The Perfect Landscape

by Ragna Sigurðardóttir

  When Hanna gets back to the gallery, an e-mail from the auction house where Elisabet Valsdottir bought The Birches is waiting for her. She is surprised to hear back from Mr. Jensen. The e-mail reveals the name of the first auction house, the one that sold the paintings from the butcher’s collection, where The Birches was originally bought, but not the name of the middleman. Hanna can see that Steinn is right; this kind of information is not handed out on a plate. She contacts the auction house immediately and quickly receives an e-mail listing all the works the auction house sold from the butcher’s collection. Not one of them is attributed to Gudrun Johannsdottir, and the list doesn’t include photos of the paintings. It only gives the title, subject matter, size, and artist’s name, but in some cases the painter is unknown. There is only one oil painting the same size as The Birches. It is dated the first half of the twentieth century. The motif is given as a birch thicket, but no mention of a mountain or of Iceland. The painter is listed as unknown, the value a fraction of the eight million kronur that Elisabet paid for it. Hanna goes through the list carefully. There is only one work that is a possibility. Finally she sends a note of thanks and asks for a photo of painting number thirty-seven, painter unknown.

  Something doesn’t ring quite true. Why is the landscape just listed as a birch copse when Mount Baula is such a critical element in the painting? And it clearly is not a Danish landscape. Hanna is deep in thought when she hears Steinn’s voice out front. So he can’t be very ill, which is a relief.

  Edda and Steinn are standing in the corridor and Hanna rushes out, eager and happy. She is pleased that there’s nothing seriously wrong with Steinn, and she wants to tell him about the e-mail from the auction house. She is even more relieved when she hears him tell Edda that he has been to the doctor and says, “My wife sent me to the optometrist!”

  Hanna walks toward Steinn with a smile, hardly noticing the dark-haired woman standing with him and Edda. She assumes the woman is there to see Edda because they are chatting and laughing at something.

  “So you’re here!” she says. She looks at him happily, but is taken aback when she sees that he is holding the dark-haired woman by the hand. She is tall and slender and very good-looking. Hanna immediately realizes that this must be Steinn’s wife. She instinctively adopts the en garde position, winds down her delight at seeing Steinn again, and pulls her face back to neutral, dulling the glow in her eyes.

  The two women size each other up. Hanna makes sure she keeps her expression detached and holds out her hand.

  “You must be Helga. Steinn has told me about you. I’m Hanna—I’m the director of the Annexe.”

  Helga smiles wholeheartedly at her, evidently concluding that she has nothing to fear where Hanna is concerned. To be so unexciting is hurtful to Hanna; maybe this is why Frederico was unfaithful?

  Helga and Steinn are tall and make a stunning couple. They seem to have a happy, loving relationship, and Hanna feels a flare of bitter envy and jealousy at their happiness.

  “Nice to meet you,” says Helga. “Steinn speaks highly of you.”

  Hanna becomes mindful of the fact that she has not mentioned Steinn to Frederico.

  “Helga is an artist,” says Steinn, and Hanna can hear the pride in his voice.

  “I’m familiar with your work,” says Hanna, as if she were on the fencing piste about to attack. She falls silent, which speaks volumes about Helga’s painting. Touche, she thinks to herself. She is ashamed of her unseemly behavior but cannot help herself. She has been put in the balance and found wanting. The only course in this situation is self-defense.

  When Steinn comes into the office a moment later, he is on his own.

  “Were you ill?” asks Hanna cautiously, not sure how he might react to her question or whether he picked up on the tension between her and Helga, but Steinn gives no indication if he has.

  “No, no,” he says calmly. “Helga sent me to the optometrist, and we made an appointment at the hospital. I need an operation. But there’s a long wait, a few months.” He feels in his shirt pocket and pulls out a little vial of drops. “Until then I have to use these. And I’m not allowed to drive. That’s why Helga is here. She’s looking after me like a baby.”

  Hanna nods and doesn’t ask any further questions, doesn’t even mention the glaucoma.

  “I’ve been in contact with both auction houses,” she says. Steinn looks at her quizzically. “I still haven’t found out who bought the painting before Elisabet. But I’m waiting for a photo from the first auction house,” she adds. “So we can be sure it’s the same painting.”

