When Leonóra fell ill, it was as if the ground had been snatched from under María’s feet. It transformed her life just as much as it did Leonóra’s. She would not leave the patient’s side. Baldvin moved into the spare room while María slept beside her dying mother. She gave up work completely, cut off almost all contact with friends and became isolated in the home. Then one day a building contractor got in touch with them. He had discovered that Leonóra and María were the joint owners of a small plot of land in Kópavogur and wanted to buy it from them. The area was up and coming and the price of land there had rocketed. While they had known of the existence of this property, it had never crossed their minds that it would bring them any wealth and they had almost forgotten about it by the time the constructor made them the offer. The amount he wanted to pay for it was astronomical. Baldvin had never seen such figures in writing before. María did not turn a hair. She had hardly ever taken any interest in mundane matters and now all she cared about was her mother. She let Baldvin see to the sale. He contacted a lawyer who helped them agree on a price and payment schedule, stamp documents and register the sale. All of a sudden they were rich beyond Baldvin’s wildest dreams.
María became increasingly isolated as her mother’s health deteriorated, and during Leonóra’s final days she did not leave her room. Leonóra wanted to die at home. Her doctor paid regular visits to check on her morphine supply but no one else was allowed in to see her. Baldvin was sitting alone in the kitchen when Leonóra departed from this life. He heard María’s wail of grief from the bedroom and knew that it was all over.
María was incapable of social contact for weeks afterwards. She told Baldvin what had passed between them just before her mother died. They had agreed that Leonóra would give her a sign if what they called the afterlife existed.
‘So she told you about Proust?’ Erlendur interrupted.
Baldvin took a deep breath.
‘She was in a very agitated state, on sedatives and antidepressants, so she forgot about it immediately afterwards,’ he said. ‘I’m not proud of all the things I did – some of them were downright sordid, I know that, but what’s done can’t be undone.’
‘It started with Proust, did it?’
‘In Search of Lost Time,’ Baldvin confirmed. ‘Fitting title. It was always as if they were harking back to a lost time. I never understood it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I took the first volume off the bookshelf one night last summer and left it on the floor.’
‘So you and Karólína had started laying traps for her?’
‘Yes,’ Baldvin said quietly. ‘It had started by then.’
He had not pulled the curtains and the cottage was cold and dark inside. Erlendur glanced into the living room where María’s life had ended.
‘Was it Karólína’s idea?’ he asked.
‘She began to wonder about the possibilities this might open up. She wanted to go much further than I did. I felt . . . I was prepared to help María if she wanted to explore these issues: the afterlife, life after death, to find out if there was anything on the other side. She had talked about it often enough, to me and, of course, most of all to Leonóra. She took great solace in the thought of an afterlife. She took solace in the idea that our existence here on Earth was not the end of everything. She preferred the idea that it was the beginning of something. She read books. Spent hours on the Internet. Researched the whole subject very thoroughly.’
‘So you didn’t want to go all the way, then?’
‘No, definitely not. And I didn’t.’
‘But you both exploited María’s vulnerability?’
‘It was a dirty trick, I know,’ Baldvin said. ‘I felt bad about it the whole time.’
‘But not bad enough to stop?’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking of. Karólína was on my back. She made all sorts of threats. Finally I agreed to try it. I was curious, too. What if María regained consciousness with memories of visions from the other side? What if all this talk of an afterlife was true?’
‘And what if you didn’t resuscitate her?’ Erlendur said. ‘Wasn’t that the main issue for you? The money?’
‘That too,’ Baldvin admitted. ‘It’s a strange feeling, having someone’s life in your hands. You’d know that if you were a doctor. It’s a strangely powerful feeling.’
One night Baldvin tiptoed into the living room, went to the bookcase, located Swann’s Way by Proust and placed it carefully on the floor. María was sleeping in their bed. He had given her a slightly larger dose of sleeping pills than normal. He also gave her other drugs that she knew nothing about, psychedelic drugs with disorientating properties. María trusted him to administer the drugs. He was her husband. And moreover a doctor.
He got back into bed with her. Karólína had suggested that she should play the role of the medium in their conspiracy. Baldvin was to encourage María to talk to a medium called Magdalena whom he had purportedly heard someone recommend. They knew María would make no enquiries. She was in no state to be suspicious of anything. She had blind faith in Baldvin.
She was almost too easy a prey.
Baldvin slept badly that night and, waking up before María in the morning, got out of bed and watched her sleep. She hadn’t slept so peacefully for weeks. He knew she would suffer a shock when she woke up and went into the living room. She had long given up sitting staring at the bookshelves, but he noticed that her gaze strayed to them many times a day. She had been waiting for a sign from Leonóra and now she would receive it. She would be too overwrought to suspect Baldvin. He doubted whether she even remembered telling him about the book. Now she would receive her confirmation.
He woke María gently before going into the kitchen. He heard her get up. It was a Saturday. Before long María appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Look what I’ve found!’
