Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

“I’m coming, anyway,” she said. “You make sure you’re ready. If they want to pick Sigga up, they can. It’s up to you whether you go with them or come with me and Sóley.” She hung up and zipped up her skirt. Uncharacteristically, she had dressed up for the occasion—high heels and everything. She’d wanted to celebrate the end of the case and enjoy her time with Matthew before he left. She looked at her tights, draped over the TV. She grimaced, but decided she would rather put them back on than expose her pasty white legs.

“Matthew,” said Thóra, nudging him gently, “I’ve got to go. Sigga’s in labor.”

Matthew, who lay facedown, lifted his head from the pillow and blinked groggily at her. “What?”

“I’ve got to go to the hospital,” she repeated, “Sigga’s screaming blue murder, so it shouldn’t be long. I’ll ring and let you know.”

Thóra drove home faster than usual. She smiled to herself as she turned into her road, remembering how Gylfi and Sigga had betrayed their ignorance when they had talked about the birth. Sigga had at various times expressed a desire to give birth underwater, or standing up outside surrounded by nature, or silently, like Tom Cruise’s wife, all depending on what she had been reading on the Internet that day. All these idyllic births took place without any pain medication, but Thóra suspected that would change when the girl was faced with reality. After the first session of a course for expectant parents, both had refused to return. Sigga had scandalized the midwife by asking whether there was MTV in the delivery room.

“I’m here,” called Thóra as she entered, but she could not be heard over Sigga’s howling. She wouldn’t be welcome in a Scientologist delivery room.

“There’s something wrong,” shouted Gylfi when he spotted his mother. “I think the baby’s trying to come out sideways.”

“No it isn’t,” said Thóra. “Unfortunately this is just what it’s like.” She went over to Sigga, who was sitting in the dining room with her head in her hands.

“It’s because she’s got such narrow hips,” said Gylfi anxiously. “Everybody says that makes it really hard to give birth.”

“It’s not the hips that are the bottleneck in this process, sweetheart. That comes a bit farther down.” She leaned over Sigga. “Just breathe deeply, Sigga,” she said. “Okay, let’s go out to the car. Have your waters broken?”

Sigga looked at Thóra blankly. “Waters?”

“Come on,” said Thóra, clapping her hands briskly, “you’ll find out soon enough.” She helped Sigga out of the house, while Gylfi hurried ahead to open the car door. Sóley followed sleepily, unclear what was happening. “Just say yes, Sigga, if they offer you an epidural. It’s the fashion,” said Thóra, helping Sigga lie down in the rear seat of the SUV. She had decided to sell it, and the caravan, in order to clear her debts, but the SUV was bigger than her old banger and had room for all of them.

Thóra sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Just as she backed out of the drive, Sigga shouted out and she slammed on the brakes. Gylfi and Thóra looked into the back. She sighed. She would have to knock something off the price of the SUV, now that the rear seat was awash with amniotic fluid.

Sóley sat swinging her legs. She had nothing else to do in the waiting area. Thóra was impressed by how good she was being, especially since they’d been waiting in the little room for nearly three hours. Their time there wasn’t made any more enjoyable by the presence of Sigga’s father, who barely spoke, just sent Thóra an impressive range of contemptuous looks, so Thóra was relieved when her phone rang, breaking the oppressive silence. She answered and took the call in the corridor.

“Hello, Thóra, this is Lára on Snæfellsnes, Sóldís’s grandmother,” said the old lady’s pleasantly modulated voice. “I hope I haven’t rung at a bad time.”

“No, not at all,” replied Thóra. “I’m so pleased to hear from you. I was going to call you myself, as I didn’t manage to see you before I left.” Five days had passed since Berta and Steini were arrested by the police, and Thóra had been busy tying up the case and working off the backlog that had accumulated at the office. Jónas had fortunately decided not to take legal action against Elín and Börkur, after it transpired that the “ghost” had been Berta all along. “You know they found Kristín, of course.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m ringing,” said Lára. “There are actually two things I wanted to mention. I’m arranging to have her buried next to her mother, and I was hoping you’d come to the service. It was thanks to you that she was found. I don’t suppose her relatives will be attending en masse, and I feel it’s important that it shouldn’t just be me and the priest.”

“I’d be honored,” said Thóra warmly.

“Good,” said Lára. “I’ll let you know as soon as the date is fixed.” She cleared her throat delicately. “Then there’s the other matter. The policeman who handled the case came to see me earlier.”

“Thórólfur?” said Thóra, surprised. “What did he want?”

“He brought me a letter, or to be more precise, a copy of a letter,” replied Lára. “A letter that’s taken sixty years to reach me. It’s from Gudný.”

“Where was it found?” asked Thóra. She was astonished. “Was it in the coal bunker?”

“It was in Kristín’s coat pocket,” said Lára. It seemed to Thóra that her voice might break, but when she spoke again, she sounded strong and steady. “Most of what’s in the letter is my private business, but I wanted to share one thing with you.”

“Of course,” said Thóra. “I think it must explain quite a lot.”

“When Gudný wrote the letter, she knew she was dying. She realized it was her last chance to tell her story. She starts by apologizing for not telling me the truth in her previous letters. She says she didn’t feel able to as she was afraid I would come to visit her, and she or her father would infect me. I’d started a new life in Reykjavík and she didn’t want to unsettle me by complaining about her own problems.”

“Presumably she meant the tuberculosis,” said Thóra. “It can’t have been the child that she saw as a problem.”

“No,” Lára replied. “She loved her daughter more than life itself. She calls her ‘a light in the darkness.’ She says she’s such a good little girl, sweet-natured in spite of her unusual upbringing, cut off from everyone except her mother and grandfather. I can’t deny that Gudný seemed terribly ashamed of having had an illegitimate child, but it didn’t affect her love for Kristín.”

“Children are incredibly adaptable,” said Thóra, thinking of her own little grandchild starting his or her life, possibly by coming out sideways.

“Absolutely,” said Lára. “Kristín was lucky to have such a loving mother, and she didn’t need anyone else.” Lára hesitated, presumably scanning the letter for something specific. “Gudný states quite clearly that Magnús Baldvinsson is the father,” she said eventually. “They were intimate only once, when he came to meet her father on Nationalist Party business and she became pregnant. She says she has never slept with any other man, neither before nor since, and jokes that there are unlikely to be any more men in her life now.”

“Does she says whether he knew about the child?” asked Thóra. Even if he did, he could hardly lay claim to inherit from her.

“She says he went to Reykjavík to study before she was aware of her condition, but she wrote him a letter after Kristín was born. He never replied.” Lára sighed. “It’s clear from her letter that she was very hurt, particularly on her daughter’s behalf. If she had ever loved him, that put an end to it, understandably.”