by Zena Shapter
“Doctor Emil is also very sorry for any confusion. He’s had to leave Höfkállur this afternoon and will be away until next week, but when he returns he will take measures to ensure this never happens again. Since I am to blame for this mistake, the measures to be taken by me are very clear. I must take full responsibility. First I want to apologise to you. If you need to speak with Doctor Emil, please use the email address I will give you now, since he is accessing his account remotely: [email protected]. Thank you.”
I open the attachment. Mark’s report appears onscreen. Scrolling down to the anatomic summary, I see that Gunnar has inserted a description detailing Mark’s head injury. The injury is now listed as being consistent with river drowning among sunken boulders.
Is it that simple? No listed head injury—then listed head injury?
Looking at Mark’s updated autopsy report, it seems as if it is. If only I could apply the same magic to my brother: dead—not dead. I can’t because Mark is some lifeless specimen this inexperienced junior cut open and weighed with blatant incompetency. The thought makes me want to scream. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. I can’t let myself think like that. I’m not sure what it means for my suspicions about Mark’s death—he still wouldn’t have gone hiking out there alone—but there’s nothing more I can do tonight. I need to get some sleep.
I breathe slowly, counting to calm myself. My eyes drift to the digital clock on my phone. It reminds me it will be approaching dawn in Sydney. Mum and Dad will be waiting for reassurance that I’ve arrived. They’ll want to talk too and I’ll have to tell them I’ve seen Mark, that he really is dead. Can I tell them that?
Rehearsing the conversation in my head, I stare at my phone until my eyes settle on the changing seconds. Each one has to coax the next into sludging past. My eyelids feel heavy. I snatched only a few hours’ sleep on the Austurleid. The muscles under my eyes have strained for far too long already…
I let my next blink relax into a moment’s rest and press my palms into my closed eyelids. A few days ago Mark was sitting here, contemplating his afterlife theories. Was he happy here these last few months? Did he offset any negative energy in his brain before he died, like he told me to do back in Sydney? Or is he still out there somewhere, like Pàll, watching me retrace his last steps and waiting for me to bring balance to his posthumous disparity? Is he gushing water into my head to try and communicate, is that why my head heats when I hear voices? If so, what’s he trying to say?
Or am I simply going mad?
Yes, maybe I’m mad, because I can’t help but think there’s something in Anna’s theory about the gushing water I hear, about the voices in my head. I never heard voices in my head before now, so it has to be Mark. There’s no other explanation.
I listen out for him but there’s only the wind against the windows. It lulls me and I feel my head drop forward. My spine sinks into the armchair. I think I hear something outside my bedroom door, maybe closer. The distinct stench of cigarette smoke drifts into my nostrils. But I am already floating, diving through the air to land on fluffy clouds that wrap me in a white quilt, and rock me to sleep.
Chapter 11
A woman screams out in the dark. She has a Canadian accent.
“Anna, vakna!”
“Why does he still come Jón, why?”
“Ókei, Anna, ókei!”
“Nei, Jón. It’s not okay.”
The voices soften. I roll over and fall back to sleep.
Later, a slamming door wakes me. The enticing aroma of cooking bacon twists with the sharp tang of coffee. It wakens my senses and tells me the time for darkness and dreaming is over for another night. Remembering the voices, I place Anna’s accent, recall hearing Jón’s name, and am not surprised I’ve been dreaming of them.
With a rub I comfort my stomach’s grumbles, then push myself up. With the movement comes a familiar wooziness, the top of my head feels like it’s been sliced opened and my brain is floating off into the air. The rub does little to placate the clawing in my tummy, but I don’t mind the sensation. Actually, I love it. It means my body isn’t getting enough calories; so it can’t be getting fatter, only thinner. At least something good came of losing Riley.
