Ashes to Dust

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘I’m sure it’s closed,’ said Bella, and the relief in her voice was plain. ‘It’s Saturday, remember,’ she added triumphantly.

  ‘The library is probably open, and it’s in the same building,’ Thóra replied, who didn’t want to let Bella off so easily. ‘I’m sure you can get someone to open it for you, especially if you mention that the checking you want to do is for Leifur. Just try to be pushy without being rude.’ From the secretary’s look of surprise, it was clear she had no qualms about being thought either pushy or rude; that it was, on the contrary, harder for her to be only one at a time. ‘You’ll work it out,’ repeated Thóra optimistically, although she knew it was unlikely.

  It looked like Matthew wasn’t going to call back, and Thóra was tired of waiting. Twice she’d caught herself looking at the screen, to see if he’d called and to check if she had a signal. Maybe he had tried to phone unsuccessfully throughout the rest of the ferry trip earlier, and had decided to try again later. The easiest way to find out was of course to phone him, but Thóra feared that if she called him first she would seem too excited about hearing his decision, which could then be misread as eagerness for him to move to Iceland. It irritated her that she was thinking like this, because normally she got straight to the point. The problem was that she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt. She wanted him to come, but she also didn’t want any commitments. Her best friend had taken up with a foreigner and had quickly lost touch with her circle of friends, since the others didn’t like speaking English when they got together. Of course that had been many years ago, and Thóra reminded herself that she had very little contact with her old girlfriends now anyway. Most of them had their hands full, just like Thóra, with little time left over to meet for cups of coffee, much less glasses of wine.

  She picked up her mobile and called him. She would just have to look desperate. She hung up, irritated, when a female German voice told her that the phone was out of range or turned off. Perhaps Matthew himself was out at sea, or had switched off his mobile because of work. He wasn’t the type who spent his work time chatting on the phone to friends and family, unlike Thóra, who took at least ten such calls per day, mostly from her children. As she was thinking this, the phone rang. She grinned.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Gylfi. ‘Did you find us an apartment for the festival?’

  Thóra rolled her eyes. You couldn’t accuse him of giving up easily. ‘No, sweetheart. I have other things to take care of at the moment.’

  ‘Oh.’ His disappointment was loud and clear. ‘Sigga and I were starting to really look forward to it.’

  ‘All is not lost yet, darling,’ said Thóra. ‘I haven’t had any “no”s so far.’ Of course this was because she hadn’t made any more enquiries since it had first come up.

  ‘Keep trying,’ Gylfi said. ‘It’ll be great fun. All the guys are going, you know.’

  ‘Are they going to camp?’ asked Thóra, who couldn’t imagine Gylfi’s friends setting up tents without trouble.

  ‘Naw,’ Gylfi replied. ‘They’re renting people’s garages. Maybe you can get us one of those? That’d be fun.’

  Sure, thought Thóra. To her mind, the word ‘fun’ didn’t apply to a weekend spent huddled among spare tyres and junk. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘You have a small child who could hurt himself, and you’ll be dragging around your poor old mother, who needs a shower and a coffee maker, not a garden hose and a power drill.’

  She said goodbye after asking how little Orri was doing; his upper teeth didn’t want to come out. He was turning out to resemble his father in this as in other things; Thóra had actually considered asking Hannes to cut the little boy’s gums open when Gylfi had gone through the same thing. It was getting late, so the phone call to Sóley would have to wait until after she had spoken to Markus’s mother. She was supposed to be there at four o’clock sharp, and although the streets in the Westmann Islands weren’t numerous, she and Bella had managed to get hopelessly lost just looking for the excavation site, even though it was at the foot of the volcano.

  After driving in circles for ten minutes, Thóra finally managed to find the street and the house. It had proven to be even more complicated than the search for the Pompeü of the North site, because this time Bella wasn’t there to help her, having gone to the library to try and wheedle her way into the archive and dig around for information on Valgerdur and Dadi. Thóra was therefore slightly late when she parked the car in front of the old woman’s house. She carefully smoothed out her trousers and fixed the barely visible crease in the front of them, then smoothed her blouse and headed for the front door. She wanted to make a good impression: people of Markus’s parents’ age wanted to see respectable individuals working as lawyers, and no doubt preferred them to be men. It was important that the old woman not be shocked by Thóra’s appearance when they met for the first time. To that end, Thóra was wearing the best, smart-but- not-fancy outfit in her closet.

