Walking Into the Night

by Olaf Olafsson

  I stood still and watched the car retreating down the hill. The wind had dropped and I lowered the umbrella. My feet were already wet and now the rest of me became drenched in seconds. The rain was warm and gentle; it felt good on my forehead.

  They didn’t leave in the morning because she slept till midday. He held her hand as they went down the stairs. I followed a little behind. She tried to smile at me. I meant to smile back, but by then strange tremors had seized the corners of her mouth.

  They vanished into the bright afternoon and I was left behind wondering whether it really had been a smile that trembled for an instant on her lips.

  63

  There is a corner of the soul where the shadows dwell. Most days they keep to their place, and if I sense that they’re about to emerge I try to take precautions before they can invade my consciousness. I dip my hands in cold water and splash my face; it’s like extinguishing a fire.

  Sometimes I conjure up a picture of you to ease my mind. You’re sitting at the piano in the living room, Einar is coming in. You haven’t changed.

  The clouds are high in the sky today and the sun shines uninterrupted. The bell in the campanile clangs out of time; the repair-men are due tomorrow. When I passed the indoor swimming pool earlier I noticed an empty glass laying on the edge. I have no idea who left it there; I don’t remember seeing it there yesterday. When I bent down to pick it up I caught sight of my face reflected on the surface of the water. It was as if it had always been there, floating among the gilded sea lions of the ceiling. I started when it stared back at me. The shadows had emerged from their hiding place.

  Drip, drop. Steam rises from the hot pool and condenses on the ceiling, then falls into the water again. One drop at a time, I can count up to five between them. The sound echoes in the house, the blue walls are cold to the touch, silently waiting for me to move on so that they can echo my footsteps. I look up, unable to stare into the water any longer. When I leave I suspect that my face is still there, floating amid the sea lions.

  You haven’t changed. Einar is coming in; I know it’s him, though I have difficulty picturing him in my mind. When I try, I invariably see myself as a young man.

  A gust sweeps over the hill, taking the cypress by surprise, as the day has been calm for the most part. It sways and seems unsteady for a moment, then recovers and captures the wind after a brief struggle. Somewhere in its leaves raindrops have remained concealed from the night before but now are shaken free. The wind drops again, biding its time.

  The picture vanishes. Darkness falls on it, subjugating my mind and depriving me of sight. You are no longer in the living room, there is no one in the living room and no one opens the front door and says: “Hello, it’s only me! I’m home!” No one comes down the stairs in a red dress and vanishes in the brightness that floods in through the door. No one, nothing. There is nothing before my eyes but darkness.

  Yet I can hear whispering. You’re on a street in Reykjavik, people are watching you and putting their heads together. You know they’re there but hurry away without looking at them, moving closer to the walls of the buildings with their concealing shadows. But the voices pursue you, you can’t drive them away, even though you quicken your pace and begin to hum a tune. “There she is . . . the wife of that man who vanished. I wonder where he went. Some people think he drowned himself . . . Or went abroad, taking all their money . . . Four children, imagine! The poor little mites . . .”

  The whispering echoes in my head, accompanied by the tune you’re singing to try to drown it out. It’s as if someone keeps turning up the volume of a radio; I can’t turn it down, and in the end I take to my heels to try to outrun it, clasping my hands over my ears.

  I feel as if I’m going mad.

  Last night I dreamed I had left my shadow on Maria’s bed. And my soul was left behind with the shadow.

  I come to a stop, my heart pounding in my chest. It’s hot, the sweat is pouring down my face. Push aside your troubles, that’s what I’ve always told myself, try to forget, only think about things that soothe your mind. And I managed it most days, while everything was fine up here on the hill. But now the stage has begun to crumble and there is a menacing silence all around me.

  An illusion, I tell myself now, nothing but an illusion. Yet I’ve managed to keep it alive all these years.

  The bell in the campanile strikes the half-hour.

