Sun on Fire (15 page)

The rusty gate’s hinges squealed as Birkir pushed it open, startling a flock of snow buntings from the stately line of tall poplar trees in front of the house. Birkir paused and considered the yard. It was mostly filled with dense trees and bushes; aspens, rowans, and birches intertwined chaotically over low-growing bushes—perhaps red currants, he thought. Amid the trees were sculptures made of various materials, and little rivulets of water trickling into small ponds. Against the wall of the house was an old bench that looked like it might have once belonged to a bus stop.

In the driveway sat an old American car; judging by its completely flat tires and rusted fenders, it had been there a long time. Birkir peered in through a half-open window. The car’s interior was covered in bird droppings, and between the front seats was a small abandoned nest.

“The wagtail nests there every summer,” a woman’s voice said behind Birkir.

Birkir spun round.

“There were four eggs this year.” The speaker was a tiny old woman snugly wrapped in a thick parka, hood up, and with a green parrot sitting atop her head. “They all hatched chicks,” she added, beaming. “I’m taking Konstantín for a walk,” she said by way of explanation, noticing Birkir looking at the bird. “Bye, then.” She turned abruptly and walked away. The parrot flapped its wings to maintain balance, but stood firm as they disappeared beyond the surrounding wall.

Birkir turned back to take a better look at the house. It was in sore need of maintenance: In several places, the dark roughcast finish had come away from the walls, and somebody had done a slapdash job of patching the worst bits with pale-colored cement, which looked particularly bad against the original facade. A sheet of plywood replaced a broken windowpane in the basement. It bore the house’s name, “Jónshús,” crudely painted in black lettering. Three cooing pigeons sat on the awning above the front door.

Birkir pressed the doorbell and heard it ringing inside the house. After a short while, the door was opened by a woman in her fifties wearing no makeup, and with thick, grayish hair gathered into two braids. She wore faded jeans and a flamboyant T-shirt that reached halfway down to her knees.

Birkir introduced himself and asked for Fabían.

“Yes, he is expecting you. Please come in.” Her voice was slightly hoarse, almost a whisper.

Birkir heard someone playing jazz on the piano in the living room.

“Fabían’s room is upstairs,” the woman said, and pointed Birkir toward the staircase in the hall. Birkir went ahead and she
followed. Everywhere works of art decorated the walls, and Birkir paused on a step to take a closer look.

“Jón’s lodgers sometimes pay their rent with pictures,” the woman said. “And he always hangs them up.”

“Is Jón at home?” Birkir asked.

“No, he went downtown with a friend.”

They moved on up the stairs and entered a hallway that stretched the full length of the house. A man lay asleep, fully dressed, on a narrow couch next to the wall.

The woman whispered, “This is a homeless guy I let rest here sometimes when things are bad for him. Fabían’s room is over here, second on the left.” She slipped past him and opened the door. “Please come in.”

“Thank you,” Birkir said and walked in. The room was empty, but Birkir saw a half-open door to the right and light behind it.

“Fabían, dear, you’ve got a visitor,” the woman called out.

“Just a moment,” came a voice from the other room.

The woman gave Birkir a smile and said, “He’s coming.” She went out, leaving the door ajar.

Birkir looked around. This was the bedroom of a chronically ill patient. Despite the open window, the air was heavy with smells of medicines and disinfectants—and also with the odor of some kind of incense, Birkir thought. Or maybe cannabis.

The bed was large and robust with an adjustable frame, and above it a bar to help the patient pull himself up. On the comforter nestled a cordless phone; within reach by the side of the bed was a DVD player and sound system, and at its foot a wall-mounted television. Classical music wafted quietly from speakers. Birkir recognized the orchestral version of Pachelbel’s
Canon
.

There were shelves stuffed full of magazines and books. The large bedside table held medicine bottles, tubes of ointment, a
thermometer, a banana, and a water bottle. Next to the bed stood two chairs, and in the middle of the room was a wheelchair.

Birkir heard someone flushing a toilet and washing their hands at a sink. There was a cough, and then the door to the little bathroom opened wide and Fabían entered the bedroom.

“Good afternoon,” Birkir said. He introduced himself.

