‘Could you call me a cab? The numbers are jumping all over the screen.’
It was no surprise that Gréta couldn’t see straight; Stella felt dizzy just looking into her eyes.
‘Are you going to another party?’ she asked, booking a cab through the taxi app. ‘Or are you going to meet her?’
‘No, she’s busy this weekend. I was going to get a lift up to the slope at Öskjuhlíð, or somewhere that’s dark, so I can watch the Northern Lights,’ Gréta said. ‘I got a message from somewhere in space that they’re fantastic right now. You know, something I have to see. It’s the inner freedom I’m enjoying tonight.’
It was clear that Gréta’s feet were some way off the ground, and Stella felt a surge of disquiet.
‘Look, it’s not smart to be going off somewhere in the dark with some taxi driver in the state you’re in,’ she said, taking Gréta’s arm to try and get her attention, which seemed to flicker around the hallway as she stood with her coat half over her shoulders and a clownish smile on her face.
‘I’ve never been in a better state,’ Gréta whispered. ‘More than likely I’m in the best state I’ve ever been in my whole life. Exactly at this moment right now.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Stella rummaged through the pile of coats to find her jacket. ‘I’ll come with you on this Northern Lights expedition. There’s no way you’re going off around town in a taxi on your own.’
As she spoke, a horn beeped outside. Stella steered Gréta into the back seat as she complained about the light pollution that obscured her view of the sky.
When they stopped up on Öskjuhlíð, Stella asked the driver to wait in the car park outside the Perlan building. He made sure they paid before getting out of the car, and after retrieving a credit card from Gréta, who was hurrying off in search of Northern Lights, Stella set off after her down the steps that led from the car park to the hollow below. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness and she slipped in the loose, ice-covered gravel that had been flattened underfoot. Tree branches whipped her face as she made her way forward in the darkness, then she suddenly walked into Gréta, who stood motionless, her eyes on the heavens.
‘It makes you wonder what they want from us,’ Gréta whispered in the darkness.
Stella gazed at the sky, and the green and pink lights that danced, jerking and swaying, unlike any she had seen before. It was as if the whole sky had been electrified by the gentle interplay of the lights, which seemed to exude an energy that she could feel rush across her skin.
‘Are they really that wonderful?’ she said. ‘Or is it just the pills that are making them look so beautiful?’
‘Does it matter?’ Gréta asked, and Stella felt her warm hand on her cheek. ‘Isn’t all that matters what we sense here and now?’
Stella turned her head and met Greta’s heavy lips with her own – a searing kiss that sent sparks of desire through her whole body. And while she had taken herself by surprise, ignoring good sense and under the influence of the lights, she knew this was where she ought to be.
59
The doors to the balcony stood open and through the stillness Gunnar could hear the pulsing bass notes from the bars on Laugavegur. This was the heartbeat of the night, which would end with shouts, shrieks and song out on the street, just before the tourists appeared, pulling their suitcases, which would rattle through the ice up the slope towards the waiting airport buses. He was the last Icelander left in the apartment block; every other flat was now rented out to tourists. He had been offered ridiculous money for this tiny place, but this was where he wanted to be. From the window he could see the district where all the ministries were clustered, less than a three-minute jog away, making it the perfect place if one of them needed him.
Íris had called; she was on her way to a night out with some of her friends, and he expected that she would go back to her place afterwards, so he decided to use the evening to look more closely at the emails that Úrsúla had received. He shook a protein drink hard and sat down with it at the coffee table, then began to line up Fossi’s emails in front of him. He put them in the order in which they had arrived, both those that had been sent to the minister and those he had received after he had succumbed to the temptation to try and talk some sense into this idiot. It wasn’t exactly his job to check the contents of the abusive emails that came to the minister, so he ignored all but the ones that came from Fossi. It was up to the chief of police’s department to assess whether the more lukewarm hate-merchants, who felt a need to write to the minister and tell her how to do her job, dress or behave, posed any real threat. But there was something about these messages from Fossi, their virulence and hatred, that he couldn’t leave alone.
The contents of the emails varied little between the first and the last. The sentences were short and angry, and Gunnar had the feeling that they had been written in a rush. There had been no softening in the tone either, although that first one had easily been the most revolting, describing how ‘bitches who stick their noses where they’re not wanted’ would be rewarded with torture. The latest had come from Fossi last night; he offered to think again about raping Úrsúla if only she would resign from her post as minister. Aside from the language and the violent imagery, the contents of the messages revolved around his desire for Úrsúla to keep clear of something that was not her affair, and to step down. If she didn’t do that, then she’d be abused and raped.
What was it that Fossi was so keen Úrsúla didn’t interfere with? Gunnar opened the state TV’s website and scrolled back and forth through the domestic news items covering the minister and the ministry. The first of Fossi’s messages had arrived less than a week after Úrsúla’s first day in office, and over those six days the media had mainly focused on which of her predecessor’s issues Úrsúla intended to pursue. First there had been the Coast Guard’s complaints and the reminders that Rúnar had pledged to allocate them additional funding. Úrsúla had said in one interview that she intended to meet the Coast Guard’s representatives to discuss the matter. She hadn’t given a direct answer as to whether or not she would honour Rúnar’s promise.
