He tried to get her to agree to him having the children for part of the week or month, but she flatly refused and told him that he would never see them again if he left her. She would see to that.
And then he disappeared. Disappeared out of the life of the little girl of two who was in her nappy and holding a dummy as she watched him walk out of the door. A little, white dummy that squeaked when she bit it.
“We’re going about this the wrong way,” Erlendur said.
That squeaking.
He bowed his head. He thought the nurse was walking past the door again.
“I don’t know what became of that man,” Erlendur said in a barely audible voice, looking at his daughter’s face, which was more peaceful than he had ever seen it. The outlines clearer. Looked at the equipment that was keeping her alive. Then looked back down at the floor.
A long time passed in this way until he stood up, bent over Eva Lind and kissed her on the forehead.
“He disappeared and I think he’s still lost and has been for a long time, and I’m not certain he’ll ever be found. It’s not your fault. It happened before you came into the world. I think he’s looking for himself, but he doesn’t know why or exactly what he’s searching for, and obviously he’ll never find it.”
Erlendur looked down at Eva Lind.
“Unless you help him.”
Her face like a cold mask in the lamplight from the table next to her bed.
“I know you’re searching for him and I know that if there’s anyone who can find him, it’s you.”
He turned away from her, poised to leave, when he saw his ex-wife standing in the doorway. He did not know how long she had been standing there. Did not know how much she had heard of what he had told Eva Lind. She was wearing the same brown coat as before, on top of a jogging suit, but now she wore stilettos too, an outfit which made her look ridiculous. Erlendur had barely seen her for more than two decades, and he noticed how she had aged during that time, how her facial features had lost their sharpness, her cheeks fattened and a double chin started to form.
“That was a repulsive lie you told Eva Lind about the abortion.” Erlendur seethed with rage.
“Leave me alone,” Halldora said. Her voice had aged too. Grown hoarse. Smoking too much. Too long.
“What other lies did you tell the kids?”
“Get out,” she said, moving away from the door so that he could get past.
“Halldora…”
“Get out,” she repeated. “Just go and leave me in peace.”
“We both wanted the children.”
“Don’t you regret it?” she said.
Erlendur didn’t follow.
“Do you think they had any business coming into this world?”
“What happened?” Erlendur said. “What made you like this?”
“Get out,” she said. “You’re good at leaving. So leave! Leave me in peace with her.”
Erlendur stared at her.
“Halldora…”
“Leave, I said.” She raised her voice. “Get out of here. This minute. Leave! I don’t want you around! I never want to see you again!”
Erlendur walked past her and out of the room, and she closed the door behind him.
21
Sigurdur Oli finished searching the cellar that evening without discovering any more about Benjamin’s tenants in the chalet on the hill. He did not care. He was relieved to escape from that task. Bergthora was waiting for him when he got home. She had bought some red wine and was in the kitchen sipping it. Took out another glass and handed it to him.
“I’m not like Erlendur,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Never say anything so nasty about me.”
“But you want to be like him,” Bergthora said. She was cooking pasta and had lit candles in the dining room. A beautiful setting for an execution, Sigurdur Oli thought.
“All men want to be like him,” Bergthora said.
“Aei, why do you say that?”
“Left to their own devices.”
“That’s not right. You can’t imagine what a pathetic life Erlendur leads.”
“I need to work out our relationship at least,” Bergthora said, pouring wine into Sigurdur Oli’s glass.
“Okay, let’s work out our relationship.” Sigurdur Oli had never met a more practical woman than Bergthora. This conversation was not going to be about the love in their lives.
“We’ve been together now for, what, three or four years, and nothing’s happening. Not a thing. You pull faces as soon as I start talking about anything that vaguely resembles commitment. We still have completely separate finances. A church wedding seems out of the question; I’m not clear about any other type. We’re not registered as cohabiting. Having children is as remote to you as a distant galaxy. So I ask: What’s left?”
There was no hint of anger in Bergthora’s words. So far, she was still only seeking to understand their relationship and where it was heading. Sigurdur Oli decided to capitalise on this before matters got out of hand. There had been ample time to ponder such questions over his drudgery in Benjamin’s cellar.
“We’re left,” Sigurdur Oli said. “The two of us.”
He found a CD, put it in the player and selected a track that had haunted him ever since Bergthora started to pressurise him about commitment. Marianne Faithfull sang about Lucy Jordan, the housewife who, at the age of 37, dreamed of riding through Paris in a sports car with the cool wind in her hair.
“We’ve talked about it for long enough,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“What?” Bergthora said.
“Our trip.”
“You mean to France?”
“Yes.”
“Sigurdur…”
“Let’s go to Paris and rent a sports car,” Sigurdur Oli said.
Erlendur was trapped in a swirling, blinding blizzard. The snow pounded him and lashed his face, the cold and the darkness enveloped him. He battled against the storm, but he made no headway, so he turned his back to the wind and huddled up while the snow piled up against him. He knew he would die and there was nothing he could do about it.
The telephone started to ring and kept on, penetrating the blizzard, until suddenly the weather cleared, the howling storm fell silent and he woke up at home in his chair. On his desk, the telephone rang with increasing intensity, showing him no mercy.
Stiffly he got to his feet and was poised to answer when the ringing stopped. He stood over the telephone, waiting for it to start again, but nothing happened. The telephone was too old to have a caller ID, so Erlendur had no idea who could be trying to contact him. Imagined it was a cold caller trying to sell him a vacuum cleaner with a toaster thrown in for good measure. He silently thanked the telesales person for bringing him in from the blizzard.
He went into the kitchen. It was eight in the evening. He tried to shut the bright spring evening out with the curtains, but it forced its way past them in places, dust-filled sunbeams that lit up the gloom in his flat. Spring and summer were not Erlendur’s seasons. Too bright. Too frivolous. He wanted heavy, dark winters. Finding nothing edible in the kitchen, he sat down at the table with his chin resting in his hand.
He was still dazed from sleeping. After returning from a visit to Eva Lind at the hospital at around six, he sat down in the chair, fell asleep and dozed until eight. He thought about the blizzard from his dream and how he turned his back on it, waiting for death. He had often dreamed this dream, in different versions. Yet there was always the unrelenting, freezing blizzard that pierced him to the bone. He knew how the dream would have continued if his sleep had not been broken by the telephone.
The ringing began again and Erlendur wondered whether to ignore it. Eventually he lunged out of the chair, went into the sitting room and picked up the receiver.