Strange Shores

44

Why are you lying here?

Relentlessly, at intervals, the question is repeated. But then he forgets it until it is asked again, becoming so insistent he can no longer ignore it. He has formed an image of his persecutor, based on the idea that he must be a traveller who has lost his way and by an odd coincidence stumbled onto the strange shores where he himself has washed up. Like Bóas by the crags at Urdarklettur.

Yet this is not Bóas but a stranger. He has no answers that will satisfy the traveller and is angered by his prying. Moreover, he senses once again the presence of another figure standing in the man’s shadow, hanging back. He feels the presence ever more strongly, without being able to work out who can be lurking there.

All he knows is that he fears the presence.

‘Should you be lying here?’ asks the voice.

‘Why not?’

‘Do you really think you should be lying here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ asks the man.

‘Because. .’

‘What?’

‘Who’s that with you?’ Erlendur asks.

‘Do you want to meet him?’

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s up to you. If you want to meet him, then of course you can.’

‘Who is it? Why’s he hiding?’

‘He’s not hiding. It’s you who’s keeping him away.’

The traveller is fading, receding, and only then does he remember where he has seen him before.

‘Is it you?’ he asks warily.

‘So you remember me?’

‘Don’t go,’ he says, though the man frightens him. ‘Don’t go!’

‘I’m not going far.’

‘Please stay! Tell me who’s with you. Where does he come from? Who is he?’

Little by little he surfaces into consciousness and becomes aware of the iron grip of the cold. The faint echo of his own silent cries still rings in his ears. It takes him a long time to remember where he is. Not only is his whole body numb but the cold has affected his brain; his thoughts are wandering and irrational. This causes him no particular concern, however. He has ceased to feel concern.

The cold drives him to seek out warming thoughts. He calls to mind old methods of restoring heat to one’s body, methods he has read about in his books. The most common and effective means, when no other was available, was to use one’s own body heat to warm the victims of hypothermia, whether they were sailors rescued from the sea or people lost in snowstorms. The rescuers would take off every scrap of clothing and lie down beside the victims, sometimes one on either side, using their body heat to revive them.

His mind goes in search of heat.

He thinks about balmy sunshine.

His mother’s smile.

Her warm touch.

Hot summer days by the river.

He turns his face to the sky and basks in the midsummer sun.

Suddenly he remembers the traveller and recalls where he has seen him before. A memory returns of the day at Bakkasel when they received an unexpected visitor, a passer-by who broke his journey with them before continuing on his way. That spring it was so cold that the hay harvest was almost ruined and the snowdrifts lay far down the slopes well into summer. He recalls the peculiar thing the man said to his mother about Bergur. Recalls her startled reaction.

He never knew where the man came from or where he was going, though doubtless he had told his parents. After his brief stop, he had vanished from sight over the moor. Perhaps he was heading for Reydarfjördur over the Hraevarskörd Pass, or taking the old path that skirted the glacier, ran northwards under the foot of Mount Hardskafi and from there over to Seydisfjördur. Unexpected guests would turn up at Bakkasel every now and then, passers-by who looked as if they had come a long way. They were always invited to rest and enjoy his parents’ hospitality. Some were alone, like this man; others travelled in twos or threes or larger groups, often in high spirits, bringing an atmosphere of good cheer. Occasionally people would request a night’s lodging and they would be offered a bed in the boys’ room. They even had foreigners turn up, trying to make themselves understood with sign language, asking for a drink of water or permission to camp on their land.

From his manner and outfit, Erlendur had gathered that this man was an experienced hiker, an impression reinforced by the handsome walking stick he left propped outside the house. He wore thick-soled boots, laced up to the calf, plus fours and a leather jacket buttoned up to his neck. His hands were clad in fingerless gloves and he stroked his beard with his strong fingers as he spoke.

He seemed curiously at home as he took a seat in Erlendur’s parents’ kitchen and accepted coffee and a bite to eat. He chatted about the weather, especially the bad spring they were having, about the district and the scenery, and enquired after the names of various places as if he had never been there before. Perhaps he came from down south, perhaps even all the way from Reykjavík, the big city that felt as remote as any of the world’s great metropolises. Erlendur didn’t dare speak to the visitor but loitered by the kitchen table, eavesdropping on the conversation. Bergur stood at his side, hanging on the guest’s words and gazing at him as he drank his coffee and ate the sandwich their mother had prepared.

Every now and then the man would send a glance and a smile in the boys’ direction. Bergur, unabashed, met his eye, whereas Erlendur was shy and looked away each time, before finally leaving the kitchen to take refuge in the bedroom. He could remember the man’s kindly expression, his sincere eyes, the wisdom in his broad brow. He was as amiable as could be, and yet there was some quality that frightened Erlendur, that meant he could not be comfortable in the same room as the stranger and that eventually drove him from the kitchen. He wanted him to leave. He couldn’t fathom why but he found the man menacing.

By the time Erlendur emerged the traveller was getting ready to leave. He had thanked them for their hospitality and was now out in the yard, walking stick in hand. He had been talking briefly with Bergur, who was standing with his parents in the crisp air, and in parting the man let fall those peculiar words, addressing them to their mother; smiling at her even as he pronounced Bergur’s fate.

‘Your boy has a beautiful soul. I don’t know how long you’ll be allowed to keep him.’

They never saw the man again.

He is convinced that the traveller who visits him intermittently in the cold is the same man who came to Bakkasel and delivered that incomprehensible verdict about Bergur, so true and yet so cruel. As his consciousness gradually fades, he begins to have his suspicions about the presence accompanying the man, about who it is that follows him like a shadow but will not come forward into the light.