The Day Is Dark

Chapter 21

The breakfast was actually not bad, but Arnar had no appetite. He had never found breakfast to be the most important meal of the day as general wisdom often proclaimed, and it was enough of an effort to eat lunch and dinner. Yet he did know that he needed to eat. That way he could maybe overcome the feeling of gloom that was overwhelming him. He stirred his yoghurt distractedly.

Suddenly the sad woman from the night before was standing beside him, holding a tray and asking whether she could sit down. Arnar said yes and then watched in surprise as she chose the chair next to him, even though there were plenty of free seats at the table. At first the woman stared silently at her tray, but then she lifted her cup in her scrawny hands and sipped her coffee. She took it black. ‘I can’t stand toast.’ The woman took another sip. ‘It reminds me of a hotel. Hotels remind me of bars and bars remind me of alcohol.’

Arnar did not make the connection. However, he couldn’t recall ever having had breakfast at a hotel, so it could very well be that hotels only had toast on offer. ‘Is it your first time here?’

‘Yes.’ The woman put down her cup and started scratching the back of her hand. The skin there was red and irritated but her expression did not alter and she appeared to feel no pain.

‘I’ve been admitted several times.’ Arnar fished his spoon out of his yoghurt and put it on his tray. That was enough stirring. Although he still wasn’t hungry, the company cheered him up somewhat. He hadn’t realized how lonely he’d been recently. ‘You feel better little by little. About a minute longer each day.’ He smiled flatly at the woman, who was staring at her tray again. ‘There are 1,440 minutes in a day so you should be feeling good all day and all night in about four years.’

‘Fantastic.’ There was no joy in the woman’s voice, nor anger or bitterness. She was perfectly lifeless.

‘Do you have children?’ Arnar asked the question as gently and warmly as possible for fear of causing the woman even further distress.

‘No.’ The woman must have realized that her replies were too curt, because she hurriedly added: ‘You can’t drink during pregnancy. At least not in peace.’ She raked at the back of her hand even more fervently. ‘My husband didn’t think that was a good enough reason not to increase the world population.’ She added hurriedly: ‘My ex-husband.’

‘Oh.’ Arnar hadn’t thought about that. Naturally, alcohol passed from the mother to the foetus during pregnancy. How many mothers were there in the cafeteria who had drunk while carrying children? The thought of being hungover inside another individual and unable to have even a painkiller was more than he could handle. ‘You can still have a child later if you want to. Unlike me.’

‘You can’t know that.’ The back of the woman’s hand had become swollen from her scratching. Suddenly she stopped and placed both hands in her lap. ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m an engineer.’ Arnar decided not to try to make his job sound more impressive by saying that he worked overseas. Neither of them was in the mood to try to outdo the other, fortunately. In this place the conversation most often centred on who had been the hardest drinker, and the stories were, almost without exception, saturated with regret.

‘Bridges and stuff like that?’ The woman seemed happy to have something other than their troubles to talk about.

Arnar smiled for the first time in many days and immediately felt better. ‘Most engineers end their professional careers without having ever worked at anything connected with bridges. I work for a contractor.’

‘Wow. I’m unemployed. I’m actually a massage therapist but I was fired from my job at the gym after I fell asleep on top of a client on the table.’

‘I can’t believe they fired you for something so trivial!’ Arnar smiled at her, and this time she noticed and smiled back. Her smile was crooked and fleeting. It had been even longer since she had smiled.

‘I know, right?’ She took another sip of coffee, then put down her cup and stared into it. She seemed unsure of whether she wanted to allow herself to feel better by chatting with Arnar. He felt the same; it seemed much easier to plunge into depression. Then he could allow himself to do nothing, either mentally or physically, and right now that prospect was extremely attractive. It was much harder to rise up out of it. The woman glanced at him. ‘There was such a strong scent from the massage oils that they masked the smell of the booze. How about you? Did you drink at work?’

Arnar shook his head. ‘No. I’d been dry for around two years. However, I did used to when I worked for the Highways Agency in the old days, but no one ever noticed. I worked alone so much.’ The feeling of sadness returned. Was there anything more wretched than having been drunk in a crowded workplace without anyone noticing?

‘Great. I should have studied engineering. Then I could have postponed my detox by several years. Being fired was the last straw. It doesn’t mean much being an alcoholic if you can’t afford to drink. I’ve never been able to drink grain alcohol or anything like that, I find it disgusting, so this was an expensive hobby for me. Actually, hobby isn’t the right word; I became a professional.’

‘I can relate to that.’ If this were utopia and everything were free, Arnar could quite easily contemplate drinking his whole life. He had no sense of ambition and his job was not important to him. In fact he did not understand why he worked, or why he did anything at all, come to think of it. And yet. He was too much of a weakling to kill himself, so it was just as well to have something to do with this life he’d been given.