  “Hmm,” says Steinn but nothing more.

  Hanna does not know what he is thinking. She hears Edda’s footsteps approaching from behind.

  “I really ought to show you something, Hanna,” says Steinn hurriedly. “Have you got a moment to have a quick look now?”

  Hanna agrees straightaway. She also wants to talk about this in private, so she follows Steinn out of the office and down to the basement, where The Birches is standing on an easel against a wall. Hanna has come to really dislike this work she once thought was so beautiful.

  “You don’t think we can actually continue with this, do you?” she asks, partly hoping that Steinn will be in agreement. She is not sure she wants to turn up every possible stone, but she is also ashamed of thinking like that. Not to bother investigating the painting to the fullest would be like taking part in the forgery herself, if indeed it is a forgery.

  But Steinn doesn’t respond. He clutches his head in his hands and staggers forward. Hanna sees beads of sweat appear on his upper lip; he groans and leans heavily against the table. Hanna reaches out her hand.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “No, I don’t think it is.” Steinn sits down on a stool, holding his head. When he looks up, one eye is red and bloodshot.

  “I can’t see,” he says, trying to stand, but he loses his balance and stumbles. Hanna goes to steady him, but he falls to the floor with his hands to his head.

  Hanna crouches down next to him, makes sure he is breathing, grabs her cell phone out of her pocket, and calls for an ambulance and then up to Edda. Within seconds Edda and the other women are down in the basement. Hanna tells them not to panic; the ambulance is on its way. Agusta goes back up to watch for it, and Edda calls Helga, who left only a short while ago.

  Hanna is scared. She feels her heart thumping in her chest; she feels frightened for Steinn lying there unconscious on the floor. She crouches down next to him and holds his cold, clammy hand. What could it have been that he wanted to show her? He must have gotten the X-ray of the painting. Curious, she looks around but can’t see anything. Besides, it’s even more cluttered with paintings and various artifacts down here than usual.

  It has been a busy week preparing for the opening next weekend. The walls had to be repainted, so the paintings that would otherwise permanently hang in the gallery have been moved. Steinn has removed Sigfus Gunnarsson’s painting, Composition in Blue, which the gallery was given the year before, down from the wall on the staircase and temporarily made space for it in the basement. It is now standing on the floor, shrouded in Bubble Wrap, in Hanna’s line of vision as she crouches down holding Steinn’s hand.

  She keeps half an eye on Steinn, who is breathing evenly, although he’s pale and beads of perspiration glisten on his forehead.

  The outlines of the painting are clearer through the plastic. There is a half-moon, divided by a diagonal line. She has seen this line before, this shape, but she can’t remember where, she is in such a state. The painting is on its side, and Hanna sees it from a new perspective. But she doesn’t think about that; she is thinking about Steinn. She is fond of him; she cannot imagine losing his friendship. He has supported her from her very first day, he has kept an eye on her at work, and he has been there for her whenever she has needed him. She stares at him, then at the painting, back at Steinn, and then finally, after what seems like an eternity, she hears foo
tsteps and the EMTs’ voices. She explains what happened, tells them about the headaches, the shooting pain in his eye, and how it went all bloodshot.

  “I think he’s had an attack of acute glaucoma,” says Hanna.

  “What makes you say that?” asks an EMT.

  Hanna gives a hurried and rather muddled response because there’s no time to lose and she doesn’t think they are really listening. “Just look in his shirt pocket—he’s got eye drops. He was at the optometrist yesterday.”

  The man fumbles in his pocket, but there is nothing there; the vial has either fallen out or Steinn has put it down. He looks at Edda and Agusta. “Did you know that he had glaucoma?”

  Edda shakes her head and looks at Hanna in surprise. “He was at the optometrist, I know that much. But he never mentioned glaucoma.” She looks at Baldur, who has also come down, and he shakes his head. Nobody is aware that Steinn has glaucoma.

  Having lifted Steinn onto the stretcher, the EMTs now stand up, every movement quick and well practiced. Hanna and the others shrink to one side and watch them carry the stretcher up the stairs.

