Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

It struck him just how unfair all of this was. The town was full of people who could drink without going down the same path as he did whenever he permitted himself to take a sip. Still, he had enough on his shoulders. Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink, he thought. Arnar looked from his trembling hands to the wall again, in the hope of rediscovering his calm place. He had to stop this whining. He had spent enough time in therapy to know he needed to abandon this self-pity and accept responsibility for his own behaviour. Yes, he was unlucky not to be able to resist alcohol, but no one had forced him into it. He raised the glass to his lips himself, knowing that he would be giving up his self-respect and common sense shortly afterwards. He needed to keep this fixed in his mind. He alone could keep the problem in check, lock the addiction behind imaginary bars where it would hiss and growl in his mind but be unable to bite him. He had long ago accepted that he would have to live with the craving; there was no magic solution that would take it away. The trick was just to accept it; not let the mind go to the moment when the first sip would trickle down his throat, bringing the promise that everything would be fine and one more drink wouldn’t do him any harm. The problem wasn’t how he felt when he stopped keeping tabs on his drinking; he would never even consider drinking if he felt that way after the first sip. When he was drunk the short-lived sense of well-being vanished, although he did not feel bad, exactly. He simply went numb, and his existence revolved around ensuring the next drink was within reach. No, it was the first mouthfuls that were dangerous, so dangerously good that he let himself be tempted time and time again, always just as convinced that this time he could put the cork back in after two – at the most three – glasses. Such bottomless stupidity and self-deception. Arnar stared at the paint and forced himself to concentrate on its texture. Maybe he should just commit himself to this place forever. He could sit here on the edge of the bed and look at the wall while his life went on and the years passed by outside. The world would go on turning even if he weren’t around.

There was a light knock at the door and Arnar was forced to tear his eyes from the wall. He neither stood up nor invited the person standing outside to come in. After a moment the door opened and in peeked a woman he had seen in the corridor the day before. She was on the staff but didn’t need her uniform to distinguish her from the patients. Her expression was too cheerful for her to be in treatment. Arnar looked at her and waited for her to state her business.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, smiling. Arnar wondered how often she had asked that same question with precisely that expression. He said nothing. ‘We were hoping that you’d feel up to coming to the meeting, but you haven’t come.’ Arnar had no recollection of being told about this meeting. Of course he had little reason to attend; others’ exaggerated tales of their own drinking were not of interest right now. ‘It would do you good to meet other people, plus you also have to take an active role in the programme if you want it to produce results.’

Arnar turned his back to the wall. ‘What do you think about killing animals?’ he asked.

‘Me?’ asked the young woman, as if he could have meant someone else. ‘I don’t find it pleasant to think about, but it’s okay if the animals are meant to be eaten.’

‘And people?’ asked Arnar, without changing his expression or his tone of voice. ‘Is that all right?’

The silence in the doorway suggested that the young woman had never before discussed such a topic, even though she must have heard a thing or two in her career.

‘No,’ she finally answered, tentatively. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

Arnar looked at her. She was beautiful, but the ridiculous blonde streaks in her long hair, the sunbed tan and the gaudy earrings did little for her. She could have been one of the endless stream of girls like that filling the streets downtown on the weekends, when they strutted around in little groups and hoped to be noticed. No doubt he judged her too harshly; she was unlikely to be a drinker and she might have become that tanned and her hair been bleached by spending a lot of time outdoors. He sensed that she was uncomfortable about the way he was staring at her. ‘Sometimes I think it’s okay.’

‘I see.’ The young woman looked a bit queasy. She had come to persuade him to go to a meeting, not to consider moral questions about whether or when a man should kill another. Arnar didn’t know what her job was: nurse, psychologist, therapist or something entirely different. She couldn’t be a doctor, she was too young for that, unless he underestimated her age. With each year that passed it became more difficult for him to guess young people’s ages; he drew further and further away from youth, much to his dismay.

‘But do you think there’s good reason to punish those who have murdered someone?’ He could see that she understood none of what he was saying. ‘The damage is already done; what purpose does it serve?’

The woman looked at the clock and glanced nervously down the corridor. ‘It’s not my department, but I do think people should be punished for the crimes they commit. It doesn’t do any good to act as if nothing happened and not avenge the person who died.’

‘Avenge them?’ said Arnar thoughtfully, looking away from the woman. ‘But what if the person who committed murder was in fact avenging another death? Wouldn’t that just be a vicious circle?’ He closed his eyes and wished for the millionth time that he were religious. Then he would find it much easier to separate things into black and white.

‘Is there any particular reason you’re thinking about this?’ The smile she had bestowed upon him when she’d first knocked at his door had vanished.

‘No.’ Arnar couldn’t put her through a confession of his problems. She probably had enough of her own – like everyone else, in fact. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘I would like to suggest that you set up an appointment with the psychiatrist.’ The girl appeared to be having trouble deciding whether she should insist that Arnar attend the meeting or whether his condition and behaviour suggested that it would be better if he were allowed to continue to rest. ‘These kinds of thoughts don’t do any good and I’m sure you’d feel better after speaking to someone. But I’m not the right person.’

Arnar nodded. ‘No, probably not.’ He thought for a moment and realized that he shouldn’t discuss this with this woman or anyone else. He was not so stupid as to think that blathering about it would change anything. Some things were simply impossible to change. The dead don’t come back to life. He tried to compensate for this oversight.

‘Don’t worry. I don’t need to talk to anyone, I’m just a little distracted at the moment.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better come to this meeting.’ His hands were trembling more than ever before. ‘Would you mind checking whether I could have something for this?’ He held out his hands and they both watched his fingers quiver, almost as if he were doing it on purpose, exaggerating his condition like the people now spilling their guts at the meeting. But he was not. His nervous system was perfectly capable of making his fingers shake on their own. Perhaps it was a consequence of the chill in his wretched heart, from which no warmth in this world could free him. Pills would change nothing; he regretted having asked for them and hoped that the woman would forget his request. He didn’t want to see a doctor; he didn’t want to see anyone. He only wished to be left alone, to allow his discomfort to root itself so deeply in his body that it would branch out into his bone marrow. He did not deserve to feel any better than he did now; if he suffered hellishly enough, perhaps over time he could cleanse himself of the guilt and try to start a new life.