Hypothermia Page 11

  After she found Swann’s Way lying on the floor by the bookcase María’s anxiety diminished and she began to feel better, Her dreams were no longer as dark, Nights of dreamless sleep became increasingly frequent and she felt better rested than ever before.

  Baldvin was even more understanding, She didn’t know whether it was because he was afraid she would cross the line into the world of insanity, or because the sign from Leonóra had shaken him more than he cared to admit.

  ‘Might it be worth talking to a medium?’ he asked one evening.

  María cast him an astonished look, She hadn’t expected this from Baldvin who had never expressed anything but antipathy for psychics, That was why she had kept quiet about her visit to Andersen, She hadn’t wanted to cause friction, and anyway she still felt that matters concerning herself and her mother were private.

  ‘I thought you were anti that sort of thing,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I . . . if there was something that could help you, I wouldn’t care what it was or where it came from.’

  ‘Do you know any psychics?’ she asked.

  ‘N-no,’ Baldvin said hesitantly.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s something they were discussing at work, The heart surgeons.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Life after death. A recent incident, They had a man die for two minutes on the operating table, They were performing a bypass and the patient experienced cardiac arrest, They had to administer several shocks to resuscitate him, Afterwards he claimed he’d had a near-death experience.’

  ‘Who did he tell?’

  ‘Everyone, The nurses, The doctors, He hadn’t been religious before but he said this experience had converted him into a believer.’

  Neither of them spoke.

  ‘He said he’d crossed over into the next world,’ Baldvin said.

  ‘I’ve never asked you, but are they common in hospitals – stories like this?’

  ‘You hear similar stuff from time to time, People have even experimented on themselves to try to find answers to questions about the afterlife.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By manufacturing a near-death experience, It’s not unknown. I once saw a bad movie on the subject, Anyway, the doctors started talking about psychics and mediums, and someone knew a good one that his wife had been to see, It occurred to me that . . . it might be something for you.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘It’s a woman, Her name’s Magdalena. I wondered if you’d like to talk to her, If it might help you in some way.’

  15

  Tryggvi’s last known abode had been a dirty, stinking mattress in a dump near Raudarárstígur, not far from the Hlemmur bus station, where he sometimes stayed with three other homeless men, all ex-prisoners and down-and-outs. It was a condemned building, clad in corrugated iron, with broken windows and a leaky roof, reeking of cats’ pee and crammed with rubbish. The house had been left in a will to its present owners who were embroiled in a bitter dispute over their inheritance and had let the property go to rack and ruin in the meantime. The four men could hardly be described as squatters since they lacked the initiative even for that. Tryggvi had been picked up by the police a few times for drunkenness or vagrancy, but from what Erlendur could discover he was a peaceable loner who took no more notice of other people than they did of him. Sometimes, when it was bitterly cold on the streets of Reykjavík, he would seek shelter in the police cells or at the Salvation Army hostel.

  The second time Erlendur walked the short distance from his office on Hverfisgata to the condemned house just off Raudarárstígur in an attempt to track Tryggvi down, he encountered a man who could by a stretch of the imagination be called his housemate, a semi-conscious alcoholic who lay propped up on a filthy mattress that had at some stage been placed on the concrete floor for comfort. It was raining and a puddle had formed on the floor beside the man. Empty brennivín bottles lay strewn beside the mattress, along with small bottles that had once contained vanilla essence or some other alcoholic substance used in baking, as well as meths bottles and two hypodermics with short needles. The man squinted up at Erlendur from his mattress. One of his eyes was swollen shut.

  ‘Who are you?’ he slurred in a hoarse, almost unintelligible voice.

  ‘I’m looking for Tryggvi,’ Erlendur said. ‘I understand that he stays here sometimes.’

  ‘Tryggvi? He’s not here.’

  ‘I can see that. Can you tell me where he would be at this time of day?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’

  ‘I gather he sometimes sleeps here.’

  ‘He used to,’ the man said, sitting up. ‘But he hasn’t stayed with us for ages. What day is it today?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘Have you got anything to drink?’ the man asked, a note of hope entering his voice. He was wearing a thick jacket over a jumper, brown trousers and tattered boots that reached up to his bony white calves. Erlendur noticed that his lip was split. He looked as if he had recently been in a fight.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about Tryggvi?’ the man asked.

  ‘Nothing important,’ Erlendur said. ‘I just wanted to see him.’

  ‘Are you, what . . . his brother?’

  ‘No. How is Tryggvi?’

  Erlendur knew that if he stayed too long in this tip his clothes would stink of urine for the rest of the day.

  ‘I don’t know how he is,’ the tramp snarled, suddenly filled with indignant rage. ‘How do you think he is? Could his life be anything but shit? What, you think you can rescue him from the gutter? They come here and beat you up, the bloody bastards. Threaten to set you alight.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fucking kids! Won’t leave you alone.’

  ‘Was this recently?’

  ‘A few days ago. They get worse every year, the little shits.’

