðar turned to look where Katrín was pointing. He shrugged. ‘No idea. Should we wander over there? We can take a look at the houses on the way; maybe we’ll see something that might be useful.’
‘What I’d find useful is a nice spa,’ Líf grumbled. ‘I’d give anything for a massage right about now.’
‘There’s no danger of that.’ Katrín, too, would have given her right arm for just a warm bubble bath. She had long since stopped allowing herself to dream of expensive spas.
They walked gently down the path but had to keep stopping for Garðar either to pull up his sock on his sore foot or fold it over to try to cover the wound on his heel. Neither seemed to help for more than a few steps, and Garðar had started to limp by the time they finally reached the place that had drawn Katrín’s attention. They looked at the houses along the way without picking up any useful tips on how to restore their own house. If it hadn’t been for Garðar’s sore heel they would have gone up to each of them to get a better look, but that would have made the hike too long. The organization of the settlement suggested that it had had sufficient space, with some distance between the houses. On the other hand, it couldn’t have been expanded much before running out of habitable land.
‘We don’t need to go any further if it’s killing you.’ Katrín grimaced as Garðar pulled down his sock to reveal a blood-red blister. He winced when the curious Putti sniffed at the wound. Katrín tried to remember whether they’d packed bandages or analgesic sprays from the car, but could only recall having planned to take such things with her, not actually having done so. ‘Your foot looks awful.’
‘It’ll be all right tomorrow. I have other shoes that don’t come so high up the ankle.’ Garðar pulled his sock all the way down to the middle of his instep as he rested his foot on top of his shoe. ‘It was stupid of me not to have worn them now.’
‘That’s absolutely disgusting.’ Líf made a face, but then smiled. ‘I think amputation is the only cure. It’s a tragedy.’
Garðar didn’t seem amused, though he tried to force a smile. He was going to reply but Katrín beat him to it. ‘Just wait here. Líf and I will head over there and have a look at it. You can rest your leg in the meantime and we’ll take our time coming back.’
Garðar couldn’t hide his relief at a chance to sit down. ‘Good idea. I doubt I’d make it back if I took one more step.’ He plonked himself down on a grassy bank that appeared specially designed to allow people to rest their weary bones. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to cool down my heel a bit.’ He stretched out his leg to allow the wind to soothe his half-bare foot, and it was as if the wind took this as a cue to blow colder.
‘I’m going to wait here too.’ Líf sat down by his side. ‘I’ve actually had enough walking to last me a lifetime.’ She let herself fall backwards and lay staring up at the sky. ‘Don’t be too long.’
On her way up the hollow Katrín had to keep pushing her hair out of her face, since the wind seemed to be trying its best to blow it constantly into her eyes. She automatically stuck her hand into her pocket to see if she had a hair-band before remembering that of course she hadn’t brought any. As a result, she could see little or nothing and couldn’t get a good idea of the area until she’d nearly reached her destination. She stopped, turned back and shouted to Garðar and Líf: ‘It’s a cemetery. Maybe the crosses are from here.’ She wasn’t certain whether they’d heard her over the breeze, but Garðar waved at her. Instead of shouting louder she walked all the way up to a level area containing several rather elegant but weatherworn graves. She could tell them about this on the way back to the house. The man-made structure that had caught Katrín’s attention, a memorial made of stacked-up stones, was located in the centre of the area. Not many people had lived and died around here, judging by the number of graves, which seemed to be only several dozen. Most of them looked as if winter had repeatedly been allowed to run roughshod over them; by the skipper’s account, no one visited the area from the end of August until the spring. It was likely that some of the graves had never been tended. Many of the dead had lost their offspring to the south or to distant places, and then there were those who had lived and died alone. It was clear, at least, that in some places the brush had been allowed to grow undisturbed, and it now lay withered and dry among the graves. Weathered crosses and crooked headstones were the only indication that the previous residents of the village were resting there. Katrín knew she was starting to let her imagination run away with her, but she thought the vegetation looked even more lifeless here than elsewhere in the area, and the stalks and dried-out plants appeared to snap more loudly beneath her feet. The wind also felt colder and seemed to carry a whisper that her ears couldn’t quite make out. She suddenly felt chillier, as though she would never warm up again. After zipping her jacket all the way up she felt slightly better, even if she still wasn’t warm. She took several steps to a fenced-off plot with an impressive iron cross that had broken and now stood with its head tilted. The fence around the area must have been unusually elegant in its time, but its delicate ironwork was now just as rusted as the cross. The effect was tragic.
