The Quiet Mother

18

Engilbert leaned against the piano. He was rather ragged of appearance, and a bit unsteady. Konrád’s father had done his best to patch him up and given him a few drinks before they’d left for the séance, and promised more if he did a good job. Engilbert had been uncooperative and said he couldn’t do it unless he had something to drink first. Konrád’s father had given him a sweet to mask the smell of alcohol while he went over the information he’d gathered about the woman.

Her name was Stella and she welcomed them a bit breathlessly, thanked them for looking in on her and invited them in, and they made themselves comfortable in her living room. The woman admitted that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect or how this all worked. The medium’s partner spoke for them and was relieved to hear that she was home alone, although he didn’t show it. Yes, it was he who’d been in touch with her by phone, he added after introducing her to Engilbert, the sought-after seer and philanthropist. He said that he himself was just his driver, and they had plenty of people to visit. ‘Plenty,’ he repeated. The woman was pleased to hear that, and she offered them coffee. ‘Yes, there’s naturally so much interest in these matters now,’ she said, and he agreed with her wholeheartedly. Engilbert fiddled with his tie and took no part in the conversation. The woman was around sixty, with a cheerful face, wearing a beautiful blouse and a silver locket holding a photo of her husband around her neck. Every now and then, she smiled slightly nervously.

As she had mentioned on the phone, she’d been having bad dreams lately. She’d dreamed of her husband, Halldór; that he hadn’t been feeling well, and twice she’d started from her sleep with his face before her eyes, full of rage and suffering.

‘I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping because of it,’ she said. ‘His hair was all white. He had radiant white hair.’

‘You two had a nice home,’ said Konrád’s father, looking around the sumptuous living room at the Kjarval paintings and porcelain figurines and the coffee table around which they sat. The room was dusky, as it was evening and the woman had drawn heavy, deep-red velvet curtains over the windows. She had lit a few candles.

‘How would you like to do this?’ she asked. ‘Should we sit here, or maybe at the dining table?’

‘It’s fine here,’ Konrád’s father said, nudging Engilbert. ‘He prefers to be on the move — don’t you, Engilbert? You usually stand during séances.’

Engilbert grunted and he got up, walked over to the piano and stood there silently for a few moments before placing one finger on his temple, as if it was there that the connection would be made, should it come. He walked back and forth through the room and resumed his position at the piano, where he muttered something under his breath. It was as if he was having difficulties and wasn’t hiding it. At one time, he’d been interested in acting and performed with an amateur theatre group; he could display dramatic flair when necessary and was sensitive to reading the room, as it was called, even if his audience was only a lonely woman who lived on Ægisíða Street. Suddenly, he hit the top of the piano with the palm of his hand.

‘Damn it, it’s not working,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not working.’

‘Is everything all right, Engilbert?’ asked his assistant.

‘No, I don’t want this. It’s not working. We should go.’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the woman.

‘Shouldn’t we give it a bit of time?’ asked his partner. ‘We’re in no rush,’ he added, smiling at the woman.

‘No, it’s hopeless,’ said Engilbert. ‘Hopeless. There are no currents here. None. There’s nothing to be had here.’

‘Currents?’ the woman asked. ‘Do you mean from beyond?’

‘It’s like a closed book to me,’ said Engilbert. ‘A closed book.’

‘How sad,’ said the woman, somewhat confused.

‘Unfortunately,’ said Engilbert, ‘I’m not feeling up to it. It was a mistake to come here. I can’t sense anything. Nothing. There’s nothing here. We should go. It’s useless. It was useless to come here.’

Konrád’s father took careful note of the woman’s reactions. On occasion, they’d gone too far when shifting the responsibility for lacklustre results over to the victim. People didn’t want to disappoint them, and they were cunning in taking advantage of that.

‘Is it me?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Sometimes it happens,’ he said apologetically, and as if in explanation, ‘that people don’t surrender themselves entirely to the seer. The connection is disrupted. It happens. No one’s to blame. It just happens.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said the woman, worried about what this meant. ‘I hope that I...’

‘Yes,’ Engilbert was heard to say. ‘Yes, it’s... I sense a man coming here...’

‘Who?’ asked the woman.

‘Someone’s coming to me here... a man... he says his name is Guðmundur. Is it someone you know?’

Engilbert suddenly seemed to have made contact with the other world.

‘Yes, if it’s that Guðmundur,’ said the woman a bit hurriedly, longing so much for them to succeed in their efforts. She didn’t want the seer to hit the piano any more and talk about a closed book. ‘Guðmundur started a wholesale company with my husband.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘But... but he’s not dead,’ said the woman. ‘Doesn’t he need to be dead... or...?’

‘No, this is another Guðmundur,’ Engilbert said firmly, glancing at his partner. ‘This is... he’s... there’s... such an aura of serenity.’

‘My grandfather, maybe? His middle name was Guðmundur.’

‘He’s standing on green ground,’ said Engilbert, ‘and has such a deeply... deeply serene aura...’

‘He was a farmer.’

‘...it’s all so serene and a woman is standing next to him,’ said Engilbert, looking at a family photo on top of the piano. ‘She’s petite and her hair is plaited and she knows that you’re worried. Do you understand what she means? Does it ring any bells? A petite woman? With a kindly expression. And there’s a turf-and-stone farm and a hearth of stacked stone. There’s a name... it starts with S. I see many S’s.’

‘It could be Grandma Sesselía.’