“Hi,” Fabían said. He was dressed in blue cotton pajamas and woolen socks. His snowy-white hair was still as thick as a young boy’s, cut in a fringe across his forehead and long enough to cover his ears. He had a neat nose, large eyes, a delicate chin, and a small mouth—his pale lips were almost invisible. Although tired and drawn, it was an extraordinarily childlike face that seemed to have grown older in step with the body, yet never matured. Like a being from another world, Birkir thought.

He said, “Thank you for seeing me. I hope this is not a bad time for you?”

“No, I’m all right at the moment,” Fabían replied.

Though Birkir was only five foot five, Fabían was considerably smaller, and his emaciated body was almost lost in his too-big pajamas. He took a thick dressing gown from its hook and wrapped it around himself. Then he switched off the music. “I’m always cold,” he said, offering Birkir a seat. He sat down in the other chair. “The Berlin trip was too much for me. I’ve been in bed since I got home.” His voice was quiet and gentle.

Birkir set up his voice recorder, dictated the formalities, and asked Fabían to consent to his recording their conversation.

Fabían nodded, listlessly.

Birkir spoke into the recorder, “Fabían indicates his consent with a nod.”

There was a momentary silence while Birkir set the machine on the table, and then he continued, “The object of this interview
is to go over incidents that took place at the Icelandic embassy in Berlin the evening of Sunday, October eleventh, and early morning of Monday, October twelfth. You were present, were you not?”

“Yes.” Fabían nodded again.

“You know why I’m asking about that evening, don’t you?”

“Yes, we heard on the news that one of the guests had been found dead. It’s not difficult to guess which one.”

“Why were you at this party?”

“My friend Jón the Sun Poet asked me to go with him on this reading trip to Berlin.”

“When did you arrive in Berlin?”

“October ninth, that Friday. We had planned to stay just over a week.”

“Why did that plan change?”

Fabían reached out for the water bottle and took a swig. He gagged briefly, but managed to keep things down. “Can I do anything for you?” Birkir asked.

Fabían shook his head. He took some time to recover before replying, “I’m not too good. That’s why the plan changed. I had a relapse. After two days in Berlin I’d had my fill of traveling. It’s hard enough for healthy folks to keep up with my friend Jón, let alone an invalid like me. I managed to change my flight, and flew back Monday.”

“Were you OK to travel alone?”

“No, I couldn’t do that. The artist Helgi Kárason came with me. He looked after everything—booking my flight, check-in, everything. He took me in a wheelchair to and from the airplane. I’ve never been well enough to do much traveling, so I need a reliable escort. I don’t speak any foreign languages either, so I’m pretty lost abroad. Helgi took wonderful care of me.”

“So, you were a guest at the embassy at a time when someone died. Can you go back over what happened during the last hour or so you were there?”

“It was pretty much the same as at any cocktail party that’s about to break up. People were variously sober. Or not.”

“Meaning?”

“The ambassador and his wife had gotten unnecessarily argumentative, and David and Starkadur were turning all melodramatic.” Fabían coughed and took a sip of water. “By this time I was totally fed up with Jón, and I was getting sick. Lúdvík had fallen asleep in the bathroom, and Helgi—who was sober—was trying to maintain order.”

“And Anton?”

“He spent most of the time either in the ambassador’s office making calls or in the bathroom. I guess he had an upset stomach. The food wasn’t much good.”

Upset? Yes, his stomach was certainly that
, Birkir thought, but not because of the food. “Can you remember anyone else leaving the party to follow Anton upstairs?” he said.

“Nobody went upstairs.”

“Nobody?”

“No, definitely not. Are you sure Anton didn’t commit suicide?”

“What makes you say that?”

“He was always alone upstairs.” Fabían reached into the nightstand’s drawer and fished out a hand-rolled cigarette and matches.

“Did you notice that Anton wasn’t in the group when you left the embassy?” Birkir asked.

“No. People left in dribs and drabs. I thought that Anton had gone ahead of us. I was sure the ambassador had arranged taxis
for everyone,” Fabían said, lighting his cigarette—which didn’t smell like tobacco. “I use this to counteract the nausea from the drugs. I hope the smoke doesn’t bother you.”

