Sun on Fire

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  Suddenly someone kicked the crutch out from under him. He landed on all fours on the sidewalk, where he received a vicious blow to his side.

  “Shit!” Gunnar yelled as he rolled to avoid the next kick.

  “Not so cocky now, fucking niggerlicker,” said a shrill voice that Gunnar recognized.

  “Oh, they let you out, huh?” Gunnar said, trying to shield himself from the next blow.

  “You didn’t know that, you fucking fag?”

  “Fag? You coming on to me?” Gunnar winced as a kick struck his brow.

  “Don’t try to be clever with me,” said the blond pyromaniac Gunnar had interrogated the previous Monday morning. He looked for a good spot to aim his next kick, but Gunnar defended himself with his arm.

  “How did you find me?” he said.

  “You’re in the National Register, asshole. Think I don’t know how to use a computer? I’ve been waiting here all night.”

  “Ah, the National Register. Yes, of course,” Gunnar said. “Hey, I’m not up for a fight with you tonight. Go home—ouch!” The blond psycho interrupted his speech with a heavy kick to Gunnar’s chest.

  “Who’s going home? Eh?” he said triumphantly.

  “You,” said a harsh female voice from the doorway. “You to go home or now I do shoot.”

  The blond guy looked up and straight down the barrel of a rifle aimed between his eyes. He took a few steps back, and then turned and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Gunnar said, digging out his cell and dialing.

  “Emergency,” said the voice at the other end.

  Gunnar gave his name and address. “I need an ambulance right away. I think I have a cracked rib, and my back is really sore. Never mind that I have a cold, too.”

  02:10

  Birkir found Gunnar in the emergency room, lying on his side in a hospital bed and eating crushed chocolate raisins from a crumpled plastic bag. A large bandage covered his swollen right eye.

  “Found this in my pocket,” Gunnar explained. “They don’t give you anything to eat here.”

  “Your mom called,” Birkir said. “She said someone tried to kill you.”

  “Yeah, it was that blond freak—the pyromaniac we brought in on Monday. Jumped me from behind.”

  Birkir took out his cell. “I’ll have him picked up immediately.”

  Gunnar snatched his hand. “No, don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll put him away anyway because of the arson,” Gunnar said. “It’ll only boost his status with his fellow prisoners if he’s charged with roughing me up. Let’s not indulge him.”

  “Is this the right thing to do?”

  “Yeah. He’ll make a big noise about beating me up, but if there’s no charge, people will stop believing him and laugh at his story. That’s much worse punishment for a lowlife like him. I’ll settle up with him later.”

  “OK. Your call,” Birkir said. “How are you feeling?”

  “The doctor says there’s nothing broken. I’m badly bruised, but in reasonable shape other than that. A small cut and a black eye. They’ll give me an injection for my back later, and I’ll sleep here tonight. You can tell Mom that.”

  Birkir smiled. “I will. Your mom never wants you to go to Egilsstadir again. She says you’ve been in really bad shape since you went there.”

  “She’s dead right. Did she ask questions about the trip?”

  “She started to, but I said I was in a hurry to get here to talk with you.”

  “Great. We need to synchronize our stories. We’ll go over it later.”

  “Fine.” Birkir smiled again.

  “You know what?” Gunnar said. “My old mom just saved me from that guy.”

  “She did?” Birkir frowned. “She didn’t tell me that.”

  “She was still awake when I came back in the taxi. She heard the car and looked out the window. She was worried about me because of my back. She saw when the asshole went for me. Got out my rifle and staggered downstairs. The guy ran off as soon as he saw the gun.”

  “That was a piece of luck,” Birkir said. “But don’t we have to file a special report on this use of a firearm?”

  “The hell we do. I’m not bringing charges for the attack, and nobody mentions the old lady threatened someone with a rifle. OK?”

  “Yes.”

  “The rifle wasn’t even loaded.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah. In other news, I ran into Ambassador Konrad earlier this evening.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, and we talked a lot about that hippie business down in Fljótshlíd those years ago. He’s a great guy, Konrad. Generous and friendly.”

