This young man’s pretty powerful himself, I thought to myself as the tape recorder spun. The deep, expressive voice exerted a subtle charm. The brown eyes sparkled. Shoulder-length dark hair with a center parting, above a handsome, masculine face with strong eyebrows. If Skarphédinn didn’t shave for a few days, he would even resemble the traditional image of Christ in Western art.
Although dressed in historical costume, he was keen to stress the relevance of Loftur the Sorcerer to the people of today, or indeed of any period.
“Just think,” he said, raising his arms to emphasize his point and revealing hairy, well-muscled forearms under his white shirt, “how issues of class and discrimination are constantly arising, for instance in Loftur’s dealings with Steinunn. He’s the steward’s son, she’s a housemaid. He gets her pregnant, then throws her over in favor of Dísa, the bishop’s daughter. Or in his relationship with his boyhood friend Ólafur, who is also in love with Steinunn. And today, when the gap between rich and poor is constantly growing, and tension is increasing between native Icelanders and immigrants, people are dealing with exactly the same issues—even though we dress differently and use computers to communicate.”
I had nothing to add.
“And what about the question of reproductive rights? In those days a desperate woman might leave her baby in the wilds to die. Today we debate abortion rights. It’s essentially the same issue, isn’t it?”
I nodded in agreement.
“Life is always a matter of the quest for happiness,” Skarphédinn continued unstoppably. “Our efforts to make our dreams and desires come true and the methods we use to achieve them.”
Loftur the Sorcerer was in full flood when a cell phone rang in his pocket. He answered the phone, which was in a tooled brown leather pouch, taking a break from his rhetoric. Or was he just an expert salesman?
What has happened to this promising young man? Why is there an appeal on the radio for him to get in touch, just hours before he is due to make his first entrance onstage?
I clearly remember an atmosphere of tension and anticipation among the young people who had recently taken over the Akureyri High School Drama Group. There had been talk of disbanding the group, but they had revived it, and their first production was to be this ambitious staging of Loftur the Sorcerer in its authentic setting at Hólar. “We wanted to do the first performance at this important historical and ecclesiastical site, which was the center of the church in north Iceland for seven centuries and de facto capital of the region. The rest of the performances will be at the old theater in Akureyri,” I had been told by the chair of the drama group, Ágústa Magnúsdóttir.
After Jóa and I took our leave of them in the gym, where the stage set concealed athletics equipment and basketball goals, we were in agreement that this production of Loftur the Sorcerer seemed to be worth seeing. But now, when the chair of the drama group and the director, Örvar Páll Sigurdarson, have apparently lost their leading man, we can’t be sure we’ll have the chance.
Lost in my thoughts, I hear a key in the front door, and Jóa enters. I hadn’t noticed her go out. The door to her room is closed, as it was when I arrived home last night. “Hi,” I call out. “Have you been out for a walk?”
“What? No,” she replies. She comes in wearing her parka and takes a seat at the table.
“Oh?” I ask.
Jóa looks a bit bleary. If I didn’t know better I’d think she might have a slight hangover. She seems a little embarrassed, but there’s a strange light in her eye. Then I notice that under the parka she is still wearing the suit and shirt she dressed in yesterday. But without the tie.
“Hey, hey,” I say. “You’re just coming home now!”
I look at the time. It’s past 2:00 p.m.
I put on a disciplinary expression: “This will not do, young lady. We cannot allow such conduct here under this roof. We have a strict curfew, which must be respected.”
She just smiles.
“Get lucky?” I grin.
The smile gets wider.
“Come on, tell Daddy.”
Jóa makes no reply. But her eyes go a little misty.
“Who is it?”
She is reluctant to answer. I look her up and down. There’s something she wants to say, but can’t get the words out. I keep on looking.
And then it clicks. Something I’d sensed about 15 percent yesterday evening, but pushed aside in favor of 85 percent wishful thinking.
“Adalheidur Heimisdóttir, editor of the Akureyri Post!”
She nods.
“Whoopdedoo!”
The smile is back.
“And I was fool enough to have some silly hopes of my own,” I say, feeling my surprise, embarrassment, and humiliation evaporate as I observe the happiness in Jóa’s eyes.
“I knew,” says Jóa, standing up and placing a friendly arm around my shoulders. “And I’m awfully sorry if you feel I spoiled your chance with her. It wasn’t like that.”
“Of course not, Jóa dear,” I say as I stand up and give her a hug. “I never stood a chance against a foxy lady like you.”
We both fall over laughing.
“You knew each other before,” I say. It’s not a question.
“Back in Reykjavík, Heida used to come to the odd gay event. So we knew each other by sight, but we’d never really met. Not until I moved up north.”
“So when you’ve been taking your walks around town with your camera, and at the movies, or whatever, were you actually meeting her?”
“No, absolutely not,” retorts Jóa. “We went to the movies, admittedly, but nothing else happened. Not until last night. I wouldn’t lie to you, Einar.”
“But does she keep it a secret here or what?”
