“The last time I knew he was single,” the woman said. “Can we help you any further?” she then asked, as if they had made a major contribution to the investigation by taking the trouble to call at the hotel.
“It wasn’t his fault that he matured and lost his voice,” Erlendur said. He could stand their indifference and haughtiness no longer. A son had lost his life. A brother had been murdered. Yet it was as if nothing had happened. As if it was nothing to do with them. As if his life had long ago ceased to be part of their lives, because of something that was being kept from Erlendur.
The woman looked at Erlendur.
“If there wasn’t anything else,” she said again, and released the brake on the wheelchair.
“We’ll see,” Erlendur said.
“You don’t think we show enough sympathy, do you?” she suddenly said.
“I don’t think you show any sympathy,” Erlendur said. “But that’s no business of mine.”
“No,” the woman said. “It’s no business of yours.”
“But all the same, what I want to know is whether you had any feelings towards the man. He was your brother.” Erlendur turned to the old man in the wheelchair. “Your son.”
“He was a stranger to us,” the woman said, and stood up. The old man grimaced.
“Because he didn’t live up to your expectations?” Erlendur rose to his feet as well. “Because he failed you at the age of twelve. When he was a child. What did you do? Did you throw him out? Did you throw him out on the street?”
“How dare you talk to my father and me in that tone?” the woman said through clenched teeth. “How dare you? Who appointed you the conscience of the world?”
“Who took your conscience away?” Erlendur snarled back.
She looked daggers at him. Then she seemed to give up. She jerked the wheelchair towards her, swung it away from the table and pushed it in front of her out of the bar. She strode across the lobby towards the revolving door. Over the sound system an Icelandic soprano was singing melancholically… O touch my harp, you heaven-born goddess … . Erlendur and Elinborg set off after them and watched them leave the hotel, the woman holding her head high but the old man sunk even deeper into his wheelchair, nothing of him visible apart from his head nodding above the back.
… And others will little children e’er abide…
12
When Erlendur went back to his room shortly after midday, the reception manager had set up a record player and two loudspeakers. The hotel had a few old turntables that had not been used for some time. Erlendur owned one himself so he quickly worked out how to operate it. He had never had a CD player and hadn’t bought a record for years. He didn’t listen to modern music. For a long time after hearing people at work talking about hip-hop he thought it was a variation on hopscotch.
Elinborg was on her way to Hafnarfjordur. Erlendur had told her to go there and find out where Gudlaugur attended school. He had intended to ask the father and sister but hadn’t had the chance when their meeting came to its abrupt end. He would talk to them again later. In the meantime, he wanted Elinborg to locate people who knew Gudlaugur when he was a child star, to talk to his schoolmates. He wanted to know what effect his reputed fame had on the boy at such a young age. Also what his schoolmates had thought about it, and he wanted to know whether any remembered what happened when he lost his voice, and what became of him in the first few years afterwards. He was also wondering whether anyone knew of any enemies of Gudlaugur s from that time.
Outlining all this to Elinborg in the lobby, he noticed her irritation at having it all spelled out. She knew what the case involved and was quite capable of setting targets for herself.
“And you can buy yourself an ice cream on the way he added to tease her even more. With a few muttered curses about male chauvinist pigs, she went out of the door.
“How do I recognise this tourist?” said a voice behind him, and when he turned round he saw Valgerdur standing there, sampling kit in hand.
“Wapshott? You met him last night. He’s the haggard old Brit with stained teeth who collects choirboys,” Erlendur said.
She smiled.
“Stained teeth?” she said. “And collects choirboys?”
“It’s a long, long story that I’ll tell you some time. Any news about all those samples?”
He was strangely pleased to see her again. His heart almost skipped a beat when he heard her behind him. The gloom lifted from him for a moment and his voice became animated. He felt slightly breathless.
“I don’t know how it’s going,” she said. “There’s an incredible amount of samples”
“I, er …” Erlendur groped for an excuse for what had happened the previous night “I really seized up last night. Deaths and fatalities. I didn’t quite tell you the truth when you asked about my interest in people dying in the wilds”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said.
“Yes, I definitely do need to tell you,” Erlendur said. “Is there any chance we could do that again?”
“Don’t…” She paused. “Don’t make an issue of it. It was great. Let’s forget it. OK?”
“OK, if that’s the way you want it,” Erlendur said, much against his wishes.
“Where is this Wapshott guy?”
Erlendur accompanied her to reception where she was given the number of his room. They shook hands and she walked over to the lift. He watched her. She waited for the lift without looking back. He wondered whether to pounce and was on the verge of doing so when the door opened and she stepped inside. She glanced at him the moment that the door closed, smiling an almost imperceptible smile.
Erlendur stood still for a moment and watched the number of the lift as it stopped on Wapshott’s floor. Then he pressed the button and ordered it back. He could smell Valgerdur’s perfume on the way up to his floor.