‘I’d like to be a lighthouse keeper. They don’t need to do anything and no one ever visits them. I could use my wages to buy all the white wine I needed and sit up in the tower and count the circles the light made.’ The woman looked up at Arnar again. ‘And you?’

‘I don’t know. No matter what I do, I’ll always be me. If I could be someone else I’d be willing to try a few things.’

‘You’re stuck with yourself and I’m stuck with myself, just the way we are.’ She sighed quietly. She would perk up when she’d been here longer, thought Arnar, but it would take time. The first stretch of treatment was always the worst. That’s when you started waking up to how you had treated yourself and others. The woman sipped her coffee again. ‘You’re not so bad, so I don’t know why you’re complaining.’

Even though she had played down the compliment and said it in a monotone, Arnar felt himself cheer up at hearing these words from an unfamiliar woman. He wasn’t used to people speaking to him that way. Ever since primary school he’d been teased, insulted and bullied, and if people expressed their opinions of him while he was in earshot it still always hurt his feelings. ‘Thanks.’ The yoghurt did not look any more appetizing than before, but suddenly Arnar was able to face the idea of eating a piece of bread. ‘Thank you for sitting with me. Yesterday the walls of my room were my only companions.’

The woman turned in her chair and looked at Arnar. ‘Are you going to join this AA thing?’

‘I’m already a member of AA,’ replied Arnar. ‘Maybe not its most active member, but still.’

‘And have you gone through the twelve stages they were talking about in the lecture?’ They were forced to listen to so many lectures that they all ran together in Arnar’s mind. He didn’t quite know which lecture she meant but understood that she meant steps, not stages. The twelve fucking steps. ‘Yes, I have.’ He didn’t feel up to saying more and suddenly wanted to shut himself up alone back in his room.

‘Is it very difficult?’ The hesitation in the woman’s voice suggested that she desperately wanted to throw herself wholeheartedly into the programme, even though she might not say so outright. Doubtless she feared that she would fail and call yet another disappointment down on her head. It was better to act as if she didn’t care.

Arnar didn’t know how to answer. Praise the system and encourage her or tell her to take it slowly and not rush into anything? ‘It takes effort. But you should talk to a counsellor about it. Not me.’ He stood up. He couldn’t talk about this any more. Not with her. Not with anyone. He’d already done enough bad things and caused enough damage.

The woman remained sitting at the table, surprised and hurt. As Arnar pushed his chair back and walked away, he saw that she’d resumed scratching the swollen back of her hand.

The car moved slowly over the snow-covered ground. The speed was certainly to Thóra’s liking. She was terrified of driving on ice and highly doubted Matthew’s own abilities in such conditions. Still, she trusted him at the wheel much more than she would herself. Her fear would override her common sense as soon as the car started skidding. The stretch ahead was straight, with a gradual incline, so she relaxed her grip on the ceiling handle slightly and with her other hand flipped the pages of the little notebook that she’d found in the pocket of Oddný Hildur’s coverall. ‘This appears mainly to have to do with geology,’ she said, turning the page. ‘At least, I hardly understand any of the endless figures and diagrams.’

‘Maybe Friðrikka can go over the text.’ Matthew didn’t take his eyes off the road as he spoke, but instead squinted to shield them from the sun as it reflected off the broad expanse of snow.

‘Yes, that’s probably a wise idea – there’s some stuff here that doesn’t seem to be connected to rock strata and that kind of thing, but it’s impossible for me to make the distinction.’ She continued turning the pages. ‘For example, here are a bunch of phone numbers that could be related to the project, or to something totally different.’ Most of the numbers appeared to be Icelandic, although one of them was longer than the others. ‘What do phone numbers in Greenland start with?’

‘299, as I recall.’ Matthew took one hand off the steering wheel and fumbled at the compartment between the seats. It was closed and he was unable to open it without looking down. ‘Can you check whether there are any sunglasses in there or in the glove compartment?’

‘There is one Greenlandic number in her book.’ Thóra looked in both compartments and found some yellow plastic sunglasses, which she handed to Matthew. ‘They’re incredibly ugly but they’re all I can find.’ Matthew put them on and looked completely content. ‘These are those really good snow glasses,’ he said, obviously not caring at all how he looked in them. He relaxed his shoulders. ‘The Greenlandic number probably has something to do with the helicopter or the airport. If I worked here I’d want to have those numbers at hand.’

Thóra read him the number. ‘Do you recognize it at all? You called the helicopter service, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t recognize it, which doesn’t say much. I have a number in my wallet if you can get it out of my pocket.’

