Betrayal

by Sigurdardóttir, Lilja

  ‘What on earth do you want with me, Pétur?’ she snapped. Several customers leaving the shop stopped to watch the spectacle. ‘What the hell is all this about?’ Úrsúla asked, her voice quieter now.

  The old man stopped yelling and instead began to sob. He didn’t reply, but simply repeated her name.

  ‘Úrsúla,’ he said. ‘Úrsúla. Úrsúla Aradóttir.’

  ‘You’re not hurt?’ Gunnar asked.

  She shook her head as a police car came to a halt outside the shop and two police officers got out.

  ‘Can we keep this low key?’ Úrsúla asked, dusting off her coat. ‘Can you have the police take him away, but keep this under the radar? Nonni’s nerves are already shot to pieces. It’s better for him and the children not to know about this.’

  Gunnar nodded. He would need to give the police an explanation for the handcuffs and persuade them to take a flexible approach. Normal citizens, even those working as bodyguards, shouldn’t carry handcuffs.

  As the two police officers took Pétur away, he saw Úrsúla disappear into the shop, picking up a shopping basket on her way as she strode with determination between the aisles. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he saw she was trembling.

  80

  Úrsúla was jerked into wakefulness, the feeling of being choked so strong that she rolled out of bed and onto the floor, where she crouched for a moment while she regained her breath. Still half asleep, she passed a hand over her face, almost to convince herself that she wasn’t wearing a plastic overall and a ski mask, even though neither the Ebola outbreak nor Liberia had featured in her dreams. Maybe it was something as simple as the duvet resting on her face and hindering her breathing. Nonni muttered in his sleep, and so as not to wake him, she left the room and closed the bedroom door quietly behind her. Kátur sleepily got up from his basket and padded over to her. He followed her downstairs, where she turned on the tap in the kitchen and held a finger under the rush of water until it was numb with cold. She filled a glass and drank it down in one long draught, the cold water making her chest ache on its way down.

  ‘You want some water as well, Kátur?’ she asked, then filled the glass again and poured the contents into his bowl. He clearly wasn’t thirsty as he ignored it.

  She was wide awake now and knew there was no point trying to get back to sleep, so she went to the living room, lay on the sofa and switched on the television. Kátur jumped up beside her and curled up at her feet, where he heaved a sigh so heavy it would have done a much larger dog credit.

  She skipped between channels for a while. They had a long list of cable stations, but she had demanded satellite TV as well so that she could follow the news from anywhere in the world. This time she was lucky enough to find a report on the Ebola epidemic. She turned the sound down and took in the images as they rolled past on the screen. The sequences showed an emergency clinic in Sierra Leone that looked exactly like the one she had been at in Liberia. This one was also run by Médecins Sans Frontières; the hospital tent itself was the same and the staff putting on protective clothing outside used the same procedure as they had followed in Liberia. She watched them, and in her mind recited the regulations for dressing and undressing. Working with the doctors, she had ordered a dressing coach to be present for every shift, reading out the regulations while they prepared, and afterwards when they took off their protective gear, to minimise the possibility of a mistake that could cost someone’s life. Taking a glove off out of sequence could lead to infection.

  Úrsúla closed her eyes and for a moment was back at the staff hostel, where the infection specialist sat in a corner, sketching a diagram linking patients in the hope of finding patient zero, to trace the source of the epidemic. Jean-Pierre sat on the sofa, weeping, having stopped himself administering a lethal dose of morphine to a young woman to alleviate her suffering, while Martina, the Spanish nurse, was on her knees, praying to God in his mercy not to let any of the patients survive. Úrsúla opened her eyes and watched the report continue. It was somehow strangely calming, some kind of confirmation that she hadn’t dreamed it all, that the Ebola epidemic hadn’t just been a horrendous nightmare of bodies glistening with fever as they were brought in, to be carried out later as twisted corpses, but that this had genuinely been her life for a few weeks.

