‘She doesn’t want to. She gets very agitated.’ Although the nurse didn’t describe the woman’s reactions in detail, Freyr was well aware that she was far from easy to deal with and it was unfair to expect the staff to have to insist on opening the window. He doubted he’d even be up to the challenge himself. At least not the way he felt now.
Freyr took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the room. He didn’t want to turn on the light for fear of startling her, feeling it would be better to approach her first on her own terms and then see whether it were possible to convince her that she’d feel better with fresh air and more light. ‘Hello, Úrsúla. I heard you wanted to talk to me.’ He walked cautiously towards the woman, wary in case he fell over something on the floor. She was sitting at the window, as before. The dim light of a streetlamp shone through the thick curtains, making her appear in silhouette. ‘So I decided to look in on you and see how you’re doing. I would have come this morning, but I had to make a quick trip to Reykjavík.’ No response. He was starting to think that Úrsúla had fallen asleep in her chair, even passed out from lack of oxygen, but when he went up close he could see that her eyes were open. She stared straight ahead at the curtains. ‘Don’t you want to open them to see out? Maybe it’ll start snowing again. I always find it very relaxing to watch the snowflakes fall.’
Úrsúla shook her head slowly. ‘No. Absolutely not.’ Her voice was hoarse, almost as if it were dusty. ‘I don’t want to see.’
‘Why not?’ Freyr pulled a stool over. Úrsúla didn’t look at him, but continued to stare straight ahead.
‘Do you think there’s something out there? If so, I can truly promise you that there are just a few cars, including mine.’
The woman suddenly snapped her head towards Freyr. ‘There’s more out there.’ She stared at him, seeming angry, as if he’d tried to convince her of some sort of damned nonsense that she could see through easily. ‘There’s more out there than just cars.’
‘Such as?’ Freyr kept calm, having seen and heard a lot in his time. The woman turned back towards the curtains with the same speed as she’d turned towards him. ‘The boy.’
‘The boy?’ Freyr frowned. ‘Not this late, Úrsúla. Maybe there was a boy out in the car park today, but now all the children have gone home for dinner. And you don’t have to worry about kids, they won’t do you any harm.’ Úrsúla pursed her lips and said nothing. Freyr watched her and considered the best way to keep the conversation going. It was unusual for her to express herself so much, and it would be a shame to waste the opportunity. ‘Did you want to get me here to talk about kids? I can certainly talk about them, and even tell you stories about a little boy I once knew well. He was often naughty, but always good inside. That’s what matters, as you know.’
‘Stories about Benni?’ The woman’s face didn’t change, leaving Freyr to drop his jaw in amazement. Where the hell had she heard his son’s name?
‘No, not about Benni.’ Freyr was careful to keep his cool. ‘But what do you know about him? Can you maybe tell me something about him?’
She shook her head as before, very slowly. ‘No, I know nothing about him.’ She swallowed. ‘I don’t know Benni.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Do you think the blind see things when they dream?’
Freyr had no idea. ‘Probably those who could see at one point but were blinded later on, but not those who were born blind. At least that’s what I’d imagine. Why do you ask?’
‘I don’t want to see any more. It’s better to be in the dark.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Freyr waited for Úrsúla to open her eyes again but she gave no sign that she would; she continued to sit there with her eyes closed, still as a statue. ‘It’s much better to see than not to see. Fortunately, there’s much more beauty than ugliness in the world. If you went out more often for walks you would start to realize that, and to realize that I’m right. Don’t you want to try? If I’m wrong, I’ll stop pestering you about it.’
‘I don’t want to go out. Not here, in this place. I know exactly what I’ll see.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘The boy.’ She screwed up her eyes so tightly again that her short, pale eyelashes were nearly swallowed up by her eyelids. ‘I don’t want eyes any more.’ Freyr watched her hands whiten on the arms of the chair.
