“Well, well, old buddy,” says Guffi, who’s about to close up shop and head home to domestic bliss. “What is this? It’s past five on a Friday, and you’re not propping up the bar yet.”
As I hear his words, I am overcome by the desire to be, actually, at a bar. I imagine the multicolored glow of the liquor bottles and the shining glasses just waiting to be filled, drained, and filled again. I reach for my coffee cup, but spit out the cold, muddy drink after my first sip. Instead I light up.
“What?” Guffi exclaims. “Is that what the fresh northern air has done for you?”
“Yep, pretty much,” I say, inhaling greedily.
“Maybe we should try marketing it,” he continues. “Get ahead of the game for once, and sell fresh Akureyri air in cans.”
“Better get a move on. They’re already planning how to pollute it.”
“That’s one way of selling the fresh air, I suppose. But it’s a bit ambitious for me.”
“Guffi, listen. There’s still some old-style food production here. Do you know the Yumm candy factory?”
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Have your highly attuned ears heard anything about it being up for sale?”
He needs no time to think this over. “Well, there’s been a rumor for quite a while that it might be for sale. But a few days ago I heard that negotiations are underway with Treat in Reykjavík.”
“Merger. Consolidation. Economies of scale and all that?”
“Exactly. These old family firms are generally far too small to meet today’s demands for profitability. Their time has passed, really.”
“These negotiations, how far have they progressed?”
“Not so far that I can report on them. But they’re ongoing.”
“I won’t keep you. You’ll be late getting home to your wife. And I’m late for my roommate too. I’ll be in touch.”
“Oh, is there someone? Tell me more! Hello? Einar? Hello? Damn…”
With a silly smirk, I hang up.
She is a little shy in this unfamiliar environment of Heida’s apartment and doesn’t say much. I understand. She isn’t used to being invited out to dinner.
“I think it’s love,” says Jóa. “True love.”
I nod. “She’s certainly given me a fresh perspective, added a new dimension to my life. It was about time.”
“But you weren’t too happy about it to start with. You thought she was a pain,” Jóa says.
“That’s true. I admit it, I’m immature.”
We each sit in an armchair, deep and white and cozy, watching Polly on her perch in her cage, standing on a round dining table draped in a white cloth. With her head under her wing, she’s pretending to be asleep. But I know she’s listening.
Heida appears from the kitchen with a tray and offers us coffee. She and Jóa have a Bailey’s liqueur. I’m feeling restless. I get up and wander around Heida’s white-painted loft on Adalstræti in the center of town. There are potted plants in every corner, picturesque dormer windows, old but elegant furnishings. I stop by the CD rack and hear Jóa and Heida chatting and laughing, but I can’t distinguish what they’re saying.
I find a Best of Muddy Waters CD and put on I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man.
In the soft light of two floor lamps, I see how happy these two beautiful women are: happy to be together—happy with each other.
I’ve got a strong feeling that I’m about to fall off the wagon. We’ve had a delicious meal: avocado and prawn starter, followed by pork filet. So I’m not hungry. I’m well fed. But it’s that goddamned thirst in the soul. That thirst is more overpowering than it has ever been since I came here to the north.
Since I woke up this morning, I’ve been seesawing between optimism and pessimism, between despair and energy. As so often before, I try to suppress that oh-so-familiar feeling, but it pops up to the surface, again and again.
“Ladies,” I say, lifting my cup to share a toast with them. “What a delightful evening this has been. And I desperately want to get roaring drunk with you.”
Jóa, who’s glowing this evening in her pale color pantsuit, and has even put on makeup for the occasion, is horror-struck.
“Oh, no, Einar, you mustn’t. That would spoil everything, and we’d regret having invited you.”
“You and Polly,” smiles Heida. She looks just as fine, in a short figure-hugging blue dress.
“No, no. No worries,” I assure them. “It’s just the way I feel. I’ve been on edge all day.”
“It’s just something you’ve got to work through,” says Jóa. “You’ve been learning new things, and you need time to digest them. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
“God, I wish you were right. I wish it weren’t the same old thirst. The same old self-pity and the same old escapism.”
“Here,” says Heida, handing me the cigarette pack that has lain untouched on the table since Polly and I arrived. “Have a smoke. One cigarette won’t kill us.”
____
As I drive home through the town center around midnight, the great migration has begun. On the streets and sidewalks, there is an air of anticipation, mixed with the undefined tension, desperation, and aggression that are typical of Icelandic nightlife. At cafés and bars, the fun is about to start. The mild, windless evening presages a wild night.
A man carrying a parrot in a cage wouldn’t fit in. Perhaps that’s the reason I took Polly along. Perhaps on some level I realized that my responsibility for the little bundle of feathers was the one thing that would keep me on the straight and narrow.
Perhaps I realized that my own mistakes, and those of others, will never be an effective deterrent: the recollection of awful pick-up lines; stupid, desperate efforts at witty repartee; and a totally bogus persona as the life and soul of the party.
