I Remember You

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  The sleet hit the windscreen with increased force and the windscreen wipers were nearly powerless against it, no matter how fast they moved. Freyr held unnecessarily tightly to the steering wheel but consciously relaxed his grip after entering the town limits. The car was old and inexpensive, since it had been all Freyr could afford after his divorce, when he had left to Sara whatever they’d managed to acquire. He had started off with a clean slate and over time would scrape together what he needed, while it was unlikely that Sara would ever be in a condition to work full-time again. In any case, leaving her almost everything freed her from most financial problems, though she still had plenty to deal with. The only condition that he’d set when they divided their possessions was that the house be sold; he knew it wasn’t healthy for Sara to roam about the empty house where she would be constantly reminded of Benni and the past. Sara had invested in a decent apartment downtown, although he’d recently heard from a concerned friend of hers that Sara was planning to put the apartment up for sale and buy another one in Ártúnsholt – closer to their old home, no doubt to continue her endless search for their son in the neighbourhood. But as far as that was concerned, he had little say, things being as they were.

  The discussion on the radio seemed to be drawing to a close; the entire way over he’d been listening to a depressing interview with an economist who offered an extremely bleak outlook on the nation’s financial state. When, by chance, the conversation took a more positive turn, it seemed to surprise the speakers completely, and they nearly shouted each other down trying to get the conversation back on course. Freyr had no idea why he was putting up with this depressing exchange; it wasn’t as if there were a shortage of radio stations. However, there was no need to change stations at this point; the hospital was just around the corner. Freyr hadn’t intended to end his journey there; he’d only gone for a drive in order to clear his mind, but he’d decided to head there after driving aimlessly up and down the fjord. The television hadn’t captured his attention, and he didn’t want to go to bed early and take the risk of waking in the middle of the night and lying there, sleepless, worrying about things.

  The drive around the fjord had helped him focus his thoughts. The files from Dagný had made him more upset than he’d been in a long time and he felt himself creeping uncomfortably closer to the precipice that Sara had already plunged off. Apart from during the first weeks after Benni’s disappearance, Freyr had managed to ignore his most disturbing thoughts; perhaps he had given them free rein now and then, but never for very long. There was nothing either he or Sara could have done to change what had happened. He had to keep that firmly in mind when he started blaming himself for having stayed too long in his office after fetching the insulin the morning that Benni disappeared. It wouldn’t have changed anything if he’d come home an hour earlier. Not a thing. Or would it? Naturally, doubt assailed him quite often, but he always packed it away carefully in a suitable place somewhere in his head before turning to other things, usually long before obsession managed to sow its seeds. Sara wasn’t as good at this as he was, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Few people knew better than he did how difficult it was to rein in such painful thoughts and, unlike him, Sara had never been tough. Now he’d managed to overcome despair once again, forced himself to look the problem in the eye and determine to solve it.

  The question that he now faced was undeniably unusual: why had a complete stranger in Flateyri mentioned Benni by name in her suicide note? It didn’t look as if there would be any straightforward answer, but he would find it. There was always an explanation, no matter how strange, and he just had to go ahead and search for it. Therefore, in the end he’d decided to go back to the hospital, get the files from Dagný and try to work this out immediately, rather than letting it hang over him until tomorrow. It was out of the question that he’d be able to sit back down in front of the television or do anything else – not tonight, and probably not any time soon.

  He took off his jacket and checked if Halla’s medical files had been sent over. Freyr had been given the job of going over her medical history for the autopsy report, and all the files were kept at the healthcare clinic in her home town, Flateyri. Amid the day’s bustle he’d forgotten to check whether they’d been sent over to Ísafjörður, although they must have been, considering how close the two places were. And indeed they had; a thick envelope marked with his name waited on the secretary’s abandoned desk, and he grabbed it after leaving behind a message on a little slip of paper saying that he’d taken the records. He didn’t want a tongue-lashing from the grouchy secretary, so he hoped she would be satisfied with the message.

  The administrative wing of the hospital was like a graveyard. He met no one on his way to his office and felt relieved; he wouldn’t have to explain what he was up to so late in the evening, especially given that he wasn’t on duty. Just to be sure, he shut the door behind him so that the room’s light wasn’t visible if anyone passed by. When he finally sat down behind his desk, he felt like a burglar.

  Halla had lived her whole life in Flateyri, meaning her entire medical history came from one place. Apart from the death certificate that was yet to be issued, the records covered the woman’s life from the cradle to the grave. If she’d ever suffered from any mental problems, that kind of information would be found here; that is, if her doctor had noticed and recorded it. He decided to start at the beginning and read each page carefully so as not to miss anything. He wanted to find out whether her mental health had been defective and search for an explanation for her strange note. His best theory was that a possible mental disorder had started to manifest itself around the time that Benni had gone missing, and that media coverage of the disappearance had merged with her delusions. It wouldn’t be unusual. He also recalled Halla’s husband mentioning that it had been around three years since Halla’s increased religious interest had started to become noticeable. That also fitted in with this time frame. Benni had disappeared a little over three years ago.

