by Alda Grand
Einar looked at her with his bruised and battered face and said, “Are we in danger? Do you think he will be coming back to finish the job?”
Lana rose from the bed and joined Einar at the window. She put her hand on his shoulder and said, “He will be back. I don't think that man will stop until I’m dead.” Saying those words out loud sent a shiver through her body. Einar wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
“You’re shaking,” he said as he held her in his powerful arms.
“I’m scared Einar. I don't know what to do. I feel like lying down and giving up. I don't know if I can go on anymore,” Lana said.
Einar broke the embrace and looked her straight in the eyes, “Don't say that Lana. I’ll do anything to protect you. We can beat this together. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said in an assured voice.
“I don't think we are safe staying here,” Lana said.
“We can go to my farm. It's a few kilometres outside of town. My truck is parked over at the clinic. Pack your stuff and we leave straight away.” Einar said.
Lana gathered up her few personnel belongings and threw them in her bag and they left the room. At the reception they stopped and Einar said a few words to the bored looking receptionist.
Leaving the guesthouse Lana covered her eyes from the brightness, her eyes still tender from her injury. “I told the guy at the desk to tell anyone who comes looking for you that you got the bus to Reykjavik. That might throw someone off your scent for a while.”
Einar's beat up red pickup truck was parked in front of the clinic and they walked the couple of minutes to it. As he opened the truck door he said, “This baby is nearly forty years old. Its never let me down in all that time. I don't think they make them like this anymore,” he said running his hand across the simple dashboard as he got in. The dash contained no radio, only a basic fuel gauge and speedometer. The engine started with a jolt and the exhaust belched a cloud of blue black smoke out the back. “Smooth as silk,” he said as they pulled out of the clinics parking space.
The traffic on the road out of town was light. Cars further ahead twinkled like armour plated insects as they drove along the coast road. They drove in silence for a few kilometres passing by farms with run down barns and men and boys working in the fields. Neat rows of grass collected into large cylinders dried in the sun. Some of the cylinders where covered in bright white plastic ready to be stored away for the winter season.
Deep gouges like finger nails dragged through mud marked the paths of boulders as they tumbled down from steep sided mountains behind the farms. Some places had rows of trees planted behind the main house to slow the falling boulders. Others had angled earthen banks to try to deflect any debris away from the houses. In empty fields massive boulders dotted the earth. Some had a few sheep lazing in the shadows cast by the great stones. They passed by an ancient barn close to the road, its back wall smashed in by a boulder the size on a car. The roof bowed in and covered in a layer of spongy moss. Atop the mountains was an outcropping of jagged rocks and Einar pointed to it as they passed. “In olden times people thought they were trolls. When the sun shines on them they turn to rocks. At night they come alive and kick boulders from above trying to crush the people below.”
“Has anybody ever been killed by the avalanches?” Lana asked.
“Some farms were destroyed and a family killed. This was a few hundred years ago, its written about in our ancient books called the sagas. It happened a lot. People where killed as well as plenty of livestock. But as you can see the amount of farmable land is very small. People had to risk being this close to the mountain side as its the only usable strip of land along the coast. It was hard times for everyone back then,” he said.
The pickup truck slowed and turned onto a dirt road. Einar stopped and got out to swing the rusted metal gate open, he checked the faded blue mailbox nailed to a wooden post and jumped back in. “This is my farm. Its been in the family for five generations.” He pointed to a red roofed concrete building and said, “Thats were the sheep spend the winters. If we get some mild days they sometimes come out into the front field. The field over to the right is where I grow crops. I used to grow a lot more to sell. Some farms consolidated further south and its not worth my time competing. I only grow what I need for myself.”
“What do you grow?” Lana asked.
“Mostly potatoes. They’re the easiest thing to grow in this climate without a greenhouse. I have some turnips, carrots and onions as well,” he said as they stopped outside an aluminium clad structure. The building was single story and painted a bright red with a blue metal roof. Paint had chipped off in long strips and the wooden window frames where warped and peeling. “Over by the sheep sheds,” he said pointing at them, “you see those two small buildings?”, Lana nodded, “those are drying huts. I hang fillets of fish to air dry over a couple of weeks. Its a great snack with butter, gives you loads of energy in the mornings.”
“Do you live here alone?” Lana asked.
Einar clenched his jaw and stared across the fields and out to sea. Lana could see the muscles in his face tense and relax as he stared off into the distance. Lana was about to speak thinking Einar was not going to reply to her when he said, “I live alone.” His body was rigid as he looked out at the crashing waves and Lana choose not to question him any more. He turned to her with a distracted look on his face and said, “Do you want to come inside?”
She nodded and he turned and opened the front door. Above the door hung a piece of wood with a boat cresting a wave. Clouds filled the sky above the boat and the crashing waves below had delicate scales etched into the wood, giving the impression that the boat was sailing across the back of a monstrous fish. Einar tapped the wooden carving as he passed below it. Once inside he kicked off his shoes and Lana followed his lead.