  The random clanging of the bell fills me with misgiving, though there’s no reason why it should. Sometimes it doesn’t strike for hours on end, then tries to make up for it by ringing incessantly. “Can’t you get here today?” I asked the repairman when I phoned him this morning. “Today,” I repeated. I think he was surprised by the urgency in my voice.

  “Tomorrow at the earliest,” he replied.

  There was nothing I could do.

  The half-hour.

  I carry on up the slope, past the cypress tree, without using it for support, without using anything for support. “Christian!” someone calls, but I don’t answer. I don’t stop to catch my breath until I enter the house, don’t wipe the sweat from my brow, hurry straight up to my room.

  The balcony door is open. I’m hot but don’t take off my jacket. A fly buzzes in the window. I hasten to open the desk drawer, certain of finding comfort in the letters I’ve been writing to you. I reach out for them but they have an alien appearance all of a sudden, as if I hadn’t written them. My hands, usually steady, now begin to shake. When I go to put the letters down I have to grab the edge of the desk to stop myself falling. I feel dizzy. The letters fall to the floor.

  “Am I coming down with something?” I ask myself. My forehead feels hot.

  The words I’ve been searching for. I know they won’t do you any good, yet I still keep trying to find them.

  My heartbeat slows gradually and I stoop to pick up the letters. Just now I was ready to throw them away, but I’ve changed my mind. I put them back in the desk, in an old shoebox with various other odds and ends of sentimental value: feathers, old keys, a few pebbles, the photographs I’ve held on to. I decide to tidy up the desk and the shelves, as well, throw away all sorts of unnecessary stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. I may regret some things in the act of throwing them away, but they’ll be forgotten a moment later. Perhaps I’ll pick out a few bird drawings, but not many of them are worth hanging on to. I’m sure I’ll feel better once I’m done. I read in a magazine the other day that tidying your home helps to clear your mind.

  I’m going to try to finish my clear-out before it gets dark and the boy starts washing down the terrace under my balcony. I want to sit out there and welcome the dusk. I’m sure the clouds in my mind will disperse, the despair will loosen its grip on me and the darkness retreat.

  I’ll never send the letters, I told myself a moment ago. But now I feel optimistic that I’ll change my mind after a good rest.

  64

  I didn’t sleep badly. When I awoke, my despondency had largely lifted; the dawn had finally driven the shadows back into their corner. I’d been getting desperate; it had seemed as if they were never going to leave during these past few days. All the same, I lay still for a while, just to make sure, staring up at the ceiling, then gradually looking around me; it’s strange how sharp the eye becomes when the clouds disperse in one’s soul, it’s like looking through clear air after heavy rain.

  “Well, look at that,” I said to myself. I had forgotten that the doorframe was carved down to the floor. Then a long body shook itself in the passage, a collar jingled, and I got out of bed to pat Helena and greet the new day.

  It was nearly three and the lunch tray with its dirty dishes was still lying on the table, attracting flies. He hadn’t rung for me, so I knocked at his door to find out if he needed anything.

  “Who’s that whistling?” he asked when I opened the door.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “There was someone whistling outside. I heard it yesterday evening, too.”

 
I said I didn’t know.

  A week has passed since he took Miss Davies to the sanatorium. He has been staying near her in a hotel. He came home yesterday evening and is going back to her tomorrow.

  “First I thought it was a bird, then I realized it must be someone whistling. Like this,” he said and tried to reproduce the sound.

  I think he knew I wasn’t telling the truth. He knew, too, why I wouldn’t enlighten him about the boy who whistled to keep himself happy. So he added:

  “It raises the spirits to hear that whistling. I could do with that, Christian, I certainly could do with that.”

  He’s making peace, I told myself. Well, I never. I guess he must have thought a good while before coming up with the whistle as an excuse for conversation and now he’s trying to smile. He’s weary. Yet there’s a gleam of hope in his eyes.