  Thóra rang the bell and stood stiffly waiting for someone to come to the door. It was Leifur’s wife Maria who opened it. A faint smell of alcohol drifted from her but she didn’t appear tipsy at all as she stood there in the doorway, dressed elegantly in a Burberry shirt and skirt. Thóra knew this woman would immediately notice her inexpensive clothing.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Maria angrily.

  ‘Oh,’ said Thóra, off guard. ‘I didn’t realize.’ She looked at the clock on the wall and then her watch and noticed that the latter was off by six minutes. ‘I got lost.’

  ‘Got lost?’ said the woman scathingly. ‘In the Westmann Islands?’ She didn’t wait for a reply but instead waved Thóra in. ‘Klara is waiting,’ she said, and walked into the house.

  Thóra followed her sheepishly, and could only think that she hoped her bottom would look that good when she was fifty. Her only physical workout these days was caring for her grandchild, which had given her impressive biceps. She cheered up at the thought that she could at least beat this elegant woman at arm-wrestling.

  Leifur’s wife stopped at a sliding double-door that opened into an old-fashioned but splendid front room. ‘In you go. She’s got so much to tell you.’ She walked away, adding sarcastically: ‘As long as you know what to ask.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Saturday 21 July2007

  The chilly gaze of the old woman undeniably resembled that of her younger son, Markus, but in other respects they were unalike. She had greying hair, but her face was mostly free of wrinkles. Her skin was the only thing about Klara that seemed young, though; she was wearing a highly patterned, multicoloured dress, plainly cut. Her eyes had the watery look of old age, but they did not hide her displeasure at having to sit here and speak to Thóra, who had already asked her several polite questions with little response. Klara was probably around eighty, and wore her age gracefully as she sat there, straight-backed, on the large dark sofa. Carved lions’ paws adorned both the sofa’s arms and feet. The sofa suited Klara. In fact, she fitted perfectly into the room, whose every surface was dotted with crystal vases. Markus’s father, in contrast, didn’t look at all at home in this austere, old- fashioned setting. Thóra felt sorry for him. He sat in one of the more modern chairs in the room, an upholstered reclining armchair, and was wearing a tracksuit over a turtleneck sweater, with a fleece blanket wrapped around his shoulders. On his feet he wore sheepskin moccasins. Leifur, who had come in behind Thóra, took a seat next to his father. She wasn’t entirely sure why he was here. Perhaps he was meant to act as a kind of watchdog, to protect his mother and make sure Thóra didn’t go too far with her questions. He hadn’t said anything about coming along when Thóra had spoken to him the night before.

  ‘So you don’t remember any foreigners being around at that time?’ Thóra asked the old woman, then added: ‘They were probably British, four of them.’ The old lady’s strong perfume was making her feel a little light-headed.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Klara replied. ‘I had enough to worry about at home, and I di
dn’t go down to the harbour much, where any foreigners were most likely to be.’

  ‘I see,’ said Thóra. ‘And your husband didn’t do business with any foreigners?’

  ‘I never paid attention to his work, so I really don’t know,’ the woman replied, looking a little affronted. ‘Magnus’s work was entirely his business, I never got involved — that’s how it was in those days.’ She glanced sideways at her husband, who was sitting looking silently out of the window.

  Thóra decided to change the subject and ask about Valgerdur and Dadi. Maybe the old lady would relax if the conversation focused on someone else. ‘The name of your former neighbour, Valgerdur Bjolfsdottir, has been mentioned in connection with Alda Thórgeirsdóttir. I’m not sure how they are connected, but I was hoping you might be able to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Klara quickly, almost before Thóra finished speaking.