‘Good.’

‘She lived here with us the last few years of her life,’ said the woman.

‘She’s telling you not to worry too much...’

‘About Halldór?’

‘She wants to tell you not to worry too much about your husband. He’s in a good place. She knows that you’re worried about him but is telling you to keep praying for him and then everything will be fine. She’s telling you to pray for him and not forget to support those who are weaker, to support Christian organisations with...’

The assistant cleared his throat. Engilbert looked to him for guidance and was given a signal that he was going too fast.

‘I sense her disappearing from my mind’s eye, but here’s another presence. A strong presence. It’s a man and he seems to have an aura of excitement and fun.’

‘Isn’t it Halldór, then?’ the woman whispered.

‘He wants you to remember the happy times you had together. There’s, um... I see something like a vast ocean and there’s a passenger ship and music sounding over the deck and there are elegantly dressed people...’

‘Probably the Gullfoss,’ said the woman. ‘Halldór and I sailed on it once a year.’

‘I sense great joy. I hear singing and resonant music.’

‘Yes, it was so wonderful. He was such a great singer. “The Castle Crags” — that was his song.’

Engilbert continued along these lines, and the woman sat up in her chair as all the good memories came back to her. It required no effort for Engilbert to hit the right notes. She was extremely receptive to everything he served up, and they remained in the light like that for a while, until the assistant thought it was time to step in. He wanted to take the opportunity while there was something of a break in the séance to direct the seer back to their original purpose for coming there. He had gone to the cemetery on Suðurgata and taken a look at the magnificent tombstone that the wife had had made for her husband’s grave, hewn from granite. Affixed to its front was a plate made of basalt, engraved with a gilded epitaph. Nothing had been spared to keep alive the man’s memory, and that effort hadn’t been solely intended for the deceased wholesaler, as there was another name on the tombstone.

The living room was silent. Engilbert acted as if he’d fallen into a trance. He slumped over the piano with his eyes closed and his chin hanging down to his chest, and there he stood, motionless apart from his head twitching at regular intervals. This behaviour was accompanied by an angry muttering, without any of the words being distinctive. The woman looked questioningly at the assistant, who smiled as if the medium’s behaviour was completely subject to its own laws, which were as distant and incomprehensible to him as to her.

‘No... I won’t do it... there’s something else going on here...’

Engilbert’s muttering grew louder.

‘What did he say?’ the woman whispered.

‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ said his partner.

‘... she’s coming back. The old woman. Sesselía. She says that they’re together. They’ve united. Do you know what I mean?’

The woman didn’t answer.

‘There’s someone with her this time,’ Engilbert continued. ‘It’s unclear what... it’s all indistinct and hazy but... It’s someone who’s very close to you. Young. Does that ring any bells?’

Engilbert wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

Stella stared at him with both hope and fear.

‘It may not be your husband you’ve been dreaming of,’ Konrád’s father said. ‘It may not be because of him that we’ve come together here?’

The woman hung her head.

‘It’s someone else, maybe?’

‘I’m not sure I’m prepared to go any further with this,’ the woman whispered. ‘If you don’t mind. I don’t have much experience of such... such séances.’

‘I hear... I hear something like a whisper,’ said Engilbert, grabbing the piano tighter. ‘No, it’s maybe more than a whisper... is it crying? It’s like a child crying, and it’s coming from a great distance. Does that sound familiar?’

Konrád’s father observed the woman’s reactions and was pleased with what he saw. Engilbert was playing his role to the max and his body language appeared to have the desired effect on Stella. A few words about Christian youth work and quality religious associations should suffice. If she had the means to donate money to a good cause, they would gladly get it into the right hands. This was only their first séance. Konrád’s father would see to it that there would be more.

The candle flames flickered in the dusky room and the thick curtains were like theatre drapes around the living and the dead. The woman looked up and gazed solemnly at the seer as she devoured every word that tumbled from his lips and nodded at his question.

‘I feel a great warmth and light emanating from them,’ said the medium.

The woman sat there motionless, staring at him.

‘Is it him?’ she stammered cautiously.

Engilbert didn’t answer.

‘Are they... together?’ asked the woman. ‘Can you ask Sesselía about our boy?’

‘There’s... there’s a fog. A cold fog.’

‘Yes.’

‘And there’s water.’

‘Yes.’

‘And there’s a boy and he’s freezing. It’s as if he fell in the water.’

‘Oh God.’ Stella sighed.

‘The old woman says that everything is fine now. He’s with her and he feels fine and doesn’t want you to worry.’

The woman fought back tears.

‘The blessed boy,’ she whispered.

‘He was here a great deal,’ said Engilbert, appearing to be completely under the power of the beyond. ‘Here in the corner. I feel a strong presence at the piano. Did he play this instrument?’

Stella said that he did.

‘Thank you,’ said the medium.

‘He was a very skilled pianist, despite his young age,’ she said. ‘He was studying music and they said he was one of the school’s most promising students. We were so proud of him. No one has touched the instrument since he died. I don’t even know if it’s working properly.’

‘I can perceive the light,’ said Engilbert, running his hand over the piano. The keyboard lid was closed, and on a flimsy rack above it was a worn songbook. ‘Right here in this place. The strong presence of this soul. The presence of the child. He has a good aura. Light and brightness and beauty.’

He had barely finished the sentence when from the instrument came a lonely sound, like a false note, before deathly silence fell over the room.