  ‘Did they have a go at Tryggvi?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Tryggvi for . . .’

  ‘. . . ages. Okay.’ Erlendur finished the sentence.

  ‘Try the pubs. That’s where I saw him last. At the Napoleon. He must have got his hands on some cash or they’d have chucked him out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Have you got any money?’ the man asked.

  ‘Won’t it just go on booze?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ the man said, giving Erlendur a crooked glance.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it does,’ Erlendur replied, digging in his trouser pocket for some notes.

  The Napoleon pub had changed little since Erlendur’s last visit. Men sat hunched over the odd rickety table; the bartender, sporting a black waistcoat and red shirt, was solving a crossword, while the radio over the bar broadcast the afternoon serial, A Place to Call My Own.

  Erlendur knew next to nothing about the man he was looking for. He had spoken to the actor Orri Fjeldsted again on the phone. Orri was garrulous now that he had time on his hands following the premature closure of Othello. He didn’t know any more than he had already told Erlendur about the incident in which Tryggvi had been caused to die and then brought back to life. Although he was sure that Baldvin had been involved he couldn’t remember the name of Tryggvi’s cousin who had been in charge of the operation. He referred Erlendur to the Faculty of Theology at the university, where Erlendur was informed that Tryggvi had dropped out after his first year. From there the trail led to the Faculty of Medicine, where Tryggvi had studied for only two years before leaving to get a job. On enquiry, it turned out that he had gone to sea and worked on both trawlers and merchant vessels until he returned to dry land and became a labourer on the docks. An old co-worker from the docks said that he had already been well on his way to becoming a wino back then, a terrible drunk who missed so many days that he was eventually given the boot. After that Tryggvi began to turn up in police reports, generally as a vagrant occupying squats like the one near Hlemmur or else found lying in the street in
an alcoholic stupor. But he had no criminal record, as far as Erlendur could ascertain.

  He interrupted the bartender’s crossword.

  ‘I’m looking for Tryggvi,’ he said. ‘I gather he sometimes drinks here.’

  ‘Tryggvi?’ the bartender repeated. ‘You think I know these blokes by name?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. Do you know them by name?’

  ‘Talk to the guy in the green anorak,’ the bartender said. ‘He’s here every day.’

  Erlendur peered across the dimly lit room in the direction the bartender pointed and glimpsed a man in a green anorak sitting over a half-empty beer glass. There were three shot glasses on the table in front of him. A middle-aged woman sat at the same table with a similar ration lined up in front of her.

  Erlendur went over.

  ‘I’m looking for a man called Tryggvi,’ he announced. He fetched a chair from the next table and sat down beside them.

  The couple looked up, surprised at the disturbance.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man asked.

  ‘A friend of his,’ Erlendur said. ‘From school. I heard he sometimes came here and I wanted to see him.’

  ‘And . . . what . . . ?’ the woman asked.

  It was hard to guess the couple’s ages; both had swollen faces and bloodshot eyes, and were smoking roll-ups. Erlendur had interrupted their cottage industry; they were rolling little cigarettes from tobacco and Rizlas. She carefully placed a pinch of tobacco in each Rizla, making sure that nothing went to waste, then he rolled them up and licked them.

  ‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said. ‘I wanted to see him, that’s all. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Tryggvi’s dead, isn’t he?’ the man in the green anorak said, looking at the woman.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for ages. Maybe he is dead.’

  ‘You know him, then?’

  ‘I’ve stumbled across him from time to time,’ the man said, licking a new roll-up that the woman handed him.

  ‘Is it long since you last saw him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember when that was?’

  ‘It was probably . . . wasn’t it? . . . I don’t remember. Talk to Rúdólf. He’s over there.’

  The man gestured towards the door where another man in a blue ski jacket was sitting alone smoking, with a beer glass in front of him. He was staring down at the table and seemed completely absorbed in a world of his own when Erlendur took a chair opposite him. He glanced up.

  ‘Do you know where I can find Tryggvi?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend of his. From university.’

  ‘Was Tryggvi at university?’

  Erlendur nodded.

  ‘Do you know where I can get hold of him? They thought he might be dead,’ he said, nodding towards the couple with the roll-ups.

  ‘Tryggvi’s not dead,’ the man said. ‘I met him two or three days ago. If it’s the same Tryggvi. I don’t know any other. Was he at university?’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘He said he was going to get a job, try to go on the wagon.’

  ‘Really?’ Erlendur said.

  ‘I’ve heard it all before,’ the man continued. ‘He was down at the central bus station. Shaving in the gents.’

  ‘He hangs out at the bus station, does he?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes. Watching the buses. Sits there all day, watching the buses come and go.’