When we I arrive home, I turn to Polly, who on the drive home has been swaying back and forth, firmly clinging to her perch, and is patiently waiting to be carried indoors:
“What do you think, honey? Is there something I’ve got to work through?”
What lies were not told about the Iraq War? Conflicting weather prognostications in Dalvík. Icelanders gain a majority holding in Marks and Spencer. Bookmakers predict Icelandic victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The newspapers are crammed with news items. I turn page after page, but nothing catches my attention. The investigation into the death of Skarphédinn Valgardsson has all but vanished from the media since the Reydargerdi Three were released.
The Akureyri offices of the Afternoon News are deserted this Saturday afternoon, but outside the town center is buzzing with cheerful people with spring in their hearts. I switch my computer on and set out to try to put together, from my notes and audio recordings, the fragmentary knowledge I have gathered about the dead boy. As I expected, they don’t make up a clear picture, however many times I draft and redraft my article. I’m well rested and thinking pretty clearly—by my standards at least—but whatever I do there are gaping holes in my story.
I start by making a phone call to Reykjavík. Then I see that I can no longer put off what I’ve got to do. It’s been on my mind ever since I woke up, and it won’t leave me alone until I respond. I switch the computer off, pick up a copy of our weekend edition, and heavy-hearted with apprehension I walk out onto the sunny square.
“Gunnhildur isn’t up,” I’m informed at the Hóll care home. “She wouldn’t get out of bed today.”
Not good, I think. “Do you think it would be all right if I looked in on her?”
“Well, she hasn’t said she doesn’t want visitors. Not that she has a lot, anyway.”
“Oh? Don’t many people come to see her?”
“No, more’s the pity. Not since her daughter died. She generally came twice a week in recent months. She used to visit every day, but apparently she was unwell.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard.”
“I see you’ve brought the Afternoon News. There’s an article about
her daughter in it.”
I’m not sure what to say. Awkwardly, I ask: “Really? I haven’t read the paper yet. Is it an interesting piece?”
“Oh, yes,” is the reply. “There’s so much we don’t know. But I mainly found it very sad.”
I ask for Gunnhildur’s room number and get directions. As I stand at her door, I can hear quiet groans from inside the room. I knock.
No answer.
I cautiously open the door and peer inside. There are two beds in the room. Gunnhildur is standing there, dressed in her slip. She has put her head through the neck opening of a plain gray dress but is having trouble getting her arms into the sleeves. I go into the room and help her find the right openings.
“Thank you,” she says without seeing who I am. When she realizes who I am, her aged but beautiful face hardens.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, you young rascal? Who said you could come in here?”
“Well, no one said I couldn’t,” I say in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
“This is my home. I may not have much control over what happens here, but I will damn well decide who is allowed in. It’s up to me who I see.”
I groan with frustration.
“And I don’t want to see you.”
I pass her the paper. “But I wanted to show you the article in the paper, so you can see it’s quite harmless. It may even do good…”
She shoves it away. “I’ve seen the darn thing. I haven’t had a moment’s peace from all the people here, the Guiding Light mafia—I haven’t been able to lie here in bed without being constantly interrupted, and all because of your goddamned article!”
“What have they been saying?”
“What they’ve been saying? Just expressing their sympathy and pretending to be all understanding. I can’t stand the hypocrisy and fawning!”
“Oh? I should have thought it would be a good thing, if people have gained some insights…”
“Oh, dear Gunnhildur, I had no idea!” she mimics a sympathetic voice. “Oh, how hard it must have been for you with Ásdís Björk! It’s just so sad!”
“Um…,” I say.
“Goddamned ridiculous nonsense. And the lies that bastard Ásgeir tells. Just trying to make himself look good. I can’t believe you’ve done this to me!”
She shakes her gray braid.
“But the article’s based mainly on medical information—”
“I don’t believe a word they say, those quack doctors. I know what I know.” She folds her arms across her meager chest, as if to say that she won’t be persuaded.
“Would you like to come out into the sun?” I ask, hoping to change the subject. “We could have a little walk outside.”
She gives me a searching look, then shrugs. “When you don’t have many options, none of them are good.”
I help her into her coat, and she places a scarf around her neck. Then we stroll arm-in-arm, step-by-step, out into the garden of the care home. Residents are out and about. Three women and a man stand in a little group, enjoying a smoke. I’m thinking of lighting up too when my companion points to the smokers and observes: “There are plenty of ways to kill yourself—and others.”
I change my mind, cram my hands into my jacket pockets, and keep a firm hold on the cigarettes.
She looks up, squinting into the brightness. “Goddamned sun! Is it going to kill us off too? You can have too much of a good thing!”
We walk for a while without speaking along the path around the outside of the building.
“This seems a nice enough place?” I observe, just to say something.
Gunnhildur scoffs. “It’s like living at an airport hotel, surrounded by people you’ve nothing in common with, except that you’re waiting for the same departure. Just you wait, young man. Your time will come.”
“Yes, that thought has occurred to me.”
