The Day Is Dark

Chapter 15

Arnar’s hands trembled. He sat on the bed and stared at the blank wall. It suited him just fine not to have anything else to look at. The uncontrollable movements of his hands bothered him only because the jerking prevented him from emptying his mind, from focusing only on the paint and the rough plaster behind it. As he concentrated on staring at the coarse surface he could push other, more difficult thoughts away. He changed from a man tormented by distress and pain into a body that only performed the most basic of functions. He stared angrily at his fingers, which had shaken more than ever in the cold in Greenland and had deprived him of the peace of mind that he’d desired so much. He had considered asking the doctor for pills that would reduce the trembling, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He doubtless needed to go through this, to meet the purifying fire completely exposed and without any assistance from the pharmaceutical industry. And there was no guarantee that he would get anything for it even if he asked.

It struck him just how unfair all of this was. The town was full of people who could drink without going down the same path as he did whenever he permitted himself to take a sip. Still, he had enough on his shoulders. Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink, he thought. Arnar looked from his trembling hands to the wall again, in the hope of rediscovering his calm place. He had to stop this whining. He had spent enough time in therapy to know he needed to abandon this self-pity and accept responsibility for his own behaviour. Yes, he was unlucky not to be able to resist alcohol, but no one had forced him into it. He raised the glass to his lips himself, knowing that he would be giving up his self-respect and common sense shortly afterwards. He needed to keep this fixed in his mind. He alone could keep the problem in check, lock the addiction behind imaginary bars where it would hiss and growl in his mind but be unable to bite him. He had long ago accepted that he would have to live with the craving; there was no magic solution that would take it away. The trick was just to accept it; not let the mind go to the moment when the first sip would trickle down his throat, bringing the promise that everything would be fine and one more drink wouldn’t do him any harm. The problem wasn’t how he felt when he stopped keeping tabs on his drinking; he would never even consider drinking if he felt that way after the first sip. When he was drunk the short-lived sense of well-being vanished, although he did not feel bad, exactly. He simply went numb, and his existence revolved around ensuring the next drink was within reach. No, it was the first mouthfuls that were dangerous, so dangerously good that he let himself be tempted time and time again, always just as convinced that this time he could put the cork back in after two – at the most three – glasses. Such bottomless stupidity and self-deception. Arnar stared at the paint and forced himself to concentrate on its texture. Maybe he should just commit himself to this place forever. He could sit here on the edge of the bed and look at the wall while his life went on and the years passed by outside. The world would go on turning even if he weren’t around.

There was a light knock at the door and Arnar was forced to tear his eyes from the wall. He neither stood up nor invited the person standing outside to come in. After a moment the door opened and in peeked a woman he had seen in the corridor the day before. She was on the staff but didn’t need her uniform to distinguish her from the patients. Her expression was too cheerful for her to be in treatment. Arnar looked at her and waited for her to state her business.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, smiling. Arnar wondered how often she had asked that same question with precisely that expression. He said nothing. ‘We were hoping that you’d feel up to coming to the meeting, but you haven’t come.’ Arnar had no recollection of being told about this meeting. Of course he had little reason to attend; others’ exaggerated tales of their own drinking were not of interest right now. ‘It would do you good to meet other people, plus you also have to take an active role in the programme if you want it to produce results.’

Arnar turned his back to the wall. ‘What do you think about killing animals?’ he asked.

‘Me?’ asked the young woman, as if he could have meant someone else. ‘I don’t find it pleasant to think about, but it’s okay if the animals are meant to be eaten.’

‘And people?’ asked Arnar, without changing his expression or his tone of voice. ‘Is that all right?’

The silence in the doorway suggested that the young woman had never before discussed such a topic, even though she must have heard a thing or two in her career.

‘No,’ she finally answered, tentatively. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

Arnar looked at her. She was beautiful, but the ridiculous blonde streaks in her long hair, the sunbed tan and the gaudy earrings did little for her. She could have been one of the endless stream of girls like that filling the streets downtown on the weekends, when they strutted around in little groups and hoped to be noticed. No doubt he judged her too harshly; she was unlikely to be a drinker and she might have become that tanned and her hair been bleached by spending a lot of time outdoors. He sensed that she was uncomfortable about the way he was staring at her. ‘Sometimes I think it’s okay.’

‘I see.’ The young woman looked a bit queasy. She had come to persuade him to go to a meeting, not to consider moral questions about whether or when a man should kill another. Arnar didn’t know what her job was: nurse, psychologist, therapist or something entirely different. She couldn’t be a doctor, she was too young for that, unless he underestimated her age. With each year that passed it became more difficult for him to guess young people’s ages; he drew further and further away from youth, much to his dismay.

‘But do you think there’s good reason to punish those who have murdered someone?’ He could see that she understood none of what he was saying. ‘The damage is already done; what purpose does it serve?’

