‘But what if he isn’t upstairs? I don’t want to go up there alone. Can’t you go, or at least come with me?’
‘I can hardly get from one room to another. How am I supposed to go up the stairs? Believe me, I would if I could.’ Katrín knew she would have to do better than this to get Líf to do what she was asking. ‘I’ll come and stand by the stairs, where I can see you at all times, and the only thing you need to do is open the door to the bedroom and peek in. Putti can go with you if it would make you feel better.’
‘But what if we both go and stand by the stairs and shout as loudly as we can? If Garðar doesn’t answer, then we’ll know he’s not up there.’
‘But what if he’s there and can’t answer? Or he’s been knocked out or something? What then?’
Finally Líf was persuaded to go up while Katrín watched from the bottom of the stairs and urged her on. Líf took Putti with her but had to hold onto him, since he tried to turn around at every step and go back to Katrín. ‘Open the door, nothing will happen.’ Katrín tried to sound encouraging, but couldn’t suppress the thought that she was glad she wasn’t in Líf’s shoes. There was no window in the stairwell, making it dark and cold. Katrín regretted not having brought a candle.
‘Garðar?’ Líf’s weak voice wouldn’t have disturbed a conscious person, never mind a sleeping one. ‘Are you there?’ She grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open. Putti stared straight down at Katrín, his eyes telling her that he didn’t have a clue why he couldn’t be downstairs with her. Líf turned to Katrín with a look of relief. ‘Nothing.’ Then she went to the next door and did the same, and again there was nothing to see in the room. The third and final door was a little too far down the hall for Katrín to see all the way. When Líf realized this she went back and stood on the top step. ‘I don’t want to open any doors unless I can see you.’ She made ready to come down. ‘I’m not kidding. I’m not going to do it.’
Katrín sighed and grabbed the handrail. With great effort she managed to wriggle up the steps high enough to see the third door. It led to the room where they’d previously been sleeping. ‘Try it now. I can see you clearly.’
Líf turned around and walked down the hallway, but looked back twice on her way to reassure herself that Katrín could still see her. Finally she came to the door and stood there awkwardly before looking nervously at Katrín, who signalled to her to hurry up and get it over with. At that Líf grew bolder and opened the door, more firmly and confidently than she had the other two. Which was a shame, considering how startled she was by what she saw. Líf let Putti drop without thinking. The dog landed more or less on his feet and ran immediately back to Katrín, leaving Líf behind by herself.
‘What’s there?’ Katrín was preparing herself mentally to have to clamber all the way up to see what Líf was staring at. ‘Is it Garðar?’ She felt burning tears forming in the corners of her eyes while part of her brain constructed all sorts of images of her husband dead in the empty, ice-cold room.
Her question roused Líf. ‘No, no. It isn’t Garðar.’ She turned from the door, crossed the hallway in a few large strides and took two stairs at a time to get down to Katrín. When she got there she hung trembling onto Katrín, who just managed to keep her balance by supporting herself against the wall. She didn’t want to tumble down the stairs again, though the fall would be shorter than last time. ‘There’s nobody in there, I swear.’ Katrín stared at her open-mouthed. ‘The floor is covered with fucking shells and I felt someone breathe in my face.’ She looked at Katrín and seemed to be irritated by how indifferently she reacted. ‘There was nothing there last night when we went to get the sleeping bags. Not one shell. And I’m not making it up about the breathing; I’m sure that disgusting stench is still sticking to my skin.’ She glanced sidelong down the hallway. Katrín smelled a putrid odour as she turned her head. ‘Is this some sort of misguided joke on Garðar’s part? Do you think he’s hiding here somewhere to see our reactions?’
‘No.’ Katrín knew in her heart that this wasn’t the explanation. Garðar wouldn’t be wasting time collecting shells at the beach just to scare them, especially not when he was exhausted in the middle of the night. But there was something else that convinced her that Garðar had nothing to do with this, which was a soft, sad voice inside her telling her that he was gone for good; that she would never see him again.
