The Quiet Mother

40

A faint light shone from the basement flat in the Vogar neighbourhood as Konrád walked up to the house. The gleam of a television carried out into the darkness from the floor above. There was no bell at the basement door and no name on it. Konrád knocked on the single-glazed window inlaid in the door. The pane quivered at his rapping, and before Konrád knew it, Ísleifur stepped into the hall. He stared at Konrád through the glass and immediately recognised him.

‘I wanted to apologise for how I’ve acted towards you,’ Konrád said, knowing that the man could hear him quite well through the glass. ‘I had no reason to behave as I did.’

Ísleifur looked at him blankly.

‘I wonder if I could have a little chat with you,’ Konrád continued. ‘I promise to behave.’

‘There’s nothing for us to talk about,’ said Ísleifur. ‘Get out of here. I don’t want to see you!’

He turned away.

‘Do you rent from the people upstairs?’ Konrád yelled.

Ísleifur stopped.

‘Do you think they’ve gone to bed?’ Konrád asked, and it seemed to him as if he may have hit the nail on the head. His plan about being careful in his approach to Ísleifur had gone out the window. ‘It crossed my mind to go up and tell them about you. Do they know already, maybe? What the woman said you did to her in Keflavík? That there could even be others who got the same treatment from you? That a rapist lives in the basement?’

Ísleifur turned to him.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said through the thin glass.

‘No, the woman you raped was just confused, naturally.’

‘I didn’t rape anyone.’

Konrád stared at him through the window.

‘What do you want from me?’ said Ísleifur. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Why don’t you leave me alone? Get lost. Leave me alone!’

‘Maybe I’ll just talk to them,’ said Konrád, looking up. ‘Who knows, maybe they don’t give a toss who rents from them. But they might. Do you think they have a daughter?’

They stared at each other like sworn enemies, with the window’s fragile glass between them.

‘I don’t want you telling lies about me here at this house,’ said Ísleifur, opening the door.

Konrád stepped into the hall. Ísleifur wouldn’t let him go any further. Konrád shut the door behind him and they faced each other in the dark hall. Ísleifur, shoulders hunched, with his grizzled face and sniffling. Konrád in search of answers, despite hardly knowing the questions to them. He’d read part of the old complaint against Ísleifur and what the woman accused him of doing. It didn’t make for pleasant reading.

‘Can you tell me if you knew Valborg?’ asked Konrád. ‘If you ever ran into her?’

‘The one who was murdered? I have no idea who she was. I never met her.’

‘Did you go to Glaumbær before it burned down? Did you go there to have fun on the weekends?’

‘I went to Glaumbær,’ said Ísleifur, having lowered his voice so much that Konrád had a hard time hearing him. ‘I wasn’t the only one. Everyone went there.’

‘She was a waitress there,’ said Konrád. ‘Did you know any of them?’

‘No, none.’

‘Did your friends?’

‘My friends?’

‘I assume you had friends.’

‘I don’t know what business that is of yours.’

‘You worked at the Base in Keflavík. I’m guessing you made some friends there. Soldiers, even? Did they go with you to Glaumbær?’

‘You’re just spouting nonsense,’ said Ísleifur, lowering his voice even more. ‘Why don’t you get to the point? Are you saying I killed that woman... that Valborg?’

‘Did you?’

‘No.’

‘Did you have someone do it for you?’

Ísleifur shook his head.

‘Do you know who might have done it?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t go near that woman. I know nothing about it.’

‘Do you know of anyone who may have lain in wait for her at Glaumbær at that time?’

Ísleifur didn’t answer.

‘Can you tell me that?’

‘Can I tell you what?’

‘Do you know of anyone who could have done it? Was it you, yourself? Did you rape Valborg like you raped the woman in Keflavík?’

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘Did you rape Valborg?’

‘Shut up!’

‘She had a child,’ said Konrád.

‘Yeah, I know nothing about that.’

‘Did you go to her place the other day? Did you attack her?’

‘That has nothing to do with me,’ said Ísleifur. ‘It doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with me!’

‘Was it you?’

‘Who what? Did what? What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?’ Ísleifur hissed. ‘What am I supposed to be telling you?’

‘The truth.’

‘The truth?! You’re an arse. That’s the truth. Anything else you want to know?’

‘The truth about you.’

‘You want to hear the truth about me? OK. Let’s see. What can I tell you? I can tell you that that girl in Keflavík, the one who pressed charges against me, she was good. Damned good.’

Konrád didn’t react.

‘And not just her,’ said Ísleifur, his voice becoming a soft whisper. ‘There were others, but they weren’t as stupid as that one in Keflavík. They had the sense to keep their mouths shut. Keep their mouths shut, you understand?’

‘Are you saying—’

‘Listen to me, idiot!’

‘Are you saying you raped her? Raped others?’

‘No, I’m saying there was no rape. She asked for it,’ Ísleifur hissed again, moving closer to Konrád. ‘They asked for it. All of them. Begged me to drive it into them because they enjoyed it! They enjoyed getting it rammed in their pussies!’

He shoved Konrád, making him stumble back against the door with a heavy thud before regaining his balance. Konrád grabbed Ísleifur, pushed him against the wall and held him there tightly. Ísleifur didn’t resist, but just smirked at him, revealing that he was missing a few teeth. In disgust, Konrád pushed him towards the hall door, which burst open, causing Ísleifur to lose his footing and nearly fall to the floor within.

‘What were you doing at Borgartún?’ Konrád asked.

Ísleifur straightened up and smoothed his clothes.

‘Get out of here,’ he yelled, but his voice cracked and became a strange shriek. ‘Go to hell! Tell those people up there to go fuck themselves!’ he shrieked, slamming the door on Konrád.

When Konrád got home a short time later and went to the dining-room cupboard for a bottle of red wine, he stepped on the strange wooden object that had belonged to his father and was still lying where it landed on the floor after he threw it against the wall. He picked it up and saw that the spring that was always nestled tightly under the strung wire was loose. He pondered the object for a few moments before placing it on the dining-room table, thinking that the spring had come loose either when the object hit the wall or when he stepped on it.

It was impossible to talk to Ísleifur without driving him mad with rage, he thought, taking a bottle of wine and pouring himself a glass, still somewhat upset and shaken after his visit to the basement flat. The little that Konrád could say about the man was that he was anything but congenial, and had even confessed to the rape in Keflavík. Hinted that there were other rapes. Konrád saw no reason to rule out Valborg being one of his victims.

He finished the glass of wine quickly, refilled it, then took the wooden object to the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink, where he kept a rubbish bin. As if on a hunch, he put tension on the spring with his thumb, and when he released it, the spring hit the wire strung between the two nails, making an odd sound, alien yet somehow familiar.

Konrád stood for a long time and stared at the thing, thinking that he must have misheard it.

Again he compressed the spring and released it, and finally understood what his father meant when he said he’d never made as much money on anything as this.