  Kátur shifted on the sofa, making himself comfortable on her chest as if he was trying to absorb the sorrow that he knew was deep in her heart, but which she couldn’t feel.

  Thursday

  81

  The last thing she expected to do was break down in tears in front of Thorbjörn. Maybe it was the shock of being attacked by Pétur the day before, which she had suppressed to prevent Nonni and the children becoming even more concerned about her, or it could have been the news Thorbjörn had given her – that the media had got wind of the Tinder profile. As it was Thorbjörn, she could hardly refute, with an aggrieved expression on her face, the suggestion that she could be unfaithful to her husband, so instead she burst into tears.

  ‘Hey, don’t cry,’ he said, stroking her hair, which magnified her sadness so much that she wanted to throw herself into his arms and spend what was left of the day crying. His sympathy was tender and hugely comforting, but she was keenly aware of her betrayal. It wasn’t right for her to accept solace from any man other than Nonni. It was no better than cuckolding him.

  She got to her feet, reached for a tissue and wiped her face.

  ‘It’s a stalker who registered a profile under my name,’ she said. ‘The police are searching for him. This is supposed to be typical stalker behaviour.’

  Thorbjörn’s eyes followed her around the office. She wondered whether he had found her display of sensitivity embarrassing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taking out a lipstick as she went over to the mirror. She applied a thick layer to her lips.

  ‘There’s nothing to apologise for, Úrsúla. I’ll spike the story so we don’t use it, and I’ll see that it doesn’t leak out to the rest of the media. And if it does get out somewhere, then we get a scoop about the stalker. OK? That would explain it all. “Stalker Puts Minister’s Profile on Dating Site”.’

  Thorbjörn sketched quote marks in the air as if he was casting an invisible spell.

  Úrsúla laughed. ‘Thanks, Thorbjörn.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said sincerely, and again she saw the depth of sympathy in his eyes, knowing that if she were to throw herself into his arms now he would be good to her, love her with all the sympathy she desperately wanted, with no explanations needed. She felt a spark of heat inside her that grew until it flowed through her whole body.

  82

  He didn’t notice Stella as he strode with rapid steps out of the minister’s office, even though he looked in her direction and walked right past her, with only a few metres between them. There was something about pushing a cleaning trolley that made someone invisible to most people. A little later the minister herself came out of her office. She said something to her secretary then winked to Stella and nodded her head towards the corridor, indicating that it was time to go out onto the balcony for a smoke. Stella could feel the secretary’s disgust follow her as she followed in Úrsúla’s footsteps. It was the look she had become used to as a teenager when most of her friends’ mothers decided that she wasn’t ideal company for their daughters.

  Outside, Stella buttoned her sweater while Úrsúla fished in her bag for a lighter. There was a bitter, dry frost that worked its way into your marrow, and even Esja, the mountain across the bay, seemed to be huddled down to shelter from the worst of it. They lit their cigarettes, each providing the other with shelter from the wind, and as Stella held the lighter up for Úrsúla, who made a bowl of her hands around the flame, she noticed the redness that spread from her jaw and down her neck.

  ‘Hey,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You have a bit of, um, beard rash on your neck.’

  Úrsúla stared for a moment at her, as if thunderstruck, and snatched the h
andbag hanging from her shoulder, cursing to herself in an undertone as she drew out a little packet of wet wipes. She opened it and pulled a few of them out, crunched them into a ball and dabbed at her neck as if this was something she had to wash off as fast as she could. She dropped her handbag and Stella stooped to pick it up, handing it to her. Úrsúla dropped the used wipes in it as if it was a bin, and then rummaged busily for a makeup compact. Her hands shook as she opened it and used a sponge to ladle tan concealer onto the lower half of her face and her neck without being able to see what she was doing. Stella pointed to some heavy marks, and Úrsúla blended them in as directed.