Thóra found the wallet and after a bit of searching through a number of business cards and credit card receipts she pulled out the right slip of paper. ‘It’s not the same number,’ she said.

‘They could easily have other numbers besides this one.’ Matthew slowed down and took a wide turn. They approached the village slowly but surely. ‘It could also be the number of the hotel in Kulusuk, or a hospital, or anything.’

‘Maybe.’ Thóra said nothing as she tried to imagine what Greenlandic number Oddný Hildur would have wanted to keep handy. She couldn’t think of any. She thumbed through the book again but spotted nothing new. The only thing that caught her attention apart from the phone numbers were the words Usinna and blood tests; after the latter was a question mark. Both appeared on the same page. Obviously you wouldn’t expect to read blood tests in the notebook of a geologist, but there it was nonetheless. Thóra had no idea what it signified. ‘I wonder what “Usinna” is?’ she mused. ‘It has a capital “U”, so it could be a name. Do you recognize it?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Matthew replied. ‘I don’t even know what nationality it is or whether it’s a woman’s or a man’s name. It could be Greenlandic.’

‘It sounds like a woman’s name, since it ends in “a”.’ Thóra closed the book. ‘If it’s a name. It could also be a place name.’

‘Do you know the name of the woman who’s letting us make our phone call? I think we’re almost there.’

‘Oh. I didn’t ask her. Maybe her name is Usinna. Who knows?’

Matthew sighed and looked at Thóra. ‘What will you do if her husband or a child answers the door? Say, May I make a phone call? The woman who lives here said that I could.’

Thóra ignored this. It was typical of Matthew to be worried about small details. This was why they got along so well; she was in the habit of getting on with things and he preferred to stay in one place. She just smiled at his grumbling. ‘Something like that. Don’t worry, she’ll answer the door. I can’t imagine she has kids. I hope not, anyway; she seems to have enough to deal with on her own. If she has a husband, then I’ll simply explain everything.’

They drove up a hill, behind which the little village spread out. As before, it seemed devoid of any human presence, but down at the pier men could be seen moving about. Thóra spotted the house where she thought the woman lived. As with the other houses, there was no sign of life. They drove calmly down the slope; so slowly, in fact, that they might as well have been walking. When they reached level ground Matthew sped up slightly and they stared through the windscreen in search of lights or any other sign that someone was home. There was no sign of activity, and the curtains were drawn. ‘Maybe she’s asleep?’

‘Then we’ll just wake her by knocking.’ Matthew undid his seatbelt. ‘Or her husband and children.’ He smiled at Thóra and opened the car door. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ They both jumped when a snowmobile suddenly started up and came flying out of the yard of the adjacent house. At the wheel sat a man who did not even glance in their direction. Behind him sat a little girl who just managed to reach around his waist with her short arms by pressing tightly against his back. Her face was turned towards them and she stared at Thóra and Matthew with two pitch-black eyes. On her face was a large scar which stretched from one eye down to her chin. The girl made no attempt to hide the ugly mark that covered her chubby cheek. It was a sign of the revulsion that the place awakened in Thóra that she found something unpleasant about the girl’s gaze, and she was thankful for the din of the engine that drowned out all other sounds. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the words that the child’s mouth was forming.

They watched silently as the snowmobile disappeared around a corner. Thóra slammed the car door shut and drew a deep breath. The strange girl had rattled her and she kicked herself for failing to have asked the woman her name. She wasn’t as happy about the situation now. The paint had started to peel from the door and the knob hung loosely, reminding her of a withered flower. The soft creaking of one of the loose corrugated iron plates covering the house gave her the creeps. She could not avoid the thought that this dilapidated house had sucked the vitality from the woman. ‘Oh, God,’ said Thóra as they stood on the wooden landing before the door. She looked at Matthew to assure herself that he was actually still there, and knocked.

Nothing happened. After a moment Matthew knocked harder, using his fist. The orange skis propped against the outside wall shook at the blows. After a moment they heard footsteps inside. They approached, then fell silent. Shortly afterwards they heard a man’s voice say something that neither of them understood. Thóra called out ‘Hello,’ in return. Nothing was heard from within, but the doorknob moved and the door opened enough for the man inside to see them. They caught a glimpse of half his face. ‘What?’ he said gruffly in Danish.

‘Is the lady at home?’ Thóra ignored how clumsy this sounded. She should have put more work into learning Danish at school.

‘The lady?’ The Greenlander did not open the door any wider. ‘What lady?’

This is when it would have been useful to know the woman’s name, thought Thóra.

‘Usinna,’ she tried.

The man’s reaction caught Thóra and Matthew completely off-guard.