Birkir moved his chair back a little. “I need to take finger and palm prints from you for comparison. Do you consent to that?”

“How does that work?”

“You put your fingers and your palm on a special ink pad, and then you press them onto paper.”

“Ink? So it’s a colorant?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“In that case I can’t do it. I’ve got terrible skin allergies, and all colorants are very bad for me.”

Fabían held out his arms and pulled up the sleeves of his nightshirt. Red patches of eczema extended down to the backs of his hands.

Birkir said, “We may have other ways of doing it. I’ll need to talk to our technician.”

Fabían shook his head. “I don’t think we’re likely to agree on this. I’m extremely wary of all chemical substances.”

Birkir hesitated, then decided to change the subject. “We’ve been checking the security-camera footage. We studied images of all of you on your way into the embassy, and then again on your way out, so we have a good picture of how everyone was dressed. We saw that when you left the embassy you were wearing Jón’s jacket and carrying your own.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Jón’s jacket was warmer. I was cold. Jón is never cold.”

“Can I see your jacket, please?”

“No, I’m sorry. I left it behind in the hotel in Berlin, hanging in the closet. Very careless of me, but I guess it doesn’t matter,
since I won’t have much need of my clothes in the future. It was no great loss.”

“I’ll get the embassy to chase it down at the hotel,” Birkir said.

“That’s very kind of you. I guess they’ll send it to me, then.”

“You’ll get it back after we’ve given it a thorough examination. Were you wearing a shirt?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“All my clothes went to the laundry as soon as I got back. Rakel took care of that.”

“Rakel?”

“She let you in here. She lives with us and looks after me when she’s not on duty at the hospital. She’s a nurse. I am very fortunate to have such good friends.”

“Did you know the other guests at the embassy?”

“I’ve known Jón since I was a kid. I also know Helgi well. I didn’t know the others. I don’t know many people.”

“Had you met Anton before?”

Fabían didn’t reply immediately. His stomach seemed to be hurting, and he grimaced. “No,” he finally said. “Not that I know of.”

“Did you talk to him at all that evening?”

“Yes, I wanted to sketch him.”

“How did he respond to that?”

“Pretty well, to start with.”

“What happened then?”

“He asked me why I wanted to draw his picture.”

“How did you respond?”

“I said I’d never seen a face before that looked like a pig’s ass.”

Heavy footsteps approached the room. A voice thundered, “What’s going on here?” as the door flew open and Jón stormed in.

Birkir was startled, but Fabían raised both hands. “Just a polite chat,” he said. “I don’t often have visitors.”

Jón looked from Birkir to Fabían and back again, but decided to let things lie.

“Fabían is an invalid,” he said to Birkir. “We really don’t want him disturbed.”

“The occasional disturbance can be good,” Fabían said somewhat petulantly.

“We’re done,” said Birkir, and packed away the recorder. He stood up.

“No need to run away,” Jón said, abashed.

“That’s OK,” Birkir said. “You can show me out.”

He turned back to Fabían. “Thanks for talking with me. I may need to speak to you again.”

Fabían replied, “It’s a pleasure. Why don’t you stop by tonight? I’m at my best in the evening. And you have a good presence.”

“I’ll try to come by,” Birkir said. Fabían aroused his curiosity, and he thought it might be interesting to talk to him informally.

“I’d like that,” Fabían said.

Birkir went into the hall and down the stairs.

Birkir stopped a moment in the foyer and turned to Jón, who’d followed him down. “Have you thought of anything that might help us in our investigation? Something in addition to what you told us in Frankfurt?”

“Come into the living room,” Jón said.

It was a large room containing a miscellany of unmatched furniture. At one end was a full-size grand piano, at which sat a young man wearing thick glasses.

“This is Jörundur,” Jón said. “He is a composer.”

As if to confirm this, Jörundur struck two chords on the instrument and then took up a pencil and wrote something down
on a piece of staff paper. The parrot Birkir had encountered on his arrival was now perched in a large cage next to the piano. It screeched when the composer played a couple more chords. “Sometimes he comes up with useful suggestions,” Jón said, pointing at the bird.

“Hardly ever happens,” Jörundur countered. “It’s just noise.”

“Is there anything you can tell me about Berlin?” Birkir asked again.