Of course, that time everything wasn’t covered in snow, but Katrín decided there was no point saying so. Líf would disregard all attempts to dissuade her. Katrín hoped her uncharacteristic cheeriness didn’t mean she’d cooked up a plan to dupe them into going further and further, until they unwittingly found themselves walking all the way to Ísafjörður. But then again, Líf hadn’t suggested that they bring food along, so it seemed unlikely, unless she’d completely lost her grip on reality and thought that they could live off the land along the way. The thought of forcibly dragging her back over slippery tree stumps and unbridged streams was less than appealing. ‘What were you doing all the way out here?’ Katrín almost lost her balance when she tripped on a bump in the middle of the path, concealed by the snow.
‘Oh, it was just a ridiculous idea I had.’ Líf’s pace hadn’t slowed even though she’d stumbled on the same bump as Katrín. ‘I’d read about it and thought maybe we could buy the whole shebang and turn the factory into a hotel or something. Don’t laugh when you see the state of the buildings.’ She stopped suddenly and pointed ahead. ‘See, we’re just about there. You can see the chimney. It’s just down here.’
Katrín paused at the top of the slope and stared down at the strip of low ground where the factory stood. The snow hadn’t managed to cover the ruins, which stood out darkly, distinctly, against the otherwise snowy white landscape. A towering chimney captured their attention, apparently only days away from collapsing. ‘Look, can you see the hole at the top of the chimney?’ She pointed, and both Líf and Garðar stopped their downward progress to look. ‘Is it safe to go near it?’
‘That was the Coast Guard. They used the chimney for target practice in the Cod Wars. Shot at it with a cannon.’ Líf resumed walking, and Garðar followed.
Katrín hesitated before following them. The light was steadily dwindling and she didn’t want to lose her step as she descended, in case she fell and hurt herself. Every step down also meant another step up on the way back. Putti had stopped with her on the edge of the slope and seemed worried, whining and barking to dissuade her from going down. Then he gave up and followed. Now the entire fjord was visible and Katrín found the unnaturally calm sea incredibly beautiful in the twilight. ‘I still can’t see a boat,’ she called down to Líf and Garðar, who were steadily increasing their lead, ‘Shouldn’t we turn back soon? It’ll be dark before long.’ They said nothing; they didn’t even slow down. ‘We came here to look for a boat, remember?’ Still no reaction. Irritated, she considered scooping Putti up in her arms and heading back without them. She was even seized by the childish notion that it would teach the other two a lesson if she got lost and froze to death. But a frantic bark from Putti brought her back down to earth. ‘What’s wrong, boy?’ She turned and saw that something in the sea seemed to be bothering the dog. She leaned down to him and tried to work out what he was staring at, before noticing two black humps sticking up from the surface of the sea just beyond land. At first she thought it was two wet, shiny stones, rocks on the seashore. But it wasn’t long before she realized their movements were being watched. ‘Seals!’ At this Líf and Garðar did stop, and turned around to see what was up. Katrín pointed at the sea, where the seals’ heads were still poking up, and smiled. Garðar smiled back at her but Líf simply shook her head and continued walking.
Katrín nudged Putti forward with her foot and made to set out after them, her mood now lighter. Putti stayed where he was, growling and staring at the seals. ‘Enough of that nonsense. They’re not about to come to shore, so you’re safe.’ Putti stopped growling and gave her a mournful look, as if he wanted to tell her something. He made do with licking her hand, and she tried to cheer him up by scratching him briskly behind the ear. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with. Then we’ll go home. I don’t want to be here any more than you do.’ She stood up and walked away, Putti right behind her. When she saw how reluctantly he was moving she picked him up, though that would slow her down even more. And in fact she was in no hurry; it would be dark on the way back, whether or not it took her a few minutes longer to make it down the slope. From time to time she looked towards the seals and was never disappointed; they shifted their positions slightly, but continued to stare in her direction. Of course they were too far away for her to get a good look at their faces, but she recalled the saying, ‘seals have men’s eyes’. Putti, however, was now carefully avoiding looking at the sea, probably because his primitive dog logic told him that if he couldn’t see the seals, they were no longer there. When Katrín put him down at the base of the slope, he shook himself and seemed to perk up again, since the seals were no longer visible.
‘Isn’t it fantastic?’ Líf was sitting on a low concrete wall tossing a cigarette pack from one hand to the other, as if wondering whether she should have one more or preserve them for later. ‘What do you think?’ She gestured around her with the pack.
‘Well, I won’t laugh at your idea about the hotel.’ Katrín studied the ruins. Everywhere she looked she saw reddish-brown; rusted tanks and hulking lumps of iron in among half-collapsed brick buildings. A brick or two poked up out of the snow, as did twisted shapes of wrought iron. ‘But God, this place is weird.’ The factory must have been among the biggest in the country in its time, but it had truly seen better days. Katrín could see that the buildings were unrestorable. The roof of a large room located beneath the tall chimney had collapsed and now hung in strips from long iron rods, and none of the walls had withstood the ravages of time, though they had fallen into ruin in a variety of ways. ‘Why did they need such a tall chimney?’
‘I don’t know.’ Líf leaned her head back so she could look up at it. Unbelievably, it was in the best state of repair of all their surroundings.
‘They were liquefying something. Making cod-liver oil, maybe.’ Garðar had been silent for so long that he was slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat. ‘But don’t ask me about all this iron junk. I haven’t got the faintest idea what it’s for.’ Rusting cranes, winches, bolts, pipes and tanks lay silently around them, revealing nothing.
‘I’d like to know what this thing is behind me.’ Líf peered into a long pit beneath the wall where she sat. A huge iron pipe supported by welded-on struts leaned over it, a short distance from them. ‘There’s all sorts of stuff in there that must have had some purpose.’
Garðar glanced into the pit and then looked speculatively up and down the pipe’s length. When he spoke it was clear that he was just as clueless as they were about the factory’s former activities. ‘This had something to do with processing offal, I reckon.’
‘Ugh.’ Líf turned away from the pit, though without leaving her perch on the wall, where she was comfortable enough. ‘You should look inside, if you think it’s strange out here.’ She pointed Katrín to a large opening leading into the darkened factory. ‘But don’t go in. Just look through the hole.’
Katrín felt ill at ease, but she said nothing. She thought she heard a noise from the beach below them. She checked to see whether Putti was still with them, or if the seals had come ashore and he’d perhaps gone after them. He hadn’t; he was still standing next to her, looking dejected. Katrín glanced at the mountains across the fjord; they would soon be invisible in the dark. She found it isolating to think that across the huge span of territory lying before their eyes, there was probably not another single soul. She was momentarily struck by the question of what she would do if Garðar and Líf were gone when she turned around. She couldn’t hear them; neither the scraping of their shoes nor their breathing. This was probably just because she’d pulled her hood over her head, but it felt as if she were entranced by the sea and the dark blue, white-capped mountains, just as Putti had been spellbound by the seals. If she didn’t turn around, Líf and Garðar would still be there and would continue to be there until she pulled her eyes away from the sea and saw that they were gone.