  “Shouldn’t I take the tray? The flies . . .”

  “She’s feeling better,” he said. “The sea air’s good for her. Yesterday we went for a long walk on the beach. I . . .”

  “Please send her my regards,” I said.

  “I can never thank you enough, Christian. It could have gone very differently.”

  “I hope she’ll feel better soon.”

  “She’s always had a soft spot for you, Christian. She trusts you.”

  Outside somebody was whistling.

  “There,” he said. “Do you hear?”

  I nodded but stood motionless, without putting down the tray.

  “What tune would that be?”

  “Probably just something he made up,” I said.

  “It raises the spirits. Yes, really raises the spirits.”

  Silence.

  “Was there anything else?”

  “No, nothing else.”

  I was about to leave, but hesitated for a moment as it was obvious that he wanted to say something to me. Just as I was about to turn my back and walk out, he cleared his throat.

  “Christian, do you think . . .? You found her. You do think it was an accident, don’t you?”

  I was still holding the tray. I was on the point of answering him honestly, rather than shielding him from the truth yet again, when he continued:

  “As she was coming round she asked about a note. Over and over again. ‘The note,’ she said. ‘Don’t read the note. Where is it? I must have it.’ Do you have any idea what she was talking about? She wasn’t holding a note when you brought her upstairs, but there was ink on her fingers. On her left hand. I don’t understand it.”

  When I found her she was clutching a white piece of paper in her left hand. Her hand was damp with cold sweat and the ink had begun to run. I loosened her fingers, folded the note, and put it in my pocket. Wiped the foam from her mouth and kissed her. First on the brow, then on the mouth. Lightly. The note contained only a few words. I expect I could have made them out if I’d tried. But I threw it on the fire as soon as I had said goodbye to the doctor that night, went straight into the kitchen and tossed it into the embers on the hearth.

  “No,” I said at last. “I didn’t find any note. She must have been delirious when she came round.”

  “I thought so,” he said, like a man who has received good news after a worrying medical examination and can’t hold back the flood of words. “I knew it must have been like that. ‘Kiss me again,’ she said to me before she began talking about the note. ‘Kiss me again.’ It meant a lot to me to hear her say that,” he added, looking almost shy. “It was just an accident. She could do with the rest, that’s for sure.”

  I agreed.

  “Anything else?” I asked then.

  “No, nothing else. Thank you, Christian. Thank you.”

  I felt his eyes on me as I went to the door.

  65

  Some people claim they can tell from the smell what kind of wood is burning. I myself recognize the redolence of laurel when fire has taken hold of it, and I’ve always been rather surprised that lavender doesn’t smell better when it burns. The poppy and the aster wilt before the flames can get a grip; the heat which goes in advance fells them like scythes. It is laurel that has such a recognizable smell. I always enjoy the crackling of its branches when we throw it on the fire to flavor the meat.

  The fire started during the afternoon in a ravine east of the hill. It had been hot and dry for the past few days and for once the fog hadn’t crept up onto land, pooling instead down on the coast on the few nights when it had made an appearance. The slopes were yellow and the grass stiff, the wind shrill in its blades.

  The ravine was deep and when the smoke had risen high enough in the sky to be visible from the buildings, the flames had already begun to pour towards its mouth and climb the bare cliff walls inside. But by then the scent of burning laurel had already reached us; it was the head gardener who noticed it first, though he didn’t know where it came from. He hailed me; we stood at the top of the hill in front of the main house, scanning the landscape, unable to spot fire or smoke anywhere. There were still a few deer on the slopes, and when a group came bounding from the east, fleeing down towards the plain, we decided to ride in their direction.

  We were only halfway to the ravine when the smoke finally cleared the ridge. It was blue and stood straight up in the air, billowing over at the top like children doing somersaults.

