‘I don’t see anything,’ says Jónas and he stops moving, then it’s as if his body becomes weightless and rises off the ground. He lifts his arms very slowly, as if they were huge construction cranes, and shades his eyes, which are swollen and sore and full of yellow secretions and clear mucus.
The mountains! Millions of megatonnes of prehistoric granite surrounded by a whole Black Sea of dark-blue glacier. Here time is not measured in minutes and days – not even in years or centuries. Here a million years is one day, a thousand million days one year, and eternity is not simply a concept in this world of delirium and death. Eternity is a regular breathing beyond time, space and human understanding.
‘We’ve come almost halfway,’ says Satan clapping Jónas on the back. ‘Not bad, comrade!’
In front of them are about fifty kilometres of snowdrifts, fissures and firn, then the enormous mountain range stretches halfway to the sky, far inland and way out on the ice to the north. The two peaks loom like a gigantic granite-and-ice cathedral and between them lies a shadow that looks not a centimetre smaller than Denmark.
‘If all goes well we should reach shelter before dark,’ says Satan. He signals the second mate to keep walking.
‘Shouldn’t we rest a moment?’ asks Jónas, pulling his numb feet out of the snow. They’ve been walking steadily for fifty hours and have covered an equal number of kilometres. Every single kilometre has been utter hell, every single hour unbearable and every single moment laden with hopelessness, exhaustion and a death wish.
‘We’ll eat after two hours,’ says Satan, striding off.
‘Aren’t we going to skirt the mountains?’ Jónas points north to where the ice on the Weddell Sea stretches to the limits of their vision.
‘No,’ says Satan. He heads straight for the shadow between the peaks. ‘I’m certain there’s a pass through the mountains.’
‘Up to you,’ says Jónas under his breath. He can’t be bothered to argue with this pig-headed halfwit. He doesn’t have the energy. And why argue about something it’s pointless to argue about. They’re dead either way.
XXXVI
24 December
‘And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…’ says Captain Guðmundur, attempting to turn the pages of the frozen Bible, his fingers black with cold. ‘And it came to pass in those days…’
‘Don’t,’ says Sæli, curling himself up as tightly as possible. ‘I don’t want to think about home. I can’t bear it.’
They’re sitting side by side on a hard snowdrift with the sailcloth spread over them and their backs to the growing wind. There’s a storm coming, clouds are piling up in front of the sun and it’s fast growing dark. They have had neither warm food nor water since they left the ship because they have still not managed to light the camping stove. After struggling for two days they decided to rid themselves of half their burden to make walking easier. Even so, they sink up to mid calf in every step.
‘I can’t go on,’ says Sæli, closing his eyes.
‘We can rest while the storm blows over,’ says Guðmundur, putting his Bible aside. ‘Then we’ll carry on.’
‘Yeah.’ Sæli rolls over on his hands and knees and then stands up. ‘I’ve just got to go piss first.’
‘I understand,’ says the Captain with a nod to the young man. He’s pretty sure he’ll never see Sæli again, but decides to say nothing.
He knows that this will be his own last night. There’s no chance he’ll wake up from the sleep that is about to conquer the dregs of his consciousness. He’s too tired for that to happen.
Guðmundur unzips his parka and unwinds the black dress from his cold torso. Can he stand up? Yes, he can stand up. The moment the captain stands up from the sailcloth the wind tears it away and sweeps it like a leaf into the dim distance.
Why die lying down if you have the option of dying dancing?
Guðmundur embraces the dress and attempts to dance but he is so stiff, and the wind so cruel, that he can hardly keep his balance.
Dance into death! Has he gone mad?
Mad or not mad, what difference does it make? It’s not as if anyone can see him!
Guðmundur Berndsen tries to lift the stiff, frozen dress to his lips but he loses his hold on it and it flies off like the sailcloth.
‘Sweetheart,’ the captain gasps, taking one step forwards, then he falls on his face in the hard snow.
Sæli shields his eyes from the icy wind and tries to find the sun before it disappears beyond clouds. It’s almost completely dark but Sæli catches sight of a pink streak in the distance. Then he turns away and heads north.
Iceland is to the north.
Sæli walks homewards until he collapses.
XXXVII
25 December
Whirlwind, dark, cruel frost…
‘ARE YOU THERE?’ screams Satan into the suffocating snowstorm.
First their sled overturned and was blown onto Skuggi, killing him before Satan was able to cut the ropes. Their supplies were spread all over the hard firn and lost in an instant, while the sled shot up like an orange sweet wrapper into the black sky, where the air pressure shattered it.
‘I’M…’
Jónas is lying on his face on the firn only two metres away from Satan, but in a blizzard like this you can’t see your hand in front of your face. The snow is so fine and the strength of the wind so overpowering that you can hardly breathe; your eyes are blinded, your lips bleed and your nostrils close.
They had only half a kilometre left to reach the foothills of the mountain when the storm hit, like the shadow of some evil harpy that suddenly shuts out the sun.
A truly devil-inspired storm…
‘COME OVER HERE! THERE’S A CAVE UP THERE!’ yells Satan, starting to crawl up along a fissure in the glacier. If his memory serves him, the fissure leads slantwise up to the foothills where he thought he saw the mouth of a cave under the sheer cliff. Maybe he had simply seen the shadow of the cliff, but that’s not the main thing. Out on the snow there’s nothing for them but a long, drawn-out death. Under the cliff there may be shelter – even a little cave.
Satan crawls on hands and knees when the wind lets up a little but on his belly when the gusts are most savage. Each minute is a whole life’s supply of oxygen deprivation, and each and every metre is an almost insurmountable task. The snow slips in under his clothing and his flesh grows cold, blue, stiff and…
But he’s getting there, he’s getting…
Silence.
And he plummets into a pitch-black emptiness.
‘Are you there?’
Silence.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Jónas.’
Satan opens his eyes but sees only blackness. He remembers having grasped at nothing, then…
‘I saw you just disappear,’ says Jónas as he comes crawling in the dark. ‘You were right – we’re in a cave of some kind.’
‘Can we get back out?’ Satan asks, sitting up on the ice-covered floor of the cave. His clothes are frozen through, hard like an eggshell.
‘No. Not the same way. The mouth is somewhere above us. Can’t you hear the wind?’
‘Yeah.’ Satan hears the wind and wonders at the same time why the sound isn’t louder. Shouldn’t the cave be full of snow and ferocious wind? But there’s only a slight layer of snow on the floor and the air is hardly moving. If anything, what slight breeze there is seems to come from inside the cave, not down through the entrance. What’s causing that?”¨
‘I’m falling asleep,’ says Jónas, while quivering violently on the ground beside Satan.