The house was momentarily dark as Lana's eyes adjusted to the indoor gloom. Inside was one open room with a varnished staircase leading to the attic space. The kitchen was in the corner and the window faced directly out looking over the farm and out towards the sea. A table in the centre of the room was dominated by an engine which was partly disassembled. Oil dripped onto the wooden floor and newspaper had been put down to catch the worst of it. An old wooden toolbox lay open beside the engine, and tools were everywhere on the table.
In the opposite corner of the room was an old saggy couch and some wooden chairs. A large faded picture of a falcon sitting on a rocky outcrop was hung over the couch. More tools where piled up on another table close to the chairs. An old battered radio hung from a nail in a wooden pillar in the centre of the room. The room smelt of coffee and wood varnish. Everything was so minimal and spare and Lana noticed no pictures of family hung any where.
“Sorry for the mess,” Einar said. “I used to trudge out to the work shed at the edge of the farm whenever I had any maintenance to do. Lately I’ve been doing it here. I find it very relaxing when I wake up and make some coffee and the first thing I do is start repairing an engine or any one of a hundred other jobs that the farm needs.” He went over to the couch and brushed a pile of wood shavings off the cushions and onto the floor. “If you want to sit down here, I can make us some coffee. I don't know if you know this about us Icelanders, we are coffee crazy. I read somewhere that we drink more than anyone else in the world. Its the only thing that gets me going in the cold and dark winter mornings.” He went to the kitchen and began brewing the coffee while Lana sat on the couch.
Einar brought the coffee over and gave Lana a steaming mug. He sat across from her on a wooden chair. I wouldn't be surprised if he had hand carved that himself she thought to herself. She took a sip of her coffee and glanced over at his bruised and battered face. He had put himself in front of danger and saved her life once again. He deserved to know the truth. A knot of pain twisted in her gut as she looked at him over the rim of her coffee mug. Once I tell him the truth he might never look at me the same she thought to herself. I
don't think I could go on if I saw his face fill with disgust she thought and then readied herself to tell all. She put the mug down on the table and looked over at him and took a deep breath, her palms sweated and she rubbed them on her thighs.
“I think I’m ready to tell you about my past,” she said in a whisper.
Einar looked over at her his eyes softening and said, “Tell me whatever your comfortable with.”
Lana sighed and said, “Don't give me an out. I need to be fully honest with you for both our sakes.”
She told him about her fathers indiscretions and the ensuing scandal that lead to his downfall and Einar nodded along with her. She gulped the air as if she was drowning and went on. “Our family had no more money to send me to college. Tuition fees were due and if I didn’t come up with the money within a few months I was done. I’d be kicked out with no real future.”
Einar nodded his head and blew on his coffee to cool it. He winced when sipping it as the lukewarm liquid flowed over his broken lips.
“I was desperate. There was no way out. A friend suggested an easy way to make money and I took it because my back was against the wall.”
Einar looked away now, not meeting her eyes as if he already knew what was to come next.
“Look at me Einar,” she said and he returned her gaze, “ I am, or, I was an escort,” she swallowed, her mouth feeling like a desiccated rug, “I slept with high powered business men for money.”
She looked away from him unable to meet his eyes anymore. She didn't want to see him judging her and possibly appraising her as nothing more than some street trash. She glanced over at him and he sat stiffly in his chair staring off into the distance. Lana's hands shook and she balled them up in her lap to try to stop the shakes. “It gets worse,” she blurted out, words tripping over each other as she unburdened herself as quickly as possible. “I took some niche jobs for higher money to pay off my debts quicker. I wanted to stop being an escort.”
“Prostitute,” he said interrupting her. The word felt like the stinging lash of a whip. “Call it what it is,” he said. She glanced over at him again and he wouldn't make eye contact with her.
“They were called sleeping beauty jobs. Top paying clients would pay to have a girl sedated and then spend the night doing as they pleased,” she said, her mouth felt dry and dusty and a sip from her coffee tasted like she was swilling motor oil. She could feel herself close to tears and held them back.
Einar said something in Icelandic, it was loud and angry and sounded like he was swearing.
“I had started to secretly record whenever I took a sleeping beauty job. On my last one, the sick fuck who had payed for me for the night brought in a male prostitute and had him drugged too. After he had his way with me he strangled him to death, right beside my unconscious body,” she said as tears came streaming down her cheeks. Her shoulders slumped and she sank back into the couch. It was futile for her to try to stop the tears and so she let them take over her as she sobbed. She did not dare to look up at Einar and continued through her heaving gasping sobs. “I was afraid for my life when I watched back the tape. I didn't know who to turn to and I panicked. I showed it to someone I thought I could trust. Someone was sent after us, to kill us, I don't know, we got scared and fled the country. I thought we had escaped until today and my past caught up with me.” Her head sunk to her chest and hot tears streamed down her cheeks in streams. She felt ashamed for what she had done and fear for what lay ahead.
Einar’s chair creaked as he rose and walked away from her. Lana could not look up at him, she didn't want to see the disgusted look on his face. I don’t know what to do if he walks out of my life she thought as a new barrage of tears ran down her cheeks.