She turned abruptly to see whether Garðar and Líf were still where she’d left them. They were, of course, and seemed to be in intense discussion. She suddenly longed to turn around and run back to them; let the cemetery wait until they returned with her to have a look at it. But she knew she would be annoyed at herself as soon as she went back down the path if she didn’t investigate whether the crosses were from the cemetery, so she turned and walked quickly over to the first grave. On it was an impressive headstone with the names of a couple who had died in 1949. Neither the date nor the names matched those on the crosses, which Katrín recalled were ‘Hugi’ and ‘Bergdís’, and although she wasn’t entirely certain, she thought that both had died in 1951. She was quite surprised that she should remember this, since she was usually particularly bad with dates and numbers. She turned to the next grave, but the inscription on its headstone was so faded that there was no way of telling what was on it. The same went for the next two headstones. As she stood and wondered whether she should check all the graves, Katrín noticed that a panel of text was affixed to the memorial.
She walked up to the modest but attractive pile of stones. On top of it stood a cross and within a hollow space on its front was a handsome bell, as well as the panel containing the text that Katrín had noticed. When she got closer she was pleased to
see that it was a map showing the position of the graves, along with a list of the names of those resting in the cemetery. Also on it was a black and white picture of a little church, with general information stating that a church had stood just inside the village; it had been built in 1899 and was a gift from the Norwegian M.C. Bull, who ran the whaling station Hekla in Stekkseyri. A chapel had served the settlement for several centuries before the church was built. The church had been moved to Súðavík in 1960, but the text explained that the bell in the memorial was from the church, and had been cast in 1691. Katrín found that interesting, particularly given that it hung there unprotected, accessible to everyone. The summary ended with some exceptionally brief information about Hesteyri, considering how many people had lived their lives there, experiencing all the pain, tribulations and joyous moments that fate would have dealt them. Perhaps history didn’t offer any detailed information, so the marker made do with stating that Hesteyri had become a certified commercial town in 1881; around 420 people had resided there permanently at the settlement’s height; it had had a telegram station, then later a telephone exchange, as well as a physician. Concerning the end of the settlement, all that was stated was that around 1940 its population had started to dwindle and the last residents moved away in 1952.
There was more information to be gleaned from the list of names. Two groups were described: those who were known to have been buried there but whose exact location was unknown, and those who rested in marked graves. The unidentified graves were mostly from the turn of the century, 1900. Katrín found herself thinking that at that time the residents hadn’t had the resources or reason to put up hard-wearing markers and the graves had therefore vanished into oblivion when weather and vegetation levelled the mounds or other signs of them. The known graves were more recent, the majority of them dating from the 1920s. It surprised Katrín that the newest graves in the cemetery were made in 1989; there were also three individuals buried here whose nationality was the only information still readable: two Norwegians and one German. It was a sad fate to be buried in a distant land that over time forgot a man’s name, his date of birth, and even date of death, which at least must have been known.
But it wasn’t the foreigners that Katrín was most interested in. The names on the crosses that they’d found turned out to be among those buried in known graves. Hugi Pjetursson and Bergdís Jónsdóttir, both died in 1951, she at thirty-two years old and he at five. Katrín stared at the names while pondering their poignantly short lives. Bergdís was most likely the boy’s mother, and the boy’s surname told her his father was called Pjetur; but no father was to be found in their plot, nor was any Pjetur named in the two lists. She was happy that Líf had decided to wait with Garðar; she would have found it embarrassing and uncomfortable to have her there, considering how recently Einar had died. His death had been easy and silent; he had fallen asleep never to wake up again, while here this mother and her son had probably bid farewell to this world through an accident or disease, since they had died in the same year, if not on the same day. Of the two evils, Einar’s path was surely more desirable, even though it wasn’t in one’s power to decide such a thing. Líf would probably disagree with this, however; she had woken with her husband cold and dead by her side. Katrín felt a deeper chill.
The map of the cemetery pointed her to the grave of Hugi and Bergdís, a fenced-off but unmarked plot. If she hadn’t had the map to rely on, she would have assumed that these were reserved plots that hadn’t been used after the village was abandoned. Unlike other plots, there was no overgrowth present here; instead the ground was covered with black, dusty soil. Oval-shaped white stones lay here and there on the surface but no remains of weeds or grass were to be seen anywhere. The outlines of the graves were marked with a low pile of stones that was falling down. The wind blew harder when Katrín walked over to the plot and the unpleasant whispering grew louder, though she still couldn’t quite hear what it was saying. She had to grab her hair and hold it back tightly in order to see anything properly. Although she didn’t really need to see anything – she knew the crosses were from here. Her confirmation came after she’d got a grip on her hair and could see a bit better: two broken wooden stumps stuck out of the ground at the end of the graves. Bingo. Although there was no clear explanation as to why the crosses had been removed and put next to their house, Katrín was at least very relieved to know where they had come from. Maybe crazy – or drunk? – tourists had vandalized the graves and thrown away the crosses by their house, although that explanation sounded ridiculous as soon as it crossed her mind. Her relief then evaporated completely when she saw that the round white stones weren’t stones at all, but shells.
