Season of the Witch (3 page)

Nice image
, I think, losing myself in it.

“People are always claiming to have found traces of Atlantis here and there,” Jóa suddenly remarks. “I remember there was some American who said he’d discovered ruins using sonar soundings on the floor of the Mediterranean, off the coast of Cyprus. And there was a German scholar who revealed Atlantis, using satellite photographs, on the salt plains of southern Spain. And a Swede said that the descriptions were more consistent with Ireland. It’s only a question of time until someone finds Atlantis here in Iceland. We’re always claiming to find what we want to find.”

“I don’t have a lot of luck with that,” I remark.

“That’s because you don’t know what you want to find.”

“Oh, yeah. But what descriptions do you mean? Are there accounts of Atlantis? Wasn’t the whole place supposed to have sunk into the ocean without a trace more than twelve thousand years ago?”

“Er, it’s a legend, Einar,” Jóa replies, in rather too motherly a tone for my taste. “So far as I remember, in Greek mythology the gods are supposed to have been so enraged by the greed, immorality, and iniquity of those who lived in this land of milk and honey that they sent a tidal wave to destroy Atlantis. And since then people have always been searching for the lost island.”

“How come you know so much about Greek mythology?”

“Hail Atlantis!” exclaims Jóa with the vocalist, and the music swells. “I know about all sorts of things, if you haven’t noticed. I’ve even read Plato. Have you?”

“Yes, actually, I read him in high school,” I haughtily reply. “He was an ancient Greek philosopher. I know these things. But what’s he got to do with Atlantis?”

“He was the first person to give an account of Atlantis. And he was one of us.”

“One of us?” I ask as we pass a sign welcoming us to Akureyri. “Or one of you?”

“Both!” chortles Jóa.

There is nothing on the evening news about an Akureyri woman being unconscious after having fallen into the glacial waters of the Jökulsá River.

Ásbjörn has found office accommodations for us in the heart of the town. The
Afternoon News
has its offices—three offices, reception, break room, and bathroom—on the upper floor of an old wooden building clad in red corrugated iron on
Rádhústorg
, the Town Hall Square itself, at the corner of Hafnarstræti and Brekkugata. Ásbjörn, naturally, didn’t waste money on renovations. When they open a new club, they rip out all the fixtures and start again, but Ásbjörn doesn’t see the
Afternoon News
premises as a place of entertainment, but a workplace. So we move straight
into the old offices of a wholesaler, with ocher-yellow paint peeling off the walls. Ásbjörn and his wife live on the floor above.

Town Hall Square is an expanse of concrete with the odd leafless tree and deserted benches. The few people who venture out into the square appear to be kids on skateboards—much the same as in Reykjavík. Our competitors, the
Morning News
and the state radio station, both have their offices in a modern glass-and-concrete structure rather like a fish tank on the corner of Kaupvangsstræti and Glerárgata, at the southern end of the harbor. They have a breathtaking view of the fjord, and an American fast-food chain is conveniently located in the same building. Next to us, on the contrary, is one of the many travel agencies offering wilderness tours and all sorts of trips in the quest for what we want to find, without knowing what it is. The view from my office window is the cracked wall of the building next door.

All’s quiet on the Akureyri front on a Saturday evening: the weekend edition has long been delivered to anyone who’s interested. Nonetheless Ásbjörn is hanging over his computer in his office.

“How did it go?” he asks without looking up when I knock on the doorframe.

“Jóa got some pictures, and I did a rather uncomfortable interview with the organizer of the trip. He may be a great outdoorsman, but I think he needed trauma counseling as much as the rest of them.”

“You can talk to Trausti about it, anyway,” he curtly remarks over his shoulder. “He phoned and asked you to get in touch.”

If I don’t have a very high opinion of Ásbjörn, I’m not yet sure what I think of his successor in the news editor’s chair: Trausti Löve—who in another lifetime worked with Ásbjörn and me as a temporary summer employee, when he and I, by pure chance,
started out on our journalistic careers together on the late, lamented
People’s Times
. Later he became a TV reporter and was once chosen “Iceland’s Sexiest Man” in a popularity poll.

I hear the office door open, followed by shrill barking.

