Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Ezra slammed the door behind him. Jakob sat unmoved in his chair. He pictured Matthildur’s body on the floor and remembered how heavy she had felt when he lifted her. He waited, his eyes on the door. After a considerable time, it opened again and Ezra reappeared. Stepping into the house, he closed it carefully behind him.

  ‘Why did you tell me?’ he asked, walking towards Jakob. ‘Why confess to me? How can I make it worse for myself? And why the hell are you so calm?’

  Jakob’s face wore an ugly smirk. ‘You pathetic bastard,’ he said.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It would be the easiest thing in the world to pin it on you, Ezra.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you ever tell anyone it’ll be worse for you,’ said Jakob. ‘I’ll accuse you of murdering her. I’ll tell them about your antics and how Matthildur was planning to end your sordid little affair, how she’d been anxious because she knew you’d make trouble. She was going to do it when she got back from Reydarfjördur but now I’m not sure she even made it as far as the moor. Maybe she ran into you and gave you the news, and you turned on her and beat her to death.’

  Ezra gaped at Jakob. ‘Nobody would believe you,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘What about you, Ezra? Who’d believe you?’

  Ezra eventually managed to force out the question: ‘Where is she?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘How could you do that to her?’

  ‘No, Ezra, how could you do that to her?’ said Jakob. ‘It was your doing. You’d better remember that next time you try and steal another man’s wife.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘Tell me what you did with her.’

  ‘Get out — I’ve told you all I’m going to.’

  ‘Tell me where she is, you piece of shit!’ shouted Ezra.

  ‘Out!’ yelled Jakob, standing. The unnatural self-possession had gone. ‘Get the hell out of here and never let me see your fucking face again!’

  Suddenly Ezra had charged him and the two men crashed to the floor, Ezra raining down blows on Jakob, who tried in return to claw his face. They thrashed to and fro until Jakob finally managed to get the upper hand. He landed a vicious punch in Ezra’s face.

  ‘Remember that, you shit,’ he hissed breathlessly. ‘It’s all because of you. And don’t you ever forget it, you bastard!’

  He stood up. Ezra clambered to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth and feeling his jaw tenderly. His whole face ached.

  ‘You won’t get away with it,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a joke,’ said Jakob. ‘Get out of here. Go on. Fuck off.’

  ‘You won’t,’ whispered Ezra again, backing out of the door. ‘You’ll never get away with it.’

  35

  A hollow silence fell: the birds had departed from the garden. Dusk deepened around the two men in the kitchen while the cat slept on in its basket. Ezra’s strength seemed to have dwindled with the daylight, his body to have shrunk in the chair.

  ‘So you kept your mouth shut,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ezra. ‘I never told anyone. That’s the sort of lily-livered coward I was.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have kept quiet about a crime like that, however involved you were. A cover-up does no one any good.’

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’

  ‘And so the years passed?’

  ‘Yes, they passed.’

  Erlendur realised how traumatic this must have been for the old man after a lifetime of guarding his secret. For sixty years he had concealed Jakob’s crime, even after the man died, for fear of being incriminated. He had chosen the easy course and saved his own skin, and yet Erlendur felt some sympathy for his plight. Had Jakob followed his threat through, things might have gone badly for Ezra. He was, after all, in a vulnerable position, having betrayed his friend and stolen his wife. A vengeful man like Jakob could have pointed the finger at any time and forced Ezra to defend himself against serious charges.

  ‘I lost my nerve,’ Ezra said. ‘I was frightened. Terrified, I should say. I couldn’t bear the thought of our affair being exposed and judged as dirty and squalid. I was so scared Jakob would spread stories about me, accuse me, brand me a murderer. He bullied me into silence. He told me the truth, but only after making sure I’d feel so guilty I’d hush it up. Well, he got what he wanted.’ Ezra broke off briefly. ‘He won. He defeated us both.’

  ‘What did he do with her body?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me. Claimed he’d planted something on Matthildur to frame me and said he could notify the authorities any time he liked. I didn’t know what it was and still can’t work out if he was lying. But that’s what he said and I was in such a state that I believed him.’

  ‘So you still don’t know where she is?’

  ‘I’ve never known.’

  ‘So first you lose Matthildur, then this is flung in your face?’

  ‘Jakob. . was an evil bastard.’

  ‘And you had to go on living so near him.’

  ‘Yes, it was hard. Of course I had nothing to do with him, or as little as I could help, and he moved away for a while. Perhaps he was just as scared that I’d go to the police as I was that he’d spread lies about me. It was like a Cold War between us. He said. .’ Ezra hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said he’d make sure I suffered too. Make sure I was punished. And he succeeded.’

  ‘You weren’t tempted to move away, back to the west, or to Reykjavík? It would have been easy during the war. You could have lost yourself in the crowd — as far as that’s possible in this country.’

