Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

But it wasn’t the foreigners that Katrín was most interested in. The names on the crosses that they’d found turned out to be among those buried in known graves. Hugi Pjetursson and Bergdís Jónsdóttir, both died in 1951, she at thirty-two years old and he at five. Katrín stared at the names while pondering their poignantly short lives. Bergdís was most likely the boy’s mother, and the boy’s surname told her his father was called Pjetur; but no father was to be found in their plot, nor was any Pjetur named in the two lists. She was happy that Líf had decided to wait with Garðar; she would have found it embarrassing and uncomfortable to have her there, considering how recently Einar had died. His death had been easy and silent; he had fallen asleep never to wake up again, while here this mother and her son had probably bid farewell to this world through an accident or disease, since they had died in the same year, if not on the same day. Of the two evils, Einar’s path was surely more desirable, even though it wasn’t in one’s power to decide such a thing. Líf would probably disagree with this, however; she had woken with her husband cold and dead by her side. Katrín felt a deeper chill.

The map of the cemetery pointed her to the grave of Hugi and Bergdís, a fenced-off but unmarked plot. If she hadn’t had the map to rely on, she would have assumed that these were reserved plots that hadn’t been used after the village was abandoned. Unlike other plots, there was no overgrowth present here; instead the ground was covered with black, dusty soil. Oval-shaped white stones lay here and there on the surface but no remains of weeds or grass were to be seen anywhere. The outlines of the graves were marked with a low pile of stones that was falling down. The wind blew harder when Katrín walked over to the plot and the unpleasant whispering grew louder, though she still couldn’t quite hear what it was saying. She had to grab her hair and hold it back tightly in order to see anything properly. Although she didn’t really need to see anything – she knew the crosses were from here. Her confirmation came after she’d got a grip on her hair and could see a bit better: two broken wooden stumps stuck out of the ground at the end of the graves. Bingo. Although there was no clear explanation as to why the crosses had been removed and put next to their house, Katrín was at least very relieved to know where they had come from. Maybe crazy – or drunk? – tourists had vandalized the graves and thrown away the crosses by their house, although that explanation sounded ridiculous as soon as it crossed her mind. Her relief then evaporated completely when she saw that the round white stones weren’t stones at all, but shells.

Katrín picked one of them up and inspected it thoroughly. It was pale and damp and had been scraped out, or the creature that had occupied it had been removed some other way. Katrín looked around in search of more shells that might be hidden in the grass next to the grave. She saw none. It occurred to her that birds might have been responsible, but then the shells should have been lying all over the place. Besides that, it was too much of a coincidence for birds to have arranged the shells in the dirt – they all faced the same way, with the convex side up. The wind blew the soil and the shells were no longer as distinctly white. The next gust went one better and covered some of them completely. Katrín squeezed the shell she was holding, turned on her heel and hurried back to Garðar and Líf. It was inconceivable that the shells had been there since the autumn. They could hardly have been there much longer than since that morning, considering how quickly the wind was blowing dirt over them now. But who had put them there? She would have to investigate whether the shells were similar to the ones Garðar had found in the living room of their house. Maybe there was someone else in the village, trying to avoid making his presence known.

She felt relieved when she finally left the cemetery and spotted Garðar and Líf. At precisely that moment she thought that at last she could hear what the wind had been constantly whispering.

Run, Kata .

The photo of his son stood on his desk in the simple office that he hadn’t been interested in making his own in any other way. Similar photos could be seen everywhere he was in the habit of stopping; at home, one on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker, another on the bedside table, a third on the little table next to the armchair where he watched television. The pictures were all over the place; he’d lost count of them, indeed he didn’t want to know how many there were. Most of the frames were the same: inexpensive and not able to withstand much handling. Some of them had fallen apart and been traded in for sturdier ones. He’d originally bought all the frames in the same shop after picking up enlarged photos of his son. He’d chosen the photos as haphazardly as the frames, having been pressed for time. He remembered the day clearly; when he woke he couldn’t recall his son’s face, no matter how he tried to imagine it. The face was always just out of reach, just on the verge of appearing, but needing one last effort to recall it. The framed photos were intended for such moments, but Freyr had immediately realized that they would constantly increase in number, and in the end his inability to picture his son would become inescapable.

‘Who’s in the photo?’ Dagný nodded her chin at the picture. She was unusually tired-looking, but that made her no less attractive in Freyr’s eyes, merely more human. Her short hair wasn’t as wild as usual and lay a bit flat at the end of the long working day. Her sofa at home was probably a more attractive prospect than dropping in on him, but Freyr wasn’t to blame for that – she’d asked to see him. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘It’s a photo of my son. Benni.’ It suddenly occurred to Freyr to turn the photo round for her to see it, but he didn’t.

‘He was never found, was he?’ Dagný reddened slightly as soon as she said this. ‘I heard the story just after you moved here. It didn’t need to be described to me in any detail; I still remember the news vividly. Children don’t often disappear in Iceland.’

‘No. Thankfully not. But it’s not the only example. Two teenage boys disappeared from Keflavík fifteen years ago. They’ve never been found.’ Freyr watched Dagný shift awkwardly in the chair at the topic of conversation, even though her desire to know more about what had happened was clearly stronger than her politeness. It didn’t bother him; it was much better when people asked him straight out instead of tiptoeing around it every time anything vaguely connected to the incident came up. In the worst instances, people blushed deeply if a child were mentioned, and then tried whatever they could to direct the conversation onto another topic. On those occasions he usually stopped them and told them that it was OK, but that he didn’t want to talk about his painful loss. ‘The way things stand, I don’t expect him to be found now; it’s been three years and every little patch of ground where he might conceivably be has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb.’

Dagný appeared relieved that he was able to discuss the subject. She looked into his eyes instead of allowing them to roam the walls of the office and asked her next question more boldly than the previous one. ‘What do you think actually happened? It’s strange that nothing should have come to light.’

Freyr nodded; apart from his ex, no one could have pondered this question more than he had. But his speculation hadn’t led him to any conclusions. ‘I simply don’t know. It doesn’t help that he went missing while playing hide-and-seek with his friends. Maybe he crawled into a well or a hole that somehow closed behind him, but of course all those possibilities were investigated. They searched garages, houses, cars, camper vans, and everything else in the neighbourhood that could possibly have accommodated a child. The police think that he must have ended up in the sea; still, it’s quite a distance from Ártúnsholt, where we lived, down to the beach, so I’ve always doubted that explanation. Of course it’s possible that he went all that way, but it doesn’t tally with the game of hide-and-seek; the kids said they never went far to hide, and the purpose is to be found in the end. You know that from your own childhood; you didn’t go off to another neighbourhood to find yourself a good hiding place. In any case, they weren’t allowed to go near Ártúnsbrekka because of the traffic, and they stuck to that. I don’t think Benni would have broken that rule.’ Freyr folded his arms across his chest. ‘But I don’t know that for certain.’