  “I imagine he’s a good drinking companion.”

  “Hey, that’s not the only thing. He came up with some interesting tips.” Gunnar ran back over his conversation with Konrad about the folks living at Sandgil and the sheriff in Hvolsvöllur.

  “There seem to be more and more threads leading eastward to Fljótshlíd,” Birkir said when Gunnar had finished his account.

  “Yes,” Gunnar said, popping the last chocolate raisin into his mouth. “Why don’t you take a look at the evidence on that fire?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And see if you can find anything for me to eat.”

  11:20

  When Gunnar’s mother, María, had called at twenty to two that morning to tell him what had happened to her son, Birkir had been asleep for about two and a half hours. After spending an hour at the hospital, he’d returned home and tried to get back to sleep, with limited success. By seven o’clock he was wide awake, but lay in bed for an hour thinking about things before getting up, eating breakfast, and heading off to Fljótshlíd in his car.

  All was quiet at the police station in the little town of Hvolsvöllur, and the cop on duty, a chubby guy in his forties, decided to drive with Birkir out to the Fljótshlíd district and show him Sandgil, the place where Jón the Sun Poet’s hippie commune had operated from 1973 through 1975.

  The sky was clear and the air cold and pure. The view that lay before them justified this trip in itself, never mind anything else. The majestic Eyjafjallajökull glacier rose against the sky in the southeast, and sunshine intensified the fall colors of the slopes to the left as they drove into Fljótshlíd.

  Birkir asked whether the Thórsmörk National Park was visible from the road, but the cop said it was too far away. You needed to go much farther up the valley, on a dirt road, to see the trees of Thórsmörk on the far side of the river.

  Birkir was picturing Húsadalur, the finishing point of the Laugavegur run, a grueling fifty-five kilometer cross-country race over the highlands from Landmannalaugar down to Thórsmörk. He’d competed in the race the previous summer, coming in fifty-eighth out of three hundred twenty participants, in six hours and three minutes. Next summer he intended to do the run in less than six hours. That was the plan, at least.

  They drove a good distance along a narrow road, paved to start with but later turning into dirt. There was a scattering of farmsteads and summer houses on both sides as they went farther up the valley, and finally the policeman stopped the vehicle by a beautiful forest grove, far from the nearest habitation.

  They got out and scanned the scene.

  “The ruins from the fire were cleared away very soon after the incident, or so I’m told,” the policeman said. “And then the plot was fenced off and given over to grazing, and this grove was planted. I understand Jón Sváfnisson still owns the land, but he never comes here.”

  They climbed over a fence and waded through frozen, withered grass to get to where the old farmhouse had stood. The place was not visible from the road—all that was left of it was the concrete floor. Tufts of grass had seeded themselves through cracks in its surface, most of which was carpeted with green moss. A symbol had been cut into the concrete: a circle, nearly two meters across, with a cross inside. The grooves of the p
attern were around ten centimeters wide and two centimeters deep; someone had expended considerable effort to make it.

  “The sun cross,” Birkir said.

  “I know of people who come here to pray in times of need,” said the cop. “They say you should stand in the middle of the cross at midday with outstretched arms and look toward the sun. Then your shadow falls over the cross, forming another cross.”

  “Who are you supposed to pray to?” Birkir asked. “This is a heathen symbol.”

  “That’s right,” the cop replied, “but it doesn’t matter who you pray to, be it Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, Allah, Buddha, Odin, Thor, or even that old Viking—Gunnar of Hlídarendi—who lived nearby. There’s a direct line from this place to whatever Almighty there may be. It listens to your prayer without bothering about the name it gets called, or what language is used. It’s enough that you focus on what’s on your mind. Just so long as it’s not frivolous.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve tried it.”

  The cop blushed. “My son was very ill one time. I came here then.”

  “I hope he got better.”

  The policeman nodded.

  Birkir checked his watch and saw that it was nearly noon. He stepped into the center of the cross, his back to the sun, and stretched out his arms. His shadow formed a cross superimposed upon the carved symbol.

  “Are you going to pray?” the cop asked.