  “Just call the hospital,” one of the men says to Hanna as they disappear up the steps. Hanna would really have liked to go with them, but she doesn’t. She is only a work colleague, and naturally Helga will be going up there straightaway. But supposing Steinn hasn’t mentioned to her about the glaucoma? Hanna is not sure that he has. Glaucoma is a serious condition, and Steinn is not likely to want to give Helga cause for concern.

  When the EMTs have gone, they are all left standing there worried. Edda goes to make coffee, her automatic response to any difficulty. Hanna is concerned that she may be the only one who knows that Steinn might have glaucoma. She doesn’t want to call Helga. That would be odd. And maybe Helga saw how she looked at Steinn. She isn’t even sure herself how she looked at him. But it’s vital that the hospital staff give him the right treatment.

  Hanna hesitates briefly then goes out into the reception area, where no one can hear her, calls the hospital, and asks for Laufey. She is busy. Hanna tells the receptionist that this is an emergency. She is advised to call the emergency room and give them the relevant information. Hanna calls and the receptionist there says she will pass her message on. Hanna tells her that Steinn could go blind if he doesn’t get the right treatment straightaway. The receptionist agrees and repeats that she will ensure the information gets to the right person. Hanna hangs up, worried that this won’t be enough. She fears that Steinn might lose his sight because of a doctor’s mistake. She tries to get through to Laufey again but fails. She calls her cell, but Laufey doesn’t pick up. Eventually she gives up calling. Mentally she moves into the neutral position to calm her mind before setting off for the hospital.

  Hanna fears bumping into Helga in the emergency room, but she has already gone in with Steinn. Hanna learns that he is merely under investigation. An optometrist has not been sent for. Hanna goes out again and into the main entrance to look for Laufey. She must get a hold of someone in the hospital who will listen to her. Eventually she finds the physical rehabilitation department, where Laufey is doctor-in-charge.

  Hanna enters the corridor, glances around, peeps into the ward, and sees Laufey talking to a patient in one of the rooms. Hanna waits outside, and when Laufey walks back out, she is startled to see Hanna there, out of breath and looking uneasy. Hanna briefly tells her the whole story, and Laufey takes her by the hand, leads her into the visitors’ room, and tells her to take a seat and wait. Then she goes back into the department, leaving Hanna there on her own.

  She sits restlessly and sees again and again the image of Steinn putting his hand up to his right eye, red and bloodshot. She sees the painting against the wall, Composition in Blue. She can picture it, the half-moon, cut through with straight lines, the interplay of blue and yellow colors, and at last it occurs to her where she has seen these lines before.

  It was when she and Steinn were looking at images of The Birches on the computer. When Steinn showed her the infrared image. The drawing underneath the painting, curved lines cut through with straight lines. She’d thought maybe they were a bridge or a boat. But now she is absolutely certain. They are the same shapes. There can be no doubt about it.

  Hanna has a photographic memory. Her memories are stored as pictures; her brain is a database of hundreds of paintings that she can recall whenever, their colors, light, shapes, and lines. She is never mistaken.

  Underneath The Birches lies a drawing that is based on similar lines and shapes as Composition in Blue by Sigfus Gunnarsson. For whatever reason. She does not try to understand it now; her mind is too taken up with Steinn.

  Laufey comes back in after a while. “He’s going for tests in the ophthalmology unit. He is on his way there now.” She smiles encouragingly at Hanna. “It’ll be all right. He’ll get all the help available. It was just as well this thing about his acute glaucoma came out. His wife is with him,” she adds with a mischievous look. Hanna pretends not to hear the tone in her voice or see the amusement in her eye and just thanks her for her help.

  Laufey goes back to work, but Hanna remains on the sofa in the visitors’ room for a moment. She thinks about paintings. About the ones she is most fond of and goes back to again and again. She pictures the wide expanse of the sky in Jacob van Ruisdael’s paintings, the tranquil landscape paintings of Camille Corot, the soft light in paintings by Claude Lorainn, and the pinkish-red hues of the mountainsides from home. She thinks about Heba.

