Strange Shores (6 page)

His father keeps his violin in a handsome case in the bedroom wardrobe, from which he takes it out most days, together with his sheet music, before retiring to the sitting room. His practice sessions vary in length and the boys are occasionally allowed to watch, but he is unpredictable: at other times he will throw them out and shut the door. The instrument emits squawks and squeaks as he tunes it and warms up the strings, making the boys clamp their hands over their ears. Often the violin is alive under his touch and the strings vibrate to a jaunty tune, filling the house with the purest notes. But there are other days when he can call forth nothing but a sound of dark, plangent yearning, as if for courage and fortitude.

Some days are better than others and Erlendur is learning to recognise his father’s moods, but it is only with hindsight that he can see that he was in the grip of a severe depression. He tries to introduce his sons to the world of music and teach them to play their own instruments and but soon discovers that neither has any real aptitude. They learn a few basics but lack the determination and passion to continue. He doesn’t force them, conceding that there is no point, though he hopes they will eventually learn to appreciate music.

He had grown up to the sound of the accordion and male-voice choirs, then, inspired by the acquisition of a harmonica in his teens, he headed north to Akureyri to study music. Such opportunities were rare in the Depression years but in the event he had to abandon his studies prematurely and return home. He played mainly on borrowed instruments, even at music school, but long cherished the dream of ownership. Over time he saved up enough for a second-hand violin that he had learned was for sale at Höfn, down in the south-east. That was just after Beggi came into the world.

The Bakkasel family have little money to spare and seldom permit themselves any luxuries. Thrift is a necessity. Their farming is on a small scale but the music lessons he gives bring in extra cash and the boys’ mother ekes out their income by working in the fish factory when needs must. Presents are for Christmas and birthdays only, but once in a while the sun breaks through the clouds and their father is in such high spirits that he buys the boys little gifts to make up for the bad times. These are nothing special, just cheap toys, but worth their weight in gold in the eyes of his sons, for whom it is the thought that counts.

In his worst bouts of depression, their father takes to his bed and will not leave his room. They are forced to creep around the house on tiptoe. His condition is usually most severe around Christmas and New Year, in the blackest depths of winter when it feels as if the sun will never return. Long, dark days succeed one another and the violin lies untouched in its case, both its celebrations and its dirges silenced.

His father is aware that one of his sons has been found alive but the knowledge is not enough to pierce his isolation or mitigate his anguish. No one knows the violence of the storm better than him: he came close to dying himself. So he does not respond to Erlendur, although the boy has come in need of consoling. His younger son is still missing and the single thought that fills his head is fear that the boy is already dead.

Erlendur stands at a loss beside his father, whose indifference fuels his growing sense of dread that he must somehow be to blame. Trying not to think about what exactly he has done, he longs instead for reassurance that he is mistaken, that he couldn’t have behaved any differently. But his father is unreachable. He will not respond, will not even look at Erlendur. The fact that this son at least is safe does not appear to afford him any solace. The silence stretches out unbearably. It is almost worse than lying in the snow.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, so quietly that the words are barely audible. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . I shouldn’t have . . .’

His father raises his head and looks at him.

‘What have you got there?’

‘You gave it to me: it’s a soldier,’ he says, opening his fist to show him. ‘Beggi got a little car.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You gave me the soldier and Beggi the car.’

‘Did I?’

‘He had the car with him. It was in his glove.’

HE LAY AWAKE
in the ruined farmhouse for much of the night, reliving the sequence of events that had led up to the brothers’ departure with their father on their ill-fated journey. Now and then he would doze off in his warm sleeping bag but never for very long. He felt stiff and unrested when he got up in the morning. Huddling over the lantern, he ate three oat cakes and poured himself a coffee in the plastic lid of the Thermos. He had acquired the coffee at a convenience store in the village late last night, from a cheery but rather brash young man who had made determined efforts to force him into conversation.

‘Here in connection with the smelter, are you?’ he had asked, noticing that Erlendur was not local.

