Black Skies

11

It took him some time to find the old projector, tucked away in a low cubbyhole in the kitchen broom cupboard.

He had been sure the old man would not have destroyed it; a machine like that would never end up on the tip if that bastard had anything to do with it. Amazingly, after all these years the old lead-grey device still worked, but then the bastard was probably still using it. He felt its familiar weight as he lifted it out of its hiding place and set it up on the table in the sitting room, his eye falling on the manufacturer’s logo: Bell amp; Howell. He remembered how puzzled he had been as a boy by this name, until a friend explained it as almost certainly the names of two men, one called Bell, the other Howell, who had manufactured the machine together, most likely in America. The projector itself was concealed in a deep compartment under the lid. He pulled the lid off, swung out the reel arms, plugged in the old electric cable and flicked the switch. The wall opposite lit up.

The projector was one of the few possessions the bastard had brought with him when he moved in with his mother, Sigurveig. He had been unaware of the new man in her life since he was in the countryside at the time. Then one day word had come that his mother wanted him back. She had moved into a council block in one of the newer suburbs, and claimed that she had quit the booze and met a new man. Next he received a phone call from the woman whom he never addressed as Mother, only Sigurveig, because after two years apart she was like a stranger to him. It was the first and only time she rang him at the farm and the conversation was brief: she wanted her youngest child to come and live with her. He replied that he was happy on the farm. ‘I know, dear,’ he heard her say down the phone, ‘but now you’re coming home to me. It’s been approved. It’s all sorted.’

Some days later he said goodbye to the farmer’s wife and the couple’s two daughters, and the farmer himself drove him down to the main road and waited with him until the bus arrived. It was the height of summer and he felt he was betraying the farmer because the hay harvest was under way and they needed his help. The couple had often praised him for his diligence and helpfulness. One day, they said, he would turn out all right, more than all right. In the distance they saw the bus approaching and eventually it drew up beside them in a cloud of dust.

‘All the best, and maybe you’ll drop by and see us when you get the chance,’ the farmer said, making as if to shake his hand, then giving him a hug. He slipped a thousand-krona note into his hand. The bus set off with a jerk and the farmer disappeared as the dust rose again. He had never in his life owned any money before and on the journey to Reykjavík he kept taking the note out of his pocket and examining it in wonder, then folding it up and putting it back in his pocket, only to fish it out a minute or two later to study it again.

Sigurveig was supposed to be meeting him at the bus station but when he arrived she was nowhere to be seen. It was a cold evening and he stood for a long time beside his suitcase, waiting for her. Eventually he sat down on the case. He did not know how to get home, or what district the block of flats was in or even the name of the street, and he grew increasingly anxious as the evening wore on. There was no one he could turn to for help. He had been away for a long time; the farmer had told him ages ago that his father had gone to live abroad and he knew nothing about his two siblings, who were considerably older. There was nobody else.

He sat on his case, casting his mind back to his home or rather to the place that he had called home for the last two years. They would have finished in the cowshed by now and the girls would be mucking around. Then they would shoo the dogs out of the kitchen and dinner would be served up: boiled trout from the lake with melted butter, perhaps — his favourite.

‘I assume you’re the brat I’m supposed to be meeting.’

He looked up. A man he had never seen before was looming over him.

‘You’re little Andy, aren’t you?’ the man said.

No one had called him Andy since he had left town.

‘My name’s Andrés,’ he replied.

The man looked him up and down.

‘Then it must be you. Your mum says hello — or at least I think that’s what she said. She hasn’t been on particularly good form lately.’

He did not know how to answer, did not know what the man’s words meant or what he meant by form.

‘Let’s get a move on then,’ the man said. ‘Don’t forget your case.’

The man walked off in the direction of the car park in front of the bus station. After watching the stranger disappear round the corner, he stood up, picked up his case and followed. He did not know what else to do, but he was wary; from the first instant he had got the impression that this was a man who would not be easy to please. His tone of voice when he referred to his mother told him this, the scorn with which he had said ‘little Andy’. The man had not even greeted him; all he had said was: ‘I assume you’re the brat I’m supposed to be meeting.’ He noticed that the tip of one of the man’s forefingers was missing but it did not cross his mind either then or later to ask how it had happened.

Sigurveig was asleep in the bedroom when they reached the flat. The man announced that he was going out and said he was not to make any noise or to wake his mother, so he sat waiting quietly on a chair in the kitchen. The flat had one bedroom, behind a closed door, a living room, a kitchen and a small bathroom. Apparently the sofa in the living room was to be his bed. He was worn out from the journey and his long wait at the bus station but did not dare to lie down on the sofa, so he laid his head on his arms on the kitchen table and before he knew it he was asleep.

Just before he had dropped off his eye had been caught by an object in the living room. He had no idea what it was but there it stood on the table by the sofa, square and boxy, with a handle on top; an alien object from the outside world, with that incomprehensible logo on the side: Bell amp; Howell.

He was to discover later that the new man in his mother’s life also owned a film camera with another name that he could make neither head nor tail of, which puzzled him no less than the name of the projector. The name, Eumig, was burnt into his memory.

He stared for a long time at the old Bell amp; Howell projector and at the light it cast on the facing wall; snatches of memory seemed to play themselves out in the glare of the machine. The old man whimpered something and he turned round.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

The man in the chair was silent. There was a powerful stench of urine and the mask over his face was damp with sweat.

‘Where’s the camera?’

The man stared at him through the slits in the death mask.

‘And the films? Where are the films? Tell me. I can kill you if I want to. Do you understand that? I’m the one in control now! Me! Not you, you old shit. Me! I’m in control.’

Nothing. Neither cough nor groan emerged from behind the mask.

‘How do you like that, eh? How do you like that? Don’t you find it strange, after all these years, that I should be stronger than you? Who’s the wimp now, eh? Tell me that. Who’s the wimp now?’

The man did not move.

‘Look at me! Look at me if you dare. Do you see? Do you see what little Andy has turned into? Not so little now, is he? He’s all grown up and strong. Maybe you didn’t think that would ever happen. Maybe you thought Andy would always be the same little boy?’

He hit the old man.

‘Where’s the camera?’ he snarled.

He was going to find that camera and destroy it, along with all the films and the images they had recorded. He was convinced that the bastard still had the lot stashed away somewhere and he was not going to give up until he had found them and burnt them.

Still no answer.

‘Do you think I won’t find it? I’m going to tear this dump apart until I find it. I’m going to rip up the floors and pull down the ceilings. How do you like that, eh? How do you like little Andy now?’

The eyes behind the mask closed.

‘You took my thousand-krona note,’ he whispered. ‘I know it was you. You lied that I’d lost it but I know you took it.’

He was sobbing as he spoke.

‘You’ll burn in hell for that. For that and everything else you did. You’ll burn in hell!’