The woman looked at the clock and glanced nervously down the corridor. ‘It’s not my department, but I do think people should be punished for the crimes they commit. It doesn’t do any good to act as if nothing happened and not avenge the person who died.’

‘Avenge them?’ said Arnar thoughtfully, looking away from the woman. ‘But what if the person who committed murder was in fact avenging another death? Wouldn’t that just be a vicious circle?’ He closed his eyes and wished for the millionth time that he were religious. Then he would find it much easier to separate things into black and white.

‘Is there any particular reason you’re thinking about this?’ The smile she had bestowed upon him when she’d first knocked at his door had vanished.

‘No.’ Arnar couldn’t put her through a confession of his problems. She probably had enough of her own – like everyone else, in fact. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘I would like to suggest that you set up an appointment with the psychiatrist.’ The girl appeared to be having trouble deciding whether she should insist that Arnar attend the meeting or whether his condition and behaviour suggested that it would be better if he were allowed to continue to rest. ‘These kinds of thoughts don’t do any good and I’m sure you’d feel better after speaking to someone. But I’m not the right person.’

Arnar nodded. ‘No, probably not.’ He thought for a moment and realized that he shouldn’t discuss this with this woman or anyone else. He was not so stupid as to think that blathering about it would change anything. Some things were simply impossible to change. The dead don’t come back to life. He tried to compensate for this oversight.

‘Don’t worry. I don’t need to talk to anyone, I’m just a little distracted at the moment.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better come to this meeting.’ His hands were trembling more than ever before. ‘Would you mind checking whether I could have something for this?’ He held out his hands and they both watched his fingers quiver, almost as if he were doing it on purpose, exaggerating his condition like the people now spilling their guts at the meeting. But he was not. His nervous system was perfectly capable of making his fingers shake on their own. Perhaps it was a consequence of the chill in his wretched heart, from which no warmth in this world could free him. Pills would change nothing; he regretted having asked for them and hoped that the woman would forget his request. He didn’t want to see a doctor; he didn’t want to see anyone. He only wished to be left alone, to allow his discomfort to root itself so deeply in his body that it would branch out into his bone marrow. He did not deserve to feel any better than he did now; if he suffered hellishly enough, perhaps over time he could cleanse himself of the guilt and try to start a new life.

Igimaq had nothing against waiting, and his old friend Sikki must have known that he wouldn’t give up and leave. He knew Igimaq too well for that. Sikki should have tried to find another way to get rid of him, because there was no hunter better at sitting motionless and letting time pass. He spent days and days out on the ice, patiently awaiting his prey. His father had taught him the best way to do this: free oneself almost completely from one’s thoughts, allow them to wander as if in a daydream. He could induce this state of mind without closing his eyes, and, more importantly, without shifting his attention from the environment and what was in his line of vision. After Sikki’s wife had slammed the door in his face, declaring that her husband was not at home and was not expected in the near future, he had taken a seat on the steps outside the house and started his wait. This was his third attempt to meet the man, and this time he had been careful to approach the house unseen, so that Sikki would not be aware of him. He had also chosen to come a bit later in the day, when it was likely that Sikki would be at home.

Sikki’s wife looked out now and then in the hope that he had gone away, but apart from that, little disturbed the hunter. A teenage girl had walked past and looked askance at him before quickening her pace and disappearing down the street. There was no one left in town who dressed like him, so she did not need great powers of deduction to work out who was sitting there on the steps. Her gait reminded him of his daughter Usinna when she was the same age; he’d always been enamoured by the way every step she took appeared to have a purpose, to bring her closer to the unexpected adventures that she was convinced awaited her around the corner. He hadn’t been surprised when she pressed hard to be allowed to go and study in Denmark several years later, and he hadn’t opposed her, which would have been useless. Usinna would have gone anyway. Even so, he regretted not having tried to forbid her leaving, to demand that she take care of her family, find herself a husband and sustain the circle of life. Maybe everything would have turned out differently if he’d done that.

He heard the door creak behind him and looked round. Sikki stood in the doorway frowning down at him. ‘Look who’s here. You clearly haven’t changed much, Igimaq. Except your appearance, because you look as decrepit as I do.’

The hunter stood up and stared into the eyes of his childhood friend. ‘I need to talk to you.’ There was no reason to reproach Sikki for making him sit out in the cold. ‘I choose to do so where we will be left alone.’ He suspected that Sikki would prefer not to let him in and although he had nothing against continuing to sit outside, the subject matter was sensitive and not appropriate for discussing in public.

Sikki frowned again but signalled to him to come inside. He showed him to a small and rather unattractive room that was lit by a single floor lamp. ‘I need to replace the bulb in the ceiling light,’ muttered Sikki as he sat down. He had an undeniable air of authority, although he wasn’t like his father, who would never have showed such weakness as to allow his gaze to budge from Igimaq’s face. He would have stared the hunter down, and easily. ‘I’m tired, Igimaq. What’s so urgent?’

