Season of the Witch (31 page)

“Yes, that’s right,” he says, continuing toward the door. “We give some support to local cultural events from time to time.”

“It’s certainly praiseworthy when the private sector makes the effort to sponsor the arts.”

He looks me up and down. “Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering if you knew a young man named Skarphédinn Valgardsson?”

“Skarphédinn Valgardsson? Isn’t that the boy who was found dead at the dump?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Wasn’t he the one who called you to ask you to sponsor the play?”

“Quite possibly,” he replies. “Some young man called and asked for sponsorship. Was that him?”

“I think it must have been.”

“So?”

Without waiting for an answer, he disappears down the stairs.

Not that I could have said anything.

No landline is listed for Mördur Njálsson in Reydargerdi. I call information and get his cell phone number.

It goes straight to voice mail:

“This is Mördur. Leave a message.”

As a rule, I have to force myself to comply with such churlishly worded orders. This time I haven’t got the energy to make myself speak.

I call Óskar at Hotel Reydargerdi and ask how things are around town.

“Much the same,” he answers. “We’re as busy as ever, and everything’s topsy-turvy.”

“Any news of Agnar and Co. since they got out?”

“Much the same too,” he laughs. “They’re pretty busy, keeping themselves topsy-turvy.”

“Are they behaving themselves?”

“No, they never behave themselves. They run wild in the evening, complaining of injustice one minute then boasting about getting the better of the Akureyri police. Those boys are just a total mess.”

“Have they been allowed back into Reydin?”

“They haven’t been barred, I don’t think. But they get thrown out on a regular basis. I just heard they’re off to Akureyri for some fun this weekend.”

“That’s something to look forward to, then.”

“Not really. I hear they’ve been muttering about revenge.”

“What revenge? What for? And against whom?”

“I don’t know. I doubt if they know themselves. It’s just some kind of revenge, for something, against someone. That’s all a pack of idiots like that need.”

“Well, well. By the way, do you know someone called Mördur Njálsson?”

“Mördur? Sure.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s just a kid, about twenty, who used to live in Akureyri. He moved here to study for his high school exams. He’s an extramural student. And he’s also writing something. He wanted some peace and quiet to work.”

“It’s debatable whether there’s more peace and quiet over there at present, surely?”

“No, he’s got a little house at the edge of the village, very peaceful. He’s a quiet kid.”

“Do you know where I can get in touch with him?”

“No, I don’t. But he dropped in a couple of days ago for a coffee. He said he was driving south to Reykjavík and staying the weekend, so far as I remember.”

“
Bon voyage
,” I savagely mutter.

Before I go home to Polly to give us both a bath, I call the head office in Reykjavík and ask for my friend Guffi. He has moved on from his old job in foreign news and been promoted to the business section, after being admitted to the hallowed ranks of MBA students at trendy Reykjavík University. Guffi is better informed than anyone else I know about developments in business, the machinations of investors, and the pursuit of worldly pleasures—having moved on from the radical Marxism of his youth. I suppose that’s what they mean by progress.

“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!”