“Yes. She hasn’t dared take the risk yet. Because of the paper. The contacts. The ads. The readers.”
“Secrets and lies, Jóa dear. Sexuality, gender, ethnicity, color, nationality, religion. When questions like that come up, there’s a tendency not to be able to tell the forest from the trees. For whatever reason.”
“That’s just the way it is. Even today.”
“So you thought it was better to bring a male along for cover? To counteract any misunderstanding? Avert any difficulties for Heida?”
Jóa shakes her head vehemently. “Not at all. Don’t sell yourself short, Einar. You’re not bad company, on your own terms. When you’re in the mood.”
I light a cigarette. I don’t think the mood’s been right for a very long time. But I let it go.
“But when you nodded to each other outside the restaurant yesterday, had you decided to meet up afterward?”
“Einar, sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Sometimes you just get a feeling.”
“Absolutely. Know what you mean. I’m an expert in getting a feeling.”
Although the next edition of the Afternoon News isn’t due for publication until the Tuesday after Easter, I’m in my closet at the office by late afternoon. Not from a sense of duty, but motivated by sheer curiosity.
Jóa and I had treated ourselves to coffee and cakes at Café Amor, appropriately named after the god who had shot his arrows of passion into my friend. Tables and chairs had been placed outside in the sun. The town was aglow. Town Hall Square was humming with energy and high spirits. Youngsters, frisky as calves in spring, were zooming back and forth on their skateboards, cheerfully falling over in all directions. For whatever reason, the town seemed to be full of young girls pushing strollers, all dressed, no doubt, in the very latest style from the fashion magazines. Most wore such deeply plunging necklines that even at a distance Jóa and I had no trouble discerning their heaving maidenly bosoms. At the tables around us sat the cooling remnants of last night’s passion.
____
When I stroll across the square toward the red wooden building with its banner—Truth Be Told—I think of Gunnsa and her traveling companions, on that bigger town hall square in Copenhagen. I open the news website and find
the radio announcement asking Skarphédinn Valgardsson to get in touch. I debate whether to ring Örvar Páll or Ágústa, and opt for the latter. She told me she was in her second year at the high school. A small girl, she was a bundle of energy, freckled and lively, with her hair cropped short. In the play she wore a gray wig, in the role of the wife of the Bishop of Hólar.
She answers the phone breathlessly.
“Hello,” I say. “This is Einar at the Afternoon News. I wrote an article about Loftur the Sorcerer in today’s paper.”
“Oh, yes. Hello,” she replies. Clearly she had hoped it was someone else on the phone.
“I heard the appeal on the radio at lunchtime. Has Skarphédinn turned up?”
“No. We’ve had to postpone the first night. We couldn’t leave it any longer.”
“Has a search started?”
“We’ve been looking for him all morning. And now the police are involved.”
“What do you think has happened?”
Obviously upset, she breathes rapidly. “I don’t know. There was a party after the dress rehearsal yesterday. He was there for a while, but he hasn’t been seen since.”
“And did anything out of the ordinary happen?”
“Nothing I know of.”
“Couldn’t he be sleeping it off? Or maybe he went out somewhere, and the party’s still in full swing?”
“You don’t know Skarphédinn. He’s a hundred percent reliable.”
“Where does he live?”
“He used to live at the high school dorm, but he moved out last fall and rented an apartment in town. He’s not answering the door.”
I thank her for the information, with the feeble assurance that we must hope for the best.
Then I call the police.
“We’ve put out an APB about him, and a search is beginning,” says the woman who answers. “He hasn’t been missing long, but the circumstances are certainly unusual. With the first night this evening, and all that.”
“Have you been to the apartment where he lives?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more.”
On an impulse, I make one more phone call.
“Good afternoon, Hóll.”
“May I speak to Gunnhildur Bjargmundsdóttir?”
“Just a moment.”
Two minutes.
“Hello. Yes, hello.”
A wavery, nervous voice.
“Hello, Gunnhildur. This is Einar at the Afternoon News. I got a message a few days ago asking me to call you. But I haven’t managed to reach you until now.”
A long silence.
“Hello? Gunnhildur?”
A massive throat clearing resounds down the phone. “Hrhuhrummmmm.”
I wait while she clears her tubes.
“Sorry, my boy,” says Gunnhildur, wheezing slightly. “When you’re as old as me, everything gets clogged up.”
“I gather that you’re Ásdís Björk’s mother. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. They often say you can never really grasp the reality of death until you bury your own child. That…That…”
It sounds as if the old lady is on the verge of tears.
“That is absolutely true,” she manages to say.
“Is there something I can do for you?” I ask to keep her on track. “Why did you get in touch with me?”
“I don’t know whether you can do anything for me.”
“But…?”
“I’ve tried talking to the police. But they won’t listen to me. They probably think I’m a senile old bat. Too many people assume all old people are daft and deaf and have lost their marbles.”
“I’m sure that’s right,” I say, wondering if I am one of them. I realize that my remark was ambiguous and hasten to add: “That far too many people think that. It’s nothing more than prejudice, of course.”