Then there was the naming committee that most people regarded as being almost a joke. It was clear from the social-media comments that there was a considerable generational difference in people’s attitudes. Rúnar had been preparing a bill proposing changes to the legislation governing names, which would have included disbanding the naming committee, and it was obvious that many people were disappointed that Úrsúla intended to pursue this, while others welcomed it.
Then there had been the coverage of that old rape accusation in Selfoss. Gunnar stared at the first news item reporting that the ministry had been forced to announce exactly where in the system the case was. The date coincided exactly with that first revolting email, and those that followed seem to have been sent the same day, or the day after, there had been prominent coverage of the rape case and the ministry of the interior’s investigation into the matter.
Could Fossi be from Selfoss?
Sunday
60
At some time during the night Stella woke up by Gréta’s side. Her eyes were still playing tricks on her and she couldn’t make out the numbers on the bedside clock clearly, but she thought it had to be around three. When she moved her head there was no sign of the pounding headache she had expected to wake up to, so she went to the kitchen and let the cold water run.
Their clothes were scattered around the living-room floor, and she found her shirt on the sofa where Gréta had straddled her, letting her heavy breasts tumble into Stella’s face as she unclipped her bra, while Stella lay back in a daze of satisfaction, allowing the endless softness to envelop her.
She returned to the bedroom with the shirt flapping and a full glass of water in her hand, sipping it cautiously as she wasn’t yet thirsty, and saw an old woman standing by the dressing table, staring at her, a twig broom in her hands. Stella knew this had to be her imagination at work; there was an electr
ic glow to the old lady, as if the Northern Lights had taken up residence in her elderly body.
‘Grandmother,’ Stella said. ‘Abuelita.’
‘Happy birthday,’ her grandmother said, looking around her with a quizzical expression.
‘Thank you,’ Stella said, buttoning her shirt before embracing her grandmother. As always, there was a warmth to her, and the aroma that clung to her was a welcome blend of cocoa and burning candles. Stella’s heart beat faster as her grandmother squeezed her as hard as she always did whenever they met.
‘Do you want me to sing your birthday song, my little one?’ her grandmother asked.
Stella shook her head, pointing at Gréta asleep in the bed.
‘It’s best if we don’t wake her.’
‘Is this something serious?’ her grandmother asked, inspecting a pale leg that extended from under the duvet.
Stella shook her head.
‘I can work a charm so that she’ll be yours for ever,’ she added.
Stella placed a hand lightly on Gréta’s leg, and could feel that last night’s rush of passion between them was still there, even as Gréta slept. Either there were a few too many drugs in her system that were skewing her senses, or this was love. But this couldn’t be love. Gréta wasn’t exactly her type.
‘No, thank you, grandmother,’ she said. ‘This was just a moment’s craziness.’
‘She’s plump and sweet,’ her grandmother said with a sly smile. ‘You must enjoy cuddling up with her.’
‘Grandmother, really! Shh.’
Stella was shocked. This wasn’t how her birthday night was supposed to be. She was meant to be alone at home, wide awake and with a clear mind as she waited for her birthday visit.
Her grandmother held her hand, stroking it with her thumb.
‘Your father will die soon. So you’ll be able to come home again,’ she said. ‘You can come home to me so I can look after you properly.’
Stella felt the tears begin to prick at her eyes. Nothing in the world would be as wonderful as being able to sit on the veranda of her grandmother’s house in the warm shade, just as she had when she had been a girl, sipping sweet coffee with cardamom, scratching the monkey behind the ears while Grandmother prepared to teach her another spell.
‘I look forward to it, Grandmother,’ she said. ‘I look forward to coming home to you, and I’ll bring Mother as well. She sends her best wishes and loves you with all her heart.’
‘Darling soul,’ her grandmother said. ‘Poor, beloved soul.’
She pulled Stella back in to her arms and squeezed her tight.
‘Here’s your birthday gift, baby-bruja, little witch,’ Grandmother said, blowing hard into Stella’s ear so that her head was filled with a hot light.
Then Grandmother opened the balcony door, stepped outside and climbed, agile as any cat, onto the railing. She placed the broom between her legs and stepped off. Stella followed so she could see her fly away, but the old lady had already vanished into the silent night. The Northern Lights were still fluttering in the sky, but were dimmer now, and Stella felt she could hear the echo of a Mexican birthday song fade into the distance somewhere above the roofs.
Estas son las mañanitas…
61
It had taken Mum a whole weekend to finish the traditional woollen sweater Úrsúla had begged her to knit for her father. She had run into him downtown, shivering in an old padded boiler suit, its lining worn too thin to be of any real use against the piercing December chill. Her mother had flatly refused to invite Dad home for Christmas dinner, and said he’d be better off having a meal at the Salvation Army hostel with his friends. But she agreed to knit a sweater.