‘Which boy is this, Úrsúla? Is he someone I know?’ She shook her head and he tried again. ‘Is he from here?’ She remained silent and didn’t confirm or deny it, either with a head movement or otherwise. ‘What’s his name? Or maybe he doesn’t have a name?’
Her eyes opened and she looked at Freyr. The fear in her face was tangible, a sick hunger that had etched out a new, yet terrifying reality in which she was trapped. As if the true one weren’t bad enough. ‘Bernódus.’ Tears ran down her cheeks. ‘He’s waiting for me outside.’ She wiped her tears with her bony hand. ‘He’s angry at me. So angry.’ She raised her hands to her eyes and stuck her fingernails into her eyebrows, so hard that blood sprang up from beneath them. Before Freyr managed to stop her, she’d scratched the skin open to the corners of her eyes.
Freyr grabbed at the woman and pulled her hands from her bleeding face, calling for help as loudly as he could. When he heard the rapid footsteps of the nurse coming down the corridor he relaxed his grip slightly. His voice even sounded completely calm when he asked her to fetch a tranquillizer immediately. After she’d run off again, he managed with some dexterity to move the woman’s hands to her lap, and held them there. ‘Calm down now, Úrsúla. Calm down.’
She laughed joylessly. It didn’t last long, and afterwards she looked at him, her face streaked with both blood and tears, now running down in streams. ‘He wants to hurt people. Did you know that? Hurt them, hurt them badly.’ She tilted her head as she stared into Freyr’s eyes. ‘Maybe you, too. But first he wants you to find Benni.’ A pair of blood-tinged tears ran down her chin and dripped onto the tired old bathrobe she wore over her nightclothes. ‘He tells me that in my head.’
Chapter 23
The pain in Katrín’s foot was so piercing that she had no doubt whatsoever that it was broken. Her foot had swollen fast and it had hurt so much when Líf and Garðar tried to remove her shoe that they’d had to cut it off instead. For some reason she was also colder than she should have been, shivering terribly despite being dressed warmly and wrapped in a blanket. She constantly had to fend off the thought that now she was in the same situation as long-past generations who ran the risk of developing gangrene in wounded limbs, losing them or even dying of septicaemia as a result. She was so tired and beaten up that she had trouble forming an opinion as to which would be worse. Compared to her current condition, her injuries after falling down the stairs had been mere trifles. ‘Coffee’s ready.’ Garðar handed her a steaming cup. ‘Drink this, it should warm you up a bit.’ His face was swollen around the cuts he’d received and in the eerie light of the torch he looked like a stranger.
‘Why didn’t I bring ibuprofen? I always have some in my bag, but now when I actually need it, it’s not there.’ Líf rummaged in a big, shiny black leather handbag and it wasn’t clear to Katrín whether she was searching so frantically for the painkillers for herself or for Katrín. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘I’ve got to go down to the doctor’s. Maybe there’s a first-aid kit there with medicine and bandages.’ Garðar spoke softly, his voice oddly distorted by the swelling in his cheek.
‘You’re not going anywhere. I’ll survive until morning.’ Katrín meant what she said. Although she was in more pain than she’d ever experienced, a terrible, sleepless night would be a hundred times better than Garðar going out alone into the pitch-black that had descended upon them as they inched their way back to the abandoned village. It was only a short distance to the doctor’s house but Katrín hadn’t been able to go any further than to theirs, and Garðar and Líf had actually had to carry her the final stretch. It had exhausted them, and Putti was tired as well. The plan had been to rest for a few minutes but then continue at a gentle pace to the doctor’s with as much firewood as they could carry, and sleep there that night. Their sleeping bags were there, as well as candles and security: the three things they needed most. But after Katrín’s shoe was removed, it was clear that she wouldn’t be going any further for now. None of them had stated the fact; they didn’t need to. It was only now that a trip over to the doctor’s was mentioned. ‘Why are you suggesting that? No one’s expecting you to go off by yourself and there’s no need to offer. We’ll be fine until morning without you playing the hero.’ Katrín’s fear of him rushing off into the unknown burst out of her as anger.