She starts questioning me about where I’m from and who my family are, how old I am, what I’ve studied, and where I’ve worked. I try to answer her questions without getting into anything too complicated. And there’s plenty of that. We have completed our circuit of the care home when Gunnhildur halts at the entrance, gazes sharply at me from her limpid blue eyes, and says:
“Right. I’ve survived our little stroll. Now tell me whatever it is you’ve been wanting to say.”
I decide that honesty is the best policy. “I’ve been feeling bad because you feel I’ve let you down. That really wasn’t my intention…”
She shakes her braid without speaking.
“I still haven’t found anything to prove that your daughter’s death was anything but an accident, which resulted from her illness…”
Gunnhildur sighs and stamps her foot. “That’s enough, young man. You’ve said all that before. If you’ve come to me hoping for absolution, you’ve had a wasted journey.”
I continue, refusing to be distracted: “But I found out yesterday that Ásgeir is negotiating to sell the candy factory. So you were right about that.”
Her face brightens. “Well, well. It’s about time.”
I raise a finger to stop her. “And before I came here to see you, I made a phone call to your grandson, Gudmundur, down south. I implied that I was interested in hearing what he thought of the article in today’s paper—since I’d got in touch with his father through him. He was fine with it. Before I said good-bye, I said I’d heard rumors in the business world that he and his father were planning to sell Yumm. And he said that was correct.”
I take my notebook out of my pocket. “Then he said, without prompting—I’m repeating it word for word—The time had come long ago for us to get out of the business and cash in. It was a constant struggle to keep the company going. But Mom was always absolutely against selling. She felt it would be a disgrace for her and for the family. We’ve been entrusted with running the company, she always said, and it’s our duty to nurture it and enhance its value. But the truth was that we never got any real profit from the company, and we even had trouble meeting the payroll. As I say: it was time. That’s what your grandson, the economist Gudmundur Ásgeirsson, said to me. Off the record, admittedly.”
Gunnhildur is lost for words.
“None of this proves that Ásdís Björk’s death was caused by her husband, Gunnhildur. Not at all. But I haven’t given up. That’s what I came to tell you.”
She grips my wrist tightly in her hand. “I told my dear Ragna that you were a bit silly, my boy, but that you meant well.”
She lets go.
“It turns out I was right, after all.”
She turns and walks slowly into the Hóll care home, head held high.
When Gunnhildur Bjargmundsdóttir feels better, I feel better. Simple as that. I call Jóa and invite her and Heida out to dinner at the Fidlarinn restaurant.
I enjoy the bright panoramic view out over the fjord as I wait for my guests in the green-upholstered penthouse bar. I have a smoke and a Coke. Life seems pretty much OK. My overwhelming thirst has gone. For now.
Over our meal we chat about this and that—including the mouthwatering French venison we’re eating. Afterward we return to the bar. Why would anyone need to go to Copenhagen? Or Reykjavík, even?
Jóa and Heida have just started on their coffee and cognac when my cell phone rings.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Is that Einar the newshound?”
“Who is this?” I ask.
“This is Chief of Police Ólafur Gísli,” answers a voice I have now identified.
Jóa and Heida are chatting as I speak.
“It sounds to me,” comments the chief, “as if you’re enjoying female company.”
“It’s not what you think. And not what I might hope.”
“Excellent. I think you should leave your present location and move on to the next.”
“Oh? What location is that? Has something come up?”
“Yes.”
I’m instantly alert. “Do you mean a crime location?”
<
br /> “A crime scene, that’s right.”
“OK. Where shall I come to?”
“The offices of the Afternoon News, on Town Hall Square.”
“What’s happened there?”
“I can’t, and won’t, tell you on a cell phone.”
“I’ll be there. Right away.”
I end the call, then sit for a few moments, motionless. Has there been a break-in at the office? Arson? Has the place been trashed? Has someone been murdered there?
“What?”
I’m startled out of my thoughts. Jóa and Heida are looking at me like two question marks.
“I don’t really know. A teddy bear just called and—”
“Teddy bear?” queries Heida.
“That’s what Einar calls his anonymous informants,” Jóa whispers to her.
“…and he said I should go right away to our offices. Something’s happening there, according to him. Or has happened. Or God knows what.”
I summon our waiter and ask for the bill. “Sorry, girls, duty calls. And Jóa, I think you should come with me. We may need pictures.”
“But my gear is all there, at the office,” Jóa points out.
“Well, let’s hope the place hasn’t been vandalized, and your stuff hasn’t been stolen, or…” I comment.
“And I’m all dressed up,” grumbles Jóa.
It’s a quiet evening on the square as Jóa and I walk hurriedly over from the restaurant. It’s not yet eleven o’clock, so the night is young. We stop at the square and look up at the building. Ásbjörn and Karólína’s apartment on the top floor is dark, but the lights are on in the offices on the floor below. I glance around. The only vehicle I spot nearby is a black car on the pedestrian street.
Season of the Witch Page 24
