Walking Into the Night

by Olaf Olafsson

  48

  The doctor had told her to rest for a few days. When we arrived at the hotel I helped her out of the taxi, carried her up the steps, and put her to bed as soon as we got to our room. It was like going from bright sunshine into a cave. I drew the curtains back and opened the window, then moved to the wall where a shaft of sunlight fell and stroked it with my fingers. Her breathing was labored. She slept. The floor by the window was in daylight but over by the bed it was dim. I was standing on a chessboard, a pawn between squares.

  By evening she had developed a fever. She sweated and I wiped her forehead with a damp cloth and undressed her. She had lain down fully dressed, intending to go out once she woke up.

  “We’ll go for a walk later on,” she had said. “To the park. Sit on a bench and watch the world go by. I have a feeling that now everything will be back to how it was.”

  I undressed her. Her body was damp and hot, yet she shivered. Her belly was still rounded, but the mound was smaller than before. I felt sick when I looked at her.

  She was silent. I helped her up into a half-sitting position and fetched water for her to drink. She asked me to pour the water into my palm and let her drink from it. The curtains flapped in the evening breeze and wafted the violet dusk towards us. She finished drinking and stared at the dwindling light for a while. Her face was pale, as if impervious to the blue shadows of evening.

  “Stay with me,” she said. “I’m frightened.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  “Always?”

  “I’ll always be with you.”

  “I’m so frightened. I feel so bad.”

  “It’ll pass. Rest yourself. Think about something beautiful.”

  She lay back and closed her eyes.

  “What shall I think about?”

  “Something that makes you happy.”

  I stroked her brow. She lay still.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking about?”

  “No.”

  “I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about you when you’re thinking about me. Isn’t that beautiful?”

  “Yes, that’s beautiful. Go to sleep now. It’ll be all right.”

  I worried that she would sense the fear flowing from my palm when I touched her. I withdrew my hand. She dozed.

  When I was sure she had dropped off, I went out. I hadn’t eaten since morning and it was now nine o’clock. The night was bright. The moon cast a gleam on the buildings beyond the park at the end of the street, but the light was lost amidst the sea of leaves in the park itself. People moved slowly in the warm dusk, some strolling hand in hand into the park, taking a seat beside some little-used path and putting their heads together. Cigarette smoke curled up in the glow of the street lamps.

  Before, when it was too hot to sleep, we would sometimes open the window and lie on the floor on our covers. It felt good making love there in the warm breeze. Afterwards we’d lie still, listening to our slowing heartbeats. Once we woke up to find a pigeon perched on the windowsill. I was startled when I opened my eyes and twitched. But the bird didn’t move; a white pigeon with a dark splotch on its head. It looked at me, and when Klara awoke she whispered to me that it was a lucky sign. We lay motionless until the bird flew away. It had been so close that I felt the rush of air from its wings on my chest and stomach when it took off. I continued to feel it long after it had gone. It left a feather on the floor by the window. Klara kept it as a keepsake.

  I ate soup and bread at the place on the corner and drank red wine. I wasn’t away long, half an hour at most. I brought back some food to the hotel in a bag, in case Klara had recovered her appetite.

  She lay on the floor between the bed and the door when I came in. She was weeping.

  “Where were you?”

  I stooped to help her up. Her body was a dead weight. I carried her to the bed. She wouldn’t let me go, her arms clasped round my neck.

  “I thought you’d left me.”

  “How could you think such a thing? I just went out to get something to eat. I brought you some food.”

  “I thought you’d gone.”

  “I’ll never leave you.”

  “Never?”

  “Never ever.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  I tried to get her to eat something but she couldn’t. Her lips were dry and pale and I ran a wet finger across them because she said she didn’t want anything to drink. I whispered to her that I was going downstairs to call the doctor.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She was too weak to speak, but her eyes followed me to the door.

  He came an hour later. Carrying a black bag, bald, but younger than I had expected.

  I stood aside while he examined her. He seemed nervous. She whimpered; he asked me what she was saying but I couldn’t hear the words.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

  He beckoned me to go out into the corridor with him. There was no one around. I pulled the door to behind us. The carpet was green, worn through in patches.

  “She’s got an infection,” he said. “She’s very sick.”

  “What can be done?”

  He hesitated.

  “She’ll have to be admitted.”

  “Where?”

  He named a colleague he could turn to for help. He was already thinking about how to save his own skin. I could see it in his eyes, which were small and shifty. I knew this was his main concern and I suddenly lost my temper.

  I grabbed him by the collar. He hadn’t expected this. Grabbed him and shook him but didn’t hit him, although I wanted to. I managed to keep my voice down.

  “Now,” I said. “Do something now.”

  “It won’t be cheap.”

  “I’ll pay,” I said, louder than I’d intended. “I’ll pay.”

  “I’ll go down and call,” he said.

