Arnaldur Indridason - Silence Of The Grave

The children's mother stared into his eyes. A candle was burning on the floor beside her. While he was searching for the poison she had hurriedly picked up a large pair of scissors that she had kept by her side to heat in the flame, then cut the umbilical cord and knotted it with shaking hands.

"Answer me!" Grimur screamed.

She did not need to answer. He could tell from her eyes. Her expression. Her obstinacy. How she had always, deep down inside, defied him, unflinching, no matter how often he thrashed her, he saw it in her silent dissent, the challenge glaring back at him with the soldier's bloodstained bastard in her arms.

Saw it in the baby she hugged to her breast.

"Leave Mum alone," Simon said in a low voice.

"Give it to me!" Grimur screamed. "Give me the baby, you fucking serpent!"

"Leave Mum alone," Simon said, more loudly.

"Give it here!" Grimur screamed, "or I'll kill you both. I'll kill you all! Kill you! All!"

He foamed at the mouth with rage.

"You fucking whore! Are you trying to kill me? Do you reckon you can kill me?"

"Stop it!" Simon shouted.

The children's mother clutched the baby tight with one arm, and groped for the scissors with the other, but she could not find them. She glanced away from Grimur and looked around for them in a frenzy, but they were gone.

*

Erlendur looked at Mikkelina.

"Who took the scissors?" he asked.

Mikkelina was standing by the window now. Erlendur and Elinborg exchanged glances. They were both thinking the same thing.

"Are you the only one left to tell what happened?" Erlendur asked.

"Yes," Mikkelina said. "There's no one else."

"Who took the scissors?" Elinborg asked.

"Do you want to meet Simon?" Mikkelina asked. Her eyes were moist with tears.

"Simon?" Erlendur said, not knowing what she meant. Then he remembered. The man who had collected her from the hill. "You mean your son?"

"No, not my son, my brother," Mikkelina said. "My brother Simon."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes, he's alive."

"Then we have to talk to him," Erlendur said.

"You won't get much out of him," Mikkelina smiled. "But let's go and see him anyway. He enjoys visits."

"Aren't you going to finish your story?" Elinborg asked. "What kind of a beast was that man? I don't believe it. Someone behaving that way."

Erlendur looked towards her.

"I'll tell you on the way," Mikkelina said. "Let's go and see Simon."

*

"Simon!" their mother shouted.

"Leave Mum alone," Simon screamed in a quavering voice, and before they knew it he had plunged the scissors into Grimur's chest.

Simon pulled back his hand and saw that the scissors had gone in up to the handle. He looked in disbelief at his son, as if he did not fully realise what had happened. He looked down at the scissors, but seemed incapable of moving. He looked again at Simon.

"Are you killing me?" Grimur groaned and fell to his knees. Blood pumped out from the scissor-wound onto the floor, and slowly he slumped backwards and slammed against the wall.

Their mother clutched the baby in silent terror. Mikkelina lay motionless by her side. Tomas was still standing where he had dropped the porridge. Simon began shivering, standing beside his mother. Grimur did not move.

Everything went silent.

Until their mother let out a piercing, anguished howl.

*

Mikkelina paused.

"I don't know whether the baby was stillborn or whether Mum squeezed it so hard that it suffocated in her arms. It was quite premature. She was expecting the baby in the spring, but it was still late winter when it was born. We never heard it make a sound. Mum didn't clear its throat and she held it with its face buried in her clothes, for fear of him. For fear that he would take it from her."

At Mikkelina's instruction, Erlendur pulled over near a plain-looking detached house.

"Would he have died that spring?" Erlendur asked. "Her husband? Was she counting on that?"

"I don't think so," Mikkelina said. "She'd been poisoning him for three months. It wasn't enough."

Erlendur stopped in the drive and switched off the engine.

"Have you heard of hebephrenia?" she asked, opening the car door.

*

Their mother stared at the dead baby in her arms, rocked it frantically back and forth and sobbed and cried out.

Seemingly impervious to her, Simon stared at his father's body as if he could not believe what he saw. A puddle of blood was beginning to form under him. Simon was shaking like a leaf.

Mikkelina tried to console her mother, but it was impossible. Tomas walked past them into the bedroom and closed the door without saying a word. Without any change of expression.

A good while passed.

Eventually Mikkelina managed to calm her mother. When she came to her senses and stopped crying, she took a good look around. She saw Grimur lying in his own blood, saw Simon trembling beside her, saw the look of anguish on Mikkelina's face. Then she started to wash her baby in the hot water that Simon had brought her, cleaning it meticulously with slow, careful movements. She seemed to know what to do without thinking about the details. She put the baby down, stood up and hugged Simon, who was rooted to the spot, and he stopped trembling and broke instead into heavy sobs. She led him to a chair and made him sit down, facing away from the body. Then went over to Grimur, pulled the scissors out of the wound and threw them in the sink.

Then she sat down on a chair, exhausted after the birth.

She talked to Simon about what they needed to do and she gave instructions to Mikkelina too. They rolled Grimur onto a blanket and pulled his body to the front door. She went outside with Simon and they walked a good way from the house, where he started to dig a hole. The rain, which had stopped during the day, began again — cold, heavy winter rain. The ground was only partially frozen. Simon loosened the soil with a pickaxe, and after he had dug for two hours, they fetched the body and lugged it to the grave. They dragged the blanket over the hole, the body fell in and they tugged the blanket back up from under it. The corpse lodged in the grave with the left hand sticking up in the air, but neither Simon nor his mother could bring themselves to move it.

Their mother plodded back to the house and fetched the baby, carried it out into the cold rain and laid it down with Grimur's body.

She was about to make the sign of the cross over the grave, but stopped.

"He doesn't exist," she said.

Then she started shovelling earth over the bodies. Simon stood by the grave watching the wet, dark soil slam down onto the corpses and saw how they gradually disappeared beneath it. Mikkelina had begun to tidy up in the kitchen. Tomas was nowhere to be seen.

A thick layer of mud was in the grave when Simon suddenly had the impression that Grimur twitched. With a shudder he looked at his mother, who had not noticed anything, then he stared down into the grave and to his horror he saw the face, half-covered with dirt, move.

The eyes opened.

Simon froze.

Grimur stared up at him from the grave.

Simon let out a mighty scream and his mother stopped shovelling. She looked at Simon, then down into the grave, and saw that Grimur was still alive. She stood on the edge of the grave. As the rain beat down on them it cleared the mud from Grimur's face. For a moment they looked each other in the eye, then Grimur's lips moved.

"Please!"

His eyes closed again.

She looked at Simon. Down into the grave. Back at Simon. Then took the shovel and went on filling the hole as if nothing had happened. Grimur disappeared from sight, buried beneath the soil.

"Mum," Simon wailed.

"Go to the house, Simon," she said. "It's over. Go to the house and help Mikkelina. Please, Simon. Go to the house."