  Birkir shook his head. “No, I’ve nothing to pray for except frivolity. Either that or world peace and happiness, but the Almighty is hardly able to grant that as long as we humans keep devoting ourselves to the opposite. It’s good to know this place exists, though.”

  Birkir meant what he said. This space felt kind of sacred; he had a rare feeling of peace, and promised himself he’d visit here in summertime.

  They drove back to Hvolsvöllur and had coffee and sandwiches at the police station.

  “Can I see the evidence about the fire at Sandgil?” Birkir asked.

  “Not today, I’m afraid. The archive is locked and the sheriff has the keys. I’ll photocopy it for you tomorrow and send it.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  “But you might be able to take a shortcut. Your boss at the violent crime division—isn’t that Magnús Magnússon?

  “Yes?”

  “He was a police officer here at Hvolsvöllur during that time. He didn’t move to Reykjavík until after the accident. I think he was called to the scene of that fire and wrote up the report on it.”

  15:00

  As he drove back toward Reykjavík, Birkir called his boss.

  “We need to talk,” Birkir said. “About the fire at Sandgil.”

  “Is it really necessary to open that up again? It happened decades ago.”

  “Yes, and I’m not happy about having to go all the way to Fljótshlíd to discover that you were involved in that investigation.”

  “It’s no concern of yours, as far as I can see,” Magnús snapped.

  Birkir replied patiently, “All the main characters in the Berlin murder investigation are in some way connected with it. Of course it’s my concern. I need all available information about this case.”

  “Oh, all right. Drop by my house when you get back to town.”

  Magnús lived with his wife in a handsome old villa on a street just north of Jónshús. Birkir’s apartment was in the same district, but much farther west. It was a quiet part of town but conveniently close to the city center, so parking spaces were sometimes difficult to find; Birkir therefore drove straight back home, left the car in his reserved spot, and walked over to his boss’s place.

  “You’ve managed to take advantage of the good weather,” Magnús said as he greeted Birkir at the door and ushered him into his hobby room. This was his sanctuary, where he did his fly tying—that and trout fishing in the summer were his two main interests. The walls of the room were hung with stuffed freshwater fish, pictures of anglers fishing in lakes and streams, and individually labeled frames displaying colorful fishing flies; books about trout fishing and distinguished anglers lay on the table and lined the shelves.

  Magnús offered Birkir a seat and took his place at his worktable. Secured by a little clip beneath a magnifying glass was a small fishhook onto which he had already bound the first feather. Above the worktable was a rack with transparent plastic drawers containing the raw materials for tying flies.

  “Tell me about this incident at Sandgil,” Birkir said. “How were you and Sheriff Arngrímur involved?”

  Magnús squinted through the magnifying glass. “OK,” he said. “I’ll rehash it, but there are several reports about the case, written at the time, and you should have a look at them if this is so important. I’m not sure I can remember the details accurately.”

  “I’ll do that,” Birkir said. “I’ll be getting the reports tomorrow.”

  Magnús started his account tentatively. “I’ll begin with the background, my working relationship with Arngrímur at the time. You’d better hear the whole story since you’re digging this up now, though I can’t imagine how it’s going to help you in any way in your investigation.”

  “Let’s just see what comes up,” Birkir said. “Please continue.”

  “Well, I was a police officer in the Rangárvellir district when it happened. Even though I was from there, it wasn’t my dream job, because I wanted to move to Reykjavík. I’d met my wife at Lake Laugarvatn, where she was at high school and I was at the PE training college. I got myself a summer job with the police force back home, and preferred it to the teacher training course, so I didn’t go back to college. My wife went on to study law after high school, and I wanted to be with her in Reykjavík. But getting a job with the city force was difficult at that time, and even more so for somebody from out of town.”

  As he spoke, Magnús picked up small tufts of feathers with a pair of pliers and offered them up to the fly he was working on.