  We decided that the gardener should go home and get help while I went on. The blaze met me as I approached the ravine. Behind it the earth was piebald. At the top of the slope below the ravine stood a cluster of old oak trees; the fire was headed in their direction. Further down the slope the grass stood thick and tall. The fire caught hold in one place and simultaneously sprang up in another, writhing along the ground like a snake and shooting up every tree in its course, yellow in one place, blue in others, red at its heart, black at its edges. I rode up to it, felt its fury. When I sensed my eyebrows singeing, I backed off.

  Thirty of us set out to battle against it. We split up, the head gardener leading one team, I the other. The fire engine rolled back and forth along the tracks which had been laid the year before last, but they ended far from where the fire was burning. We formed a chain, passing along water in buckets, and the fire laughed at us. We did delay its spread to some degree, but when darkness began to fall and I looked back over the way we had come, I saw that we had been in constant retreat since the struggle began. Where we had originally taken up our stand there was now scorched earth.

  East of the ravine was a belt of gravel which extended straight across the hillside below, so the only direction the fire could take was towards the buildings on the hill. We were joined by reinforcements from the village as the day wore on, but at the same time men were dropping out of our ranks. There were forty of us at most, but not for long.

  When it grew dark accidents began to happen, one after another. Those who had been at it longest were exhausted, some didn’t watch where they put their feet and two were caught unawares by the fire hiding itself in pockets and flaring up from the ashes where no spark seemed to remain, while others inhaled smoke and were forced to leave. The doctor had taken part in the fight, but now had more than enough to do tending the injured.

  The previous day the Chief had gone to visit Miss Davies at the sanatorium, but the head gardener had phoned him before we began to fight the fire. The old man had always been fond of the oak trees and now urged us to save them if we could. The head gardener told him the buildings could be in danger. He decided to start for home without delay. I reckoned he would arrive just after midnight.

  There wasn’t a breath of wind. The fire gathered strength in the darkness and seemed to tower higher than ever. When I approached, it reared over me. As I looked up, it took my shadow and hurled it to the ground behind me.

  Midway between the fire and the buildings on the hill there was a dry riverbed. The head gardener and I conferred and concluded that our only hope was to try to arrest the blaze there. In some places the riverbed was so wide that the flames wouldn’t be able to reach
the vegetation on the other side, but in two places it entered a narrow defile where the distance between the banks was short. We decided to send most of our force there to tear up the laurels on either side and spread sand over the grass. Ten men remained behind and continued pouring water onto the flames to slow their advance.

  I wasn’t aware of feeling tired. Something was driving me on, some rage which took me by surprise. I advanced furthest of all the men into the tongues of flame and was the last to retreat. The head gardener twice yelled at me to take care. I glanced over at him to show I’d heard, but took no heed of his words.

  Every now and then I felt a swish of air as birds fled the conflagration in the darkness. They were flying to the sea. I looked up and saw that the smoke had hidden the stars.

  Midnight was approaching when the fire reached the riverbed. We had filled all the buckets with water and lined them up along the banks up the slope, and stood now side by side, silently waiting. Faces glowed. Some looked away. I stood towards the top of the line at the steep point where the riverbed was narrowest. We had spread gravel and sand on the banks on both sides and dampened the earth. But it was still hot and the water quickly evaporated. I looked over my shoulder. Lights were on in the buildings as if nothing had happened. I thought I saw a car driving up the hill.

  The fire didn’t just seek one or two spots to attempt a crossing, but attacked in five places at once. Where it found a foothold I can’t imagine because no one had seen anything but dirt, stones, and gravel in the places where it now shot up. In some places it swiftly died down, but in others it grew in power with every inch it gained on us. Where we had broadened the riverbed, the sand was burning. The fire leaped towards me as if goading me.

  It got across in three places at once. Where I stood there were only five of us, but further down the head gardener had twenty men helping him. The fire was stronger there and burned over a wider area. The boy who washes down the terrace in the evenings suddenly appeared. For some reason this seemed a good omen. I took him with me up the hillside.