  I let go of him. My hands were shaking. He vanished into the elevator. I hesitated, then went back in and shut the door behind me. I stood still beside it, watching her in bed and listening to my own breathing. It was fast and irregular, but I couldn’t control it. The night was getting cooler, so I went to the window and pulled it to. It had been open all evening, yet the air in the room still seemed stuffy. Her clothes lay on a chair. I picked up her dress automatically and folded it before putting it down.

  Finally, I sat down beside her. The sweat on her forehead was cold, her eyelids were swollen and heavier than before. I was suddenly overcome with fear that behind them was nothing but darkness. It was then that she opened her eyes. I remember how relieved I was when I saw first the whites, then the pupils. I think I must have smiled involuntarily. Yes, I’m sure I smiled, and I’m glad that’s how she saw me the last time she opened her eyes.

  “Are you thirsty?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, looked around her.

  “He went down to make a phone call,” I said. “The doctor. You’ll be taken to the hospital soon.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  I stroked her brow and cheek in turn. It was as if the skin had already begun to loosen from the flesh and I withdrew my hand, then raised it again to push back a lock of hair from her forehead. It was the same lock that had loosened that morning and I suddenly realized how utterly everything had changed in such a short time.

  “He’ll be here any minute.”

  She lay still. Perhaps it was my imagination but it seemed to me that she had stopped blinking.

  “I’m dying,” she said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “We had our good times, Kristjan, didn’t we? It was good sometimes?”

  “It was always good. And it always will be good. You’ll be better in a couple of days.”

  “It was always good. Even when it was bad. It was beautiful then, too.”

  “It was always good.”

  I meant to tell her to rest and close her eyes, bu
t I didn’t dare because I was so afraid that the darkness would settle behind her lids.

  “Kristjan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hold me . . . Lie down beside me and hold me.”

  I held her as gently as I could.

  “Tell me a story about when I was little.”

  Silence.

  “Kristjan?”

  I began to talk. I don’t remember what I said. At first she corrected me, whispering the odd word, then she stopped. She closed her eyes and I watched the shadow settling in the hollow of her throat. It was like a little dip where the darkness had crept to hide from the evening light. When the breath rattled in her throat and her heart stopped beating, I noticed that the shadow in the hollow quivered.

  49

  She stood by the bedroom window, watching the moon glide from behind the clouds above the sleeping town. Somewhere he might be watching it, too, though where she didn’t know.

  It was three months since he had left; his hat was on the table by the front door when she awoke and his keys lay beside the hat. She opened the door and looked out; the morning was quiet. As the pale sun swept the darkness from the street, a wisp of cloud blushed in the east. His scent was still in the hall, he must have left only minutes ago.

  She rearranged the dried flowers in the yellow vase, but left the hat and keys lying on the table. She had protested when he bought the vase because it was expensive but he had refused to listen. She remembered him saying that she would only have to glance at the flowers in this vase for them to open their petals. There was dried lady’s mantle in it now and she tweaked one or two stalks gently before opening the front door for a second time to look down the street.

  It wasn’t until later that day, after Stefan had come to ask where he was, that she had looked in his wardrobe. She was alone upstairs; Einar and Maria were at school, Katrin was with the twins in the kitchen. She had been standing in the same place as now, by the bedroom window, when it occurred to her to open the closet. A shirt had fallen onto the floor and she bent down to pick it up and replace it on its hanger. It looked forlorn hanging there alone and she hastened to close the door again.

  Stefan came just after midday to ask where he was.

  “He didn’t mention anything about leaving. But this letter was lying on my desk when I got to work this morning.”

  He handed her the envelope. She didn’t open it at once but went out onto the doorstep, as if to see what the weather was like. It had rained a short while before, a shower that had disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the street was wet, large droplets still hanging from the naked rowan by the gate.

  “You missed it,” she said at last.

  “Sorry?”

  “You missed the downpour.”

  He nodded.

  “There’s nothing in it except a report on the company,” he said. “It even includes bank-account numbers and balances for business both here and abroad. I don’t understand why he’s left it behind . . .”

  She took the letter from the envelope and ran her eyes over it, before refolding it. Names and addresses, figures, instructions and advice, explanations of various kinds. His handwriting was always a pleasure to behold, elegant and unaffected, in blue ink on a pale sheet. She paused only at the last few lines:

  “You’re to continue to run the company just as we have been doing. Get in touch with everyone I’ve done business with, regardless of whether you’ve dealt with them before. I’ve arranged for you to have signature authority. Your monthly wages will be raised from today. Report regularly to Elisabet about how business is going and confer with my friend Halldor, the bank manager, about the household expenses and family finances. He will be available to assist you if necessary.”

  He watched her read, in case he could learn what was going on from her expression. But she didn’t look up until she had folded the sheets once more; then she handed him the envelope, smiled and said as she went to the window:

  “Thank goodness you missed the downpour, Stefan. Perhaps you should be off before it starts raining again.”

  She made sure he had disappeared down the street before she locked the door and began to weep.