  “Arngrímur Esjar became district sheriff in Rangárvellir in the spring of 1972. He wasn’t quite thirty, the youngest ever person to get such a post. He had a high-class law degree and had distinguished himself as an attorney at the Reykjavík Criminal Court, but even so, that in itself was not enough to get such an appointment. No, he had connections. His father, Ólafur Ingi Esjar, was a member of parliament and one of the most powerful men in the country, who would have been a cabinet minister but for his extensive and lucrative business interests. He could run his businesses and serve in parliament, but the workload involved in being a minister would have taken too much time away from his business affairs, and he chose to stay on the sidelines. But he had his fingers in every pie, and the government didn’t do a thing without his knowledge and consent. Word is, Ólafur more or less totally financed his party’s activities.”

  He paused a moment while he tied a complicated knot.

  “Arngrímur and I got to know each other well during that time in the Southeast. He was single and didn’t know anyone in the district, and I was on my own while my wife was at law school. So we hung out outside of work, too—we rode horses and played badminton in the gym of the local primary school.”

  Magnús looked up from his work and turned to Birkir.

  “And now we get to your question,” he said. “Soon after Arngrímur came to work out there, this very odd group moved into the little farmhouse at Sandgil, way up in Fljótshlíd. They were hippies from Reykjavík, two young men—Jón and Helgi—and two young women—Sunna and Rakel—and a boy, Fabían. Those five were the permanent residents, but they had a heap of visitors, some of them long-term.”

  Birkir said, “Those three men were all guests at the Icelandic embassy in Berlin last Sunday. Also Starkadur, Sunna’s brother.”

  “Yes, but that has to be coincidence. There’s no connection here.”

  “Nevertheless, please carry on with your story. You seem to remember it all pretty well.”

  “Yes, it’s coming back to me. OK . . . so Jón and Sunna we
re a couple, as were Rakel and Helgi. Fabían was supposedly employed by Jón but was in fact a homeless, dysfunctional kid they’d taken under their wing. The house they moved into was on some rural land that had belonged to Jón’s great uncle, but the uncle had died without any children, so Sváfnir, Jón’s father, inherited it. I understand that Jón took over the house without asking Sváfnir’s permission, but it seems the matter rested there.

  “The young people were all involved in various kinds of art, which was supposed to support their rural existence. Jón wrote poems, Helgi was into ceramics, and Sunna was a musician and also made wax candles. Rakel wanted to be a writer, and Fabían was an artist. On Friday afternoons, weather permitting, they would set up outside the co-op store and try to make money. Sunna played the guitar and sang her songs, and the others offered their artwork for sale. The boys didn’t sell a thing, but folks would throw coins into Sunna’s guitar case. Eventually, realizing they couldn’t live off their art, the hippies found another way to earn money—they grew cannabis in their attic to sell in Reykjavík. Small amounts to begin with, but then they increased their production. That was when the cultivation stopped being a secret, because the electricity company noticed the sudden surge in consumption at the cottage. Before that, Jón had always had difficulties paying the electricity bill, but now he began to pay up front, even though the bill had tripled. People passing the cottage at nighttime reported seeing strange lights shining through the cracks in the roof. It didn’t take us long to put two and two together.”

  Magnus continued: “Fridays, they would head off to Reykjavík in an old Russian jeep and circulate round the clubs to sell packs of the stuff. We set up an operation to arrest them outside Reykjavík on one of their sales trips, and as a follow-up the sheriff and I drove down to Fljótshlíd to conduct a house search at Sandgil and arrest the two who’d stayed behind. We’d arrested Jón, Helgi, and Rakel in possession of a large quantity, but Sunna and Fabían remained at home. We were only a few kilometers away when we saw smoke and then fire at the house. We drove as fast as we could, but we got there too late. Fabían had escaped and vanished into the night, but Sunna was trapped inside—we heard her shouting for help. Arngrímur tried to rescue her, but his efforts were in vain. He was lucky to get away with his life, because he lost consciousness trying to get back out of the house, and I had to drag him to safety. The house burned to the ground before firefighters could get there. It took a search team to find Fabían, and he was completely incapable of explaining the cause of the fire. When it became clear that he was a mental and physical wreck, he was committed to an appropriate institution.”