Suddenly the librarian’s phone vibrates, the display flashing green. I pick it up from the cupholder and look at the number. The country code is 33. I answer the phone. The connection is weak, Mireille’s voice coming in and out.
— Why haven’t you written me back? I was worried—
— I’m out in the middle of nowhere. I can barely hear you.
— You’re still in Iceland?
— Yeah, but I’ve found something. I’m getting close—
Mireille sighs. — Listen Tristan, I know I’ve been saying the wrong things, telling you to come back for the wrong reasons. It was a mistake—
Her voice wavers as the phone loses reception. I try to talk back until I’m practically yelling, but I don’t think she can hear me. Suddenly her voice returns.
— Meeting you in the bar, and sharing my grandfather’s house, and finding those letters. I should have let myself care about you, even if it was dangerous. But now you’re making the mistake, because you’re staying away. I want you Tristan, but you have to want me too.
— I do.
— Then come back tonight. It doesn’t matter what it costs you. You don’t need anything once you’re here.
— I can’t get there tonight. I’m too far out in the country.
— Tomorrow then. I’ll meet you at the airport—
Her voice goes out again. I speak loudly into the phone.
— The line’s breaking up. But I’ll come as soon as I can.
— Demain, she corrects me. Please Tristan, just find a way. I’ll be waiting—
She says something I can’t understand. The line beeps and goes dead. I try calling her back, but the call diverts to a message in Icelandic. I put the phone back in the cupholder, wiping my face with my hands. Outside the farmer is pointing and sweeping his arm as he talks, apparently giving directions. Finally the librarian waves his thanks and gets back into the car.
— I don’t know, the librarian says, if that farmer and I were talking about the same woman. He said her name was Östberg, that could be a Swedish name.
The librarian smiles and cocks his head a little, looking amused. He starts the engine and swivels the car around in a three-point turn. We start back down the road, gravel pinging against the car’s chassis.
— He said the old woman’s still alive.
— Alive?
— According to him she lives about ten kilometers away, at the next fjord to the north.
I sit up in my seat, almost yelling in protest.
— It’s impossible. She’d have died decades ago.
— Maybe. But Östberg sounds familiar—
I shake my head, feeling the nausea sweeping back.
— There’s no way. If she was in her seventies thirty years ago, she’d be more than a hundred now. It doesn’t make sense.
The librarian shrugs. — He said she’s very old. Anyway, it’s not far from here. We might as well find out for ourselves.
— It must be someone else.
The librarian turns onto a dirt road, shifting into a low gear. The path is an old tractor trail cluttered with huge rocks. We lurch slowly over the bumps, the suspension creaking. My arm is still shaking.
— Don’t worry, the librarian says. We’re almost there.
The road curves through valleys and drops back sharply to the sea. I lower the window a crack, watching the white swells cresting offshore.
I can’t focus on any single thought. I imagine the mad forces that might have conspired to produce all this, the arcane weaving of threads that ends with me on a dirt road in Iceland. It was impossible. It required the gathering of whole constellations, a harvest of countless stars funneled into a single cup and rolled out, a pair of sixes, a million times in perfect succession.
But it had happened. Already I’d seen the proof of it and held it in my hands. And it happened again every moment, for surely the meeting of any two souls required the same arithmetic. If it seemed improbable, maybe that was only my own narrowness of vision. Mireille said there might not be an end to this. But if I could reach an ending, was it possible that the veil would be lifted, that I’d rise to a higher vantage point and see something utterly simple, the purest design of all?
The car dips into a steep fjord. The narrow inlet is flanked by dark mountains, below these a black sand beach, the waves foaming white against the shore. The librarian points down the fjord.
— There.
The house is poised along the finger of water, the windows flush with the ebbing sea. Its cream-colored plastic cladding is immaculate. There is a neat flower garden, a wooden porch. A small waterfall spouts down the sheer cliff behind the house, gushing into a stream that skirts the property. The crags above are sheathed in mist.
We turn onto a smooth gravel driveway and the car stops jerking. The front door of the house swings open. Someone has seen us approaching.
An elderly woman comes out onto the porch, her forearms tucked into her apron. She does not smile or greet us. The librarian parks the car and turns to me.
— Do you want me to come with you?
— I might need a translator.
We get out of the car. The librarian introduces himself to the old woman. The conversation is brief and halting. The old woman walks into the house, leaving the door open behind her.
— She’s the caretaker, the librarian says. She’s invited us in.
The living room is sparely furnished and impeccably clean. We hang our coats on a rack and sit at a dining table. The librarian talks with the caretaker for some time, his hands folded awkwardly in his lap. Suddenly the caretaker addresses me in English. She has an accent I can’t place.
— I’m sorry, she says, I thought you spoke Icelandic. Would you like coffee?
The woman goes into the kitchen and returns with two cups of coffee and a plate of stale cookies. I gulp down the sour coffee, cracking the hard cookies with my molars. The librarian and the caretaker are still talking. She turns to me.
— I understand you’ve come to see Ms. Östberg. But she’s resting at the moment. I wondered if you could come back another time?
I tell the caretaker that it would be difficult to return, because I don’t live in this country and have no place to stay nearby. Then I explain that I’m seeking information about a woman named Imogen Soames-Andersson. The caretaker looks at me, and if she has ever heard the name her face does not reveal it.
— I don’t know the name, she says, but Ms. Östberg might be able to help you. Perhaps I could wake her. It would be a shame for you to miss her, since you’ve come so far. We seldom have visitors.
The caretaker excuses herself and goes down the hall. The librarian turns to me, his eyes large and shining.
— I don’t think you should go in there. Even if it’s really her, you’ll never get the money. Let’s get out of here—
The caretaker comes back into the room.
— Ms. Östberg is awake. You can see her now, but she’d prefer if you spoke in her bedroom.
I stand, glancing at the librarian, but he only shakes his head slightly, a strange expression on his face.
— Her English is quite good, the caretaker adds, so you won’t need anyone to translate. It’s the door at the end of the hallway.
I thank her and begin toward the corridor. The woman stops me with a wave.
— I forgot to tell you. The lock on her door is broken. You need a key to open it from the outside.
The caretaker draws an iron key from the front of her apron and hands it to me. It is an old barrel key, as wide as my hand with a long shaft and a tooled bit at the end. A length of ribbon is tied to its eyelet.
I walk down the dark hallway. The wooden floorboards are worn smooth and shiny. I pass closed doors on both sides of the corridor until I reach the door at the end. The key is in my hand.