He put a recording of choirboy Gudlaugur Egilsson on the turntable and made sure the speed was set to 45 rpm. Then he stretched out on the bed. The record was brand new. It sounded as though it had never been played. Not a scratch or speck of dust on it. After a slight crackle at the beginning came the prelude, and finally a pure and celestial boy soprano started to sing “Ave Marial
He stood alone in the passageway, carefully opened the door to his father’s room and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space in silent anguish. His father did not take part in the search. He had battled his way home to the farm after losing sight of his two sons on the moor in the storm that broke without warning. He had roamed around in the blizzard calling to them, unable to see a thing with the howling of the storm smothering his shouts. His desperation defied description. He had taken the boys along to help round up the sheep and bring them back to the folds. Winter had arrived but it seemed to be a fine day when they set off. But it was only a forecast and only an outlook. The storm came unannounced.
Erlendur approached his father and stopped by his side. He could not understand why he was sitting on the bed instead of joining the search party up on the moor. His brother had still not been found. He might be alive, though it was unlikely. Erlendur read the hopelessness in the faces of the exhausted men returning home to rest and eat before setting out again. They came from the villages and farms all around, everyone who was up to the task, bringing dogs and long sticks that they plunged into the snow. That was how they had found Erlendur. That was how they were going to find his brother.
They went up to the moor in teams of eight to ten, stabbing their sticks into the snow and shouting his brother’s name. Two days had passed since they had found Erlendur and three days since the storm had split up the three travellers. The brothers had stayed together for a long time. They shouted into the blizzard and listened for their father’s voice. Two years the elder, Erlendur led his brother by the hand, but their hands were numbed by the frost and Erlendur did not feel when he lost his grip. He thought he was still holding his brothers hand when he turned round and could not se
e him any longer. Much later he thought he remembered the hand slipping away from his, but that was an invention. He never actually felt it happen.
He was convinced that he would die at the age of ten in a seemingly incessant blizzard. It attacked him from all directions, tore him and cut him and blinded his sight, cold and harsh and merciless. In the end he fell down into the snow and tried to bury himself. Lay there thinking about his brother who was also dying on the moor.
A sharp jab in his shoulder woke him and suddenly a face he did not recognise appeared. He could not hear what the man said. He wanted to go on sleeping. He was heaved out of the snow and the men took turns carrying him down from the moor, although he remembered little of the journey home. He heard voices. He heard his mother nursing him. A doctor examined him. Frostbite on his feet and legs, but not very severe. He saw inside his father’s room. Saw him sitting alone on the edge of the bed as if nothing that had happened had affected him.
Two days later, Erlendur was up and about again. He stood beside his father, helpless and afraid. Strange pangs of conscience had haunted him when he began to recover and regain his strength. Why him? Why him and not his brother? And if they had not found him, would they possibly have found his brother instead? He wanted to ask his father about this and wanted to ask why he was not taking part in the search. But he asked nothing. Just watched him, the deep lines etched into his face, his stubble, his eyes black with sorrow.
A long time elapsed and his father ignored him. Erlendur put his hand on his father’s and asked whether it was his fault. That his brother was missing. Because he had not held him tightly enough, should have taken better care of him, should have had him by his side when he himself was found. He asked in a soft and hesitant voice but lost control of himself and began whimpering. His father bowed his head. Tears welled up in his eyes, he hugged Erlendur and started to weep as well, until his huge body shook and trembled in his son’s arms.
All this passed through Erlendur’s mind until the record began crackling again. He had not allowed himself these contemplations for a long time, but suddenly the memories unfolded within him and he once again felt the heavy sorrow that he knew would never be completely buried or forgotten.
Such was the power of the choirboy.
13
The telephone on the bedside table rang. He sat up, lifted the needle from the record and switched off the player. Valgerdur was calling. She told him that Henry Wapshott was not in his room. When she had the hotel staff call his room and look for him, he was nowhere to be found.
“He was going to wait around for the sample,” Erlendur said. “Has he checked out of the hotel? I understand he had a flight booked for tonight.”
“I haven’t asked about that,” Valgerdur said. “I can’t wait here much longer and …”
“No, of course not, sorry” Erlendur said. “I’ll send him to you when I find him. Sorry about that”
“OK then, I’m off?
Erlendur hesitated. Although he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t want to let her go immediately. The silence became prolonged and suddenly there was a knock on his door. He thought Eva Lind had come to visit him.
“I’d so like to meet you again,” he said, “but I understand if you can’t be bothered.”
Again there was a knock on the door, harder this time.
“I wanted to tell you the truth about that deaths and ordeals business,” Erlendur said. “If you can be bothered to listen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you fancy that?”
He didn’t know himself exactly what he meant Why he wanted to tell this woman what he had never told anyone but his daughter before. Why he would not wind up the matter, get on with his life and let nothing disturb it, not now or ever.
Valgerdur did not answer immediately, and there was a third knock on the door. Erlendur put down the phone and opened the door without looking outside to see who was there; he assumed it could only be Eva. When he picked up the telephone again, Valgerdur had gone.
“Hello,” he said. “Hello?” There was no reply.
