Butterflies in November

FORTY-FIVE

There are two bedrooms in the chalet and we sleep in one of them with two gas heaters. Tumi is responsible, and we help each other to clear up and make things cosy in the newly planted chalet that smells of Norwegian wood. Water runs out of the tap when it is turned. Through the window, there is a view of the Ring Road.

We play outside in the ten-degree heatwave, sheltered from the rain by the edge of the roof, which stretches over the deck.

He adroitly cycles in clean ellipses and by now has mastered the skill of taking sharp turns on the training wheels. He rings his bell every time he passes the deckchair I’m lying in, studying the conjugation of sign language verbs. He can hear the bell too. I wave at him and sip on some hot tea.

It’s important to address the verb to the right person, the book tells me; that seems pretty logical to me.

Tumi nods his head to indicate that he’s understood me, that I’m making progress, he’s a good teacher. He just doesn’t have the time to talk to me at the moment, we can’t always be yakking together, because he needs to use his hands for something else. He has started to draw.

I suggest we go off on a reconnaissance mission and fill the thermos with cocoa. We take an extra cup with us.

The murderer who slaughtered his brother is now ageing in the Geriatric Health Centre. He chisels pieces of wood and makes children’s toys to keep himself busy and kill time until he goes to meet his brother. We are escorted down a corridor to his bedroom, which faces the mountain road. An odd odour hovers in the air, a mixture of strong detergents and weary personal objects that have been removed from their original setting: a chest of drawers, chair, kitchen clock and old family photos in silver frames. A large portrait of his departed brother hangs over his bed. He receives us in chequered slippers.

The table in the bedroom is crowded with little carved figures, skinny, elongated beings with no ears. Their eyes are the heads of nails that have been hammered into them and sometimes pierce their necks. Garments have been painted onto their carved bodies in red, blue and green. On the bedside table, two porcelain hands intertwine to form a ceramic flame. I was later to discover more lamps of this kind around the village. I unscrew the lid of the thermos and pour cocoa into the two men’s cups. They sit side by side close to the bed. There’s eighty years between them.

“I remember your granny very well, she was so gentle and shy, your granny was, when she was a young girl. We used to pop in there sometimes, me and my brother, to drink some coffee with a sugar cube and jam cake.”

He cautiously sips the cocoa from his cup, sinking into a long silence.

“She was a warm lady with a serene mind, your granny was, never judged anyone. That was an accident with my brother Dagfinnur. And the woman who took the child was good too. Your granny was a bit upset by the whole business. That it all should have happened while the girl was staying with her.”

He takes another sip from the cup and shuts up; he’s got nothing more to add.

I tell him I’ve come to take a look at the toys. He doesn’t have that many at the moment, but he pulls out a truck with a red cabin and rubber wheels — beside his chamber pot.

“These aren’t obligatory,” he says, “but I can’t be bothered getting up five times every night. Some of my mates have sinks in their rooms that they can piss into, not me.”

No such thing as privacy in here, everything is public knowledge. He ties some string to the truck with his trembling hands so that the boy can tow it down the linoleum floor in the corridor.