‘What?’ Baldvin asked.
‘She’s done it!’ María whispered. ‘The sign. Mum was going to choose that book. It’s lying on the floor. The book’s lying on the floor! She . . . she’s making contact.’
‘María . . .’
‘No, really.’
‘María . . . you shouldn’t . . .’
‘What?’
‘Did you find the book on the floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, of course, that’s . . .’
‘Look where it had opened,’ María said, leading him over to the book which was lying open on the floor.
She read the words of the verse aloud. He knew that it was by pure chance that the book had opened at that point when he put it on the floor.
‘The woods are black now,
yet still the sky is blue . . .’
‘Don’t you think it’s fitting?’ María said. ‘The woods are black now, yet still the sky is blue . . . That’s the message.’
‘María . . .’
‘She sent me a message just as she said she would. She sent the message.’
‘Of course it’s . . . It’s unbelievable. It’s what you had discussed and—’
‘Exactly like she said. It’s exactly what she said she’d do.’
Tears welled up in María’s eyes. Baldvin put his arms round her and led her to a chair. She was in a highly emotional state, wavering between sadness and joy, and in the following days she experienced more peace than she had for a long time; the sense of reconciliation that she had so long desired.
A week or so later Baldvin asked out of the blue:
‘Might it make sense to talk to a medium?’
Not long afterwards Karólína received María at the flat of a friend who was away in the Canary Islands. María had no idea that Baldvin and Karólína had studied drama together, let alone that they had been romantically involved. She and Karólína had never met before. María knew little about Baldvin’s friends from his years as a drama student.
Karólína had lit the incense, put on some soothing music
and wrapped an old shawl around her shoulders. She was relishing the make-believe, had enjoyed making herself up with eyeshadow, pencilling on thick eyebrows, sharpening the lines of her face, adding a slash of scarlet lipstick. She had rehearsed on Baldvin who gave her various items of information that might come in useful during the demonstration of her psychic powers. Various facts from María’s childhood, some from her life with Baldvin, her close bond with her mother, Marcel Proust.
‘I sense you’re not happy,’ Karólína said once they were seated and her show of clairvoyance could begin. ‘You’ve . . . you’ve suffered, you’ve lost a great deal.’
‘My mother died recently,’ María said. ‘We were very close.’
‘And you miss her.’
‘Unbearably.’
Karólína had prepared herself with professional thoroughness by going to a medium for the first time in her life. She didn’t take much notice of what the medium said but attended carefully to his use of language, how he moved his hands, head and eyes, his breathing. She wondered if she should pretend to fall into a trance in María’s presence or emulate the medium she had visited and simply sit and sense things and ask questions. She had never met Leonóra but had been given a good description of her. Baldvin lent her a photograph that she studied in detail.
Karólína decided to give the trance a miss when it came to the point.
‘I sense a strong presence,’ she began.
As María and Baldvin lay in bed together that night, she reported to him in detail what had happened at the seance. Baldvin lay without speaking for a long time after María had finished her story.
‘Have I ever told you about a guy I knew when I was studying medicine? His name was Tryggvi?’ he asked, turning to look at María.
34
Baldvin avoided meeting Erlendur’s eye as the detective sat opposite him at the kitchen table, listening to his story. He looked either past Erlendur into the living room or down at the table or up at Erlendur’s shoulder, but never met his eye. His own eyes looked shifty and ashamed.
‘And in the end she pleaded with you to help her cross over,’ Erlendur said, the disgust plain in his voice.
‘She . . . she took the bait immediately,’ Baldvin said, lowering his gaze to the table top.
‘And so you were able to dispose of her without anyone realising.’
‘That was the idea, I admit it, but I couldn’t go through with it. When it came down to it, I didn’t have it in me.’
‘Didn’t have it in you!’ Erlendur burst out.
‘It’s true – I couldn’t take the final step.’
‘What happened?’
‘I . . .’
‘What did you do?’
‘She wanted to proceed cautiously. She was afraid of dying.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Erlendur said.
They lay in bed until the early hours, discussing the possibility of stopping María’s heart for long enough to enable her to pass into the next world but not long enough to risk her suffering any harm. Baldvin told her about the experiment that he and his friends in medicine had performed on Tryggvi and how he had died but they had succeeded in bringing him back to life. He hadn’t felt anything, had no memories of his death, had seen no light or human figures. Baldvin said he knew how to manufacture a near-death experience without taking too great a risk. Of course, it wasn’t completely without danger, María should realise that, but she was physically fit and really had nothing to fear.
‘How will you bring me back to life?’ she asked.
‘Well, there are drugs,’ Baldvin said, ‘and then there’s the usual emergency first aid of heart compressions and artificial respiration. Or we could use electric shocks. A defibrillator. I’d have to get hold of one. If we do this we’ll have to be very careful that no one finds out. It’s not exactly legal. I could be struck off.’
‘Would we do it here?’
