The Quiet Mother

44

Regína looked out the window at the twigs she’d been raking into a pile. At the trees that had shed their leaves. For a moment, she’d been thinking about nothing but the autumn winds. She tried to take care of her garden, she told Konrád. Mow it regularly and sow the beds and weed it and rake the leaves in the autumn. And because of that, it came into beautiful bloom every summer and she sat for hours on a garden chair and admired the fruits of her labour. Tending her garden was really the only hobby she had.

She’d invited Konrád in and poured him a cup of coffee. Now they were sitting in the living room looking out at the garden, and she told him how much she enjoyed working in it. Before, she’d shown him where she’d found a dead silverfish in the kitchen. She said she hadn’t seen such a creature in there for many years, and was worried she had damp.

Konrád listened and didn’t press her on anything, but let her direct the conversation back to Sunnefa, the congregation and Valborg when it suited her. He didn’t have to wait long for her to pick up the thread.

Regína sipped her coffee.

‘I didn’t mean to be so rude to you,’ she said apologetically. ‘I wasn’t really going to call the police.’

‘I know that,’ Konrád said.

‘I was just a child,’ she said. ‘And those were different times. I was in some kind of strange opposition to them. All that freedom. Free love. You know how it was. The congregation was a kind of antidote to that. There were never many of us, as you might very well imagine. Maybe there would be more members today, I don’t know,’ she added, trying to smile.

‘And Sunnefa was there, too?’

‘She was the one who got me to join the congregation. We started at the hospital around the same time and immediately became good friends. She was interested in medicine and nursing, but was mainly interested in becoming a midwife. She felt it was somehow noble, and of course she was right. A midwife. There’s something about the profession that just seems good and beautiful.’

‘But then something changed in her temperament?’ Konrád asked.

‘Yes, she was at loggerheads with people on her course, at the hospital, the Women’s Health Unit. She had these outdated views on abortion, when attitudes were changing a great deal and women started to talk about controlling their own bodies. Birth-control pills were poison to her. That harshness was one side of her. She could also be very sweet and funny and a good friend. She’d joined that congregation and got me to go along with her. It was founded by a couple. I think they’d spent some time in America, he’d been saved there, and they felt there wasn’t enough stringency during those lax times. They rented a hall in the Ármúli area, I recall. She played the piano. He pontificated. Sunnefa, too. She was immersed in all that Christian stuff. Had been in the YWCA and a Christian youth group in secondary school.’

‘So you agreed with her? About abortion?’

‘Yes. I did. At the time.’

‘Have your views changed since then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Sunnefa ask you to provide her with information about the mothers-to-be? After she left the hospital?’

‘Yes. She did. But only some.’

‘Those who mentioned the possibility of abortion? There were probably always a few of those?’

‘Women who for some reason didn’t want to have a child,’ Regína said, nodding. ‘Who were in difficult circumstances. They just couldn’t. Didn’t want to.’

‘And you had access to that information?’

‘I could get it,’ Regína admitted. ‘I know it was a breach of confidence, but I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time.’

‘Why did Sunnefa want to know about those women?’

‘She told me she wanted to talk to them. Just meet them and talk to them and see if she could get them... oh, I don’t know how I should word it... get them to see things differently.’

‘Get them to give birth to their babies?’

‘Yes. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. We’d talked it over. Were of the same opinion.’

‘Sunnefa seems to have done a lot more than that,’ said Konrád.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think she delivered some of those children.’

Regína stared at Konrád.

‘No, that can’t be,’ she said.

‘I’ve heard otherwise.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Regína said.

She looked out at the trees in the garden. At the bare twigs awaiting the winter. If she was overwhelmed by this news, she managed to hide it well.

‘Was that Valborg one of them?’ she asked. ‘Did she get her to rethink things? To change her mind?’

Konrád said that that was probably the case.

‘Does it have anything to do with her murder?’ Regína asked hesitantly.

‘I don’t know,’ Konrád said. ‘I just don’t know. But Sunnefa seems to have taken charge of the child. Could someone in the congregation have been able to foster a newborn child?’

‘As I say, I know nothing about it. I remember that I only gave Sunnefa the names of three or four women. I only worked for a few years at the hospital, in the office. I hadn’t even thought about this until you suddenly appeared, knowing much more than I do.’

‘Do you think, if she delivered any babies herself and placed them in foster care, it was on her own initiative?’

‘Sunnefa was very determined,’ said Regína. ‘She could bend a person to her will, or something like that, if you know what I mean. She had such strong opinions. I don’t know. Maybe. Still, I think... I find it hard to believe that she would have done that. I hope she didn’t. Then I would have been a participant in something I didn’t want and never intended to be a part of. I feel sick thinking about it.’

‘You don’t remember Valborg in this context?’

‘No, I’ve forgotten names. I didn’t want to remember them, truth be told. I knew I wasn’t allowed to use the files like that. Knew I was breaking the rules. I’ve tried not to think about it since then.’

At that, the doorbell rang and they assumed the exterminator had arrived to look into the vermin problem. They got up and headed to the hall. On the way, he saw a framed picture on a dresser that had caught his eye when he entered the living room. It was of a girl of around seven years old, he guessed, taken many years ago, and it was as if something in her expression was familiar. Probably related to Regína, Konrád thought, but he wasn’t sure.

‘Is this...?’

‘My daughter,’ said Regína.

‘An only child?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t have a husband?’

‘We divorced.’

The exterminator was smiling, doubtless thinking that they were husband and wife. He looked at them in turn from the doorstep, noticed that they both seemed rather down and thought he knew the reason why.

‘Silverfish...?!’