Katrín picked one of them up and inspected it thoroughly. It was pale and damp and had been scraped out, or the creature that had occupied it had been removed some other way. Katrín looked around in search of more shells that might be hidden in the grass next to the grave. She saw none. It occurred to her that birds might have been responsible, but then the shells should have been lying all over the place. Besides that, it was too much of a coincidence for birds to have arranged the shells in the dirt – they all faced the same way, with the convex side up. The wind blew the soil and the shells were no longer as distinctly white. The next gust went one better and covered some of them completely. Katrín squeezed the shell she was holding, turned on her heel and hurried back to Garðar and Líf. It was inconceivable that the shells had been there since the autumn. They could hardly have been there much longer than since that morning, considering how quickly the wind was blowing dirt over them now. But who had put them there? She would have to investigate whether the shells were similar to the ones Garðar had found in the living room of their house. Maybe there was someone else in the village, trying to avoid making his presence known.
She felt relieved when she finally left the cemetery and spotted Garðar and Líf. At precisely that moment she thought that at last she could hear what the wind had been constantly whispering.
Run, Kata.
Chapter 8
The photo of his son stood on his desk in the simple office that he hadn’t been interested in making his own in any other way. Similar photos could be seen everywhere he was in the habit of stopping; at home, one on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker, another on the bedside table, a third on the little table next to the armchair where he watched television. The pictures were all over the place; he’d lost count of them, indeed he didn’t want to know how many there were. Most of the frames were the same: inexpensive and not able to withstand much handling. Some of them had fallen apart and been traded in for sturdier ones. He’d originally bought all the frames in the same shop after picking up enlarged photos of his son. He’d chosen the photos as haphazardly as the frames, having been pressed for time. He remembered the day clearly; when he woke he couldn’t recall his son’s face, no matter how he tried to imagine it. The face was always just out of reach, just on the verge of appearing, but needing one last effort to recall it. The framed photos were intended for such moments, but Freyr had immediately realized that they would constantly increase in number, and in the end his inability to picture his son would become inescapable.
‘Who’s in the photo?’ Dagný nodded her chin at the picture. She was unusually tired-looking, but that made her no less attractive in Freyr’s eyes, merely more human. Her short hair wasn’t as wild as usual and lay a bit flat at the end of the long working day. Her sofa at home was probably a more attractive prospect than dropping in on him, but Freyr wasn’t to blame for that – she’d asked to see him. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘It’s a photo of my son. Benni.’ It suddenly occurred to Freyr to turn the photo round for her to see it, but he didn’t.
‘He was never found, was he?’ Dagný reddened slightly as soon as she said this. ‘I heard the story just after you moved here. It didn’t need to be described to me in any detail; I still remember the news vividly. Children don’t often disappear
in Iceland.’
‘No. Thankfully not. But it’s not the only example. Two teenage boys disappeared from Keflavík fifteen years ago. They’ve never been found.’ Freyr watched Dagný shift awkwardly in the chair at the topic of conversation, even though her desire to know more about what had happened was clearly stronger than her politeness. It didn’t bother him; it was much better when people asked him straight out instead of tiptoeing around it every time anything vaguely connected to the incident came up. In the worst instances, people blushed deeply if a child were mentioned, and then tried whatever they could to direct the conversation onto another topic. On those occasions he usually stopped them and told them that it was OK, but that he didn’t want to talk about his painful loss. ‘The way things stand, I don’t expect him to be found now; it’s been three years and every little patch of ground where he might conceivably be has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb.’
Dagný appeared relieved that he was able to discuss the subject. She looked into his eyes instead of allowing them to roam the walls of the office and asked her next question more boldly than the previous one. ‘What do you think actually happened? It’s strange that nothing should have come to light.’
Freyr nodded; apart from his ex, no one could have pondered this question more than he had. But his speculation hadn’t led him to any conclusions. ‘I simply don’t know. It doesn’t help that he went missing while playing hide-and-seek with his friends. Maybe he crawled into a well or a hole that somehow closed behind him, but of course all those possibilities were investigated. They searched garages, houses, cars, camper vans, and everything else in the neighbourhood that could possibly have accommodated a child. The police think that he must have ended up in the sea; still, it’s quite a distance from Ártúnsholt, where we lived, down to the beach, so I’ve always doubted that explanation. Of course it’s possible that he went all that way, but it doesn’t tally with the game of hide-and-seek; the kids said they never went far to hide, and the purpose is to be found in the end. You know that from your own childhood; you didn’t go off to another neighbourhood to find yourself a good hiding place. In any case, they weren’t allowed to go near Ártúnsbrekka because of the traffic, and they stuck to that. I don’t think Benni would have broken that rule.’ Freyr folded his arms across his chest. ‘But I don’t know that for certain.’
I Remember You Page 9
