Towards White

by Zena Shapter

  I hang up and pace along the far wall of the morgue. No one should have to take photographs of their dead brother’s unreported head wound. No one. My hands ball into fists, gripping my phone as if the squeezing will change things.

  “We should go,” Anna whispers, covering Mark with the sheet.

  “No. Stop.”

  I rush to my brother and pull him into my arms. Pressing my cheek to his, I remember us as kids. Cheek-to-cheek we’d stumble around, one arm wrapped around the other’s shoulders. Giggling, we’d stagger up to our parents chanting: ‘together, together; we’ll always be together’. I close my eyes to enjoy the memory. Dressing in similar colours, walking hand-in-hand, Mark and I always thought it hilarious when strangers mistook us for twins. With only eleven months between us in age the deception was easy enough, until our teenage growth spurts took Mark to a whole different height. Still we were special, we were best friends, we shared everything.

  Until now.

  Now it’s my turn to be kept out in the cold.

  As the comfort I so often felt from Mark’s warm cheek materialises into the rubbery surface of his lifeless body, I realise how alone Mark must have felt back in Sydney, after I’d had enough of feeling worthless without Riley and, at home alone one night, did the single most selfish thing a sister could ever do to her brother.

  And you kept your promise. You never told Mum and Dad.

  If only I could wake Mark up from this nightmare, like he woke me up from mine. But where is his ambulance? Where are the paramedics that will revive him, as they revived his sister?

  Sickening chalky sediment fills my mouth as I remember that night. The clean tang of hospital again infiltrates my nostrils, though this time it isn’t a memory. I really am here. Anna really is retrieving the chair I sunk into moments ago and putting it back in place. This really is my brother’s dead body.

  Dead.

  To her credit, Anna says nothing while I hold Mark. We should be rushing back to The Himinn. Whoever didn’t want me to find this head injury is sure to be upset that I have.

  Instead she waits for me to finish, to release my brother, place him back down on his bed, tuck him under his covers and let him sleep. Only then does she slide his tray into its drawer and close the door. It’s time to go. I don’t know how long we have until Jón’s supposed to be dropping off Mark’s briefcase, but it feels like it must be soon and neither Anna nor I want Jón inconvenienced by Anna’s lack of presence at The Himinn.

  So I move to switch off the spotlight and, once the room is dark again, turn on my phone’s display to see by its light. The list of last dialled numbers catches my eye: Doctor Emil, Ari, Director Úlfar…“Sorry, Anna,” I whisper, “one more quick call. I want to be here in case I need to check something quickly.” I ignore Anna’s terse expression and tap through to Director Úlfar’s number. As I do, my phone’s battery gives a fading bleep. “Oh, quick, give me your phone!” I look at Anna but she shakes her head and points to the wall-mounted POTS phone behind me. I grab its receiver and press zero for an outside line. Nothing happens. I hang up and press nine. A healthy tone hums down the line. I have time to tap Director Úlfar’s number into the keypad, then my phone’s display weakens to black.

  He answers immediately.

  “Director Úlfar, this is Rebecca Dales.”

  “Gott kvöld, Miss Dales,” he says. “Thank you for calling. Are you okay?”

  “Director Úlfar, my brother has a head injury. It’s not mentioned in his autopsy report.” I explain the details. “Is this why you didn’t want me coming to Höfkállur?”

  “What? No. I didn’t want you travelling all that way only to have a negative experience, which I see,” he sighs as he speaks, “is precisely what’s happening—all because of a typo!”

  “Your explanation for this is a typo?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light of your concerns. It’s not good enough, it really isn’t.” He tuts. “I knew Doctor Emil had stopped performing every autopsy himself, he’s involved in…other things. Still, I did think he checked all reports thoroughly, and I would have thought he’d check this one in particular. I will speak with him.”

  “I already have. He’ll be looking into it first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Gott. An oversight like this is not acceptable.”

