I Remember You

Chapter 24

The moon peeked briefly through the bank of dark grey cloud that would soon fill the night sky. As it did so, the leafless shrubs in the hospital grounds appeared once more – but even they wouldn’t be visible for long. Snow was falling, covering everything, which for Freyr meant that there was little to see after staring for nearly an hour through his office window. He’d dragged his chair there and sat with his phone in his lap without knowing who he imagined he could call if he decided he wanted to get things off his chest. He was little nearer to figuring anything out after his conversation with Úrsúla, who’d withdrawn into her shell after opening up to him and hinting at things that might possibly explain what was going on and free him from his psychological torment. But instead of telling him more of what she knew – or thought she knew – she was now lying sedated in a hospital bed. Considering her condition when he left her room, it was unlikely that he would be able to get much out of her the next day; even worse, in the light of her medical history, she could quite easily not say a word for several years to come. What did she mean by saying that Bernódus, who disappeared half a century ago, wanted him to find Benni?

To make matters worse, he’d called Halla’s husband to ask about the scars on her back and hadn’t received the answer he was hoping for. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be dead ends. The man had been flabbergasted, though Freyr had only got as far as mentioning the word ‘scars’, and was angry at being called so late in the evening with what he seemed to consider a trivial question. Freyr had managed to apologize humbly enough for the man to calm down and answer his questions, though his replies hadn’t been particularly informative. The only thing that was clear from the phone call was that Halla had kept her injuries secret from her husband, telling him that it was eczema when he asked about a little spot of blood on her nightdress or the bed. He said the skin condition had first appeared a few years ago, though he couldn’t be any more specific than that. Freyr said nothing, but reckoned that it had been three years ago; it must have been at least that, given everything else he knew. Freyr didn’t want to arouse the man’s suspicions too much so was cautious with his questions. But he did find out for certain that Halla hadn’t suffered from eczema until after her back had been injured, and that it was worst in the mornings, after restless nights. The man hadn’t known how bad it had been; she’d always hidden her back from him, which he’d found very vain. Freyr said goodbye to him without mentioning anything about crosses or the doomed group of friends, feeling that the widower should be allowed to bury his wife in peace, but he did ask him how he was doing and was told that he felt awful, but was getting better. His daughter was looking after him and his sons were prepared to help as well.

After hanging up, Freyr could do little but scratch his head. So it seemed Halla must have inflicted the wounds on herself during the night, according to her husband’s description. This pretty much ruled out the idea of anyone else having been involved; the man would have been aware of any nocturnal activity. But Freyr also felt certain that the husband hadn’t had anything to do with it. He had been so convincing that anything else was unthinkable. The low voice of insanity that crept up and muttered in his ear when he let his guard down whispered that neither the woman herself nor any other living person had caused the wounds. They had been caused by other powers, worse ones. As Freyr agonised over these confused thoughts, another idea formed in his head: could Halla have made the wounds on her back without realizing it? They would have had to be caused either by her scratching in the night or without any external contact whatsoever, subconsciously; Freyr had heard of such things but had never really believed them. Stories about wounds of this sort mainly concerned people who claimed to have received so-called stigmata, wounds in their palms and on their soles as if from a crucifixion. No one had ever proved that people could make such wounds appear through the power of thought alone, although theories did exist for the phenomenon. It was a crazy idea, yet not as strange as that of some entity from beyond having inflicted the wounds on Halla’s back.

The office phone rang. On the line was the nurse he’d dropped in to see on the way up to his office, in the hope that the old teacher was awake and in a good enough condition to speak to Freyr. He hadn’t been, but she’d promised to let him know if he woke; he had a tendency to lie awake at night. She told him that the man was now sitting up and was even excited at the prospect of seeing Freyr, happy to have a visitor to help fill his sleepless night. As Freyr jumped to his feet he wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t called. He probably would have stared out of the window until the morning shift staff drove their cars into the car park, then gone to work for yet another day with bags under his bloodshot eyes. Which was of course still a possibility; it wasn’t at all clear whether he’d be able to sleep despite his overwhelming fatigue, which intensified by the hour. Hopefully he would feel the desire to go to sleep in his own bed at home after speaking to the old man.

