The Quiet Mother

50

Konrád made the mistake of driving through the city centre on his way to the university. He’d been avoiding that area lately. He didn’t want to have to look at the hideous high-rises that had been erected there one after another and shoved aside everything that recalled Reykjavík of the past. He felt that those glitzy glass buildings had no business in this place, and bore witness to the city’s flagrant mismanagement and subservience to the power of money. The new city centre reminded him of his old neighbourhood, the so-called Shadow District, where the ugliest blocks of flats in the country had been built like brick walls in front of the friendly residential streets that ran up the hill. Now he avoided the city centre at all costs, and especially avoided going through his old neighbourhood.

After circling the university campus for a while, he saw a car back out of a parking space in front of the main building and pulled into it. He rarely had business at the university. Once or twice he’d gone to watch an English football match at the Student Cellar bar with his son, and that was about it. After he retired, he’d wondered several times whether he ought to enrol in an academic programme, maybe law or something. He’d become interested in law after his years as a police officer and could spend entire evenings watching legal dramas on TV, much more than police dramas, all of which he found utterly ridiculous.

He asked for Soffía at the main office and was told where her office was located on campus, and had no trouble finding it. She had a student with her, and Konrád waited patiently outside her office in the meantime. Soffía was Einar’s sister, and despite being the children of the director of the Creation, they hadn’t trodden the narrow path of Christianity, but had turned their back on all of that and gone their own way. Not necessarily in opposition to their parents, according to Einar, but more to declare their own independence, besides the fact that the congregation’s message had never really appealed to them.

Soffía was a counsellor, and after the student left, she welcomed Konrád with a smile. The working day was at an end, so no students in need of advice were gnawing her threshold that day. She had a coffee maker in her office and asked if he would like a cup. Said that her brother Einar had called and told her about Konrád’s visit, so she knew a little of what was going on.

‘I’m just so surprised,’ she said. ‘Einar said that it was about that murder. I made him repeat it. About the woman in the block of flats?’

Konrád didn’t know how much Einar had told her and was worried he’d said too much about Valborg and her child; that it may have been fostered by someone from their parents’ congregation. Still, he didn’t know how he could have avoided saying that.

‘Einar mentioned a child she’d had,’ said Soffía.

‘Your brother remembered a boy you knew and who sometimes spent time with your family,’ Konrád said. ‘He said you might be able to remember him better. Do you recall his name?’

‘You mean Daníel?’

‘Daníel? Was that the boy’s name?’

‘He was a little younger than me,’ Soffía said, nodding. ‘I was born in 1970. We always called him Danni. I just assume his name was Daníel.’

‘Did you know anything about his parents?’

‘No, I knew nothing about that. I didn’t think about such things at the time. I mostly thought about playing. And we didn’t spend much time with him. I remember him at our summer cottage, and sometimes he would eat with us. It was like we were looking after him for someone. I never knew who it was. I think Mum took care of it. I mean took care of him. From what I recall, she seemed to have looked after that boy extremely well.’

‘Your father told Einar that no one wanted the boy. Do you know anything about that? What he meant by it?’

Soffía shook her head.

‘He said all sorts of things you couldn’t understand, especially when the evangelical spirit took hold of him. The congregation sometimes had special children’s and youth activities, but I don’t remember that boy participating in any of them.’

‘It sounds as if the boy had no fixed home,’ Konrád said. ‘That he was something of a stray. Can that be?’

‘I couldn’t say. But I think he came from somewhere in the countryside. I went once with my mum to pick him up at the long-distance bus terminal.’

‘Do you remember Sunnefa, whom I understand was a friend of your mother?’

‘I remember her well. She believed every word in the Bible. Had that in common with Mum, and they were good friends. Sunnefa was often at our place, helping with the work of the congregation. A lovely lady, as I remember her. Truly lovely.’

‘Another woman from the congregation that I know of is Regína,’ said Konrád. ‘She was a friend of Sunnefa’s and initially knew her from the National Hospital. Do you remember if she ever came to your house?’

‘Regína?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a really sad story.’