  “Oversight?” I laugh. “Director Úlfar, Doctor Emil’s oversight is not the issue here. Things simply aren’t adding up. There’s nothing at the glacier I shouldn’t see, is there?”

  “Like what?”

  “No government presence or lack of care?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “No Heimspeki experiments or studies?” I ask to gauge his reaction.

  “At a glacier? No. None whatsoever,” he states with confidence.

  “So there’s nothing you want to tell me before I go there tomorrow?”

  “You’re still going?”

  “Of course. Do you have a problem with that, beyond my personal safety?”

  “Miss Dales,” cutlery chinks onto a plate in the background, “it’s late, why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Someone somewhere is responsible for my brother’s death.”

  “So first there’s an error and your brother isn’t dead. Now he is dead but it’s someone’s fault. Miss Dales, you are grieving, searching for answers where there are none.”

  “Is that what you tell everyone who loses someone at that glacier? I understand quite a few people have died in the Skepnasá River. If so many people slip and fall, wouldn’t it be negligent to not erect safety railings around the river, at the very least?” No reaction. Am I on to something? “The person threatening me is probably someone liable for doing exactly that, or not doing as the case may be, which is why they don’t want an ex-lawyer hanging around—you’d be surprised how far even officials will go to avoid being sued for negligence.”

  Director Úlfar is silent for a moment. When he speaks again his tone is flat and firm. “Miss Dales, if our government were in any way responsible for your brother’s death, we would happily pay your family. In this case, however, we do not believe we are responsible at all.”

  “Then why offer repatriation?”

  “Purely diplomatic reasons, given your influence in the legal community. If, however, you have now looked into costs and realise you need to offset the expenses, you can…”

  “What?” I am so insulted by his assumption my jaw tightens “I’m not calling you for any money! I want the truth, swiftly followed by change.” I push the phone tight against my ear. “No one should have to go through this, no one!”

  “I agree, no one should have to lose a loved one, but accidents happen. They are called accidents because they are not preventable.”

  “Of course they’re preventable! Did I fly into the wrong country? Because I thought this was Iceland. There should be as many safety precautions at that river as in any first world country.”

  “There is adequate warning at Jötunnsjökull. Your brother knew not to go near the Skepnasá River, Miss Dales. It is not for tourists, they do not understand the danger.”

  “So put up safety railings! No one should have to take photos of their dead brother’s head! It’s negligence whether you believe it or not!”

  A long breath blows down the phone: Director Úlfar losing patience with me. “If you have a photo of the injury, please send it to me. But I do not understand why this particular…injury means your brother’s accident was preventable.”

  “Because if he ended up in the river because he slipped on a rock and hit his head, railings would have prevented his fall.”

  “He could have fallen in the river and hit his head after.”

  “He shouldn’t have been close enough to the river to fall in the first place!”

 
Anna puts her finger to her lips. I’m shouting.

  “And that, Becky, is why we warn people. If they ignore our warning, how can we stop them?”

  “If you wanted to find a way,” I lower my voice, “you would.”

  “I will hear any suggestions.”

  “I will have some for you tomorrow.” After I’ve seen the glacier for myself.

  “That is probably a good idea.”

  I slam the phone onto its wall fitting and flick off the spotlight, plunging the room into darkness. Forgetting the pain in my thigh, I storm towards the doors. Anna holds one open for me. There’s some distant clanking and rattling in the kitchen but otherwise nothing. No Jón; no Gunnar. We scale the staircase, make it along the ground floor corridor, and burst into fresh air.

  “Want any help?” Anna whispers, gesturing at my leg.

  I shake my head and scurry away from the loading bay. My thigh pulses with each movement but there’s too much adrenalin in my system for me to feel actual pain now. It’s more a discomfort. The smell of food follows us as we round the corner of the building and head towards the parking lot. I’m surprised the smell doesn’t fade as we near the road. For some reason I sniff my hands. They smell sweet, sickly sweet—like stale blood.