‘No,’ Erlendur had answered curtly. ‘And three packets of Viceroy, please.’

The young man, who was wearing ripped jeans and a slashed T-shirt, had fetched the cigarettes from a drawer and laid them on the counter.

‘Working on the dam, then?’

‘No. Could I have some coffee for my Thermos?’

‘Help yourself,’ the young man had said, gesturing to a coffee machine with a half-full jug that stood on a rather dirty table in the corner. ‘It’s free. What do you do, then?’

Erlendur had filled his flask and paid for the cigarettes. The shop assistant had followed his every move. Realising more questions were imminent, Erlendur had made his way quickly to the door.

‘Are you the bloke up at the deserted . . .?’ he had heard the young man ask as the door slammed behind him.

‘Pushy little sod,’ Erlendur had muttered as he left.

After finishing his frugal breakfast, he set out to drive the fifty or so kilometres to Egilsstadir, the administrative centre of east Iceland. To begin with, he followed the coast road around the headland at the foot of Mount Hólmatindur and caught glimpses of the feverish activity around the construction site in Reydarfjördur. Then, leaving the fjords behind, he drove inland where the road clung to the steep, gully-scored mountainside, before descending into the Fagridalur Valley and following the river in its rocky gorge, which brought him down to Egilsstadir in no time at all. Driving conditions were good but the stream of heavy-goods vehicles hammering in both directions, destroying the peace of the morning, meant he kept to a sensible speed.

He managed to locate the care home and asked the receptionist for Kjartan Halldórsson. He was directed to speak to one of the attendants, who escorted him to a small TV lounge where a man of about seventy sat watching cartoons. The girl bent to his ear.

‘You’ve got a visitor, Kjartan,’ she announced in a loud, sing-song voice, as if addressing a small child.

The man straightened up in his chair, mumbling.

‘’E wants a word with you,’ the girl bellowed.

Erlendur thanked her and greeted the man, who had thick grey hair and bony, work-worn hands. He seemed surprisingly frail and arthritic for his age. In the ensuing small talk Erlendur discovered that the man had a degenerative disease which had cost him the sight in one eye.

‘Yes, I’m almost blind on this side,’ Kjartan explained.

‘That’s too bad,’ said Erlendur, unsure how to react.

‘Yes, it’s a bit of a nuisance,’ agreed Kjartan, ‘especially since the other eye is going too. They thought it would be best to stick me in here in case I had an accident. I can hardly even make out the screen any more.’

Erlendur assumed he was referring to the television. They talked about visual impairment for a while, before he was finally able to get to his purpose, saying that he was researching cases of people going missing in the mountains, and had heard that Kjartan’s aunt Matthildur had vanished when walking from Eskifjördur to Reydarfjördur in January of
1942
.

A radio was playing somewhere, and the poignant strains of a
1960
s pop song – ‘Spring in Vaglaskógur’ – carried to where they were sitting.

‘Yes. Yes, that’s quite right,’ Kjartan said, apparently pleased to be of assistance, in however minor a way. ‘She was my mother’s sister, you know, though I never met her.’

‘Do you have any memory of the incident?’

‘No, I can’t say I do. I was very young when it happened and we were living in Reykjavík. But I clearly remember hearing about it. I must have been seven. My mother was the eldest sister. She moved to Reykjavík as a young woman and I was born there.’

‘I see.’

‘I left home early myself, you know. Started a family. Went to sea. We used to be able to catch what we liked in those days. Now it’s a rich man’s game, thanks to all these quotas.’

‘So you moved out east?’

‘Yes, my wife was from these parts. But I’ve never really been in touch with my relatives here. Hardly know them.’

‘Matthildur went missing the same night some British soldiers got into difficulties,’ said Erlendur.

‘That’s right,’ said Kjartan. ‘There was a terrible storm on the moors – hurricane-force winds, they said. People couldn’t stand upright. Incredibly dangerous conditions.’

‘Did the search last long?’

‘Several days, from what I heard. But it was hopeless, of course.’