“Ásbjörn!” calls a husky female voice. “Ásbjörn Grímsson!”

He turns off the computer and struggles to his feet, a stocky figure with a sagging ass. He quickly takes off his green slippers, which he has unfortunately brought with him from the head office in Reykjavík, and thrusts his feet into black fur-lined boots. Sometimes Ásbjörn reminds me of an overripe tomato on two legs, wearing green slippers. For a moment I feel a twinge of pity for him. Even sympathy.

His face is puffy and tired. His black hair, greasy and disheveled. He looks at me and says, in a not-unfriendly manner, “Please keep your cell phone turned on. I don’t want to have to speak to Trausti about it. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

I nod and accompany him out to the tiny reception area. Jóa is sitting drinking coffee as she watches the news on
Vision 2
, the
Afternoon News
’s new sister station. Karólína, Ásbjörn’s wife, is hovering at the reception desk, where she sometimes helps out, and flicking through the Sunday edition of the
Morning News,
which is printed and distributed on Saturday evening. The couple’s lapdog, a little white mutt with its body hair trimmed short but a sort of bouffant puff on his head, is tethered to the leg of the coffee table in the waiting area. The dog’s name is Pal. He’s keeping his mouth shut for the moment, but his stubby little tail wags when his other owner approaches.

“Look, Pal,” says Karólína. “Daddy’s here.”

If Ásbjörn had a tail it would definitely be wagging now—the little dog’s enthusiastic barking and tongue waving certainly cheer him up.

“Daddy’s going to take Mommy and Pal out to the Bautinn
Grill,” remarks the Lady Wife from behind the
Morning News
to anyone who’s listening. “Pal will get a treatie-weatie.”

“Anything about that woman on
Vision 2
?” I ask Jóa.

“Not a peep,” she answers, with a twinkle toward doggy and Dad.

“Thanks for the tip,” I say to Ásbjörn, who’s untying the dog from the table. “How did you hear about it?”

“I have my contacts,” he replies self-importantly.

Out of the corner of my eye I see that Karólína has put the paper down and is looking at us with a surprised look on her face. I don’t know much about their marriage, except that it is childless. I haven’t really gotten to know the Lady Wife. Just shaken her hand at the paper’s annual dinner-dance, my ability to stand upright permitting. Like her husband and me, she’s on the wrong side of thirty-five. Her flat voice doesn’t fit her appearance. She is tall and she must once have been slender, but she’s getting a little softer and plumper at the waist. She has a long neck and a curved nose, so she looks a little like a bird, with pretty features and shoulder-length straight hair, bleached white. I’ve always had the impression that Karólína is about to explode from some internal tension, like a bird caught in a trap and longing to take flight.

When Mommy, Daddy, and the dog have gone I tell Jóa I must just quickly call the new news editor. She grunts and switches over to the news on the state TV station.

My office is an oversize closet. Although I’ve only been here a week it already has that lived-in look. Three shelves on one wall, laden with newspapers, books and papers, computer disks, old diaries, and all sorts of junk. My tattered old poster with the words of wisdom
A tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind
is on the wall, along with an old photograph, which was there when I arrived, of
fishing vessels in Akureyri Harbor. That’s all the view I have, other than the wall of the neighboring building.

I dig my phone out of the junk on my desk and call Trausti’s cell phone. I’m pretty sure he’ll be eating out with some other Beautiful People.

“Trausti,” he answers. In the background is a hubbub of chatter and the clink of glasses.

“It’s Einar,” I say, lighting up a cigarette. “You wanted to talk to me.”

“Hello, buddy,” replies the news editor.

Yet another word I really loathe.

I can just see him in my mind’s eye, in his trendy clothes, feasting on red wine and a steak marinated in brandy, as tan as a freshly minted chocolate Easter egg. I wonder what maxim this egg will produce. Could it be the old
Afternoon News
slogan—which has as yet survived the disruptions and merger, and which Ásbjörn has emblazoned on the outside of our outpost in the north:
Truth Be Told
?

The resonant and—in the opinion of TV viewers at least—confidence-inspiring voice continues: “Tomorrow I want you and Jóa to go east to Reydargerdi. Things got wild there last night, and it will probably be the same tonight. It may get out of hand at any time.
Riots in Reydargerdi
and all that.”