  “Oh god,” I realise—it’s not food I can smell…

  It’s my brother.

  I stop in my tracks to dry retch. Doubling over, disgust and guilt balls my stomach into a tight contraction that squeezes its meagre contents into my throat. The acidity makes my tonsils smart with the lingering taste of tart coffee. I straighten but can’t stop thinking about Mark’s smell on me. My stomach heaves again, not that there’s anything in it to spew.

  He’s on me—on us—on our hands.

  “We’ll have showers when we get home,” Anna whispers, reading my mind.

  I wipe my mouth of saliva.

  “Let’s go.” She helps me along the highway, glancing over her shoulder every few paces.

  “Do you know where Gunnar went?” I ask her.

  She shrugs and a quiet falls between us as we hurry. There’s little to say after the evening we’ve had.

  Even so, there’s something I need to know. “Anna,” I say, “why didn’t you just call me with the code for the mortuary cabinets, why did you come down here? And what’s with all the texting in code?”

  “You never know who’s listening to mobile phones and you said you didn’t want company. Besides, I wanted to help you. I should have come in the first place. When Gunnar didn’t return I was worried too. I couldn’t wait around at home.”

  “But why? You don’t know me, not really. We’re not ‘friends’.”

  After giving the question some thought, she smiles knowingly to herself. “You know, you should hear Jón in traffic,” she looks me in the eye, “it’s the one place he never bothers to control his temper.”

  So there it is. Not only does he have a temper but Anna’s happy to admit it.

  “He says he’s proud of it,” she continues, “thinks that most men don’t believe aggression has a place in their modern lives anymore, so they allow that part of their brains to coma off into dormancy. He says they don’t realise what will happen to them if they stop using their assertive cells. Their bodies will perceive those cells as nonessential and direct blood flow away from them. Then, when they need to act, they won’t have the functionality to do so.

  “He thinks,” she goes on, “that natural selection has already begun to eradicate it from some men’s brains, says it’s entirely absent now from the brains of men who care more about moisturising and colour-coordinating than getting their hands dirty with ‘real work’.”

  “Whatever that is!”

  “I know! He says there are parts of his brain that understand aggression like a first language, that can fire instantaneous strength into his muscles if needed to defeat a threat—as if he’s going to face lions or silverbacks walking down the street! However,” she hangs on the word as if it’s the single most important part of her sentence, “Mark.” She stares down the street, lost in her thoughts.

  “What about him?”

  “Your brother was kind, Becky, gentle, caring, held doors open for me, brought in the shopping, cooked dinner sometimes—even though he was my guest. I haven’t had that since Pàll. Aggression can be…useful sometimes. But Jón doesn’t realise that men can be assertive and gentle at the same time.”

  “Jón is charming though.”

  “He is, yes, though sometimes I think that’s a tactic too. Your brother, on the other hand, was a wonderfully evolved man. Brave and determined and thoughtful, all at the same time.” She looks at my face. “You look so much like him.” She reaches across as if to stroke my cheek with the back of her hand. Given we’re walking, all she does is push some strands of hair over my shoulder. Still, the intimacy of her gesture takes me by surprise. It also makes me realise what happened between Mark and Anna. Mark touched Anna’s life in that special way only he could. Of course he did. No one could live with Mark for as long as Anna did and not grow to love him on some level. “I miss him already,” she murmurs, wiping at her eyes as we walk up the hill towards her house.

  I feel a pang of jealousy seeing her tears. If grief is a gift, I haven’t opened mine yet. How can I? I can’t trust myself anymore, not after Sydney, not after Riley. Weakness can be like alcohol, sex, and drugs—addictive. When you’re weak, other people often come to your rescue, solve your problems and make everything better. They don’t expect you to do it all by yourself because you’re having a hard time, and you don’t expect it of yourself either. It’s nice too, that they care so much.