  16

  Later that day Erlendur walked in out of the rain and stood in the entrance to Skúlakaffi, glancing round for the woman he had come to meet. He saw her sitting with her back to him, hunched over a cup of bad coffee and with a smoked-down cigarette between her fingers. He hesitated for a moment. Only the odd table was occupied, by lorry drivers reading the paper or labourers taking a late coffee break, men who had finished their pastries but still had a few minutes to themselves before they had to go back to work. The worn lino and shabby seats matched their weathered faces and the dried calluses on their hands. The place was more like a workers’ cafeteria than a restaurant and had not been painted in all the years Erlendur had been going there. Nowhere in town could you get better salted lamb with a sweet white sauce. Skúlakaffi had been his choice for their meeting and she had agreed without protest, according to Eva Lind.

  ‘Hello,’ Erlendur said when he reached the table.

  Halldóra looked up from her coffee cup.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, her tone unreadable.

  He held out his hand to her and she raised her own, but only to pick up her cup. She took a mouthful of coffee.

  He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and sat down facing her.

  ‘You sure know how to choose a venue,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette.

  ‘They do good salted lamb here,’ Erlendur replied.

  ‘Same old country boy,’ Halldóra said.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘You needn’t be polite for my sake,’ Halldóra said, raising her gaze from the table.

  ‘All right,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Eva told me you were living with some woman.’

  ‘We don’t live together,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Really? What, then?’

  ‘We’re good friends; her name’s Valgerdur.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Neither of them spoke.

  ‘This is just bullshit,’ Halldóra said all of a sudden, grabbing the packet of cigarettes and a disposable lighter from the table and stuffing them in her coat pocket. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of,’ she added, rising from her seat.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘I must,’ Halldóra said. ‘I don’t know what Eva thought she would get out of this but . . . it’s just bullshit . . .’

  Reaching over the table, Erlendur grabbed her arm.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he repeated.

  Their eyes met. Halldóra jerked her arm away, then sank back into her seat.

  ‘I only came because Eva wanted me to,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ Erlendur said. ‘Shouldn’t we try to do this for her?’

  Halldóra took out another cigarette and lit it. Erlendur thought it said ‘Mallorca’ on the lighter. He wasn’t aware that she had ever been on a holiday to the Med. Perhaps she had bought it to conjure up memories of sunshine. Or to keep alive the dream of hot sand on a beach somewhere. Once he had refused to take her on a package holiday to the sun, saying he couldn’t see the point of going to places like that. ‘The point!’ she had retorted. ‘The point is that people go there to do nothing!’

  ‘Eva’s doing well,’ Halldóra said.

  ‘We should try to emulate her,’ Erlendur said. ‘I think it would help her if we could find some way of offering her our mutual support.’

  ‘There’s just one problem with that,’ Halldóra said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you. I told her and she knows it. I’ve told her over and over again.’

  ‘I can well understand that,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Understand?’ Halldóra spat out. ‘Do you think I care what you do or don’t understand? You destroyed our family. You have that on your conscience. You just walked out as if your children had nothing to do with you. What do you understand?’

  ‘I didn’t just walk out – you’re wrong about that and it was not nice of you to tell the children that.’

  ‘Not nice of me!’

  ‘Can we skip the row?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘You dare to judge me!’

  ‘I’m not judging you.’

  ‘No, that’s right,’ Halldóra snorted. ‘You never want to argue about anything. You’ve got your own way, so everyone else can shut up. Isn’t that how you want it?’

  Erlendur didn’t answer. He had been dreading this meeting because he’d known that Halldóra would launch into him like this. For her, what had happened in the past was neither buried nor forgotten. He looked at her and saw how she had aged, how
the muscles of her face had slackened, her lower lip jutted slightly, the skin on her nose and under her eyes had reddened. She used to wear make-up in the old days but it seemed that she could no longer be bothered. He supposed he presented the same depressing sight himself.

  ‘We made a mistake,’ he said. ‘I made a mistake. I have to live with that. I should have behaved differently, I should have insisted on getting access to the children. I should have explained things better to you. I tried but probably not hard enough. I’m sorry about what happened but I can’t change anything. It’s no longer about us but about Sindri and Eva; perhaps it was always about them. I could have done better but I let you take charge. You kept the children.’

  Halldóra finished her cigarette and ground it into the ashtray. She immediately took out another and lit it with the Mallorca lighter, then inhaled the blue smoke, expelling it slowly through her nostrils.

  ‘So, you want to blame me for everything?’

  ‘I don’t want to blame anyone for anything,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Naturally you get off scot-free. I kept the children! Isn’t that just how you wanted it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. And I’m not getting off—’

  ‘Do you think my life has been a bed of roses? A divorced single mother with two children. You think there was nothing to it?’

  ‘No. If you’re looking for a scapegoat, then it’s me. No one else. I know that. I’ve always known that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But you’re not exactly innocent either,’ Erlendur said. ‘You wouldn’t give me access to the kids. You told lies about me. That was your revenge. I could have pushed harder to get access to them. That was my mistake.’

  Halldóra glared at him without speaking. Erlendur met her gaze.

  ‘Your mistake, my revenge,’ she said at last.