  ‘I couldn’t bring myself to move.’ Ezra’s voice had sunk to a mumble again. ‘Not while I knew Matthildur was here somewhere. I couldn’t bear to leave her. Because her body was never found, it’s as if she never really left. Can you understand that? I know it sounds like gibberish but it feels as if she’s still here with me. I sense her presence every time I go about the streets, or look out to sea or up at the mountains. She’s everywhere. She’s all around me.’ He paused, then added: ‘I’ll be dead soon anyway, and then it’ll all be over.’

  ‘You have no inkling where she is?’ asked Erlendur again.

  Ezra shook his head.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You think I’m lying?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I don’t think you’re lying. But since you said yourself that Jakob threatened to frame you, it would be in your interest that she was never found.’

  ‘You policemen!’ exclaimed Ezra. ‘You’re so used to suspecting everyone, doubting everything. I bet you think I’ve been lying all along — that I did away with Matthildur myself and I’m just using Jakob as a scapegoat. Is that what’s going through your mind? That I’ve turned the story on its head?’

  ‘You’re reacting — ’ began Erlendur, but got no further.

  ‘There was nothing I could do,’ interrupted Ezra. ‘Until Jakob died it hung over me like a death sentence. But what he’d done couldn’t be undone. Matthildur was dead, gone. Involving the police wouldn’t have changed that.’

  ‘So you accepted Jakob’s story?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You told me earlier that you were sure he could never have harmed Matthildur. Was that part of the deception?’

  Ezra nodded.

  ‘And you’ve never doubted his account?’

  ‘Doubted? Doubted what? That he killed Matthildur? Not for one second. I know he told the truth about that at least.’

  ‘But you never had any proof. Maybe she died in the storm and he used the fact to torment you for the affair. Has that occurred to you?’

  ‘I’m certain he told the truth,’ repeated Ezra obstinately, scowling at Erlendur.

  ‘You felt guilty. Did you have your eye on Matthildur before she made a move? Was that why?’

  ‘My eye on her?’

  ‘Did you drop hint
s?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you flirt with her? Let her know you were interested?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘So you did nothing about it?’

  ‘No,’ said Ezra slowly. ‘If she sensed it — ’

  ‘But you weren’t exactly averse when she did turn to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was that it? You had a guilty conscience about enticing her away from her husband and Jakob played on that?’

  Ezra did not answer.

  ‘It must have come as quite a relief when he died,’ said Erlendur.

  Ezra refused to be provoked.

  ‘Or perhaps the opposite? Because he was the only one who knew where Matthildur was?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And he took the secret to his grave.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Were you here when it happened — when Jakob drowned?’

  ‘Yes, I remember it well.’

  ‘His body was stored in the ice house in the village.’

  ‘Yes, before he was taken to Djúpivogur for the funeral. Then it was over.’

  ‘Did you see his body?’

  ‘Yes, I was working at the ice house at the time.’

  ‘And you never found out what he did with Matthildur?’

  ‘I couldn’t get it out of him. That’s all I ever wanted to know, but I don’t suppose I will now.’

  Erlendur looked in the direction of the moor, now shrouded in darkness.

  ‘At the end of the day it was my fault she died,’ whispered Ezra. ‘I’m to blame. I’ve had to live with that ever since.’

  36

  The day they are due to move to Reykjavík, he comes down from the moors for the last time and helps his father with the packing. For once he has not been searching for clues but saying a private goodbye to the world that contains both his happiness and all his sorrows. He set out early that morning, at first light, taking care not to wake his parents. It is a beautiful summer’s day but his mother dislikes him traipsing around up there on his own, as she calls it. Only two years have passed since she lost her younger son and the elder must not be allowed to go the same way. But that is not the only reason for their move; there are others.

  His father is uncommunicative as he carries their belongings out to the small pickup. It is a newish vehicle which has been sold to a buyer in Reykjavík. They have agreed to deliver it on condition that they are allowed to use it to move house. Only the bare essentials are going south: beds, tables, chairs and family heirlooms. The rest has been given away or thrown out. Some odds and ends can be replaced once they reach town. The small number of livestock has also been sold, along with the mower and hay wagon, but his mother is taking her treadle sewing machine on the grounds that it will come in useful wherever they end up. As ever it falls to her to try and lighten the atmosphere. But he senses that she often finds it an effort, and there are times when it is beyond even her, like when the young couple came to pick up Bergur’s bed. They had decided to donate it to a needy family, and his mother kept herself busy in the kitchen when the shy and diffident couple arrived to collect it. ‘There’s no point taking it with us,’ his mother had said. ‘Anyway, their need’s greater than ours.’ But there are other belongings of Bergur’s that she will refuse to part with for the rest of her life.

  Erlendur is in the dark about exactly when the decision to move was taken. The first time he heard his parents discussing it was about six months ago. It was his mother’s idea. She wants to get away from the village, but it is not enough to go to the next fjord or county — every feature of the landscape reminds her of the son she has lost. She wants to go as far away as possible, preferably to a place where she can shake off her torpor and start living again, a life that is fresh and stimulating and unlike anything they have experienced before. That place is Reykjavík.

