“Is the woman still here?” Erlendur asked.
“What woman?”
Erlendur looked in the direction of the bushes and thought he saw a movement.
“Is that her?” he asked, squinting. He could not see well from that distance. “The lady in green. Is she still there?”
“Yes, she’s over there,” Skarphedinn said. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Erlendur said, walking off.
The redcurrant bushes came into focus as he approached them and the green figure took shape. As if expecting the woman to disappear at any moment, he quickened his pace. She was standing by the leafless bushes, holding one branch and looking over towards Mount Esja, apparently deep in thought.
“Good evening,” Erlendur said when he was within earshot of her.
The woman turned round.
“Good evening,” she said.
“Nice weather tonight,” Erlendur said for the sake of saying something.
“Spring was always the best time up here on the hill,” the lady said.
She had to make an effort to speak. Her head dangled, and Erlendur could tell that she had to concentrate hard on every word. They did not come of their own accord. One of her arms was hidden inside her sleeve. He could see that she had a club foot protruding from her long, green coat, and her shoulder-length hair was thick and grey. Her face was friendly but sorrowful. Erlendur noticed that her head moved gently on reflex, with regular spasms. It never seemed to stay completely still.
“Are you from these parts?” Erlendur asked.
“And now the city’s spread all the way out here,” she said without answering him. “You never would have expected that.”
“Yes, this city crawls everywhere,” Erlendur said.
“Are you investigating those bones?” she suddenly said.
“I am,” Erlendur said.
“I saw you on the news. I come up here sometimes, especially in spring. Like now, in the evenings when everything’s quiet and we still have this lovely spring light.”
“It’s beautiful up here,” Erlendur said. “Are you from here, or somewhere nearby maybe?”
“Actually, I was on my way to see you,” the lady said, still not answering him. “I was going to contact you tomorrow. But it’s good that you found me. It’s about time.”
“About time?”
“That the story came out.”
“What story?”
“We used to live here, by these bushes. The chalet’s long gone now. I don’t know what happened to it. It just gradually fell apart. My mother planted the redcurrant bushes and made jam in the autumn, but she didn’t want them only for jam. She wanted a hedge for shelter where she could grow vegetables and nice flowers facing south at the sun, wanted to use the chalet to block off the north wind. He wouldn’t let her. It was the same as with everything else.”
She looked at Erlendur, her head jerking as she spoke.
“They used to carry me out here when the sun shone,” she smiled. “My brothers. There was nothing I loved more than to sit outside in the sunshine, and I used to squeal with joy when I came out into the garden. And we played games. They were always inventing new games to play with me, because I couldn’t move much. Due to my disability, which was much worse in those days. They tried to include me in everything they did. That they got from their mother. Both the brothers, at first.”
“What did they get from her?”
“Kindness.”
“An old man told us about a lady in green who sometimes comes here to tend the bushes. His description fits you. We thought it might be someone from the chalet that was here once.”
“You know about the chalet.”
“Yes, and some of the tenants, but not all. We think a family of five lived here during the war, possibly the victims of violence from the father. You mentioned your mother and both brothers, two of them, and if you’re the third child in the family, that fits the information we have.”
“Did he talk about a lady in green?” she smiled.
“Yes. The lady in green.”
“Green’s my colour. Always has been. For as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t they say that people who like green are down-to-earth types?”
“That could be true,” she smiled. “I’m terribly down-to-earth.”
“Do you know of this family?”
“We lived in the house that was here.”
“Domestic violence?”
She looked at Erlendur.
“Yes, domestic violence.”
“It would have been…”
“What’s your name?” she interrupted Erlendur.
“My name’s Erlendur,” he said.
“Do you have a family?”
“No, yes, well, a kind of family, I think.”
“You’re not sure. Do you treat your family well?”
“I think…” Erlendur hesitated. He had not anticipated being questioned and did not know what to say. Had he treated his family well? Hardly, he thought to himself.
“Maybe you’re divorced,” the woman said, looking at Erlendur’s tatty clothes.
“As it happens, I am,” he said. “I was going to ask you… I think I was asking you about domestic violence.”
“Such a convenient term for soul murder. Such a harmless term for people who don’t know what lies behind it. Do you know what it’s like, living in constant fear your whole life?”
Erlendur said nothing.
“Living with hatred every single day, it never stops no matter what you do, and you can never do anything to change it, until you lose your independent will and just wait and hope that the next beating won’t be as bad as the one before.”
Erlendur did not know what to say.
“Gradually the beatings turn into sadism, because the only power that the violent man has in the world is his power over the one woman who is his wife, and that power is absolute because he knows she can do nothing. She is totally helpless and totally dependent on him because he doesn’t just threaten her, doesn’t torment her only with his hatred and anger for her, but with his loathing for her children too, and makes it clear that he’ll harm them if she tries to break free from his power. All the physical violence, all the pain and the beatings, the broken bones, the wounds, the bruises, the black eyes, the split lips — they’re nothing compared to the mental torment. Constant fear that never goes away. For the first years, when she still shows some sign of life, she tries to find help and she tries to flee, but he catches her and whispers to her that he’ll kill her daughter and bury her on the mountainside. And she knows he’s capable of that, so she gives up. Gives up and commits her life into his hands.”
The woman looked over towards Esja and to the west, where the outline of Snaefellsnesjokull glacier could be seen.
“And her life becomes a mere shadow of his life,” she continued. “Her resistance ebbs and with it her will to live, her life becomes his life and she is no longer alive, she’s dead, and she goes around like a creature of darkness in an endless search for a way out. A way out from the beatings and the torment and his life, because she no longer lives her own life, but only exists as the object of his hatred.
“In the end he destroys her. And she’s all but dead. One of the living dead.”
She became silent and stroked her hand across the bare branches of the bushes.
“Until that spring. During the war.”
Erlendur said nothing.
“Who passes sentence on anyone for soul murder?” she went on. “Can you tell me that? How can you charge a man for soul murder, take him to court and have him sentenced?”
“I don’t know,” Erlendur said, not altogether following.
“Have you got down to the bones?” she asked, almost as if her mind was elsewhere.