“I don’t envy people who think that way, when they get old themselves. Or hopefully not.”
Although I don’t want the conversation to develop into a discussion of old age, I playfully reply: “Why do you say that? You’re not wishing those people an early demise, are you?”
“No, I’m just expressing the hope that no one need be humiliated or ignored just because of their age. The same applies to children. And teenagers. Everyone has rights.”
“I’m with you there. But,” I add, “why did you call me?”
Irritated, Gunnhildur raises her voice to a harsh and grating tone: “Because the police dismissed me! Just like that! Dismissed me!”
“Why?”
“I told them Ásdís Björk’s death wasn’t an accident.”
“What?”
“And I won’t have it!” she shrieks into the phone. “I won’t be dismissed, not until I leave this godforsaken world feetfirst, in my coffin!”
“But why do you say your daughter’s death wasn’t an accident?”
She lowers her voice and whispers her secret to me with melodramatic emphasis: “Because, my boy, she was murdered. Murdered in cold blood. In the coldest of blood that flows through human veins.”
In the beginning was the wish.
As Good Friday dawns, the main idea in my mind is the simple, sincere wish that I may get through this day without doing anything. Not a single damned thing. If I may use such language in the present situation. But, as we know, wishes are not always granted.
On the dining table I find a note: “Gone to meet You Know Who. Hope to see you later.”
Next to the note Jóa has left a selection of pastries she has bought somewhere that remains open on this holiest of days. A gas station, probably. When I was young, gas stations just sold fuel for cars. Now they seem to be mainly for refueling the drivers.
Relishing Jóa’s little treat, I open the door from the living room into the garden and sit at the table on the small terrace with my coffee and cigarette. I bask in the sunshine, which is as bright as yesterday. There’s not a trace of snow, so the skiers who have made their way to Akureyri, hoping to swoop down the slopes, might as well have stayed at home. In the next-door garden, children are kicking a ball around. Even computers and high technology haven’t managed to stop kids going out to play. Not yet, at least. After half an hour of luxurious indolence, I’m climbing the walls. I check that my avian roommate has plenty of food and drink to keep her going, then bid her farewell, reassuring her that I’ll be back by dinnertime.
POLICE reads the sign over the entrance to a long, white two-story building on Thórunnarstræti, with a blue square beneath each window. The police station bears a strong resemblance to the stronghold of law and order in Reykjavík—though in miniature. I go to reception, and before long I am shown into the office of Chief of Police Ólafur Gísli Kristjánsson. He’s a tall man with sharp features, going on forty, in a light-blue uniform shirt. He wears glasses in heavy black frames of the kind sported by Buddy Holly and other rock and rollers of the fifties and sixties. Below his shaven scalp, he has a strong Roman nose, a cleft chin, and a big gap between his upper front teeth. Gravely he waves me to a seat.
Not very welcoming. Behind the lenses, his eyes express distrust.
“I wanted to ask how the search for Skarphédinn Valgardsson is progressing,” I say.
He crosses his arms across a barrel chest. No entry, says that posture. You won’t get anything out of me. “Unfortunately it hasn’t yielded any result as yet.” He speaks in a deep voice with a lilting northern accent.
“Are many people taking part in the search?”
“We’ve called out all available manpower—both police and the volunteer rescue team. About twenty people in all.” He leans forward on his desk, where papers are neatly stacked alongside a hefty desktop computer.
“Have you any clues as to what may have happened to him?”
“I can only tell you what I’ve told your colleagues from radio and TV and the Free Times and Morning News. We have no information that we can share with the media at this point in time.”
> After a moment’s thought, I decide to push a little harder. I politely inquire: “Is that because you have no information? Or don’t you want to share it with the media?”
Chief Ólafur Gísli Kristjánsson gives me a ferocious glare, jumps to his feet, and looms over me like a volcano about to spew fire and brimstone over the plains beneath.
“Who do you think you are?” he asks in a silky tone, disconcertingly at odds with his threatening posture.
“A jour-jour-journalist,” I babble, struggling to my feet.
“I know who you are,” he goes on. “You’re a sensationalizing tabloid hack from the south, putting on your cosmopolitan airs and thinking you’re going to dig up dirt here in Akureyri. But you’ve got another think coming.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I know who you are,” he reiterates. “You’re notorious down south, the police know all about you. You don’t respect the rules of the game. You ignore the usual channels of communication to go sniffing out information…”
“I just won’t be told what’s news and what isn’t,” I say.
“…and you think you’re God’s own seeker of truth…”
“It’s for me to decide. We still have freedom of expression…”
“We don’t need people like you here in Akureyri.”
“…and freedom of the press in this country.”
“However. Since you’ve seen fit to come here, there’s just one thing that’s stopping me from kicking you out.”
I’m brought up short. “Really? What’s that?”
He returns to his seat behind the desk. “No, probably two things. Firstly, my tolerant attitude to troublemakers of all kinds.”
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