Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

The woman gave no sign of noticing that anyone had left the table. Thora politely cleared her throat, without the intended result. She waited for a while but saw that more direct action was needed to capture the woman's attention. "I don't have much experience with this sort of thing so I find it difficult to express how sorry I am. I just want you to know that you and your family have my deepest sympathy."

The woman snorted. "I don't deserve sympathyneither from you nor anyone else." She turned away from the window and looked at Thora. Her face was full of anger, then she seemed to soften up. "Sorry. I'm not my usual self." She put her hands on the table and began fiddling with her rings. "I don't know why I feel compelled to talk to you." She looked up at Thora from her jewelry. "Maybe because I'll never see you again. Maybe because I need to have the chance to justify my actions, now that my behavior has had these terrible consequences."

Thora could only guess that "these terrible consequences" was a reference to Harald's death. "You don't have to explain it to me," she said. "I wasn't born yesterday, and I know there's often more to things than meets the eye."

The woman smiled vaguely. Thora noticed how well she'd looked after herself. Admittedly she was beginning to show her age, but she was still stunning even as her beauty was beginning to fade into elegance. Her clothing did little to dispel that impression. Thora imagined her dark dress suit and coat probably cost more than she herself spent on clothes in a whole year. "Harald was such a wonderful child," the woman said dreamily. "When he was born we were immensely happy. We already had Bernd, he'd just passed two, and then came that lovely baby boy. My memories of the years after that, until Amelia was born, are how you would imagine paradise. Not a shadow fell on any moment of it."

"She was ill, wasn't she?" asked Thora. "Didn't she have a congenital disease?"

Amelia Guntlieb's smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "No. She wasn't born like that. She was perfectly healthy. She was the spitting image of me, judging from the photos I had of myself as a toddler. She was wonderful, as all my children have beenslept well and only cried now and again. None of them had stomach trouble or earaches. Lovely babies." Thora made do with nodding because she was unsure of the appropriate response. She saw a tear appear in the corner of the woman's eye. "Harald" Her voice cracked. She paused to collect herself before proceeding and swept away the tear with a deft movement of her hand. "I haven't discussed this with a soul, apart from my husband and our doctors. My husband mentioned it to his parents but never to anyone else. We're not an open family and we find it difficult to discuss thingsaccepting other people's sympathy isn't our greatest strength. I think that's the reason anyway."

"It can be difficult," said Thora, who had no idea how it must have been. Fortunately she had not needed much sympathy up to now.

"Harald was extremely fond of his little sister but jealous too. He had been my little baby for more than three years and sometimes found it hard to accept the new member of the family. We didn't take it seriously, expected it to pass." The tears rolled down her cheeks. "He dropped her, threw her on the floor." She stopped talking and went back to watching the birds.

"He dropped the baby on the floor?" asked Thora, taking care to remain calm. A shiver ran down her spine.

"She was four months old, asleep in a car seat. We'd just come back from shopping. I went to take off my coat, and when I got back, Harald was standing holding her in his arms. Not exactly in his arms, actually. He was holding her by the legs like a rag doll. Of course she woke up and started to whimper. He yelled at her and shook her. I ran over to him but I was too late. He just looked at me and smiled. Then he dropped her. Straight onto the tiled floor." Her tears poured in single file, leaving glittering marks down her face. "I could never erase that memory. Whenever I looked at Harald I saw his expression when he dropped her." The woman paused to gather her strength. "Her skull was fractured," she continued, "she went into a coma at the hospital and developed encephalopathy as a result. She never woke up the same again. My little angel."

"Surely you must have been suspected of child abuse? Here they would have removed the baby from your care while they investigated the circumstances."

Amelia's expression implied that Thora was rather nadve. "We didn't need to go through all that. The family doctor helped us, and the other doctors who looked after her showed nothing but total understanding. Harald was sent to a psychiatrist, but that had no effect. He showed no signs of psychological disorder. He was just a jealous little child who made a terrible mistake."

Thora did not reveal her doubts that this incident could be classified as the behavior of a normal child. What would she know about that? "Did Harald remember this or did he forget it over time?" she asked instead.

"I honestly don't know. We didn't talk much together, the two of us. I think he probably knewat least, he was especially kind to Amelia Maria until she finally found peace and died. My impression was that he was constantly trying to make up for what he did."

"So this tainted your relationship all these years?" asked Thora.

"There was no relationship. I found it hard to look at him, let alone be in his company. I simply avoided my son whenever I could. His father did the same, really. Harald found it difficult to take at first, he didn't understand why his mother didn't want him around any longer. Then he grew accustomed to it." She had stopped weeping and her face had hardened. "Of course I should have forgiven himbut I just couldn't. Perhaps I should have seen a psychiatrist myself, it might all have been different then. Harald would have been something other than what he became."

"Wasn't he a good boy?" Thora asked, remembering what his surviving sister had said. "Elisa seems to remember him as a good person."

"He was the inquisitive type," the woman said. "Let's put it that way. He was constantly trying to earn his father's affectionwhich he never won. He soon gave up on me. What saved him was how kind his grandfather was to him. But when he died, Harald lost his bearings. He was a student in Berlin and soon began using drugs and playing at cheating death. One of his friends did die. That was how we found out."

"You didn't back down and try to repair your relationship?" Thora asked, although she knew the answer in advance.

"No," said Amelia curtly. "Subsequently he developed this ghastly interest in black magic; his grandfather had got him into it. When Amelia Maria died he joined the army. We did nothing to stop him. It didn't turn out to be the best decisionI won't go into details, but he was sent home after less than a year. He had plenty of money which he had inherited from his grandfather and we didn't see much of him. But he did contact us when he decided to come here; he phoned to let us know."

Thora looked at the woman thoughtfully. "If you're asking me to understand, I can't. But I do sympathize. I don't know how I would have reacted myselfperhaps exactly the same. But I hope not."

"I so wish I had been the type of person who could rebuild my relationship with Harald. Now it's too late and I have to come to terms with it."

Thora found this ironic. Perhaps the revenge curse had worked after all? "Don't think that I want to make your suffering any worse, but I must point out that it has affected other people too. Now, for example, a young man is in prison, a medical student who was a friend of Harald's. He won't have a chance of being reaccepted by society after making friends with your son."

Amelia looked out of the window. "What will happen to him?"