‘Actually, I was thinking of the holiday cottage,’ Baldvin said. ‘But it’s only a fantasy, anyway. It’s not as if we’re really going to do it.’
María was silent. He listened to her breathing. They were lying in the dark, talking in whispers.
‘I’d like to try it,’ María said.
‘No,’ Baldvin replied. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘But you were just saying it was no big deal.’
‘Yes – but it’s one thing to talk about it, another to do it, actually put it into practice.’
He tried not to sound too off-putting.
‘I want to do it,’ María said in a more determined voice. ‘Why at the cottage?’
‘No, María, stop thinking about it. I . . . it would be going too far. I don’t trust myself to do it.’
‘Naturally,’ María said. ‘There’s a danger that I might really die and leave you in the lurch.’
‘There’s a real danger,’ Baldvin said. ‘There’s no need to take a risk of that kind.’
‘Would you do it for me anyway?’
‘I . . . I don’t know, I . . . we shouldn’t be talking about this.’
‘I want to do it. I want you to do this for me. I know you can do it. I trust you, Baldvin. There’s no one I trust more than you. Will you do it for me? Please?’
‘María . . .’
‘We can do it. It’ll be all right. I trust you, Baldvin. Let’s do it.’
‘But what if something goes wrong?’
‘I’m prepared to take that risk.’
Four weeks later María and Baldwin drove up to the holiday cottage at Lake Thingvallavatn. Baldvin wanted to be certain that they wouldn’t be disturbed and it had occurred to him that the hot tub on the sun deck would come in useful. They would need a large amount of cold water if they were to use that method of lowering María’s body temperature until her heart stopped. Baldvin mentioned other methods but regarded this as the best and least risky. He said that volunteer searchers and mountain-rescue teams were trained to resuscitate people under similar circumstances. They sometimes came across people lying in snow or water and needed to act quickly if it was not already too late; they needed to raise the body temperature with warm blankets, and if the person’s heart had stopped they needed to get it going again by any means possible.
Husband and wife began by filling the hot tub with cold water and pieces of ice fetched in buckets from the lake. It didn’t take long because it was only a few yards to the water’s edge. The weather was cold and Baldvin told María that she should wear as little as possible outside so as to accustom herself to the cold before immersing herself in the tub. Finally he bashed ice off the rocks on the shore and filled the tub with it. By now María had taken two mild sleeping tablets that he said would help to dull the cold.
María recited a psalm and a short prayer before lowering herself slowly into the tub. The cold was like knives driving into her but she put a good face on it. She entered the water slowly, first up to the knees, then the thighs, hips and stomach. Then she sat down and the water reached above her breasts, shoulders and neck until only her head remained above it.
‘Are you okay?’ Baldvin asked.
‘It’s . . . so . . . cold,’ María gasped.
She couldn’t control her shivering. Baldvin said it would stop after a while when her body had given up fighting the cold. It wouldn’t be long before she lost consciousness. She would begin to feel drowsy and she shouldn’t resist it.
‘Normally, the rule is that you’re supposed to fight off drowsiness,’ Baldvin said, smiling. ‘But not in this case. You want to fall asleep. Just let it happen.’
María tried to smile. Before long her shivering ceased. Her body was completely blue with cold.
‘I must . . . know . . . Baldvin.’
‘I know.’
‘I . . . trust . . . trust you,’ she said.
Baldvin held a stethoscope to her heart. Its beating had slowed rapidly. María closed her eyes.
Baldvin listened to her heartbeat growing feebler and feeble
r.
Finally it stopped. Her heart had stopped beating.
Baldvin looked at his watch. Seconds passed. They had discussed waiting one to one and a half minutes. Baldvin reckoned that was safe. He held María’s head out of the water. The seconds ticked away. Half a minute. Forty-five seconds. Every second felt like an eternity. The second hand hardly seemed to move. Baldvin became uneasy. A minute. One minute, fifteen seconds.
He reached under María’s arms and with one good heave hauled her out of the tub. He wrapped a woollen blanket round her body, carried her into the cottage and laid her down on the floor by the largest radiator. She showed no sign of life. He began to administer mouth-to-mouth respiration and then to massage her heart. He knew he didn’t have much time. Perhaps he’d left her in the water too long. He blew air into her lungs, listened for a heartbeat, massaged her heart again.
He laid his ear against her chest.
Faintly, her heart began to beat. He massaged her body with the wool blanket and moved her closer to the radiator.
Her heart began to beat more rapidly. She drew a breath. He had managed to resuscitate her. Her skin was no longer bluish-white. It had regained a slight flush.
Baldvin heaved a sigh of relief and sat down on the floor, watching María for a long time. She looked as if she were sleeping peacefully.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, a little bewildered. Then, turning her head towards him, she gazed at him for a long time. He smiled. María began to shiver violently.
‘Is . . . it over?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I . . . I . . . saw her,’ she said. ‘I saw her . . . coming towards me . . .’
‘María . . .’
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