  6

  ARTIST IN THE MAKING

  Kari has his dad’s brown eyes; he has just turned thirteen and looks like an angel. Dark hair, fashionably long, and girlish good-looks. His eyes are furtive and also innocent, giving him the air of a defenseless animal. Looking at him you cannot avoid feeling some sort of sympathy, a desire to give him a helping hand, to do something for him. His sisters are different. Saerun, the younger one, is a tough cookie and cheeky with it, and she uses foul language comically at odds with her five years. At fifteen, Soffia is the eldest. She looks after them and is just waiting for tenth grade to finish so she can start working. None of them has the same father; this home has never known a dad.

  They live in a two-room basement flat on Njalsgata, just behind Snorrabraut. Their mom sleeps in the living room when she is home, the sisters share the lower bunk in the bedroom, and Kari has the top bunk. They have a desk in the bedroom, no wardrobe, and their clothes lie in scattered heaps on the floor.

  The children fend for themselves, and their mother is proud of the way they manage. There is no way of knowing whether there will be food in the house, and they never have a packed lunch for school. The social workers have paid them more than one visit, and up until now they have deemed it better for the children to stay together than be put in foster care with separate families. Then there are long periods when things run smoothly, more or less. Now is not one of those times, and Kari wakes feeling tired. He has a headache and his tummy aches; he is late for school, and Soffia and Saerun have already left.

  He gets up and goes through to the kitchen. There are dirty dishes and glasses, empty yogurt cups, and a liter of milk in the fridge that has gone sour. He has a drink of water, searches for his clothes and his backpack in the bedroom, then gives up halfway through—he sees no point in turning up late for school only to be told off and he is too tired anyway. He was out with his crew the night before. The oldest boys are already seventeen and eighteen, and they often have cigarettes and even share a joint, sometimes a beer. They were doing a piece on an inside wall in Hverfisgata and they gave him free rein—him, the youngest. He is proud because in the end he did the wall almost all by himself, in his own style. The others haven’t quite got what it takes, the right touch. He decides to go and look at the wall again. If he could just get a hold of a cell phone somewhere he could take a picture. Maybe he will find a phone in a cafe. People are often so careless with their phones; they leave them lying on the table and don’t notice
when they disappear.

  Kari puts on the same jeans he wore yesterday and the week before and a black hoodie. Neither is clean, but he’s not concerned. He glances out of the window. It’s not raining so he doesn’t bother with his coat, which he cannot stand—he would rather be cold than walk around in that crummy garment. He pulls his cap down to his eyes and goes out, slamming the door behind him. He doesn’t bother locking it—there’s nothing worth taking anyway.

  He starts at Subway, but the man behind the cash register kicks him straight out again. He knows Kari and he knows that he does not have any money, but he hands him a buttered roll as he shows him the door. Chewing on the bread, Kari tries another cafe around the corner. He walks around slowly as though looking for someone, as though expecting someone. The girl behind the counter looks at him with suspicion in her eyes—a youngster in town during school hours is suspicious.

  Kari moves out of her line of sight. He finds his victim toward the back of the room near the toilets. A middle-aged man is sitting down reading the papers, and his cell phone is lying on the table. Kari steals a look around. There are not many people in the cafe; it doesn’t look as if anyone will ruin his plans, no one at the counter that he needs to run past, no one at the entrance. Quick as a flash he grabs the phone and makes a run for it, out, over the street, and across the square by the art gallery, where he is far too visible. From there he shoots down a side alley, behind the Thai restaurant, where he crouches down behind the garbage cans, waiting.

  He is sweating and out of breath. He doesn’t feel good; his heart is thumping. It’s been a while since he has eaten properly. Soffia doesn’t know how to cook and often buys sweets for Saerun to keep her happy rather than buying a meal. Soffia looks after Saerun as best she can—as well as any child can look after another child, when she doesn’t know what it is to be looked after herself. She doesn’t know how to, doesn’t think about cleanliness or healthy food or sleeping patterns, but she gives Saerun hugs and lets her fall asleep in her lap. Soffia can’t leave, Kari thinks to himself. Much as they fight, he cannot even begin to think about it. He couldn’t look after Saerun. He doesn’t even know if he likes her. Most of the time he finds her a pain.