Eighteen months ago, after the paramedics revived me in that ambulance, the doctors told me I wouldn’t be able to digest much for a while, apart from nutrition shakes and soup. I would have to wait until my stomach was stronger. My stomach got stronger, but by then I’d grown used to feeling flat and empty. Emptiness shouldn’t make a person feel powerful. For me, it did. Running a hand over my growling emptiness, it still does.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and think about burning off some extra calories by doing sit-ups or jogging on the spot. But something isn’t right. The wooziness is still there of course, as is the throb in my thigh, but a dull flu-like ache pounds behind my eyes and stiffness pulls at my neck and limbs. I feel as though I’ve slept upright. I crack my neck, stretch my back. The stiffness persists. This isn’t something I usually experience in the morning.
Another door slams, a car door this time. A car door outside. I look at the window, expecting it to be right in front of me. It isn’t. I’m not in the pink armchair anymore. I’m in…bed?
Still groggy, my memory is slow to come. The last thing I remember is closing my eyes in the armchair. I look at my arms, at my fully clothed body. Did I somehow drag myself over to the bed, or did someone carry me? I spin around, check the room. No one’s here. The door is shut. Did I lock it? Yes, I remember.
Mark’s papers? They’re still in a tidy pile on the coffee table, along with my phone and glasses.
The chugga-rip burst of an engine roars outside the window. I race over to see the black sedan moving away from the kerb. Jón is driving. After watching him disappear towards the Litrúm-Hús, I turn, almost missing the white hatchback that pulls up, driven by the short balding man I met yesterday: Ólaf.
He exits his vehicle and stands beside it, watching the road. His face is expressionless, only his rounded cheeks judder as his mouth twitches. He threads a hand around the back of his crisp white collar to rub at his neck, rolls his head from side to side, then readjusts his metal glasses and moves towards the guesthouse, buttoning his navy blue suit as he walks.
I need to get ready.
I stumble into the shower, lean a hip against the tiled wall to steady myself, and wash the rest of Mark’s smell from my sleep-puffed skin. As the shower’s warm water sluices over me, stinging my thigh wound like acid, the pungency of one odour is replaced with another. Yesterday, I’m sure Anna assured me I wouldn’t be able to smell the unique aroma of Iceland’s mineral-rich bore water once I was actually in the shower. Or was that Mark? Either way, even my coconut-scented shampoo offers no relief from the water’s eggy stench. I smile as I remember Mark telling me a similar story about his first few days in Iceland. I’d forgotten that until now.
My smile fades. How could I forget?
As I stuff myself into clothes, I realise this is going to happen all the time now. I’m going to spend the rest of my life losing my brother each time I forget a memory. The thought is so overpowering I don’t pay much attention to what I’m doing and, when I look in the mirror, I’m wearing jean pantaloons and a lace-necked jumper over several sensible layers. Nothing matches, but I don’t care.
I grab my bag and jacket, then hobble downstairs, gripping the handrail tight in one hand, texting my parents with the other. I keep my update ambiguous. I can’t bear to tell them the truth, not yet. I need to arm myself with more information first.
The kitchen is empty but on the island is a plate of cold cuts and bread, a hot serving dish of bacon and poached salmon, and a steaming black cafetière. Beside it is a handwritten note: help yourself.
Plate in hand, I pick at the salmon, restrain myself with the bacon and avoid the bread. I should
cut my mouthfuls into smaller pieces to savour the experience of eating, but today I don’t have time. I wish I had my nutrition shakes with me. It’s amazing how long a bit of powder and water can stave off hunger. The pre-calculated calorie intake of a nutrition shake makes my mental count easier to keep too. I have a stash of them in my kitchen ready for mornings such as these, mornings when I don’t have time to cut and weigh fruit or vegetables for breakfast. I wish I’d brought some.
Instead, the numbers of my daily calorie count race upwards as I eat in silence, straining to hear some movement in the house. In my head I estimate the weight of each mouthful. To sate the guilt I feel as I enjoy each bite, I tell myself that today I need to eat, given what lies ahead. I’m not going to be sat at a computer all day, burning only enough calories to power breath and brain. Today, I have discoveries to make, some of them by scouring a glacier.
Still, I wish I’d done some sit-ups.
