The Quiet Mother

64

Marta blew jets of vapour as she waited impatiently for Konrád in front of the block of flats. Another officer was with her whom Konrád didn’t know. All was quiet on the street. There was no sign of any special response team to deal with the man in the flat. Light shone from most of the block’s windows. Valborg’s window was dark.

‘That fool Emanúel called earlier and said he saw a man in Valborg’s flat,’ Marta said as Konrád hurried over to her. ‘No one has bothered to take his spotting scope from him. The man refuses to come out. He’s switched off all the lights and claims to be unarmed. It could be a lie. I’m mainly worried that he’ll harm himself. Why do you think he’s Valborg’s son?’

‘Did he know me by name?’

‘Yes. He asked for Konrád. Have you met him before?’

‘No,’ Konrád said, looking up at the windows of Valborg’s flat. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘You try talking to him,’ said Marta. ‘If it works, we won’t break down the door. If he turns out to be a threat, we’ll call in the SWAT team. Evacuate the building. Try to calm him down. I don’t want any tragedies here.’

‘Yes, too late for that, unfortunately,’ Konrád said.

Marta showed him how to signal with his mobile phone if he needed help. Konrád set his phone, went to the front door, and opened it. He entered the stairwell and made his way slowly to the second floor, then went to the door of Valborg’s flat. It had been forced open.

He knocked lightly on the door, not wanting to be too aggressive if this was Valborg’s son. He called Daníel’s name several times. Put his ear to the door. Heard nothing. He pushed the door. It opened further and he walked cautiously into the flat.

‘Is that you, Daníel?’ he called out. ‘Are you all right? I’ve spoken to Regína. She’ll be OK. She’s very worried about you.’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt her,’ Konrád heard from within the darkness.

‘She knows that.’

‘Nor did I mean to hurt Valborg or anyone else. I didn’t know who she was... that she was... was...’

Konrád, peering into the darkness, inched his way forward.

‘They said she kept her money here. The ones at the shelter. I don’t know what I was doing with the plastic bag. Thought I could just make her sleep. Knock her out for a while. My head was all fucked up. Didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve felt so bad about this. I never meant to do it. Not to her. Not to anyone.’

Konrád saw the man in silhouette, sitting on a chair. He saw no weapon in his hands. He appeared to be leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

‘Strange that it happened to be her. I’ve never done any real searching for her or my father... Is what Regína said true? Was that why she gave me up? Because he raped her?’

‘I’m afraid everything points to that,’ Konrád replied. ‘I take it you’re Daníel?’

‘I don’t know who I am.’

There was another long silence, and Daníel didn’t move in his chair. Konrád ventured a little closer until he was standing opposite the man. He noticed that the balcony door was open.

‘That bloody bastard.’

‘Yes. That bloody bastard.’

‘Strange that it happened to be her,’ Daníel said again.

‘Of course, it isn’t normal,’ said Konrád. ‘That you should find each other in this way. She thought of you all these years and finally asked me to track you down because I was once a cop. We didn’t know each other at all, and I pushed her away. I feel like I failed her. And you. Maybe I could have brought you together. Before this disaster happened. She wanted to get in touch with you because, as the years passed, she came to regret what she did more and more, and maybe she also wanted you to have some of your father’s money. He’s a wealthy man. She had the idea that she might finally do you some good.’

‘I would have liked to have known her.’

‘Of course.’

‘I would have liked... I wish I hadn’t...’

‘She bore her grief in silence,’ said Konrád, inching closer to the man. ‘The rape. That she’d had a child and given it up. It seems to have had a profound effect on her. She tried to live her life as if nothing had happened, but I don’t think she ever succeeded.’

‘Sometimes I asked the people around me, but no one knew anything or else just kept what they knew secret, until Regína told me everything this evening. Why I was always so unsettled. She told me about the people in the congregation and Sunnefa, what she did.’

‘Let me help you.’

‘There’s nothing you can do for me.’

Daníel looked up from the floor and at him, silent and serious.

‘I never meant to do it. I’m no murderer.’

He’d started to drawl a bit and Konrád asked if he was OK, but got no answer. He said he wanted to switch on the light, and Daníel didn’t object. Konrád reached for a switch by the kitchen door and a light above the dining table came on. The soft light fell on them and they looked each other in the eye. Daníel’s face bore signs that life had been unkind to him. At some point, he’d broken his nose and a scar remained from a gash over one eye, maybe from a fight. His lips were chapped, his strong hands were dirty and scarred, and his nails were cracked and yellow-brown from constant smoking. Konrád regarded him and thought he saw his mother’s mien in Daníel’s facial features, his high forehead and arched eyebrows. And he saw that beneath his brows shone the same deep pain that was in Valborg’s eyes the day they sat under the arched windows and she talked about motherly love.

‘I wish I’d been there with her,’ Daníel whispered.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘She didn’t deserve this.’

‘No,’ Konrád said.

‘And neither do I.’

‘You sure don’t,’ Konrád said. ‘Nobody deserves such a thing.’

‘I’m thirsty,’ said Daníel. ‘Can you get me some water?’

He gave a joyless little smile and Konrád got up and went into the kitchen, took a glass and filled it with water. When he returned, Daníel was sitting in the chair with his eyes closed. Konrád nudged him gently and said he’d brought water for him, but received no response. Seeing that something was wrong, he put down the glass, grabbed Daníel’s head and asked if he was all right, said his name over and over, slapped him lightly on the cheek, lifted his eyelids and saw that his eyes were hard and lifeless. Konrád pressed the button on his phone and laid Daníel on the floor. He tried CPR and noticed boxes of Valborg’s cancer drugs and a few other pills.

Saying Daníel’s name over and over, he continued doing chest compressions until the police and paramedics arrived, accompanied by a doctor. The doctor pushed Konrád away and took over the resuscitation efforts himself, and before long, they’d carried Daníel out to an ambulance.

About three-quarters of an hour later, Konrád learned that Valborg’s son had died on the way to the hospital.