‘More people have come to the work camp.’ Igimaq felt uncomfortable in the chair in which he sat. Sikki hadn’t offered to take his jacket and he was boiling hot in his thick winter clothing.

‘I’m aware of that.’ Sikki shifted in his chair and reached out to turn up the heat on the radiator.

‘Don’t you remember what we were taught, Sikki?’ The hunter stared at his friend. ‘We are responsible for this area.’ He recalled as if it were yesterday how the two of them had been entrusted with this task; Igimaq because he was a direct descendant of the greatest hunters in the village on his father’s side, and Sikki because he was in line to become the next angekokk, or shaman, as his father and grandfather had been before him. Sikki was supposed to be able to heal the sick and communicate with the dead, although Igimaq had never seen any sign of such abilities in his friend. When the two of them were entrusted with this great responsibility they were a full sixteen years old and it was clear that they would follow the path intended for them, the trail that their ancestors had already blazed, although Sikki probably did not possess the powers that his ancestors had been endowed with at birth.

Sikki narrowed his eyes and breathed through his nose, as though to make himself appear tougher. It did not work, and he seemed to sense it. He adopted a more normal expression and began. ‘The world has changed, Igimaq. What we were taught no longer applies, and the fact that you are trying to uphold the old way of life doesn’t change the fact that it’s on the way out. Take us, for example. I don’t have a son and yours is hardly following in your footsteps, as I understand it.’

‘That has nothing to do with it, Sikki.’ Igimaq felt a bead of sweat run down his back. ‘You know that very well. This isn’t about old times.’

‘I know, I know,’ muttered Sikki. ‘What do you suggest I do? Drive the people away?’ He snorted. ‘This mine is the best thing that has happened here in years. Maybe we’ll finally have work for the young folk. You have no idea how badly they want respectable jobs. It’s not healthy for anyone to live on what comes in an envelope once a month for doing nothing at all. They’ve got to have something to do and it should be as clear to you as it is to me that they can’t make a living in the old ways. That time has passed. No one wants to buy what we have to sell. These days we’re lucky to get three hundred Danish crowns per sealskin, if we find someone to buy them. You know more than anyone how much work goes into tanning the skins.’

The hunter shrugged, causing several more drops of sweat to run down his spine. All the trades that had previously kept the village alive had been prohibited. It would be easier for them to try selling snow than sealskins or whale products. ‘You swore to your ancestors that you would ensure the area wouldn’t be built on or disturbed. The mine can be dug elsewhere.’

Sikki stared at Igimaq, no longer foolishly trying to assert his authority. Instead he wore a look of sadness, as if he felt more sorry for his friend than he could put into words. ‘It doesn’t work like that. Either the mine will be there or in some other place entirely, so far away that it may as well be one of the stars in the sky.’ He shook his head very slowly as if he wished that they were sixteen again and ready and able for anything, not two old men who had lost their grip on what mattered. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

‘What has changed since my Usinna was there?’ Igimaq felt his heart skip a beat and for a second the oppressive heat didn’t matter to him. ‘Tell me.’

A large drop of sweat formed at Sikki’s hairline and ran down his forehead. ‘Don’t blame me for that.’

‘I’m not, Sikki. I’m simply asking you what has changed. You took your responsibilities very seriously back then.’ He was unable to continue. The gait of the young girl he had watched walk down the street had ripped open old wounds he had thought healed.

Sikki rubbed the arm of his chair with his thick, strong hands. ‘I’ve just explained it to you. These days everything is at stake. If there is no mine there will be no village. Everyone here will go. Most of them are still scared of the mine but that will change, and then our young folk might be able to finally hold their heads higher. I’m telling you, if nothing becomes of the mine, everyone will leave. Maybe not tomorrow, but over time.’

‘What does it matter?’ Igimaq spat, displaying more anger than he had intended. ‘If our people want to live their lives in the same way as those in the cities then there is no reason for them to keep living here. There’s enough work to be had in Nuuk for everyone who lives here.’

Sikki had no answer for this. ‘It will be all right. Trust me.’ ‘Like I trusted you with Usinna?’ said Igimaq softly. ‘It cost her her life. How many more people need to die before the price of these mining jobs of yours will be considered too high?’

‘That’s enough for now.’ Sikki stood up, his cheeks red. ‘It’s impossible to discuss this with you. You don’t understand.’

Igimaq followed the example of his former friend and stood up as well. ‘I understand perfectly. It’s you who understands nothing.’ He walked out of the room, refusing to greet Sikki’s wife who stood wide-eyed in the hallway. She had probably been listening in but he couldn’t care less about that now. Sikki followed him to the vestibule, which could hardly be crossed for the pairs of shoes covering the little floor. As Igimaq opened the door Sikki spoke again, wanting to get in the last word.

‘It was in your power to save her, Igimaq,’ he said slowly, without much emotion. ‘She even thought right until the end that you would, but you chose your honour and your dusty old obligations to our ancestors over her. Don’t forget that when you condemn me.’

As if the hunter would ever forget.