  ‘It’s not beard rash,’ she said, without catching Stella’s eye. ‘It’s an allergy to something that sometimes breaks out.’

  Of course it could have been that, and there was every chance it was a coincidence that her allergy broke out just as the creepy guy strode out of her office. But it was her clumsy reaction with the wipes and the makeup that told Stella that there was no coincidence behind this: the creepy arsehole of a journalist who bought the bags of rubbish was also fucking the minister.

  83

  ‘Thanks for walking with me,’ Úrsúla said from beneath the scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. ‘I needed to stretch my legs, get some fresh air.’

  ‘No problem,’ Gunnar said.

  They had chosen to walk along the sea front, despite the biting onshore wind, as this seemed to be the only pavement in the district that had been properly cleared and gritted. They had walked almost as far as the Sun Voyager sculpture. Heavy grey cloud reached down to the middle of Esja’s slopes, but there didn’t seem to be a likelihood of more snow. It was too cold for that.

  ‘How did he come across to you?’ she asked, and Gunnar knew exactly what she meant. ‘I’m curious.’

  ‘He seemed to be strangely normal,’ Gunnar said, ‘considering he’s a bomber.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Úrsúla said. ‘More than likely what goes on inside most people just isn’t visible on the surface.’

  ‘But it’s obvious he’s the kind of guy who’s used to having his own way. The sort who gets a kick out of power. When he said “it’s all or nothing” he smiled a little bit, and he had this look on his face as if he was completely confident he would win. You know what I mean? I don’t know how I can explain it more clearly…’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Úrsúla said. ‘I know precisely what you mean.’

  They stopped by the Sun Voyager and watched weather-beaten tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the sculpture.

  ‘A shame there’s nothing in the background for them,’ Gunnar said.

  ‘That’s true,’ Úrsúla replied. ‘I feel sorry for these poor things who come here in the depths of winter, expecting to see Northern Lights, and instead they get grey clouds and lousy weather the whole time.’

  They turned and walked back towards the ministry.

  ‘Do you think you’ll call off the South Coast Highway renewal?’ Gunnar asked, hoping deep inside that the answer would be no. He wanted her to say there was a new solution, some way to make the initiative possible. He couldn’t imagine the storm that would break over her if she were to dash so many people’s hopes – including his own. He had seen himself bowling along the broad, straight South Coast Highway, with slip roads on and off, like a proper motorway, instead of the narrow lanes running each way currently, cut through by country roads, each of which presented a hazard.

  Úrsúla said something, but it was drowned out by the rattle of nail tyres on the jeeps hurtling by.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I’m thinking it over,’ she said, pressing the button for the lights on the Sæbraut crossing. ‘I’m thinking it over as hard as I can.’

  84

  ‘Everything you’re telling me says post-traumatic stress disorder,’ the psychologist said thoughtfully. He was a young man, so youthful that Úrsúla had almost cancelled the appointment when she saw him. There was something laughable about a youngster hardly old enough to be confirmed giving her advice on life.

  ‘I don’t think I’m getting the symptoms that my colleagues in aid work have described. I never have flashbacks or find myself out of touch with reality, and I’ve never not known where I am or anything like that. A friend of mine who was with me in Syria threw himself on the floor in a smart restaurant in Stockholm because he heard a noise that reminded him of gunfire. His wife was devastated, and all the diners and waiters stared at them. I’m not on edge like that. In fact, I’m pretty laid back. Nightmares are rare, no panic attacks.’

  Úrsúla realised that all this added up to a defence of some kind. She hadn’t meant to be on the defensive. After all, she was the one who had booked the appointment with the psychologist.

  ‘You told me you scare easily,’ he said, tapping his pen against the notebook in which he had jotted things down as he took her through what he referred to as her back story. ‘And you suffer from guilt,’ he added, looking up at her with a questioning expression on his face.