  ‘Anything about what?’ asked Thóra, certain Klara was hiding something - she hadn’t even tried to remember anything. ‘About the connection between them?’ Without waiting for a reply she smiled sympathetically at the woman, trying to convey that she knew it was a long story. ‘What little I’ve heard about Valgerdur and Dadi has all pointed the same way — everyone seems to be in agreement that they were a pretty tedious couple. It would be good to hear your opinion of them.’

  ‘How could that possibly be of use to Markus?’ Leifur asked, surprised and obviously annoyed. ‘I was led to believe the purpose of this meeting was to gather information that might help him.’

  The old woman gave her son a sharp look. ‘I think I can answer for myself,’ she said bad-temperedly. She turned to Thóra. ‘Although I’m in agreement with Leifur in that I don’t really understand how this is connected to Markus, it’s hardly a secret that both Valgerdur and Dadi were particularly unpleasant people. She was a busybody who enjoyed other people’s misfortunes,’ she said, scowling. ‘I suppose she was trying to console herself for her own rotten luck.’

  ‘What was so rotten about it?’ Thóra asked. ‘I heard she was a nurse and he was a sailor. There are definitely worse jobs.’

  ‘It didn’t have anything to do with work or money. They met when Valgerdur started at the hospital here as a student nurse. It must have been clear to her even before they’d exchanged rings that Dadi loved the bottle more than her, so it was a loveless and difficult marriage. At first they were no unhappier than the rest of the neighbourhood, really, but then things started to go downhill. We could hear everything, because our bedroom window faced theirs. I actually pitied her at first.’

  ‘So what changed?’ asked Thóra, who had started to feel sorry for poor Valgerdur herself.

  ‘She betrayed my trust so badly that nothing could ever heal the wound,’ said Klara, pursing her lips.

  ‘Could you go into a little more detail?’ said Thóra. ‘I don’t want to pry, but I have to understand what was going on in the neighbourhood if I want to help Markus. I’m fairly certain that whoever put the bodies there was known locally.’

  Klara looked at Thóra without saying anything at first, then raised her eyebrows and let out a low moan. ‘I don’t see how this piece of ancient history could possibly matter today.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But nor do I see why I shouldn’t entrust you with the information.’ She sat up straighten ‘After listening to Dadi shouting and Valgerdur sobbing for six months, I decided to speak to her and offer her a shoulder to cry on, because she seemed so lonely. All her relatives lived in Reykjavik and in those days people didn’t carry around their telephones, ready to discuss things wherever and whenever it suited them. I spoke to her confidentially and told her that she wasn’t the only one with a domineering and drunken husband, that it was only too common, and she could turn to me if she needed any help.’ Klara tapped her nose meaningfully. ‘She thanked me by repeating the names I had told her, of the other abusive husbands, to anyone who would listen - the men as well as their wives. It took me many months to win back the trust of those women.’

  ‘Could she have been so desperate to make friends that she sacrificed you on the altar of popularity?’ asked Thóra, trying to imagine being the newcomer in a close-knit community.

  ‘That may well be the case,’ said Klara crossly. ‘But it was still unforgivable. She couldn’t expect simply to jump into the inner circle here, and after I had cleared up the mess she was as isolated as before. It was most unwise of her.’ Klara folded her hands demurely on her broad thighs.

  Thóra decided there was little to be gained from continuing this line of questioning. ‘Do you know if the couple lost any children?’ she asked instead, although she knew that Bella was at that moment working hard to dig up that information.

  ‘No,’ replied Klara. ‘They had no children while they lived here. They tried for a long time, but with no luck. Valgerdur miscarried at least twice and that just made her more bitter. Of course back then there weren’t all those psychiatrists people run crying to now, but there’s no doubt that her sheer delight in our children’s failures was due to her childlessness. She was always ready to spread stories about the kids in the neighbourhood, and my boys were no exception because they were quite mischievous.’

  ‘There’s a child’s room in their house,’ said Thóra, hoping that no one would wonder how she knew this. ‘Could the people who lived there before Valgerdur and Dadi have had a child?’ Again, Bella was hopefully finding out the answer to that very question as she spoke.