I turn to check myself in the reflection of Anna’s silver fridge. Its surface is not reflective enough, but there’s a framed poster on the wall beside it that is. I try to see the roll of fat that clings to my stomach no matter what I do. Layered under my skin, festering into ugly wobbling pockets of excess skin, it looks like it’s behaving today—staying under the waistband that cuts straight across it, pulling it in. If I were naked, the wobble would be hard to miss. The doctor I saw last month is most definitely wrong. I’ve seen the actresses in magazines with anorexia and I look nothing like them. Their bones jut right through their skin, all over their body. Whereas my tummy bulges, my arms flap, and I can’t even bear to look at my hips. There must be some other reason why I’ve stopped having periods lately.
A floorboard or door creaks upstairs. I stop eating to listen. At another creak, I rush to retrieve my phone from my bag and switch on its Word2Word, ready to speak to Anna’s cousin. I can’t remember whether Ólaf used a Word2Word translator when we spoke yesterday.
As I insert my earpiece, they move downstairs talking in Icelandic.
“Are you sure you want to involve her?”
My phone picks up on their conversation though it’s loud in my ear. I hurry to turn it down—I can’t tell whether Ólaf is irritated or if it’s the volume. As the decibels dwindle, Anna replies.
“I have no choice, Ólaf. You know I don’t.”
Curious, I move to the kitchen doorway to greet them, readjusting my waistband to reduce the impact of the bloated flabby feeling. Ólaf is following Anna’s svelte figure down the staircase, his eyes fixed on her long white curls as they bounce across her shoulders. His admiration is easy to understand. Her hair gleams like an iced-over lake in winter sunlight.
Anna turns to say more, notices me waiting. “Goðan dag, Becky!” She smiles as she speaks. Good morning, my translator says in my ear. “This is my cousin, Ólaf.”
“Gaman að kynnast þér. Good to meet you again, Becky.” Ólaf says switching to spoken English as immaculate as his tailoring. So he wasn’t using Word2Word yesterday. He holds out his hand as he approaches. His large cheeks are flushed red, his breathing as heavy as his descent down the stairs is ungainly. I’m surprised his hand isn’t hot and sweaty.
“Again?” Anna asks.
“Yes,” I say, “we bumped into each other yesterday at the Litrúm-Hús. Sorry, I forgot to mention it. Ólaf was very helpful.” I move forward to shake his hand. “Hello again.”
“And please,’ he says, bringing my hand to his lips, “I did not have the chance to say yesterday, but I am very sorry for your loss. All loss is unkind. It can hurt in ways you cannot even understand yourself.”
“Thank you.” I retrieve my hand discreetly so as not to offend him. “Have you lost someone recently too?”
His mouth twitches. “I remember the feeling.”
Anna peers into the kitchen and at my empty plate. “Are you ready to go?”
I turn to collect my things.
“And don’t mind, Ólaf. The only thing my cousin’s lost recently is his memory.”
“I told you, Anna,” says Ólaf, running a hand over his bald patch. “I was too busy last month to help. I have apologised.”
Anna reaches to hold her cousin’s arm and switches back to Icelandic. My earpiece translates. “Don’t apologise. I’m lucky to have you helping at all.”
Ólaf looks at her hand on his arm, then glances back up to see Anna’s eyes stray to Pàll’s hallway photograph. “He wouldn’t want you to be like this, my dear, and you know it,” he says, also in Icelandic. Anna doesn’t see, but he rolls his lips into a tight purse when his comment does little to shift her gaze.
“Everyone has their own path to walk in life,” she replies. “I’ve chosen mine. You know why.”
“Beauty doesn’t make you untouchable, Anna.” He moves his arm away from her. “A woman’s deceit can hurt a man,” he says, with emphasis on his verbs, “make him feel stupid, make him want to lose control.”
Anna chuckles. “Jón would never lose control. He’s too in touch with his…his maleness. He’d consider himself weak.” She turns to kiss Ólaf on the cheek, then switches back to English and moves down the hallway. “So, you know what to show Becky at the Litrúm-Hús?”
“Yes,” he mumbles in English, almost sadly.