  ‘Maybe that’s because of other things,’ she said. ‘I’ve been hounded since I stepped in as minister, and a week ago I freaked out because of something that turned out to be nothing at all. It was as if all that fear had collected inside me and it overflowed when an old man selling dried fish knocked on the door.’

  ‘Was there something that led up to this? Was there anything else that day, or over the previous days, that upset you in any way?’

  ‘I have a stalker – probably more than one. And I’ve been unfaithful to my husband.’ She said the last words without meaning to. Somehow they fell out of her mouth. She immediately regretted them. She sincerely hoped this psychologist kept everything he heard confidential.

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly, and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Was that with an individual for whom you have feelings?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Úrsúla said. ‘I don’t know what emotions I do or don’t feel. I’m aware of fear and irritation and boredom, and I seem to be able to burst into tears over something completely trivial. But this numbness I told you about appears to have swallowed up all the good emotions. I’m never glad, never pleased, and I have practically no positive feelings towards anyone but the dog. Even though we’ve been to a counsellor, nothing happens. I just yell at Nonni, my husband, because I’m angry at him for asking for something I can’t give him. I know I’m supposed to love him and the children, and I know I used to, but those aren’t feelings I have any longer. At least, I have them for just a fraction of a second at a time. But there’s no way I could tell my husband that I love the dog more than him.’

  ‘And the man you were unfaithful with,’ the psychologist said. ‘Do you have feelings towards him?’

  ‘I do,’ Úrsúla said. ‘But it’s not exactly love. It’s more a kind of excitement that I don’t understand myself. When he looks at me I get the feeling that he feels sorry for me. A bit like the dog.’

  The psychologist snapped his notebook shut and placed it on the coffee table between then, laying the pen on top of it. He flexed his fingers, leaned forward and rested his elbows on the knees of his threadbare corduroy trousers.

  ‘This confirms my diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder,’ he said. ‘It’s normal to demonstrate stress responses after a traumatic event, but traumatic stress doesn’t become a mental disorder unless it lasts more than a few weeks. It’s more than a year now since you left aid work, and in that time you’ve moved home and taken on a highly demanding role.’

  Úrsúla was about to make the point that in comparison with aid work there was nothing remotely demanding about being a minister, but the psychologist raised a finger like a strict teacher.

  ‘Increased pressure can set off traumatic stress, and from what you’ve told me, it seems you have followed a pattern of numbing emotions so as to avoid having to deal with them. Then there’s some kind of trigger, and you seek out behaviour that sparks emotion.’
r />   ‘Compared to all the work I’ve done before, there’s not much pressure on a minister,’ Úrsúla said.

  ‘Then maybe the reasons lie elsewhere,’ the psychologist replied, clearly determined to stick to his guns. ‘Stress disorders can manifest themselves in forgetfulness and numbness just as much as in panic attacks and nightmares. People bury deep inside themselves experiences and memories that are too painful to deal with, and doing this deadens their emotions. But the numbness works against them over time because having no feelings leads to depression, and people seek out behaviour that sparks emotion. Generally that tends to be behaviour that to some extent is self-harming, as I believe your unfaithfulness to your husband is.’

  Úrsúla said nothing. All this was nothing new, but all the same, it was an indescribable relief to hear someone put into words what she had fought with for so long.

  ‘Keep away from drugs or alcohol, and from this man you’ve been having an affair with, and I’ll see you next Thursday. Then I’ll go through a method of mental processing and we can assess whether or not it would suit you.’

  ‘There’s one more part of the back story that I ought to add,’ Úrsúla said as she got to her feet. ‘It’s about my father.’

  She was certain that the psychologist would have read about all this in the newspapers, but the expression on his face showed that he knew nothing.

  ‘What about your father?’ he asked.

  ‘My father was murdered in a prison cell many years ago, and this whole matter has surfaced again. You can read about it in the papers.’

  ‘Then that’s the trigger we were talking about,’ the psychologist said, jotting something down in his notebook.