That voice faded as they went outside to continue their search for Garðar. Although Líf supported Katrín, they made slow progress and realized almost immediately that they wouldn’t get far and would never manage to comb the entire area. They spied tracks in the snow going from the porch towards the sea, a route they couldn’t recall any of them having taken before. The tracks were recent and large enough to convince them that they were Garðar’s. They looked around the house without any success and then decided to try to follow the tracks, at least for some distance. Along the way Líf regularly called Garðar’s name loudly and shrilly, until Katrín asked her to stop. She found it uncomfortable to hear the silence return after every shout, each time more painful to her than the last. Katrín was at her wits’ end when they came across another set of tracks, looking as if whoever made them had fallen from the sky and landed next to Garðar. Putti sniffed at them but jumped back immediately with a soft whine. ‘Come on, Líf. Let’s go back inside and lock the door behind us.’ The voice inside her head now sounded louder than before as it kept on repeating the familiar refrain, causing Katrín’s head to spin. Garðar isn’t coming back. She watched three distant seagulls flying in circles over the sea and plunging downwards to snatch the food that was waiting for them below. She couldn’t rid herself of the horrible feeling that Garðar was floating there half submerged, with the seabirds pecking at whatever was left of him.
She stared sadly at the tracks and watched a tear fall from her cheek. It landed in the snow, between two prints made by a barefoot child.
Chapter 28
The northern lights danced in the black sky. The long ribbon expanded and retracted dynamically, powered by forces that Freyr didn’t understand, sometimes looking as if it reached the ends of the earth. Occasionally pink waves passed through it but the green aura always returned in full force, holding Freyr’s attention. He was near the harbour, in the Lower Market, the oldest part of town, whose origin could be traced back to merchants operating under the Danish trade monopoly in the mid-eighteenth century. Most of the buildings dated from that period and if he ignored several modern memorials, he felt as if he could be a destitute farmer from a former time coming to make a deposit with his merchant. He sat on a large stone outside Tjöruhús, a charming restaurant in an old renovated warehouse that was more reminiscent of Denmark than of Iceland. Freyr had only managed to eat there once before the place had closed for the winter, but he would certainly be among those waiting on the doorstep for it to open again in the spring. It had been during one of his first evenings in Ísafjörður. Two colleagues of his from the hospital had suggested they have dinner together to get to know each other better. Freyr had been so taken by the ultra-fresh seafood that he’d added little to their conversation apart from compliments about the food. They hadn’t asked him to hang out with them outside work again, which was actually fine by him. He had little in common with these family men who had lives outside the hospital.
However, it wasn’t the memory of the excellent meal that had brought him down to Lower Market. An aimless walk had led him by coincidence to this historical spot; maybe he’d wandered here instinctively because of how few people were out and about in the area, assuring him peace and quiet to ponder things and compose his thoughts. He was amazed he’d managed to complete his working day without embarrassing himself. His hands had trembled so much that he could barely do anything requiring any kind of dexterity and he could hardly follow the thread of a conversation when speaking to others. The recording from his mobile phone had thrown him completely off balance, and although he’d previously thought he’d heard his son’s voice, and in the same place, it changed a great deal that now he had a recording confirming it. Maybe because it made it much more difficult to ascribe the incident to hallucination, stress or imagination. That alone, however, wasn’t enough, because of course he could still be convincing himself that he was hearing things that weren’t there. For this reason, when he’d heard the caretaker busying himself with changing the faulty fluorescent bulb, he’d rushed into the corridor and asked the flabbergasted man to tell him what he heard on the phone. ‘Tell the truth. Then you’ll find me, Daddy,’ the man had replied. The words had affected Freyr so strongly that he couldn’t care less about the bewildered look on the caretaker’s face. He’d received confirmation that he hadn’t misheard it, and he didn’t care if this injected new life into the gossip in the break room about the strange, antisocial psychiatrist from the south.