  ‘They built that house, so no one lived there before them. The neighbourhood was the newest part of town, so some of the houses weren’t completely finished even after everyone moved in,’ said Klara. ‘I went to their house extremely rarely, only if I couldn’t avoid it.’ She rolled her shoulders gingerly, as if they were sore.

  ‘I never saw a children’s room but they may well have set one up. Actually, I heard they had a son not long after the evacuation, so maybe she was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone, in the light of her previous experiences. They might have been preparing for the birth of that child. But I can’t imagine it, because I heard from a woman I know that rumour had it Valgerdur showed little motherly affection for her newborn at first. It sounds like there were some issues there.’

  ‘Did you keep in touch with them after they moved to the mainland?’ asked Thóra. ‘No,’ said Klara indignantly. ‘Why would I? I just told you, they weren’t much to my liking. A lot of good people moved away from here and didn’t return, and 1 had enough trouble keeping in touch with them.’‘

  ‘I understand,’ said Thóra politely. ‘Do you think Dadi and Valgerdur were connected in any way to the bodies found in your basement?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ replied the woman, still bristling. ‘I’ve already told the police I have no idea how this could have happened, and I’ve said over and over that I had nothing to do with it.’

  Thóra noticed that the old woman said ‘I’ and not ‘we’. This was something she’d also noticed in the police report — the briefest one in the entire file, written up by Gudni Leifsson. In it Klara had been asked a few questions, and had answered as succinctly as possible. Thóra suspected that Stefán and his colleagues would not be quite so considerate if and when they came to interview her. ‘But did they have connections to any foreigners here in the Islands?’ asked Thóra hopefully.

  ‘Well, yes — Valgerdur worked at the hospital, of course, besides serving as school nurse two afternoons a week,’ replied Klara. ‘In school there were no foreign teachers or staff, but the hospital sometimes admitted wounded foreign fishermen, as well as other foreigners, I imagine. You couldn’t really call that a connection, though, her taking care of their injuries. As for Dadi, he worked for one of the smaller fishing companies in the Islands. Only Icelanders worked there, to my knowledge. Beyond that it’s probably better to direct the questions to their son; I’m sure he could tell you more than I can, since I have never had any interest in
them.’

  ‘Has Dadi passed away?’ asked Thóra. ‘I know Valgerdur died recently, but I have yet to check on him.’

  ‘As far as I know, he died of cirrhosis of the liver a couple of years ago,’ said Klara crisply. ‘But I think their son is alive.’

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘No, I don’t remember. I heard it once but forgot it a long time ago.’

  Thóra nodded. Maybe Bella would find it in the archive. She had managed to loosen the woman’s tongue, so now it was time to change gears again; in any case, she had run out of questions about the neighbours.

  ‘There is something else,’ she said. ‘On Friday the nineteenth of January 1973, the weekend before the eruption, there was a school dance here in town that got out of hand. Markus was picked up by his father, since he’d had too much to drink with his friends and schoolmates.’ She gazed levelly at the woman. ‘Do you remember that evening?’

  From Klara’s reaction, you would have thought Thóra had asked for permission to rummage through the family’s dirty laundry. ‘I vaguely remember that,’ she replied, though she clearly remembered the evening in question quite well. ‘It wasn’t just Markus but the whole class, as I recall. Markus never drank, unlike the other teenagers, so it came as a shock to us.’

  ‘I have no interest in Markus’s drinking, but I was wondering if you might remember anything else unusual from that evening,’ said Thóra. ‘Do you remember whether your husband went out after he brought Markus home, perhaps down to the harbour?’

  Klara paled. ‘Magnus didn’t go anywhere,’ she said. ‘He brought the boy home and that’s all. Magnus wasn’t in the habit of wandering off in the middle of the night, and he’d hardly have been in the mood to do so after seeing the state his son was in.’ She fiddled with the large gold rings on two fingers of her left hand, and looked away.

  Thóra didn’t believe a word of this. For the first time in the conversation, the woman wore a hunted expression, and she was clearly no actress. She appeared to be just as poor a liar as her son when under pressure. ‘How about you, Leifur?’ Thóra asked. ‘Do you remember anything from that night?’ She smiled brightly at Klara. ‘Maybe Magnus went out after you were asleep.’