  50

  “He’s away on business,” she answered, when asked. But by now most people had stopped asking, apart from Einar and Maria, who wanted to know when he was coming home. “Soon,” she told them. “If you think about him, he’ll be with you.”

  She seldom left the house. Eyes followed her. In this little town everybody knew everything about everyone. People slowed down when they saw her, put their heads together. With pitying expressions. That was the worst. She had stopped going to concerts. But sometimes friends came round and played with her at home.

  The bed was too big. She had considered replacing it or moving to another room but thought better of it. She slept little; retired late and woke early. When she reached out her hand it touched nothing but emptiness. During the day the northern sun was pale and hesitant. The nights were cold. She left the window open at night in case the spring should whisper her a message. But all was quiet, all except her own heartbeat and the creaking of the mattress when she turned over in bed yet again.

  Sometimes she got up during the night to watch the children sleeping. She could see him in them, especially in Einar. She caressed his cheek, sometimes speaking to him quietly. He lay still, not even moving when she touched him. She was sure her words were not wasted.

  51

  He sprinted home from the jetty, tripped on a stone and went flying onto the gravel, but got right up again, forgetting to dust the dirt off his pants. The sun was at its zenith, the sky blue above the mirror-like sea, a shadow passing slowly over the slopes of Mount Esja. He had been watching it since early that morning but still couldn’t work out which cloud was casting the shadow, however often he scanned the sky. He hadn’t mentioned this mystery to his companions as he wasn’t sure if they’d understand its significance.

  He continued at a jog. The boys’ insults echoed in his head, though they had fallen silent now and returned to their fishing. He didn’t look back until he was halfway up the hill: they had shrunk and the world had grown at the same rate, the road behind him had lengthened and the ocean spread out as far as the eye could see. Yet nowhere could he spy a ship.

  The argument had started after they had caught ten flounder.

  “Four for me, three each for you,” said Einar.

  “No, four for me, three each for you,” countered one of his companions.

  The third boy didn’t join in until it became clear that neither of his friends was going to back down. He didn’t actually know who had caught four flounder and who three, but backed Einar’s opponent because he was bigger and anyway lived next door to him. Einar grabbed four fish from the jetty, shoved them into the bag he’d brought along, and made to march off home with it and his tackle.

  “You’re not moving an inch with my fish,” said the boy, stepping in front of him.

  Einar struck him with the bag. The boy hit back. A moment later they were lying grappling in the street. When they stood up the boy was holding the bag.

  “Give it to me!”

  “You’re not getting it.”

  “I’ll tell my dad . . .”

  “You haven’t got a dad. Your dad’s gone away.”

  Einar backed away. His friends were merciless, crowing in chorus:

  “Einar’s got no dad, Einar’s got no dad . . .”

  He took to his heels.

  His mother was sitting at the piano when he flung open the front door and dashed into the sitting room. She didn’t stand up but turned and looked at him. He came to a halt in the middle of the room, panting, his face wet with sweat.

  “Is something wrong, Einar dear?”

  “I haven’t got a dad. He’s left us.”

  She slapped his face. Not hard, yet nothing had ever hurt him as much. She had never laid hand on him before and he touched his cheek in disbelief and bega
n to sob. She buried her face in her hands and ran out of the room; Katrin came in and comforted the boy.

  “You must never say that,” she said. “Never say that to your mother again.”

  It was good to watch the ships come and go from the jetty. Since his father had vanished he had made his way there every day, after lunch in the winter when he finished school, but now as soon as he woke up in the morning. Sometimes with his friends. Sometimes alone. More often alone these days. Whenever a passenger liner sailed into the bay, he put down his fishing line and went to welcome it. At first he waited, hardly able to contain his excitement, as the passengers disembarked, but no longer. Now he expected nothing.

  He gathered up his line, crammed it in his pocket, and headed for home. Halfway up the slope he looked round as was his habit, in case he should glimpse a ship on the horizon, then plodded onwards. The summer passed, leaves fell aimlessly from the trees, whispering nothing to him on their way to the earth.

  52

  A new day, but time stood still. The pigeons cooed on the roof, a man walked down the street, shuffling his clogs. Then all was quiet. Things she had heard before, she heard now, but they sounded different. The cathedral bell tolled, a car approached from the harbor, one of only three in the country, climbing wheezily up the hill. Katrin put away the crockery in the cupboard, humming until the silence swallowed the notes.

  The anticipated footsteps were never heard and she no longer looked up from her embroidery when someone walked past. Now there was no sign that the comings and goings outside the house disturbed her concentration as she stitched lavender flowers and a church tower onto the cushion cover. Her eyes followed the needle and did not waver when she heard a knock at the door. Katrin let in the visitor.

  Her uncle came to a halt in the middle of the room.

  “Sit down, Tomas,” she said, continuing to sew.

  He had grown a little frailer of late, yet the cane he carried was mostly for show. He hung it on the back of a chair before sitting down, dusting some lint from his sleeve. He had always been a fancy dresser.