Anna opens the front door, whispers to me as I pass her. “Becky, are you sure about going with Ari this afternoon?”
Ólaf walks on but I pause to reassure her. “Ari knows that place better than anyone. He says you haven’t breathed until you’ve breathed the air up by the glaciers.” I remember his saying so as we descended the Litrúm-Hús steps yesterday. He told me the breeze at Jötunnsjökull can sometimes be eerily still, like the ice has sucked up all the life around it. Then at other times it can whistle across the lake so ferociously it whips the water into a frenzy. He told me it cleanses you of all the frustrations of life, which tells me that Ari’s going to the glacier is as cathartic for him as diving is for me. “He loves it up there, Anna. He found Mark because he was hiking, no other reason. He met me from the Austurleid because Director Úlfar told him to, that’s all. I’ll be fine. I need to see where Mark died. Gunnar’s already apologised for missing the head trauma from Mark’s report—”
“He has?” Anna mutters, her eyes drifting to the wall behind me.
“—but there’s still more to this, I’m certain of it. When I see the glacier, I’ll know more. Did, um, Jón stay here last night?”
“Yes,” she murmurs, still staring at the wall, “he said he had a migraine, wanted a neck rub, then conveniently fell asleep on my bed. Your light was on in the middle of the night.”
“I fell asleep in an armchair.”
“I know. I checked on you, helped you into bed.”
“But, I locked the door.”
“I have a master key.” Anna taps a pocket then gestures towards Ólaf waiting in his car. “You’d better go. We can talk more tonight, after you’ve seen everything you need to see.”
I move towards Ólaf though stop on the path when I remember my dream. “Anna, did you call out in the middle of the night? I think I heard you.”
Anna glances at me then looks away again. “Oh, sorry. Yes, that was me.”
“It’s okay, I thought I was dreaming. What happened?”
“Pàll came.” She looks up at me. “I don’t like him visiting when Jón’s there. It’s like he’s spying on me. I close the curtains, hide under the sheets, still he shines through.” She sings the words in frustration, then seems to chide herself for it. “I shouldn’t complain; I used to love it. I used to leave the windows open and beg him to come. Now, it’s not always an ideal time. I can’t blame him for being confused, I suppose. I wish I could help him understand.”
I rub her arm. “I’m sure he does, Anna.”
“He doesn’t; he’s angry. He will in time, of course, he’ll h
ave to. It just makes it hard for now. I wish you could see him. I wanted to wake you up, show you, but you were so tired.”
“I’m sure I’ll see him another time.” Strangely it feels nice to admit the madness out loud. At least Anna and I can go mad together. Mad with grief.
“You’ll see him soon. And then you’ll see how beautiful he is. Pale neon greens tickling the dresser, dancing on the headboard. It…it’s amazing.”
“Did Jón see it?”
“No, as soon as Jón wakes up, Pàll always fades fast. Probably for the best.”
“Probably.”
Anna sighs in strained amusement and moves down the path towards Ólaf’s car. I hesitate, sure there was something else I had to ask. I can’t put my finger on it before I hear the purr of an approaching car. As we reach Ólaf, Anna and I peer up the street. It’s a black sedan. I exchange glances with Anna.
“It’s not Jón,” she mumbles, ushering me into Ólaf’s passenger seat. “Ólaf, take care of her?”
He nods and starts the engine.
Through Ólaf’s rear vision mirror, I watch the black sedan follow us towards the Litrúm-Hús. I can’t see who’s driving.
“So, my dear,” Ólaf readjusts his glasses and squints at the car behind us, “what have you done to deserve such special attention?”
I tell him about the threat.
“And Anna,” he says after some thought, “I suppose she’s already linked it to her conspiracy theories?”
The phrase puts me on edge. Has Anna told him what we talked about last night, what I said to Director Úlfar? Or does he mean to refer to Pàll? “Her husband’s hit and run?”
He glances at my expression as we turn out of Anna’s street. “Sorry I…I assumed she told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Pàll was only the beginning. Anna thinks the entire Litrúm-Hús is corrupt.”