He hesitated when he opened the door to the corridor. He was met by the familiar blinking and popping of the fluorescent light, despite the fact that the bulb had been replaced. The light fitting itself must be broken, and he determined to speak to the caretaker despite the man’s undoubted opinion that Freyr was a compulsive complainer, and an extremely odd one at that. He took a deep breath, thinking of the vision that had plagued him here a short time ago. Now, when he was overcome by tiredness, was when he could expect all sorts of nonsense to enter his head. Freyr gathered himself and went out, feeling a surge of relief when he saw only the linoleum floor and white walls. Nonetheless he got goose bumps as he walked down the corridor, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He looked over his shoulder repeatedly to assure himself that this was not the case, but he never saw anything, although he thought he heard a soft snickering behind him as he continued on his way. Of course he was hearing things, wasn’t he? Yet somehow he suspected that if he were to record the sound he would discover it was not a hallucination. He stopped, activated the recorder on his mobile phone and let it run as he walked slowly towards the staircase. When he reached it he turned off the device and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. It wasn’t until he entered the wing and looked into the friendly, smiling face of the nurse that his goose bumps disappeared. It was obvious from her surprised expression that his relief was written all over his face, and, embarrassed, he resolved to act as normally as possible.

‘He’s in his room. There’s no one in the other bed; we released the patient today.’ The woman hesitated. Freyr had always liked her, but unfortunately they hardly ever worked the same shift. She was extremely sharp and usually went straight to the point, as she did now: ‘Can I ask why you want to see him?’

‘I’m investigating the case of the woman who committed suicide in Súðavík. He taught at the school she attended as a child.’ He smiled at the nurse when he heard how far-fetched the connection sounded. ‘Believe me, this story is so strange that it’s too complicated to try and explain it coherently now. When it’s all sorted out, I’ll sit down with you over a cup of coffee and tell you the whole story.’

She smiled, revealing her even white teeth. ‘It sounds as though a glass of wine would be better than coffee. Something a bit stronger.’

Freyr wasn’t born yesterday and he knew she was flirting with him. He smiled back. She reminded him of a woman with whom he’d had a brief fling, which he had quickly come to regret. He’d had no business starting a relationship back then, but now he thought circumstances were not only different, they were better. Besides, this woman was a much more amiable version of the other one, and seemed to be a lot more grounded. It was high time he started living again, and Dagný seemed to be drifting away from him in terms of any sort of relationship, although their friendship was strengthening. This woman was gorgeous, smart and apparently willing. Maybe a decent relationship with a member of the opposite sex was what he needed to get him back on track. ‘Wine would work, too. Let’s do that.’ Feeling slightly more cheerful, he walked off in the direction of the only room casting a light into the corridor. He hesitated at the doorway and his cheerfulness dwindled a bit when he saw that the old teacher seemed to have fallen asleep again. His bed was in the upright position, but the man was leaning back against his pillow with his eyes closed and an earphone in one ear, probably to listen to a repeat of the day’s schedule on Channel 1. Freyr coughed softly to draw the man’s attention, in case he wasn’t actually sleeping but was just absorbed in the radio. Freyr was indescribably relieved when he opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d fallen asleep again. I hope I haven’t woken you.’

The man patted the edge of the bed. ‘No, you didn’t wake me. Come in. I don’t sleep much any more without the help of drugs.’ He took the earphone from his ear and lowered his voice as he did so. ‘What else can I do for you? I gather it’s connected to what we talked about the other day. I’ve been thinking about it a bit and recalling old times. It’s odd how some of your oldest memories are so vivid, but you can’t necessarily remember what you had for supper last night.’

‘If that’s something you want to remember, given the food here.’ Freyr sat down by the bed. ‘But you guessed my errand correctly. I’ve also been thinking a bit about the boy you told me about, Bernódus, who disappeared. His name keeps coming up in connection with a case that’s unusual, to say the least, and seems to have ties to the past.’

