Strange Shores

49

Ezra raised his head in consternation. The man’s resilience was incredible. He had lived through shipwreck and raging seas, the transfer to the ice house, and, despite being battered and wounded, had managed to survive a freezing night.

‘Jakob?’ he whispered, glancing nervously at the door. ‘Jakob!’ he repeated more loudly. ‘Jakob?’

One eye opened a slit. The other was covered by the clot of blood from the wound to his head.

‘Do you know where you are?’

Ezra put his ear back to the other man’s lips.

‘. . Help. .’ he heard Jakob breathe.

It was not his imagination. Jakob was alive.

‘Can you hear me?’ Ezra asked but received no response. He pressed his mouth to Jakob’s ear and repeated the question.

The eye opened slightly wider.

‘I’ll help you, Jakob,’ whispered Ezra in his ear. ‘I’ll get you out of here, fetch a doctor, bring you a blanket. I’ll do all that, Jakob.’

The slit narrowed.

‘Jakob!’ Ezra hissed.

The slit opened again.

‘I’ll save you, Jakob, if you tell me where Matthildur is. If you tell me what you did with her.’

Jakob’s lips moved and Ezra moved his ear closer.

‘. . co. . ld.’

‘I’ll save you right now if you tell me. What did you do with Matthildur?’

The eye opened wider and Ezra thought Jakob was looking at him. His skin was blue with cold, his lips dark. The teeth protruded from beneath his upper lip. His hair still had lumps of sea ice in it, and there was more on his thick, black woollen jumper and oilskin trousers. But his eye was half open and Ezra thought he saw his pupil quiver.

‘Where’s Matthildur?’

‘. . col. .’

‘I know you can hear me. Tell me where Matthildur is and I’ll help you.’

‘C. . can. .’

‘You can’t? You can’t tell me where she is? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

The eye closed again. The lips had stopped moving. Ezra thought he had given up the ghost. For a minute he dithered. Was it too late? Should he run for help? Should he do everything in his power to save this man? Jakob had killed his beloved. He had choked the life out of Matthildur and hidden her body. What mercy did he deserve?

Ezra’s old hatred for Jakob, unleashed now from its bonds, began to course through his body, bringing a hectic flush to his face. He saw Matthildur in Jakob’s hands, saw her fighting for her life, slowly suffocating, her eyes pleading for mercy. Jakob had shown none. He’d had no pity.

Ezra stood there and contemplated Jakob on the filleting table.

Then he went out to fetch the materials for the coffin.

Having locked the ice house, he took a wheelbarrow and set off to get the timber. He did not meet or speak to anyone on the way. Following the boat owner’s advice, he found some nails on the site of the new fish-processing building, then marched home to fetch his own hammer and saw. As he knocked the coffin together in front of the ice house he tried not to let his thoughts stray to Jakob by concentrating on Matthildur instead, on the times they had shared. On the life together that might have been. He often daydreamed about their future, how it might have turned out if only she had been allowed to live. Perhaps they would have had a family by now, children to say goodbye to in the morning and come home to in the evening, to read to, tell stories to. Jakob had destroyed all that when he strangled Matthildur with his bare hands.

Ezra laid out the planks lengthwise, nailed them to crosspieces, and soon had a rough-and-ready box. The weather was still bitterly cold and snowy, and only the odd passer-by stopped to ask for news. Ezra told them that Jakob’s body was going to Djúpivogur, while the Grindavík man would be taken home to the south.

Jakob had few friends in the village. Only one man came expressly to pay his respects. His name was Lárus and he approached Ezra from behind, almost giving him a heart attack as he materialised without warning through the veil of snow.

‘I hear they’re taking him to Djúpivogur today,’ Lárus said. He was a short man in his early fifties, who used to sail out to the fishing grounds with Jakob. His face was deeply furrowed, his teeth stained yellow from tar, and his shoulders rounded by hard labour. Ezra had met him about the village and knew his life had not been easy.

‘That’s right,’ Ezra replied, stopping to stretch, the hammer still in his hand.

‘And you’re making his coffin?’

‘Yup.’

‘I just wanted to see him one last time,’ said Lárus, nodding at the door of the ice house.

Ezra hesitated. ‘He’s a bit of a mess,’ he said, groping for excuses. ‘Doesn’t look too good.’

‘I’m sure I’ve seen worse,’ said Lárus, taking the cigarette he had been shielding in the palm of his hand, pinching the glowing end between finger and thumb, and putting the stub in his pocket.

‘Come on then,’ said Ezra reluctantly.

They went inside and crossed the shed to the filleting tables. To Ezra’s intense relief, Jakob had not moved. He lay flat on the board, arms at his sides, face to the ceiling. Lárus walked right up to him and made the sign of the cross over his body, then stood there. He appeared to be saying a prayer over the dead man. Ezra looked frantically from Jakob’s eye to his lips, then to Lárus standing over him. Time stood still.

‘He was all right,’ said Lárus suddenly, turning to Ezra. ‘A mate.’

‘Yes,’ said Ezra. ‘I know.’

‘His number must have been up,’ said Lárus. ‘He was meant to go. Everything has its time and place.’

Ezra’s attention was fixed on Jakob and he could have sworn he had opened his eye again. Lárus, whose back was turned, didn’t notice.

‘I expect so,’ he heard himself reply automatically.

Lárus glanced back at Jakob. Ezra dropped his gaze to the floor. Surely he must notice that Jakob had half opened one eye. He kept expecting to hear Lárus exclaim in horror but nothing happened. He raised his head slowly. Lárus was still looking at Jakob.

‘He could be a bloody menace as well,’ he said loudly.

Ezra was silent.

‘A bloody menace,’ Lárus repeated, giving Ezra a significant look, before striding briskly out of the building.

When Ezra had finished constructing the coffin, he took hold of one end and dragged it into the ice house. The wood scraped over the concrete floor and he dropped the casket with a crash beside the filleting board where Jakob lay. Jakob didn’t move, although Ezra studied him for some time. He went back outside for the coffin lid.

Then he went and fetched the nails.