The Darkness Knows

38

When he got home from his meeting with the meteorologist, Konrád prepared a simple supper for himself and opened a good Chianti, which had been one of Erna’s favourite wines. He fetched the photo of their wedding kiss from the sitting room and put it on the kitchen table beside him, lighting a stub of candle in front of it. Then he put on a CD of Icelandic hits from the 1970s. As the air filled with soft music, he sat there sipping his wine.

Erna had hidden her concerns at first. She wanted to be absolutely sure before breaking the news to Konrád and Húgó. It was relatively straightforward for her to get her diagnosis confirmed, as she was a doctor with a wide circle of medical friends — including several oncologists. She went to a consultant she trusted implicitly, got a second opinion from a doctor she didn’t know, then a third from an acquaintance who was a specialist. After that, she didn’t bother seeking any further opinions.

Konrád hadn’t noticed the change. He hadn’t paid any attention when she started taking rests during the day and lost a few kilos. Didn’t notice her anxious expression when he came across her alone in the bathroom or kitchen. She wasn’t sure what was happening until she had seen the specialist. Once that was over and she received her prognosis, she came home, opened a bottle of wine and waited for Konrád. She had been around death ever since she started in medicine. She knew what had to be done and what she would have to endure; knew how her nearest and dearest would react, and how grief would descend on her home and the lives of her loved ones until it was all over and they would begin their new life without her. She thought about her child and her grandchildren and about Konrád, and wept quietly over her fate.

When he got home that day, Konrád realised at once that something was wrong. She was sitting alone in the darkened sitting room and asked him not to turn on the lights but to come and sit down beside her. She poured him a glass of wine and told him what was happening. She could have surgery to remove the largest tumour, could try chemo and radiotherapy, but that would only delay the inevitable. The cancer had already spread. It was already out of control.

She didn’t want to give him false hope, so she stated the facts bluntly, keeping nothing back. Instead of trying to reassure him or allay his fears, she was realistic and described the situation in unemotional, clinical terms. She would have liked to spare him, but that was impossible. The sooner they accepted the inevitable, the longer they would have to make the most of the time they had left.

‘We mustn’t waste time on unnecessary things,’ she said. ‘We can’t afford to.’

He wasn’t able to take it in at first. He kept asking questions, demanding to know how they could cure her and what they could do; what about doctors in America, the latest research? But with every answer she gave him, the reality sunk in, until at last he was forced to confront the truth: Erna had only a few months left to live; perhaps a year, if they were lucky.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he groaned at last. ‘I refuse to believe it.’

‘Darling Konrád.’

‘How can you be so calm about it?’

‘I’ve had a good life,’ Erna said. ‘I’ve got you, Húgó, the twins. I’ve enjoyed my job. I’ve got lots of friends. I’ve lived to a reasonable age. I would love to have twenty more good years with you but it’s not to be. Really, I have nothing to complain about. It’s all a question of attitude, Konrád. That’s my attitude, and I want it to be yours too.’

‘Attitude?’ Konrád said. ‘I’m just supposed to accept it, am I? You’re just supposed to accept it?’

‘It’s the only way.’

‘There must be other ways, Erna. It must be possible to beat this.’

‘No,’ Erna said. ‘It’s not. The only way you can conquer death is by accepting it.’

He often thought of the darkness in the sitting room as they’d sat there discussing Erna’s devastating news, and remembered her courage as she’d tried to alleviate his grief and anxiety, as if her own feelings didn’t matter. It must have been something she had learnt over the years as a doctor, in constant proximity to death. Or perhaps she had learnt it as a mother, always putting others first.

After that, everything had happened extraordinarily fast. They summoned Húgó and explained the situation to him. Although he received the news with the cool detachment of a medical man, underneath he was shattered to hear the details of his mother’s diagnosis and the fact there was no hope of a recovery.

Erna gave up work and Konrád had been close to retirement anyway, so they were able to spend all their time together. He drove her out to the countryside, where they stayed in good hotels or comfortable farmhouses. They went to places they had always wanted to see but never got round to visiting. She refused to go into one of the palliative care wards, preferring to spend her last hours at home in Árbær. Their bedroom was converted into a hospital room and Konrád and Húgó took it in turns to care for her, day and night, controlling her morphine intake so she wouldn’t suffer too much.

The days of mourning following her death stretched out into weeks and months, and they taught Konrád above all just what a rock he had in his son. Although Húgó was coping with his own grief, he dedicated himself to looking out for his father, but he did so as unobtrusively as possible.

At a stroke, Konrád found himself alone at home with nothing to do. No longer working, no longer a husband, no longer supporting a family. No longer anything. In a short space of time, his life had undergone such a transformation that he sometimes felt he no longer existed. He wandered aimlessly through the rooms where reminders of Erna were all around him. All the photographs, paintings, books and furniture had belonged to her; every object evoked memories of their life together. He wouldn’t have had it any other way, but as the months went by Húgó began to suggest making changes, perhaps even selling the house and starting again in a new environment. But Konrád wouldn’t hear of it, and Húgó didn’t raise the subject again, sensing that his father needed more time. There was no more talk of change.

It wasn’t any one specific thing that got Konrád moving again, apart from the passing of time, but he slowly began to gather up the shattered pieces of his life and rearrange them into some kind of shape. The pieces didn’t necessarily fit together and some of the most important ones were missing, so the picture would never be entirely whole and there would always be a large gap that could never be filled. But among the pieces a pattern began to emerge of what his life would be like now that Erna was gone. Nothing could take away the grief and loss, but he could learn to live with them. His thoughts remained inextricably tied to Erna. There were times when he forgot and picked up the phone to ring her at work, only to remember at the last minute. And in the moments when he missed her most powerfully, he could almost sense her presence and imagine what she would have to say about the matters that were troubling him. He longed to have her with him, longed to talk to her, to feel her close to him; longed more desperately than anything else to be with her, if only for one last time.

Konrád sat there staring at their wedding picture. He had a clear memory of that kiss in front of the church. Of all their kisses. He reached up into the cupboard for another bottle of wine, this time an Australian Shiraz called The Dead Arm. Erna had read about it in some gourmet magazine, and when it turned out not to be available at the state off-licence, she had ordered it specially. She hadn’t been able to resist it when she discovered that the vine that produced the grapes had an unusual handicap that it managed to turn to its advantage. One of its branches would wither and drop off once the vine had reached a certain size. This had the effect of channelling more energy into the remaining branches and fruit, resulting in an unusually robust and flavourful grape.

‘I just had to buy it for you,’ Erna had said, laughing.