It starts raining as he drives past the turn-off to Mosfellsdalur and Thingvellir. First there’s only a few drops on the dirty windscreen, then the rain becomes heavier. Jónas turns on the windscreen wipers, whose worn blades spread the raindrops and mix them with the month-old dirt on the glass. Jónas tries to spray washer fluid on the windscreen, but the fluid tank is empty. This makes him check the gauge of the 100-litre petrol tank. The needle has reached the red part of the dial, but Jónas knows from experience that there are then about 20 litres left in the tank – more than enough to get him to the bottom of Hvalfjörður. By the time he signals right and turns east the rain has turned into a downpour. The wipers whip back and forth, and the heavy, ice-cold rain has washed away most of the dirt. Jónas clenches his hands on the steering wheel, the engine purrs under the hood, the wipers beat a steady rhythm, the heater blows warm air and his sleepless eyes stare into the gloom that sucks in the Jeep like a black hole.
After making his way along the shore by the old whaling station, Jónas gets out a shovel and in the light of the Jeep’s spotlights digs his wife a damp grave in the black sand. Steam rises off him as he struggles against the collapsing sand and flowing water. In the distance waves collapse with a heavy thud, stirring up the pebbles and seaweed. Within just a few hours the ocean will hide this grave that deepens so slowly and fills so quickly with seawater and rain.
Jónas tosses aside the shovel and runs to get the body. The body is hard to handle and heavy, heavier with every step he takes. His feet sink in the soft sand and the rain pounds on the rumpled tarpaulin.
When Jónas lets his burden fall into its grave, water splashes all around it. He piles large beach stones on top of the body before shovelling sand over it. Huge sand mites wave their legs and antennae. They are deathly white, waxy insects that live off dead flesh – the ever-hungry descendants of the millions of sand mites that thrived in the time of Icelandic whaling.
Jónas leans on his shovel and vomits warm beer and poison-green digestive juices over the shallow grave. Then he walks, soaking wet, to the car, which is still revving in neutral up on the gravel ridge.
When he reaches the turn-off for Grundartangi on the north shore of the fjord it’s seven minutes to three. The petrol light starts to flash a warning just as he signals left and turns into the road, which leads downhill. He sails his Jeep down this road like it’s a little boat sailing along a river to its wide-open mouth.
He drives out onto the jetty where the lit-up ship lies along the quay. Rúnar and Sæli are waiting at the gangway and wave him to come near.
‘Is something wrong?’ asks Jónas after rolling down his window. His heart beats madly and his bloodless hands clench the wheel.
‘Isn’t your brother-in-law with you?’ Rúnar says.
‘Kalli – no,’ says Jónas and clears his throat to squeeze out some saliva. ‘Hasn’t he arrived?’
‘No,’ Rúnar answers. ‘We wouldn’t be asking otherwise.’
‘He probably thumbed a lift,’ mutters Jónas, blinking.
‘You’ve got to go find the guy!’ says Rúnar, tossing his burning cigarette out into the dark. ‘We’re casting off in five minutes, whether he’s here or not.’
‘I have to get up to the bridge. My watch starts at four,’ says Jónas. He puts the car in neutral, removes the rosary and crucifix from the mirror and takes them with him as he steps out of the car. ‘Can you go look for him? I’m sure he’s already set off walking from the highway.’
‘All right,’ says Rúnar in a disgruntled tone. He gets into the Jeep. ‘So where do you want me to park this guzzler?’
‘Wherever,’ says Jónas with a shrug. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Okay.’
Rúnar takes off.
‘Has the Old Man arrived?’ Jónas asks Sæli, lighting a cigarette.
‘Of course,’ says Sæli, zipping his parka up to his chin. The rain has stopped, but the night is still cold and damp.
‘Yeah,’ says Jónas distantly and he trots up the gangplank.
‘Jónas!’ Sæli calls after him, hands in his pockets, his hood pulled down to his eyes.
‘Yeah, what?’ Jónas turns around at the top of the gangplank.
‘Haven’t you got a duffel bag or some kind of luggage?’ asks Sæli, hunching his shoulders inside his loose parka. ‘You know. Clothes, cigarettes and stuff?’
‘No,’ Jónas answers slowly and looks up at the black sky, as if expecting something to come from it. ‘I just… just forgot.’
‘Forgot?’ enquires Sæli with a grin.
‘Yes,’ says Jónas in a hollow tone. He jumps aboard the ship.
‘Your problem! See you later!’ Sæli calls out as the second mate disappears behind the wheelhouse. Sæli has the three-to-six night watch, so he will be Jónas’s companion till early morning.
The wind is picking up from the west; the powerful ship does a slow dance, rhythmically pulling on the thick mooring ropes, which jerk tightly round the steel, spitting out drops of rain and old seawater.
One could almost think that this 100-metre-long, over 4000-tonne freighter was trying to break its chains.
V
Heavy blues music, the clamour of voices and a cloud of bitter smoke are pierced by the loud peal of a bell.
‘Fifteen minutes to closing!’ the bartender shouts, letting go of the cord that hangs from the clapper of the old brass bell that once served a Dutch freighter.
At the bar sits a man dressed in denim. He looks blearily at the last sip in a greasy beer glass and then at his watch, which tells him it’s fifteen minutes to one in the morning on the eleventh day of the month. This is Karl Gudjónsson, an out-of-work joiner nearing forty who is on his way to his first trip as second seaman on a freighter that is moored in Grundartangi harbour, ready to cast off after two days of offloading, when the cargo was vacuumed out of the hold.
Fifteen minutes to closing.
Forever.
Déjà vu.
Karl finishes the last of his beer, puts out his half-smoked cigarette and gets down off the high bar stool. Then he weaves his way over to a circular table, where five men sit drinking. He claps the two nearest on the back, leans forward between them and smiles ingratiatingly through his untrimmed beard.
‘D’you think you could lend me a ten-coin, lads?’ he asks, clearing his throat. ‘I haven’t got any change and I have to make a call.’
‘Leave us alone, man!’ says one of the men he’s leaning on. He pokes an elbow in Karl’s stomach and pushes him roughly away from the table.
Karl takes two steps back then freezes in that position while he tries to gain his balance – and succeeds.
He is filled with darkness and silence; inside his head cold winds are blowing and, for just one moment, it’s as though he falls into a deep sleep. A sleep that is black as unending night, heavy as death and cold as eternal winter.
Empty as the echo in a bass drum.
Boom, boom, boom…
One moment, and it’s over.
‘Five, five, five… ship,’ Karl mumbles and regains his balance on the floorboards, then he clutches the stair rail and trudges up to the second floor of the bar, where a middle-aged band is playing blues with a heavy beat for the depressed, bitter, sorry bunches of drunks sitting at tables or standing along the walls or at the bar, half invisible in the hot, thick clouds of smoke.
Got to get aboard the ship…
As a mournful guitar solo and lazy drum draw to a close, it seems that the band has lost its momentum, but just before the music fades away entirely the drummer gets back in gear with a gentle touch of the snare drum, the bass catches onto the beat, the guitar starts wailing again and the bearded singer hauls an emotional lyric from his soul’s vale of tears: ‘Before I sink into the big sleep, I want to hear the scream of the butterfly…’