After putting down the receiver again, he turned around. In his room stood a man he had never seen before. He was short, wearing a thick, dark blue winter coat and a scarf, with a blue peaked cap on his head. Drops of water glittered on his cap and coat where the snow had melted. He was fairly fat-faced with thick lips, and enormous, dark bags beneath small, tired eyes. He reminded Erlendur of photographs of the poet W. H. Auden. A drip hung from the end of his nose.
“Are you Erlendur?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I was told to come to this hotel and talk to you,” the man said. He took off his cap, tapped it against his coat and wiped the drip from his nose.
“Who told you that?” Erlendur asked.
“Someone by the name of Marion Briem. I don’t know who that is. Something about the Gudlaugur Egilsson investigation and talking to everyone who knew him in the past. I used to know him and that Marion told me to talk to you about it.”
“Who are you?” Erlendur said, trying to recall where he had seen his face before.
“My name’s Gabriel Hermannsson and I used to conduct the Hafnarfjordur Children’s Choir once,” the man said. “May I sit down on the bed? Those long corridors…”
“Gabriel? Be my guest. Have a seat.” The man unbuttoned his coat and loosened his scarf. Erlendur picked up one of Gudlaugur’s record sleeves and looked at the photograph of the Hafnarfjordur Children’s Choir. The choirmaster stared cheerfully into the camera. “Is this you?” he asked, handing him the sleeve.
Gabriel looked at the sleeve and nodded.
“Where did you get that?” he asked. “Those records have been unavailable for decades. I stupidly lost mine somehow or other. Lent it to someone. You should never lend anything.”
“It belonged to Gudlaugur,” Erlendur said.
“I’m only, what, twenty-eight there,” Gabriel said. “When the photo was taken. Incredible how time flies”
“What did Marion say to you?”
“Not much. I said what I knew about Gudlaugur and was told to talk to you. I was coming to Reykjavik anyway so I thought it would be ideal to use the opportunity.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“I couldn’t quite tell from the voice,” he said, “but I was wondering whether it was a man or a woman. Marion. I thought it would be rude to ask but I couldn’t make up my mind. Normally you can tell from the voice. Funny name. Marion Briem.”
Erlendur discerned in his voice a note of interest, almost eagerness, as if it mattered to know.
“I’ve never thought about that,” Erlendur said. “That name. Marion Briem. I was listening to this record,” he said, pointing to the sleeve. “His voice has a strong effect, there’s no denying that. Considering how young the lad was.”
“Gudlaugur was probably the best choirboy we ever had,” Gabriel said as he looked at the sleeve. “In retrospect. I don’t think we realised what we had in our hands until much later, maybe not even until only a few years ago.”
“When did you first get to know him?”
“His father brought him to me. The family lived in Hamarfiordur then, and still do, I think. The mother died a little while later and he brought the children up entirely by himself: Gudlaugur and a girl who was some years older. The father knew that I’d just got back from studying music abroad. I taught music, private lessons and other things. I was appointed choirmaster when I managed to round up enough children to form a choir. It was mostly girls, as always, but we advertised specially for boys and Gudlaugur’s father brought him to my house one day. He was ten at the time and had a wonderful voice. That wonderful voice. And he knew how to sing. I could tell straight away that his father made great demands on the boy and was strict with him. He said he’d taught him everything he knew about singing. I later found out that he was hard on the boy, punished him, kept him indoors when he wanted to go out and play. I don’t think
you could call it a good upbringing because so much was expected of him and he wasn’t allowed to hang around with friends much. He was a classic example of parents taking control of their children and trying to turn them into what they want. I don’t think Gudlaugur had a particularly happy childhood.”
Gabriel stopped.
“You’ve wondered about this quite a lot, haven’t you?” Erlendur said.
“I just saw it happening.”
“What?”
“Strict discipline and unwavering demands can have an awful effect on children. I’m not talking about discipline when children are naughty and need restraint or guidance, that’s a completely different matter. Of course children need discipline. I’m talking about when children aren’t allowed to be children. When they’re not allowed to enjoy being what they are and what they want to be, but are shaped and even broken to make them something different. Gudlaugur had this beautiful boy soprano and his father intended a big role for him in life. I’m not saying that he treated him badly in a conscious, calculated way, he just deprived him of his life. Robbed him of his childhood.”
Erlendur diought about his own father who did nothing but teach him good manners and show him affection. The single demand he made was to behave well and treat other people kindly. His father had never tried to turn him into anything he was not. Erlendur thought about the father who was awaiting sentence for a brutal assault on his own son, and he imagined Gudlaugur continually trying to live up to his father’s expectations.
“Maybe we see this most clearly with religion,” Gabriel continued. “Children who find themselves in certain religions are made to adopt their parents” faith and in effect live their parent’s lives much more than their own. They never have the opportunity to be free, to step outside the world they’re born into, to make independent decisions about their lives. Of course the children don’t realise until much later, and some never do. But often when they are adolescents or grown-up, they say: “I don’t want this any more”, and conflicts can arise. Suddenly the child doesn’t want to live its parents” life, and that can lead to great tragedy. You see it everywhere: the doctor who wants his child to be a doctor. The lawyer. The company director. The pilot. There are people all over the place who make impossible demands of their children.”
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