  But no such information could be found in the endless list of ordinary ailments and annual flu jabs that marked the milestones in Halla’s medical history. Her tonsils were removed when she was eleven, she broke her arm once on a skiing trip, went through three normal pregnancies and had her children, had one stillbirth, cut herself on a knife, and more along those lines. During the past five years her visits to the doctor had increased, but all of them were related to high blood pressure and cholesterol issues for which she was being treated. There was nothing that could be associated in any way with mental illness. The one entry connected with mental health was from when she was thirteen. Her mother had taken her to the doctor because she thought her daughter was behaving peculiarly; she was frightened and unsociable and not entirely herself. The doctor’s conclusion was that her condition had to do with puberty, which had just begun, and although Freyr read the report several times over there was nothing to indicate that there was anything unusual about the diagnosis, though these days this kind of thing would be followed up more thoroughly than it had been then. It did catch his attention, however, that this visit had occurred in the same year and at the same time as the break-in at the primary school; the doctor’s report was dated December 1953. In order to confirm this he looked in the old police report from Dagný’s files, and he was right: the break-in had occurred at the end of November the same year. He couldn’t see any connection, but the coincidence was interesting nonetheless. A break-in at the primary school and Halla suffers from depression; a break-in at the preschool under very similar circumstances and Halla kills herself. The connection wasn’t exactly crystal clear, but it was still something to ponder.

  When it became obvious that there was nothing more to learn from the medical files, Freyr ran through the papers from Dagný again. These had much more substance, as they were formal police reports and other files that had been written in the knowledge that others would be reading them later. He ran his eyes over Dagný’s summary of the con
tents of Halla’s handbag, which had been lying on the floor of the church, but which she’d overlooked the first time she’d been at the scene. The bag contained nothing unusual: a make-up bag, a wallet, a little hairbrush, a packet of ibuprofen, some chewing gum, keys, and a mobile phone. However, a note concerning the mobile phone stood out. Its memory was full of messages that all said the same thing: Find me. Find Benni. The sender’s number was blocked and Dagný’s attempts to find it out had been fruitless. The newest messages in the inbox were three months old, which made it difficult to know whether the sender had stopped their harassment or whether the inbox was simply full up and refused to accept any more. Freyr read this information over and over again but only became more confused each time; there was a particular accord between these words and the letter that Halla had left behind. Yet it was difficult to base such a connection on four words. Freyr felt his heart beat faster at seeing his son’s name a second time in connection with this suicide, and his headache flared. He put the paper down and tried to compose himself.

  He turned to the class photograph that had been damaged during the break-in. The children were arranged in three rows; they stared straight ahead, all with rather befuddled expressions, as if the photographer had snapped the photo by surprise. Naturally, the expressions of the children whose faces the vandal had obliterated weren’t visible, but Freyr didn’t imagine they’d have been any more unusual in appearance or their smiles any bigger than those of their classmates. Most of the children were dressed in their best clothes; the boys in shirts and ties and the girls in skirts and cardigans. The only exception was a short boy standing at the end of the middle row. He was neither dressed up nor wearing a look of surprise. He seemed extremely sad; his big black eyes weren’t staring straight ahead, but away from the group, and as a result he seemed out of place and isolated. He also stood a bit apart from the others, not shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, like the rest, strengthening Freyr’s hunch that he was either new to the class or was an outsider to the group for different reasons. His clothes looked scruffy; his trousers were too short and his jumper frayed, worn and badly fitting. Again Freyr felt irritated at having just a photocopy to hand, since the names of the children beneath the picture were unreadable. He only had a handwritten list of the names of the ones whose faces the vandal had obliterated from the photo. Since he was familiar with none of them but Halla, he wanted to know who the others in this class were, since hopefully some of them still lived in Ísafjörður. He didn’t think it was entirely impossible that a former student might provide him with information that hadn’t found its way into the police reports. Maybe the children knew who had done the deed back then, even if they hadn’t informed the police or the school.

  Freyr leaned back in his chair and looked at the messy files, which didn’t come anywhere near providing him with a better insight into how Halla was connected with the disappearance of his son. If anything, they’d confused him even more. Maybe the explanation was simply that there was no explanation. For the moment it was difficult to conclude otherwise. All the same, he didn’t have to give up immediately. This would haunt him like a nightmare if he stopped now, no matter how little hope he had of finding an explanation. He noticed that it was too late to call Dagný. It was possible that she had further information about the case, and just as likely that she hadn’t let him have all the files. She also had the original version of the class photo, where the names of the students could be found. He decided to send her an e-mail, which would be waiting for her the next morning.

  As he turned on his computer the door of the office creaked loudly and he looked up. The door opened slowly, as if the visitor had his arms full and were pushing it open with his shoulder. But before it opened wide enough for someone to step through the gap, the door stopped.