The man nodded. There was hardly any flesh left on his bony skull, and his skin looked like soft wax, as if his face were melting. ‘This thing with the boy was a great tragedy, but I can’t understand how his story could be connected to anything now.’ He looked at Freyr. Although his days were clearly numbered, the old teacher still had a gleam in his eye. ‘Not unless you’ve found his bones – is that it?’

Freyr shook his head. ‘No, nothing that simple, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s a shame. I’ve always thought that someone’s death was never settled until his bones were buried in consecrated ground.’ The little white bud of the earphones seemed somehow incongruous in his ancient hands. ‘Maybe because my father drowned at sea when I was a boy. I thought constantly about where his bones might be lying, whether they would disappear under the seabed over time or whether someone would set eyes on them before they vanished completely. You have to remember that I was just a kid. As I got older of course it became easier to bear, but I would still leave this world more contented if his remains had been found. They certainly won’t be now, any more than the bones of the other thousands lying in watery graves off these shores.’

‘Do you think the boy perished at sea? Drowned?’ Although Freyr was sorry for the loss of the old man’s father, he wanted to stick to the topic for fear that the memories would overwhelm him; one old story would lead to another, and so on.

‘Actually, I really don’t know. All I know is that the sea-god Ægir rarely returns those who end up in his icy embrace. So it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s no other place around here that could hide such a secret for long. It’s been nearly half a century since his disappearance, and no unidentified child’s bones have been found in these parts. It’s not as if the town is surrounded by lava and rocks, where no one can go to search.’

‘But what if someone kidnapped him, murdered him and buried him somewhere? His remains wouldn’t necessarily be found.’ Freyr had difficulty finishing the sentence. These same thoughts had run far too often through his mind in connection with his own son.

The old man shook his head sadly. ‘I think the world was better then and I find it hard to believe that such a thing happened. No one lived here – and hopefully never will – who could have committed such a deed. At the time people gossiped that Bernódus’s father might have beaten him to death, intentionally or unintentionally, and got rid of the body. He certainly had a free hand, if he was in that kind of mood. But I found it hard to believe and I never trusted those stories. The poor man didn’t have it in him, in my opinion, to do such a thing. He would have let the boy lie there on the floor in his own blood until he was found. Alcohol was the only thing that mattered to him.’

‘I got to see the old police reports on the case and it seems that an extensive search was made for the boy, all to no avail. The reports didn’t reveal much but one thing caught my attention: the boy’s mother was never mentioned. Was she dead, or maybe as much of a lost cause as the father? Did she just leave? I wondered about this particularly because it would have been typical for a child in his position to run off and try to find the missing parent, who his imagination had idealised. Then he might have died of exposure or in an accident. Wasn’t it winter?’

‘Yes, winter had certainly set in when it happened. But he hadn’t run off to find his mother, because she was dead by then.’ The man’s eyelids half closed. ‘She died several years before when she tried to save Bernódus’s younger brother from drowning. The child had gone out onto the ice after the fjord froze over and fallen through it, and the woman waded out after him. They both drowned there, and they say that that’s when Bernódus’s father lost his grip and gave in to drink and debauchery. He couldn’t cope with the loss and couldn’t bear to look at his surviving son, who’d had to witness the tragedy unfolding. Someone told me he blamed the boy, thought that he could have done something about it – which was absurd, of course; the boy would never have been able to save his mother and brother. He would have just followed them under the ice and died with them. I don’t know whether the drink gave the man this idea or whether the seed was sown when things started going downhill. But one thing is certain: he never showed his son any affection or treated him like a father should.’ The old man shut his eyes completely. ‘Believe you me, he had to live with his shame forever.’