He touched her gently on the shoulder and when she looked up he handed her a wad of paper towels. His eyes glistened as he looked down at her. She wiped her red and puffy eyes and blew her nose. He sat on the couch beside her, their legs touching. His body felt how she imagined he was, solid, reliable and strong. He put his arm around her and looked her directly into her eyes. This is it she thought, this is where he bales on me and leaves me lost and alone in a foreign country. “Your eyes are nearly as puffy as mine,“ he said trying to smile and wincing. His left eye was surrounded by a darkening swelling lump which was forcing the lid to droop down and close shut. The damage to his face is all because of me she thought and leant forward and hesitated for a second. She kissed the bruised eyelid tenderly. “We can get through this together,” he said. Relief washed over her at his words. She lay her head down in his lap and started to cry again, this time with relief. He gently rubbed the tears from her cheeks and stroked the back of her neck. Her tears began to ebb away as his warm fingers touched her skin. Her eyes became heavy as his touch relaxed her and she drifted into a light doze on his lap.
Chapter 20
Wednesday
Brad checked the street for witnesses before crossing to his parked rental car. He could feel a burning wetness spreading down his back. His jaw ached where his head had been slammed into the steel frame of the bed before it was slammed into the ground again and again. He cursed at himself. He had been sloppy and should have never believed what Sara told him. He had allowed some country bumpkin to get the drop on him and it wouldn't happen again. His knuckles popped when he gripped the steering wheel and it felt like he might of broken one of his fingers. Brad ripped a strip from the bottom of his shirt and bound his damaged fingers before starting the car. He drove hunched over the steering wheel as he couldn't sit back on his injured shoulder.
Twenty minutes outside of town Brad had rented a small wooden hut with a turf roof planted with a layer of grass. Ten similar huts dotted the large field backed by the imposing mountain range. The interior was all wood surfaces and had been renovated in the style reminiscent of a traditional Icelandic home. The turf house was surrounded by a new growth wood that had been planted in the last ten years. He opened the door and walked in. “Get the first aid box,” he said pointing towards the kitchen. Sara had been sitting on the bed with her legs curled under her reading a fashion magazine. She winced when she saw the condition he was in.
“What happened?” she asked her voice full of concern. You’re fooling no one Brad thought to himself.
“Some guy built like a tank jumped me. Took me by surprise. You never said anything about her having visitors,” he said following her as she went to the kitchen.
“I thought he was,” her last words stopped short as Brad grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall. Her eyes bulged as he put pressure on her windpipe. “Please,” she croaked out between reddening lips. He let her go and she slumped to the floor rubbing her neck. He couldn’t do it, he knew she was playing him and yet he let it happen. This weakness is going to destroy you Brad thought to himself as he crossed the room and sat on the bed. He felt old and weary a man who was nothing more than a wind up toy. Turn the key in his back and set him off, there goes he goes.
When he first turned up at the guesthouse room Sara had been there wearing a tight T-shirt with no bra on and a towel wrapped around her waist. She calmly let him into the room as if his arrival was to be completely expected. She showed no fear when he entered the room, only a bored resignation as if she had already seen how this was going to play out. She sat on the bed across from him and as he questioned her she opened her legs and a corner of the towel fell back revealing creamy white thighs. He knew he was being played and yet he let his cock lead the way. It had been so long since a woman had even glanced in his direction, no one had any interest in being with a beaten down old man. He wasn't after Sara he reasoned to himself already giving himself the rope to hang himself with. She was nothing more than a conduit for information so he let her work him over as he got her to spill to him all she knew. As she talked that damn towel kept opening more and more, exposing even more of her soft thighs and all other thoughts became nothing but a buzz in the back of his skull as he crossed the room and to
ok her roughly, bending her over the side of the bed. As soon as he slid his throbbing cock into her he knew she had played him from the second she opened the door. He’d had women throw themselves at him before. A woman had begged him to leave her husband alone. Brad was there to collect a debt from another man like himself trapped by his compulsions. The wife of the man, meaty on the hips and with dark bags under her eyes had greeted him at the door with outward hostility which quickly gave way to tears and promises on behalf of her missing husband, until she looked him directly in the eyes and said in a cold and resigned voice, “I’ll suck your cock, please don't hurt my husband.” He balled his fists by his side and had came close to slapping her hard across the face. Something about her naked desperation to help a husband who had ran up huge betting debts disgusted Brad to his stomach. This had happened to him time and again, women trying to either save themselves or the men they loved by offering up their bodies to Brad in the hopes of clemency. He had never been swayed by the offers until now.
Sara got up from the floor and rubbed her neck, three reddening fingerprints, like splotches of maroon paint were visible on the pale skin of her neck. Brad watched her getting up and fixing herself. He knew the type, he’d seen women like her before. She was the type of woman who would survive the heat death of the universe, resilient and tough, she let change flow around her like a polished pebble in a river. She would out survive Brad he could nearly guarantee it. “Who was Lana's surprise visitor?” he asked pulling up his trousers. The momentary relief he’d felt while banging her was already being replaced by the old familiar skull cracking pain behind his eyes and the dull throb of his damaged shoulder.
Sara leaned against the compact kitchen counter and looked at him and said, “Did he have a beard?”
