The Shadow District

52

Flóvent stood near the stage, watching the newly elected president of the Republic of Iceland deliver a speech to his countrymen who were huddled against the rain, having gathered in their thousands around the stands at Thingvellir, all the way up the Almannagjá ravine and down the River Öxará to the very shores of the lake. They had thronged here from all over the country to celebrate their new-found freedom as citizens of Europe’s youngest republic. The King of Denmark had sent a congratulatory telegram despite his private dismay at being called on to surrender the colony in the middle of the war. The D-Day landings had recently taken place. News had reached them of catastrophic Allied losses on the beaches of Normandy. Flóvent often thought of Thorson and fervently hoped that he had survived the slaughter.

The new president’s speech echoed across the historic assembly site with the rain, and Flóvent was proud that day of being an Icelander, despite his anxiety about the future and his sense of unease. He was living in treacherous times; the world was in turmoil, and there was still a foreign military power occupying the land.

As he stood by the stage, studying the ranks of parliamentarians massed behind the president, Flóvent spotted the cold profile of Hólmbert’s father between upturned collar and hat. Their eyes met for an instant and the MP inclined his head.

Flóvent had tried not to dwell too much on Jónatan’s tragic death, had tried to bury the memory he found so hard to endure. But it hadn’t really worked. He stamped his feet and raised his eyes to gaze out over the lake into the wide blue yonder, and as he did so the shades of two girls came flying back to haunt him, one from the dark corner behind the National Theatre, the other from the cliffs of Dettifoss. As though they were begging him not to forget but to stand vigil over their memory, as though they were the only thing of true value in this newly independent land.