Freyr needed a moment to digest this. In this respect it was easier to speak to the older generation; short pauses in the conservation didn’t matter. ‘So the boy was blamed by his alcoholic father for the death of his mother and younger brother,’ he said thoughtfully, verbally putting the story together. ‘What tragic circumstances to grow up in.’ Freyr was even starting to suspect that the boy had committed suicide. ‘Didn’t he have a grandmother, grandfather, or other relative he could go and stay with?’

‘The family wasn’t from here and I never heard mention of any other relatives. I expect he had some, but to my knowledge no one knew who they were. The accident that killed the mother and younger son occurred before Bernódus and his father moved here, so I never knew the mother or even met her. They were living in Hesteyri in Jökulfirðir when the mother and her child died.’ The old man lifted his head slightly from the pillow and turned to face Freyr directly. Blue veins stood out in his white skin, which was nearly transparent. ‘I never taught him, so I was never involved in his case, but all of us were certainly aware of him, as his situation was so distressing. And he became even more memorable after his disappearance. It really affected us teachers. The break-in at the school occurred soon afterwards, so it really was a difficult term.’

‘Remind me how much time passed between the two events?’ Freyr had lost track of the dates.

‘Ten days; a fortnight or so? I don’t remember precisely.’

‘Were they thought to have been related in any way?’

‘I don’t recall anyone ever suggesting it. I don’t see how they could have been.’ He turned away from Freyr and let his head droop. The depression that formed beneath it in the soft pillow was barely noticeable. ‘And I wouldn’t think it was likely.’ His voice had faded and although their conversation hadn’t been long, it was clear that he was tired.

There was little to add to this and Freyr prepared to stand up and leave. He hadn’t really got anywhere, except that he was fairly certain that one way or another, the boy had followed his mother and brother and perished at sea. That was the most likely explanation, and more often than not the simplest hypotheses proved to be the correct ones. Before he stood up he asked one more question, partly in the hope that the man had recovered a little and they could talk for a bit longer. ‘Do you know whether Bernódus’s teacher is still alive? She might know something more about the case.’

The old man shook his head weakly. ‘No, she died a long time ago. She died very prematurely, too. You’re several decades too late to get anything out of her.’

‘Did she die at around the same time that Bernódus disappeared and the school was broken into?’

‘No, no. It was quite some time afterwards. Probably around ten years later. She’d had to quit teaching because she lost her sight.’

‘Did she go blind from an illness?’ Freyr recalled that the teacher in the class photo had been rather young-looking, and would barely have been middle-aged ten years on from then. It was extremely unusual for people to go blind at that age from glaucoma or degenerative diseases, but of course there were other conditions that affected the eyes regardless of a person’s age.

‘No, it was an accident. She slipped on the ice in the spring, landed in a peculiar way on some fencing and damaged both her eyes so badly that they couldn’t be saved. She started acting a bit strangely afterwards, the poor thing; said that she’d been pushed, but numerous witnesses stated that no one had been near her. That was why I was asked to take over her class in the autumn. She had to stop teaching.’ The man’s hands twitched for no visible reason. ‘You could say that the accident led to her death, in fact, because later she stepped in front of a car. She had a white stick, but either she wasn’t careful or she became confused, and that was that. While I’m feeding you old gossip, I heard at the time that when they examined the body they discovered that she’d completely lost it, though I found it hard to believe. Just thought I’d mention it, since you’re a specialist in matters of the head and heart.’

Freyr didn’t find this any worse a description of his specialism than the traditional one, psychiatrist. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘The story goes that she’d inflicted wounds on herself that couldn’t be explained by anything other than mental instability.’ Freyr’s skin prickled unpleasantly. The old man yawned again, even more weakly than before. ‘Actually, she always seemed rather odd, and that’s maybe what started the rumours. She was moody, she favoured some pupils over others and was generally rather cold and uncaring.’

Fearing he knew the answer, Freyr asked what he’d decided would be his final question: ‘What sort of injuries did she have?’

‘A cross. She’d cut a cross in her back. And rather neatly, too, I understand, considering she was blind.’

Exhaustion finally overcame Freyr and the desire to fall into his own bed at home was overwhelming. He’d had enough.