  ‘Hello.’ Freyr sat motionless. ‘Who is it?’

  No answer. Only the clicking sound of a defective fluorescent bulb out in the corridor. ‘Hello?’

  Freyr stood up, annoyed, and opened the door. There was no one there. He looked down the corridor. Nothing. He probably hadn’t shut the door properly earlier. He shrugged and shut it behind him, but pulled the knob hard to be certain that the latch fell into place. Then he sat back down at his computer and opened his e-mail. Waiting for him was a message from a colleague of his at the National Hospital. The subject of the message was the name Halla, so Freyr opened the e-mail, doubting whether anything could surprise him in this matter. The message turned out to be quite down to earth compared to everything else. The sender was a doctor at the Research Clinic in Pathology, the man responsible for performing the autopsy on Halla. He wanted Freyr to let him know where he should send the report on the woman’s condition, and asked at the end of the message to be sent information on any psychiatric drugs and other medication that Halla had been taking as quickly as possible, as if he assumed that the woman had been undergoing treatment for mental illness. He went on to ask whether Freyr would also compile a general medical history on the woman, especially concerning the formation of scars on her back. Freyr raised his eyebrows, reached for the medical files and flipped quickly through them in search of information on injuries that might have left behind these scars, in case he’d overlooked it. He hadn’t. No accidents, illnesses, or anything else suggested such a thing. Freyr replied to the message, informing the doctor that he had the files and would be quick in compiling the information. He then added, after brief deliberation, that he would probably ring him tomorrow morning. It would be easiest to speak to the man directly about the scars, as well as to let him know that Halla hadn’t been taking any medication except for high blood pressure and cholesterol.

  Before closing his e-mail program he opened another message, this one from Sara. His first reaction had been to leave it unread until tomorrow morning, but he decided it was better to get unwelcome news out of the way. He regretted it as soon as he read the short text. Sara was still stuck in the same rut, asking him to call her since she didn’t want to bother him at work again. She desperately needed to talk to him, since she had the feeling that Benni was planning to go after him and she wanted to prepare him for the experience. Freyr sighed. From time to time Sara had said she’d seen and heard Benni, and of all the nonsense that had taken place he found these hallucinations of hers the most difficult to deal with. His patients were one thing and he could deal with their problems; it was another thing altogether when his ex-wife displayed the same behaviour. He closed the message, determined to call her neither tonight nor tomorrow. Over the course of the week Sara would forget about these delusions, and they would be replaced by others that he would be better equipped to deal with.

  Freyr started slightly when a click suggested that someone had grabbed the doorknob. Again the door opened as slowly as before, and stopped once there was a small gap. The fluorescent bulb could he heard clicking once more, now with apparently greater frequency.

  ‘Hello?’ Freyr leaned over the desk to try to see through the gap. There was nothing but the blinking of the faulty ceiling light. ‘Hello?’ A chill passed over him when a familiar voice whispered in response to his call. A voice that had always been lively, contented and joyful, but that now sounded cold and lifeless. A voice that seemed so near, yet at the same time so infinitely far away.

  ‘Daddy.’

  Chapter 11

  There seemed to be no end to the sleet. Through the bedroom window on the second floor they’d watched the storm move in north from the sea. It appeared like a black, vertical curtain, against which the feeble moonlight was powerless. Just before the sleet hit the house, it was as if a blind were being pulled down over the little light coming from outside, and it took their eyes several moments to become accustomed to the near total darkness. Now, apart from each other’s outlines, they could see only the window and the storm pounding it. Although in fact they were lying so close together that none of them needed to wonder where the other two were. Which was good.

  �
�I’ll never be able to sleep,’ Líf muttered through a thick sleeping bag that she’d pulled up over her head. ‘Why did we come here?’

  Katrín didn’t answer, since there was little to be gained from reminding Líf that it was she and Garðar who were responsible for this nonsense. He was silent too, but she hoped that wasn’t a sign he was asleep. It was only fair for him to be the last to enter dreamland; even if he was troubled by the events of the evening, they’d affected Katrín and Líf more. She nudged him with her elbow and was relieved when he winced. So he was awake. The sleet hammered the windowpanes even more forcefully and the draughty window let in a cold gust of wind. ‘Does anyone know whether the radiator is still warm?’ Katrín asked, though there was only one answer she wanted to hear: that it was still boiling hot and that the firewood in the stove would last all night. There was no way any of them would be persuaded to go down to stoke it. Though she did seem to be the best off: Putti had lain down on her feet, making her toes quite warm.

  ‘I think so.’ Garðar’s voice was uncomfortably sleepy. ‘But that’ll hardly last much longer.’

  ‘Then we’ll just freeze. I’d rather freeze to death than be stabbed by some crazy child wandering around the countryside here for God knows what sort of crappy reason.’ Líf stuck her head out of the sleeping bag to make her opinion on this situation absolutely clear. ‘The locks on the doors are useless.’