  His father has little to say on the subject. He agrees to the move almost without comment. He is a changed man since he came down from the moors, and it is not only because he lost his son. He has looked death in the face and this near-miss has had as profound an effect as the loss of his son, as if he has become reconciled to the fact that he must die.

  The couple talk to Erlendur, who is deeply opposed to the plan. He feels they are betraying Bergur by leaving, as if they would be abandoning him. His mother dismisses this as nonsense; he will always be with them, never out of their thoughts. She tells him that they need a change, a new environment, without loss as their daily companion.

  He really has no choice. What does a twelve-year-old boy know about Reykjavík? That there are more cars and bigger shops than he can begin to imagine, and huge houses called blocks, where people live all crammed on top of one another. There are more buildings than he can count and slums where the poor live in rat-infested Nissen huts left behind by the occupying army. But there are broad streets too and policemen directing the traffic. And lots of cinemas and theatres, and a throng of jostling people, and what his mother refers to as fashion boutiques. And schools that stay open all winter with as many as a hundred pupils. It is a terrifying prospect. The city holds no allure for him. He has heard that some dream of moving there but he is not among them.

  Then the summer’s day arrives when they are to close the door of their home for the last time. His mother says her final farewell to the place by making the sign of the crucifix, then they climb into the pickup and jolt off down the drive. He sits between his parents, who do not exchange a word as Bakkasel recedes into the distance behind them. The silence accompanies them all the way to Egilsstadir where his father stops at a garage and announces in an unnaturally loud voice, ‘I need to top up the oil.’ His mother says she will stretch her legs in the meantime. Erlendur follows her a few paces behind, too old now to hold her hand in the sight of others. She stops by the side of the road and contemplates the River Lagarfljót where it broadens into a milk-white lake before flowing down to the sea in the course it has followed for the last five thousand years. Eventually she begins to cry, so quietly that he hardly notices.

  He slips his hand into hers.

  ‘Please don’t cry.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ whispers his mother.

  These are their last moments in the district. Soon they will have left for good. Best say it now.

  ‘I think we’re doing the right thing,’ his mother says, pulling a small handkerchief out of her pocket. ‘But you can never be sure. I don’t really know what I’m dragging you two into.’

  ‘We’ll never forget him.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she says. ‘Of course not.’

  They stand there together, looking out over the milky water, and his thoughts return yet again to the words he uttered to his father before they set off for the moors. All because of those stupid toys and the squabble over the little red car. He has not told his mother what he said and the guilt has been gnawing away at him ever since, overwhelming all other sorrows, even after all this time — two whole years of his short life. His father seems to have forgotten that it was Erlendur who gave him the idea, who insisted on it. Or perhaps he remembers but does not want to speak of it. He is a man of few words and never refers to what happened.

  Far beyond the lake, further than Erlendur’s eye can see or his imagination can stretch, lies his future.

  He turns to his mother and casts his mind back to their home, remembering every detail. Music was playing on the radio in the kitchen. His father had begun to pull on his outdoor clothes. The evening before, his father had said that he needed to find those ewes before they froze to death, because they were not going to bring themselves home. Now, in the morning, he was standing in the bedroom doorway, putting on his coat, when he announced that Erlendur was to accompany him. He would have to dress up warm as it was chilly outside.

  Erlendur looked up from what he was doing.

  ‘Then Bergur must come too,’ he said automatically.

  His father pau
sed. Obviously it had not occurred to him to take his younger son. He had so much else on his mind.

  ‘All right, he can come.’

  It was settled. Nothing further was said. Their mother’s objections were overruled: both boys were going with their father. Erlendur was pleased.

  His pleasure did not last long. The words had been echoing in his mind ever since he was brought down from the moors and discovered Bergur was missing. He could hardly believe he had said it. Was it all his fault? A crushing sense of guilt oppressed him, mingled with a strange feeling that first crept up on him then grew relentlessly: that he did not deserve to be saved instead of Bergur. His body turned rigid and started to tremble and he was helpless to stop it. He went into shock. The doctor was called out.

  Then Bergur must come too.

  His father calls to them — he is ready to set off again — and his mother signals that they are coming. She is about to turn when Erlendur grips her tightly, holding her back.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks.

  He fixes his eyes on her. His heart pounds in his chest; he is terrified of the consequences of what he is about to say. He has wrestled with it over and over again during the dark winter days and long sleepless nights but still cannot predict how she will react. The enormity of the problem is too much for his young mind.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  But he clings onto her hand for dear life. She doesn’t know that it is his fault Bergur went with them. The words are on the tip of his tongue; all he need do is utter them. Tears well up in the corners of his eyes. His mother, sensing that something is wrong, brushes the hair from his forehead.

  ‘What’s the matter, my darling?’ she asks.

  He doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘Don’t you want to move to Reykjavík?’

  His father is sitting in the cab with the engine running, watching them through the window. The attendant who filled up the oil is standing by the pump, looking their way as well. The whole world seems to be staring in their direction.