The Draining Lake

33

He put the pages that he had written into a large envelope, addressed it and laid it on his desk. Running his hand over the envelope, he thought about the story it contained. He had wrestled with himself about whether to describe the events at all, then decided it could not be avoided. The body had been found in Kleifarvatn. Sooner or later the trail would lead to him. He knew that there was really barely any link between him and the body in the lake, and the police would have their work cut out to establish the truth without his assistance. But he did not want to lie. If all he left behind was the truth, that would be enough.

He enjoyed both his visits to Hannes. Ever since their first meeting he had liked him, despite their occasional disagreements. Hannes had helped him. He had shed new light on Emil’s relationship with Lothar and revealed that Emil and Ilona had known each other before he arrived in Leipzig, although in very vague terms. Perhaps this helped to explain what happened later. Or perhaps that connection complicated the matter. He did not know what to think about it.

He finally came to the conclusion that he had to talk to Emil. Had to ask him about Ilona and Lothar and the chicanery in Leipzig. He could not be sure that Emil would be able to tell him the answers, but he needed to hear what he did know. Nor could he snoop around Emil’s shed. That was beneath his dignity. He did not want to play hide-and-seek.

Another motive drove him on. A thought that had struck him after visiting Hannes, connected with his own involvement and how naive, gullible and innocent he had been. If there was no other explanation for what had happened, then he would have been the cause of it. He had to know which.

This was why he was back on Bergstadastraeti one afternoon a few days after he had trailed Lothar and peered into the shed. He had gone round to confront Emil straight from work. It was starting to get dark and the weather was cold. He felt winter approaching.

He walked into the backyard where the shed stood. As he approached, he noticed that the door was unlocked. The padlock was undone. He pushed the door open and peeped inside. Emil was sitting hunched over the workbench. He crept in. The shed was filled with an assortment of old rubbish that he could not identify in the dark. A single bare light bulb hung above the bench.

Emil did not notice him until he was standing right next to him. His jacket lay over the chair and looked as though it had been ripped in a fight. Emil was muttering something to himself and sounded angry. Suddenly Emil seemed to sense a presence in the shed. He glanced up from his maps, turned his head slowly and looked at him. He saw that it took Emil a while to work out who it was.

“Tomas,” he said with a sigh. “Is that you?”

“Hello, Emil,” he said. “The door was open.”

“What are you doing?” Emil said. “What…” He was speechless. “How did you know…”

“I followed Lothar here,” he said. “I followed him from Aegisida.”

“You followed Lothar?” Emil said in disbelief. He stood up without taking his eyes off the visitor. “What are you doing?” he repeated. “Why did you follow Lothar?” He looked out through the door as if expecting more uninvited guests. “Are you on your own?” Emil asked him.

“Yes, I’m alone.”

“What did you come here for?”

“You remember Ilona,” he said. “In Leipzig.”

“Ilona?”

“We were going out together, me and Ilona.”

“Of course I remember Ilona. What about her?”

“Can you tell me what happened to her?” he asked. “Can you tell me now after all these years? Do you know?”

Not wanting to appear overzealous, he tried to remain calm, but it was futile. He could be read like a book, his years of agonising over the girl he had loved and lost plain to see.

“What are you talking about?” Emil said.

“Ilona.”

“Are you still thinking about Ilona? Even now?”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You shouldn’t be here. You ought to leave.”

He looked around inside the shed.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “What’s this shed for? When did you come home?”

“You ought to get out,” Emil said again, peering anxiously through the door. “Does anyone else know I’m here?” he added after a moment. “Does anyone else know about me here?”

“Can you tell me?” he repeated. “What happened to Ilona?”

Emil looked at him, then suddenly lost his temper.

“Piss off, I said. Get out! I can’t help you with that shit.”

Emil pushed him, but he stood firm.

“What did you get for informing on Ilona?” he asked. “What did they give you, their golden boy? Did they give you money? Did you get good marks? Did you get a good job with them?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Emil said. He had been half-whispering, but now he raised his voice.

Emil seemed to have changed a lot since Leipzig. He was as skinny as ever but looked unhealthier, with dark rings beneath his eyes, his fingers stained yellow from smoking, his voice hoarse. His protruding Adam’s apple moved up and down when he spoke, his hair was starting to thin. He had not seen Emil for a long time and remembered him only as a young man. Now he seemed tired and haggard, with several days” beard on his face; he looked like a drinker.

“It was my fault, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Will you stop being so stupid,” Emil said, moving closer to push him again. “Get out!” he said. “Forget it.”

He stepped out of the way.