“Are you talking about more fights? It’s just the usual Icelandic weekend binge, Trausti. It’s been going on ever since our Viking ancestors first got here.”

“No, it hasn’t. These are fights between Icelanders and immigrants. If you can’t see the difference, you’re just not competent, buddy.”

Although I feel an almost overwhelming urge to stick my tongue out at the receiver, I resist it, since inanimate objects can’t
be held responsible. “You may not be aware that once upon a time everyone in Iceland was an immigrant,” I remark with icy politeness. “You yourself are descended from immigrants of olden times.
Löve
doesn’t sound like an Icelandic name to me. Or is there a difference I’m not seeing?”

There’s a brief silence. Either he’s considering what I’ve said or he’s taking another bite of his steak.

“The difference,” he finally says, “is that one is the past and the other is the present. Your job is to reflect the present, where you are.”

“I’ve still got to write up the piece on the woman who fell in the glacial river…”

“That will be featured on all the radio and TV news bulletins tomorrow.”

“I’m sure drunken reveling at Reydargerdi will be too. And Jóa’s got exclusive pictures…”

“You can do that over the phone, while you’re on the other story…”

“Couldn’t I cover the Reydargerdi story by phone, then?” I continue to argue.

It would have been nice to have a leisurely Sunday stroll around “the town of prosperity and good fortune, the town of education, culture, and flowers,” as Akureyri was called by local poet Davíd Stefánsson. To breathe in the sea air at the harbor, look out over the still waters of the fjord, walk up and down the Hafnarstræti pedestrian street, admire the botanical gardens, the high school, the picturesque old wooden houses, sneer at the modern concrete ones, have a cup of coffee in the artists’ quarter, and go to morning service with Jóa in Akureyri Church, which stands on its hilltop site with its two towers, at the top of the stairway to heaven.

Or something. A bit too romantic, maybe. But something other than driving all the way to Reydargerdi. Maybe even just getting to know the route from my new home to my new workplace.

“I knew you were difficult, but I won’t put up with this bullshit. You get over to the east with Jóa, and by dinnertime tomorrow I want an article with interviews and photos, and a mood piece, for Monday’s paper. You can’t do that by phone.”

I know he’s right. “Well, since you ask so nicely,” I say. “But I’ll have to send the article in on Monday morning. It will take eight or nine hours just to drive there and back.”

The news editor laughs. “Buddy! We’re a high-tech modern media company. You can take your laptop, write the piece at Reydargerdi, send it in with the photos, and then set off back to Akureyri.”

The fucking slave driver is right again. Apart from the modern technology stuff, I’m having trouble getting used to the new press time of the newspaper, 9:00 a.m. instead of 11:00. “As in the neighboring countries” was the phrase Hannes used: always a favorite with those who want to justify some pointless change. In the case of the
Afternoon News
it means that the paper is put to bed the evening before, with hardly a chance of getting a new story on the front page in the morning. It also means that the name of the
Afternoon News
now makes no sense at all.

“OK. But then you’ll have to allow me a bit more time after the weekend on the story about the high school students’ production of
Loftur the Sorcerer
at Hólar. The first performance is on Holy Thursday.”

“Hahahaha! Nice one!” Trausti Löve howls with laughter so the restaurant echoes with it. “Schoolkids performing What’s-His-Face
the Sorcerer! Oh, yeah, you can have plenty of time for a big news story like that. Of course! Why not? Ahahahahahaha!”

I don’t let him throw me. “And I want some time to investigate the growing market in illegal drugs here in the north, as I told you before.” He says nothing. Probably not listening. But I hear him laughing with a woman, who’s suggesting he ought to be out of range, except hers.

“Everything all right then, buddy?” says Trausti cheerfully when he comes back on the line.

“I have a right to days off, like other people. Like you, for instance.”

“Whatever,” he says. “Whatever.”

After Jóa and I have ordered a pizza and watched the weekly satirical news show—which I sometimes think is closer to the truth than the “real” news—we turn in to our separate bedrooms around ten. And I go to sleep, with my lorikeet by my side.