Úrsúla had watched in fascination as the eight-leaved rosette took shape in her skilled hands, and she felt a warm feeling inside as she saw how much effort her mother put into the pattern. She could have understood if she had simply rattled off a sweater with a straightforward design, or even something with just a single colour – it wasn’t as if her father deserved anything better. But Úrsúla had looked forward to being able to bring him this beautiful Christmas gift. Her father had wept tears of delight. He had stroked the sweater with his scarred, grubby hands, and shed tears.
‘This has been made with love,’ he sniffed.
He wanted to hug and kiss Úrsúla, but he smelled so rank that she turned away, telling him to try the sweater for size. He pulled it on, and it fitted him perfectly. He strutted around in circles, calling out to everyone in the community canteen that his daughter had brought him this fine sweater, made by his old lady.
Everyone at the canteen was like her father, so this time Úrsúla didn’t feel awkward when he crowed that he had the finest and most beautiful daughter in the whole world, before bursting into song.
Úrsúla sighed. These days her father was on her mind all the time.
She slowly ascended the stairs at the Social Democrat Party’s central office and tried to shake off the angst that was so firmly attached to those memories. For the last few years she had followed the advice given her by a psychologist: to think back to positive memories of her father, from the days when he’d smell of aftershave and would plant a kiss on her neck, and the times he read to her from the sagas until she fell asleep.
That was before he walked out.
There was a crowd at the central office, and she knew that she’d have to pull herself smartly away from those memories and concentrate so that she could be congratulated on becoming a minister, and cope with the smiles, the pats on the back and the kisses that were showered on her. Also present were representatives of the affiliated groups; the morning was supposed to be spent giving them the opportunity to ask her about the work of the ministry of the interior. She had been looking forward to the opportunity of meeting party members in a more relaxed atmosphere than at the ministry or in the parliament’s coffee room, but now she had a sharp sense of her lack of experience in party matters. She didn’t know most of the people present, but she was anxious to clear the air over the media storm that had erupted around the request for Pétur’s medical records. The party chairman brought her coffee and showed her to an armchair at one end of the hall. The party’s brightest young hopeful, Edvard Thórsson, approached her with a smile on his face.
‘It obviously pays to drop to your knees for the prime minister,’ he said and took a seat in the front row, directly in front of her.
Had he really said that? She could have misheard him over the loud mutter of voices in the hall, but that was wishful thinking. She understood perfectly that his ego had been bruised, as Edvard and many others had been certain that he would be the one who would get the call when Rúnar stepped down. Was that what people thought – that she had fucked the PM to get a ministerial appointment? Did they imagine that her experience of social affairs and with UNHCR weren’t the reason for her appointment, and a sordid transaction was? It wasn’t as if she had any political ambitions. She had taken the job because of the opportunity it would give her to push immigration as an issue, and because taking on something new was the kind of challenge she enjoyed. It was true that having a spell as a government minister would do her CV good, for the future, when she’d go back to working for international organisations.
She looked out over the hall and hoped that people would take their time sitting down so she could get her heartbeat under control before the meeting began. The same regrets seemed to come at her from every direction. Everything, even her own memories, appeared to be telling her that she was in fact no use at all, that anything she could do would have no value – at least, no more value than a bottle of booze.
The next time she had met her father after bringing him the sweater, in the week between Christmas and New Year, she had found him shivering with cold, wearing the padded boiler suit and a cotton singlet under it.
‘I’m no good,’ he said, shedding tears of remorse for having swapped the sweater for a bottle.
62
St
ella sat on a barstool in Gréta’s kitchen and watched absently as she dipped slices of bread in whipped-egg and fried them in a pan. Her head was still filled with the hot light, and she was grateful to her grandmother for her gift. Each birthday brought her a greater understanding of her mysterious inheritance and her growing power to use it.
‘I had the weirdest dream last night,’ Gréta said. ‘I dreamed there was an old woman in the bedroom with us and you were speaking to her in some other language. It was an unbelievably clear dream and spookily strange.’
‘Yes,’ Stella said, and smiled. ‘Strange dream.’
It was the first time she had seen Gréta looking the worse for wear, standing in the kitchen in a dressing gown and fussing over the stove. Partying had finally caught up with her, which was no surprise considering how high she had been flying the night before.
‘French toast,’ Gréta said, as she placed the stack of fried bread on the table in front of her, took a seat by the corner and slopped coffee into cups. She poured a generous helping of syrup over the bread on her plate and added cream to her coffee. There was no way that Gréta was going to get any slimmer if she was going to carry on like this, Stella thought as she watched. All the same, she knew well the insatiable hunger that was the legacy of popping pills.
‘Hey … You know that yesterday was all about the pills?’ she said. Gréta stopped chewing and looked at her enquiringly. ‘If it hadn’t been for the pills we wouldn’t have ended up in the sack,’ she continued.
Gréta looked away, and then down at her plate. She put down her knife and fork, and took a gulp of creamy coffee.
‘Of course not,’ she said, looking up and smiling as if in apology.
‘It won’t happen again,’ Stella said.
It was as well to make that plain right away, as considering the vibes Gréta was giving off the previous night and how long she had chased after her with her tongue hanging out, it was worth making sure there were no misunderstandings.
Betrayal Page 15
