Sara hung up. Freyr prayed to God that she would still send him the files.
Chapter 29
Katrín found the fact that Líf was a giant bundle of nerves helped her stay calm. While everything was focussed on preventing Líf from completely losing it, she had something to think about and could keep the depression hovering over her at bay. She badly wanted to crawl into her sleeping bag, pull it up over her head and wait for whatever awful thing might come. She didn’t think for a second that they were going to find anything good, which dragged her down but carried with it the advantage of preventing unrealistic expectations from getting in her way. There was also a peculiar comfort in knowing that although tragedy was around the corner, she would face it with her head held high; she was broken but not defeated. Obviously, it wasn’t as though she had any choice in the matter; one of them had to take charge, and it certainly wasn’t going to be Líf. Let alone Putti, who seemed to have given in to depression and slept curled up on Garðar’s sleeping bag more or less all day.
‘We should eat something.’ Katrín adjusted her position where she sat on a mattress in the dining room. Her foot was troubling her less and less; the pain was just as bad but she’d grown used to it, and the painkillers took away the worst of it. She suspected that this was a bad omen and that under normal circumstances what was most dangerous for her now was lack of immediate medical attention, not falling prey to the unfathomable and the unknown. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ They hadn’t had anything to eat since waking up; the day had passed without them paying any attention to their appetites. Now it was evening. Katrín didn’t particularly feel like eating, but knew it wasn’t wise to sleep on an empty stomach. She was afraid of waking up hungry in the middle of the night and having to stumble to the kitchen alone in the dark. That was out of the question.
Líf stared at the open doorway as if wanting to say something to someone standing just inside it. ‘Do you think if someone does something bad, they always get punished for it?’ She fiddled listlessly with the tattered cigarette packet. There was only one cigarette left inside.
‘What are you on about now?’ Katrín prepared to pull herself to her feet. If she knew her at all, Líf would follow her. ‘Some people get what’s coming to them, others don’t. Somehow my instinct tells me that the mess we’ve ended up in isn’t payback for past sins, if that’s what you mean. I can’t imagine we’ve done anything awful enough to deserve this.’ Her battered nerve endings sent her brain a desperate message to keep quiet. Putti seemed to sense this; he raised his head and looked at her with dark, melancholy eyes that seemed to tell her that there was nothing to be done. This was bad, and it would only get worse. Yet the pain in her foot told her that she was still alive; soon she would feel nothing.
‘I think this is revenge on us. Maybe the dead will work together and help each other carry it out. What do you think?’ Líf sounded half-dead herself.
‘I think that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what could Garðar have done to deserve…’ She couldn’t complete the sentence; she didn’t want to, and indeed she didn’t know how to. What had happened to Garðar? Líf looked at Katrín and opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Katrín turned back to the dark doorway, which the flickering candlelight wasn’t strong enough to illuminate properly. ‘Come on. Let’s eat. You’ll feel better afterwards, and maybe you’ll see how ridiculous this is when your blood sugar level rises. We mustn’t give up on ourselves completely.’ Putti stood up and hobbled on sore paws towards Katrín. His breed wasn’t meant to live under these conditions, and they were starting to take their toll on him.
‘Some people die of blood sugar levels that are too high.’ Líf didn’t look as if she was about to move. She laughed dryly and her shoulders shook beneath the blanket she’d wrapped around herself. ‘And others, too low.’ Again she laughed, but stopped without completing the laugh normally, laughing for one second and then staring straight ahead as if in shock the next.
‘We’re in no danger of either. I can promise you that.’ Katrín supported herself on the wall as an intense pain in her foot passed up her leg. Líf made no indication of either saying anything or getting up. ‘If you don’t come with me you’ll be here alone in the dark. Putti’s coming with me, and I’ll take the candle as well.’ There was no reason to take Líf’s candle; there were enough of them in the kitchen. This was a desperate attempt to get Líf to stand up and come with her. Katrín would never admit it out loud, but she simply didn’t have the nerve to go alone, whether Putti went with her or not. ‘You decide.’
Líf turned her head slightly to face Katrín. The dancing candle flame was reflected in her pupils, making it look as if something were squirming in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to die, Katrín. Not alone.’ She stood up. When she walked away her gait was like Putti’s, suggesting surrender and hopelessness; the steps of a doomed prisoner going to his execution.
‘You’re not going to die.’ Katrín’s words sounded to her like a lie, or a bad joke. ‘We’ll feel better after we’ve eaten.’ She didn’t want to say more, but she knew she would have to get Líf to understand that they needed to go out before nightfall. It was best to wait to tell her this until after they were full and hopefully feeling a bit braver. A ghastly smile crept over Katrín’s lips; as if food could overcome the dread that possessed them both! But they needed firewood, and they all had to go out to relieve themselves. Besides, they could call out for Garðar, send his name out into the darkness in the faint hope that he would hear it and follow it back. How ridiculous. ‘Take the candle with you, Líf. We need to be able to see.’
The shadows the orange light cast over Líf’s face gave her a terrifying aspect; her eyes sunken into black pools and her bones jutting out as if the flesh had retreated. The ghostlike effect wasn’t lessened when she spoke. ‘What do you think happened to Garðar?’ she whispered, as if not wanting anyone to hear her.
‘I don’t know, Líf. Hopefully he just ran into some difficulty and had to take shelter in another house. Maybe he’s unable to get back here – if he got injured or knocked out or something.’ Katrín bit her lip, hoping she wasn’t right to think that Garðar wasn’t anywhere inside, but rather lying in the open air with the cold snow as a mattress and nothing but the merciless wind as a blanket. ‘He’s probably at the doctor’s house.’ Katrín felt as if she could influence reality just by saying this. As if the universe was waiting for her to dictate his fate. ‘That must be where he is.’
‘Then why don’t we go there?’ The hope that filled Líf’s eyes was nearly enough to balance out the shadows from the candle and make her face look human again. ‘I could help you, and it would take us no time at all. Please.’
‘I can’t make it, Líf. We’d need to cross the stream and my foot is worse. I can’t make it over on one foot, and it would be risky for you to carry me piggyback. What if you slipped and we fell into the icy water? We’d freeze to death before we made it back inside. You could go alone, of course, but I’m not sure you have the nerves for it. Am I wrong?’ Katrín held her breath for fear that Líf would suddenly offer to go. It would probably mean the end for both of them if they parted.
‘He won’t be there either.’ Líf’s tone was once more full of surrender; the spark of hope that had been audible when she still clung to the illusion that if they got out of this house, things would be all right had been extinguished just as quickly as it had ignited. She looked at Katrín. ‘But you should know one thing. It’s better to lose your husband because he died than because he left you for another woman.’