‘Do you remember if your mother talked much about the accident? Was there any aspect that struck you as out of the ordinary?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘What about Matthildur? Did your mother mention her at all? How she was? Or whether they got on?’

‘They didn’t have much contact. My mother was in Reykjavík, and the roads were dire in those days.’

‘I was wondering if you had any papers connected to Matthildur that belonged to your mother or aunts,’ said Erlendur. He had put the same question to Hrund, who said she had nothing herself but that Matthildur might have corresponded with her other sisters, though if she did Hrund couldn’t remember hearing about it.

‘A few bits and bobs,’ Kjartan said, after wrinkling his brow.

‘Did she and your mother write to each other in those days – that you know of?’

‘My sister sent me a trunk after our mother died, saying I could chuck it out if I liked. There was all sorts of rubbish in there: rental contracts, old bills, tax returns. As far as I can remember, she’d kept a whole pile of newspapers as well. Our mother never threw anything out. I don’t know why my sister sent it to me. I didn’t have any use for it. There were some letters too but I never did more than glance at them.’

‘So you’ve never read them?’

‘Good heavens, no. I had quite enough on my plate without wasting time on that sort of thing.’

‘Do you still have the trunk?’

‘I think so,’ said the old man. ‘My son looks after the few belongings I’ve hung on to. You could talk to him. Are you writing about the storm, then?’

‘I may do,’ said Erlendur non-committally.

IT WAS AFTER
midday by the time Erlendur pulled up outside the house belonging to Kjartan’s son, Eythór. It was a large, detached villa, not far from the Egilsstadir sixth-form college. Eythór, who had popped home for lunch, worked for a firm of contractors involved in the dam project in the highlands. Erlendur repeated his spiel about researching stories of accidents in the mountains and mentioned that he had just come from visiting Eythór’s father, who had given him permission to look at some old papers in a trunk his son was keeping for him.

Intrigued, Eythór asked more about Erlendur’s research and whether he was writing a book. Erlendur managed to dodge the question without telling an outright lie. Eythór said he hardly knew why he was keeping the trunk: he had got rid of lots of his father’s junk when the old man went into the home, and should by rights have binned that too. He had taken a look inside but it contained nothing but papers. Next time he cleared out the garage it would probably go to the dump.

‘How was the old boy, anyway?’ Eythór asked, and it took Erlendur a second or two to realise that he was enquiring after his father.

‘Fine, I believe,’ he replied.

‘His sight’s not getting any better.’

‘So I gather.’

‘I haven’t been able to look in on him for ages. That’s what happens when you’re building the biggest dam in Europe – it takes up all your time. Speaking of which – you couldn’t come back this evening, could you? I’m already late.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve got to head back to Reykjavík,’ said Erlendur, on the off chance that this ploy might work, ‘so it’ll just have to wait.’

The man wavered. His phone rang. He checked to see who it was, then ended the call.

‘OK, come on then,’ he said.

The trunk was in the garage, buried under all kinds of junk that Eythór had to push aside: summer tyres, paint pots, garden tools. He didn’t know what the papers related to and had no time to hang around, but if Erlendur needed any help, he said, his youngest son was at home. A sixth-former who was ‘out to lunch’, if Erlendur had heard correctly. He thanked Eythór for being so obliging, apologised for bothering him and said he would not take long.

The man climbed into his four-wheel drive and departed, leaving Erlendur behind in the garage with the door open and the trunk at his feet. It started to rain. He took out a large brown envelope containing tax returns for the years
1972
to
1977,
and placed it on a work bench. Two extremely dog-eared hymn books followed. He flipped through the pages before laying them on top of the envelope. Next he unearthed three copies of
Reader’s Digest
, together with a sizeable bundle of yellowing newspapers.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he heard a voice behind him ask, and turned to see the sixth-former.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m researching missing-persons’ cases in the East Fjords.’

‘In our garage?’

‘One of the stories concerns your aunt who disappeared on the moors.’

‘On the moors?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was she doing up there?’

‘She was climbing over a pass and presumably had an accident.’