The Quiet Mother

58

Valborg couldn’t work up the nerve to go into the building. She made two attempts over the space of a few days, but couldn’t bring herself to walk through the door. Something held her back. The thought of seeing him again. Of facing him after all those years. The thought of it horrified her. Since that horrendous night, she’d seen him only in the news and intended never to have any contact with him, yet the thoughts never left her. Thoughts about the child that was theirs. Thoughts about the wealth he’d earned.

The second time she went to Borgartún, she wandered in a kind of restless agitation in the vicinity of the building, trying to work up her courage. She’d come there by bus and walked the short distance from the bus stop to the door of the tall glass building, but as on the previous attempt, she stopped there and finally turned away. Still, she had no desire to go home immediately, but found a cafe nearby, went in and sat down. From her table, she could see the entrance to the building that housed the pharmaceutical company and could watch the people who flocked to it and came out of it again to go about their business or run errands in the hustle and bustle of the day.

Valborg recognised him immediately from the photos in the newspaper. It was the first time she’d seen him since the horrific incident at Glaumbær. She’d been flipping through the morning paper one day and was shocked when she saw an article about him, but later she cut it out and put it with her recipes. She didn’t actually know why. Didn’t know what she was planning on doing with that clipping. The article was about his trip with his wife to the Pyramids in Egypt. The woman seemed quite sweet, judging by the photos, with a beautiful smile and thick blonde hair. She told the reporter how she’d travelled a lot with her husband, and that she’d long dreamed of seeing the wonders of Egypt. Finally, they’d decided to make the dream come true, and their trip didn’t disappoint. It had been magnificent. Like a fairy tale, literally.

Sometime later, more articles appeared. They told of the man’s business through the years, and how his daughter joined him when she was old enough. They’d invested wisely and eventually established a pharmaceutical company, which, according to the latest reports, was in the process of being sold. The papers evaluated the company’s capital gains over the past two decades. How enormous they’d been. How much they would possibly make from the sale. The man’s daughter was featured in the newspaper business pages in this connection. An extensive interview with her was published, in which she pointed out her father’s merits and their excellent collaboration.

Valborg finished her coffee, got up to pay, and was on her way back towards the building when she suddenly saw him walking out the glass door and then round the building to the parking spaces behind it. Her heart skipped a beat and she instinctively followed him at a distance. By the time she rounded the corner, he’d opened the boot of his black Mercedes, put his briefcase in it, and taken out what appeared to her to be a golf club.

Valborg walked hesitantly up to him. She had no idea what she would say. How she should act. Her heart pounded in her chest and she could barely catch her breath, she was in such a state.

‘You...?’ she said.

He turned round, golf club in hand.

‘Yes?’ he said.

The memories of that night long ago assailed her mind, but she tried to push them aside. She didn’t want to show this man any sign of weakness.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ she said, struggling to breathe. A sickening feeling nearly overwhelmed her.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked. ‘Do we know each other?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We do know each other, though you may have forgotten it.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t place you. Do you work for me?’

‘No,’ she said, trying to control her breathing and the heat she felt spreading through her whole body. Meeting him after all these years had immediately made her agitated, even though she tried to ward it off. ‘I don’t work for you. I collect clippings about you from the papers. I’m saving them for a better time. Until I tell the whole story.’

‘Are you all right?’ he asked when he saw how upset she clearly was, and apparently not entirely in her right mind.

‘I want you to find the child,’ she blurted out.

‘The child?’

‘It’s also entitled to that money of yours. I want you to find it and admit it.’

‘What are you talking about? Admit what?’

‘That it’s your child! I’m talking about your child! I want you to find it, admit it’s yours, and let it have its share. There are tests that can reveal the paternity, and the child can have—’

‘What rubbish is this?’ exclaimed the man, bewildered. ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said, putting the golf club in the boot. ‘I don’t recall having seen you before. This is a misunderstanding.’

He closed the boot.

‘You don’t remember me?’ Valborg stepped closer to him and felt her courage grow stronger. ‘You don’t remember what you did to me? You don’t remember what you did to me the night Glaumbær burned down? It was as if the Almighty took control and turned the place into an inferno after what you did to me!’

The man looked at her in astonishment, until a light finally went on in his head. His eyes widened as if seeing a zombie that had risen from a long-cold grave. He stared at the woman, whose face, like his, showed the passage of the years, at the coat that had seen better days, and knew that it was she whom he’d once disgraced.

‘You?’ he stammered.

‘Yes, me!!’ shouted Valborg.