“I was the one who told you what Ilona was doing there, wasn’t I? I put you on to her. If I hadn’t told you she might have got away. They wouldn’t have known about the meetings. They wouldn’t have photographed us.”

“Get out of here!”

“I talked to Hannes. He told me about you and Lothar and how Lothar and the FDJ got the university to reward you with good marks. You were never much of a student, were you, Emil? I never saw you open a book. What did you get for grassing on your comrades? On your friends? What did they give you for spying on your friends?”

“She didn’t manage to convert me with her preaching, but you fell flat for it,” Emil snarled. “Ilona was a traitor.”

“Because she betrayed you?” he said. “Because she wouldn’t have anything to do with you? Was it that painful? Was it so painful when she rejected you?”

Emil stared at him.

“I don’t know what she saw in you,” he said, a tiny smile playing across his lips. “I don’t know what she saw in the smart idealist who wanted to make a socialist Iceland but changed his mind the moment she got him into the sack. I don’t know what it was she saw in you!”

“So you wanted revenge,” he said. “Was that it? Vengeance against her?”

“You deserved each other,” Emil said.

He stared at Emil and a strange coldness ran through him. He no longer knew his old friend, did not know who or what Emil had become. He knew that he was looking at the same unflinching evil that he had seen in his student years, and knew that he should be consumed by hatred and anger and attack Emil, but suddenly felt no urge to. Felt no need to take out years of worry, insecurity and fear on him. And not only because he had never had a violent streak or never got into fights. He despised violence in all forms. He knew that he ought to have been seized with such mighty rage that he would want to kill Emil. But instead of swelling up with anger, his mind emptied of everything except coldness.

“And you’re right,” Emil went on as they stood face to face. “It was you. You have only yourself to blame. It was you who first told me about her meetings, her views and her ideas about helping people to attack socialism. It was you. If that was what you wanted to know, I can confirm it. It was what you said that got Ilona arrested! I didn’t know how she worked. You told me. Do you remember? After that they started watching her. After that they called you in and warned you. But it was too late then. It had moved on. The matter was out of our hands.”

He remembered the occasion well. Time and again he had wondered whether he had told someone something he should not have. He had always believed that he could trust his fellow Icelanders. Trust them not to spy on each other. That the small band of friends was immune to interactive surveillance. That the thought police had nothing to do with the Icelanders. It was in that faith that he told them about Ilona, her companions and their ideas.

Looking at Emil, he recognised his inhumanity and how whole societies could be built on brutality alone.

“There was one thing I started thinking about when it was all over,” he went on as if talking to himself, as if removed from time and space to a place where nothing mattered any more. “When it was all over and nothing could be put right. Long after I came back to Iceland. I was the one who told you about Ilona’s meetings. I don’t know why, but I did. I suppose I was just encouraging you and the others to go to the meetings. There were no secrets between us Icelanders. We could discuss it all without worrying. I didn’t reckon on someone like you.”

He paused.

“We stood together,” he went on. “Someone informed on Ilona. The university was a big place and it could have been anyone. It wasn’t until long afterwards that I started to consider the possibility that it was one of us Icelanders, one of my friends, who did it.”

He looked Emil in the eye.

“I was an idiot to think we were friends,” he said in a low voice. “We were just kids. Barely twenty.”

He turned to leave the shed.

“Ilona was a fucking slut,” Emil snarled behind him.

At the moment these words were spat out he noticed a spade standing on top of a dusty old cabinet. He grabbed it by its shaft, turned a half-circle and let out a mighty roar as he brought the spade down on Emil with all his might. It struck him on the head. He saw how the light flickered off in Emil’s eyes as he dropped to the floor.

He stood looking down at Emil’s limp body as if in a world of his own, until a long-forgotten sentence returned to his mind.

“It’s best to kill them with a spade.”

A dark pool of blood began to form on the floor and he knew at once that he had dealt Emil a fatal blow. He was completely detached. Calm and collected as he watched Emil motionless on the floor and the pool of blood growing. Looked on as if it were nothing to do with him. He had not gone to the shed to kill him. He had not planned to murder him. It had happened without a moment’s thought.

He had no idea how long he had been standing there before he registered someone beside him, speaking to him. Someone who tugged at him and slapped his cheek lightly and said something indistinct. He looked at the man but did not recognise him at once. He saw him bend over Emil. Put a finger to his jugular as if to check for a pulse. He knew that it was hopeless. He knew that Emil was dead. He had killed Emil.

The man stood up from the body and turned to him. He now saw who it was. He had followed that man through Reykjavik; he had led him to Emil.

It was Lothar.