  In fact it’s so nice that the next time you’re feeling down, you don’t hesitate to call for help. Then, before you know it, you’re asking for help all the time, constantly relying on other people for your happiness.

  It’s a dangerous road.

  Friends, family, lovers won’t always have time for you. One day, when your boyfriend, the person you entrusted most with your happiness, leaves you to date the accounts girl at his firm, whom you always suspected he fancied even though he denied it, you’ll be lost without anyone, with no memory of being able to solve things by yourself anymore.

  Crying leads to weakness.

  The second I let myself cry, that sadness will overwhelm me again, I know it. Last time I was lucky. I had Mark.

  “He always did what he could for others,” I mutter, my pace slowing with the hill climb.

  “Tell me something Becky, do you sense Mark at all? Since he died, have you felt anything?” She studies my expression.

  “Of course, I’ve been miserable.” Not that I’ve immersed myself in that misery yet.

  “I meant felt his presence, like he’s still here?”

  “I’ve always felt Mark’s presence, whether he was down the street or the other side of the world.”

  “What about now?”

  “What do you mean?” I try to remember if I’ve mentioned the gushing water, the voices, the visions. I don’t think I have.

  Anna notices my hesitation. “I knew it! You’ve sensed something, haven’t you? Not only the sadness but an actual sensation. I knew I wouldn’t be the only one! Pàll is here with me too, in the lights of the auroras, waiting for me to right the wrong done to him. So we are the same, you and I. What is it that you see or hear?”

  I clear my throat to delay putting my experiences into words. Not only has Anna said something a little too crazy for my liking, but if I put my experiences into words they might sound crazy too. I’m in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers—I don’t want to lose my mind. Then again, if I am going crazy, shouldn’t I seek out all the help I can get?

  Help starts with admission.

  “Water,” I purse my lips as I hear my own confession. “Swirling, rumbling, tumbling, that ki
nd of thing.”

  “Pàll comes to me in the battlelights. Sometimes he shines through the windows at home. It’s like being at the bottom of a bright mint sea.”

  I nod, appreciating the image. Although, if I’d had this conversation with Anna a few days ago I would never have believed her.

  “Sometimes I go to a lookout,” Anna continues, “about five kilometres east of here, on a hillside over the lava fields. But the best is Jötunnsjökull.”

  “Jötunnsjökull? You’ve been there?”

  “Many times. Especially after Pàll died. I could talk to him there.” She turns up a street. “You need a good off-road vehicle, you have to drive back in the dark or stay overnight, but it’s worth it. The battlelights make the ice shine green, red, blue…”

  “Sorry, the battlelights? You mean the auroras?”

  She’s about to say something when her phone bleeps. She fishes it out of her pocket, though her expression tells me she already knows who’s texting. “It’s Jón. He’s on his way.”

  We speed up, changing pace from the stroll it’s become into a run-walk. It helps that we’re on our way down the hill.

  “The battlelights?” I remind her a few paces later.

  “Right, yes. They’re where we all go when we die. The green lights are good, our positive energies. The reds and violets are negative, the evil.” She starts speaking faster. “Before they leave for himinn or helvíti, heaven or hell, they battle for space in the sky. On some nights good wins, and the auroras are more green. Other nights evil wins, and they are more red. You didn’t know we go into the auroras when we die?”

  “Doctor Emil said it was possible,” I grip my thigh where my cut throbs, “but they don’t have any proof yet.” And, based on my own experiences, they won’t find any either.

  “But,” Anna says, breathless, “science only ever ends up proving what we sensed was true all along. Every culture on Earth believes in ghosts, in some shape or form. Did you know the Vikings used to believe the auroras were reflections from the shields of dead warriors on their way to Valhalla? Some Inuit, the Eskimo, believe the auroras are new souls coming to earth, dancing spirits. Different people round the world may talk about life and death in different ways, but there are so many similarities—the light in a child when it’s born, luminous ghosts, the light shining off angels’ wings, the white we walk towards when we die. It’s all light.”