The Ice Lands, page 12
‘I’m an alcoholic, a chronic alcoholic,’ he drawled over a cocktail in 101 Hotel, having come straight from a reception at the Canadian Embassy. He told Egill he had woken up drunk, and couldn’t remember which shares he had bought and sold in New York that morning, but he probably should have gone straight back to bed.
‘Never trust me, never . . . trust me,’ he had added. Then he informed Egill that he was on his way to rehab in Sweden.
When Hrafn came back, everything had changed. He started seeing Vigdís, whom Egill assumed was the mystery woman from before, and Grótta and the Rex were out of bounds for the time being. However, because Egill was keen to go on meeting his friend – indeed, he had never needed him as much – he suggested they go hiking. Hrafn accepted. They walked up Mount Esja, took their girlfriends, and on one of their hikes Hrafn brought up the idea of a trip to the highlands. He was a shareholder in a company that had the lease of a proper mountain jeep, and he suggested they go on a trip together; they could take provisions, tents and sleeping bags, relax and recoup after the winter, which had been difficult for everyone.
Egill’s first instinct was to say he was too busy; he felt nervous about Hrafn and Anna becoming better acquainted, and he also found the timing odd. Everything in his life had suddenly changed, not least his and Hrafn’s relationship. Not long before, Egill had asked Hrafn to lend him some money to get him out of a tight spot, prevent him being investigated on various counts, and to tide him over, for a while at least. When Hrafn refused, Egill assumed that he was right in his suspicions, which had strengthened since Hrafn went into rehab: he too had lost everything. They were in the same boat, only Hrafn was better at hiding it. On the other hand, it was quite possible that Hrafn had just as much money as before, and had only ever wanted one thing: revenge.
Anna insisted they go. She said she was fed up with the way they isolated themselves, fed up with his envy of Hrafn and of anyone who hadn’t screwed up their lives, fed up with his self-destructiveness, his inertia, his drinking, until Egill became increasingly convinced that there was something fated about the whole thing. A month later, they drove out of town, even though they all knew that the trip was a bad idea.
17
Egill
He crushed the joint between his fingers and watched the ember blow away across the sand. The storm had grown darker again, but inside his own chest it was warm and soft, his heartbeat strong but steady.
On his way past the smaller door into the warehouse – the personnel gate – Egill had the impression that something was different. He paused for a long time in front of the door then pushed it and watched as the chain slipped through the hole and fell onto the ground. Or perhaps he was mistaken.
Having resolved not to say anything, he walked back to Hrafn and Vigdís and instantly blurted it out.
‘The warehouse is unlocked,’ he said, assuring them he wasn’t mistaken.
They stood up and followed him to the door, which was indeed open. Hrafn scarcely glanced at the open door, stooping instead over the chain that lay on the sand.
‘What did you do to it?’ he asked, inspecting the padlock, which was attached to one end of the chain, not both as they had thought earlier. ‘I examined the chain and I’m positive it wasn’t like this.’
Egill raised his hands, and said he knew nothing about it.
Vigdís entered the shed and Egill followed her.
‘Are we trespassing?’ she said, and Egill heard himself air what he considered a sensible opinion (regardless of how much it clashed with his fundamental views on life): that the idea of private property seemed absurd, or at any rate unrealistic, up there in the highlands; of course anyone in extremis should be allowed to take shelter inside a building, especially if the alternative was to die of exposure outside the door, which would doubtless be far more distressing to the owner than any damage incurred from wilful breaking and entering. He was puzzled by his own attitude: it had a humane quality that made him smile.
The warehouse was dark inside, save for a glimmer of light seeping through a window high up on one wall. Above them they could see heavy timber beams, but not the ceiling. The floor was made of the same sand that was billowing against the walls. Egill strode into the centre of the warehouse, which seemed empty. At least, he hadn’t tripped over anything yet, or banged his head against an aircraft, or a tractor or a hundred-foot, pitch-black speedboat. He giggled softly.
Thanks to Hrafn’s labours they discovered that the main door was also open, and, as with the smaller door, the padlock was only attached to one end of the chain. They all helped push it open, letting in more light, although close to the walls it remained dark. After making doubly sure the warehouse was empty, that no one else was in there besides them, they sat inside the doorway waiting for the storm to die down. They would never make it to Askja before dark, and had decided to postpone their journey until the morning.
‘This will ease off soon,’ said Egill, kicking off his shoes and massaging his toes. ‘At the latest by this evening, right? The weather always quietens down in the evenings.’
Vigdís nodded.
‘If not, we should be able to find our way back using the compass and the clock,’ she said. ‘Whatever happens, I’m not spending the night here.’
She took the flares out of her bag, and she and Egill wondered whether they worked or not.
Hrafn walked off and lay down in the shadow alongside the wall. He muttered something about taking a nap, but looked as if he was sulking.
Vigdís took out her provisions and made herself a snack. Egill felt uneasy sitting this close to her, surrounded by the whistling wind, which evoked a kind of intimacy. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering what Vigdís was like in bed; she was more self-possessed than that little butterfly Anna, she had breasts, full breasts, as someone had put it, and probably cried after she climaxed, deep, heart-rending, choking, sobs, maybe she even gushed when she came . . . or squirted.
He couldn’t remember when squirting had first appeared on the scene: he usually only noticed the different types of Internet porn after he became bored of them. Perhaps everyone was like that, and doubtless it said something about their libido. There was something rather elegant about squirting. He remembered first reading about it in an English, nineteenth-century erotic novel: Fanny Hill, when he was about twenty, and once when he was drunk he had slept with a woman who ejaculated like that. Up until then he hadn’t quite believed it was physically possible, and didn’t dare broach the subject with anyone. He read a book called A Delicate Subject, by Sigrún Daviðsdóttir, a correspondent with the Icelandic state radio in London. It was about a young Icelandic photographer in New York who falls for an older woman, a widow. Egill wasn’t usually interested in contemporary Icelandic literature, and he couldn’t remember how he had come across the book, but the main character ejaculated, or ‘squirted’ as it was described in the book. He couldn’t figure out where the liquid came from. Was it something that accumulated in the ovaries and was then released through the cervix and the vagina during orgasm? Did women have a secret pouch which scientists had kept quiet about, or had simply overlooked – an uncharted Shangri-La that lay buried inside every humdrum situation only to be utterly exposed at the pinnacle of pleasure?
Vigdís finished eating, packed her provisions away and said she was going to ‘lie down’ for a bit. She sat propped against the doorpost, eyes closed, but her top button was undone and Egill glimpsed the shadow between her breasts. Beads of sweat glistened on her brow and chest.
Egill rose to his feet, stepped outside the warehouse and glanced about him at the area surrounding the warehouse, at the hill that sheltered the village from the cold north wind in winter, and the edge of the ravine, which he glimpsed every now and then through the storm. He noticed there was no sign this side saying Beware – Danger, and wondered why not.
And who had arranged the bones into a pyramid? The answer was easy: the same people who had killed the geese, swans, reindeer, mice, birds and rats – or whatever they were. The outlaws. After killing the animals, they had removed the bones, made them into a pyramid the way you stack coal in a grill – except there was nowhere for them to get coal – and that’s how they had cooked the meat.
Cooking meat with bones?
He shuddered. He didn’t like shuddering but did so all the same. Looking down, he realized he was barefoot and turned back to the warehouse to fetch his camera from his rucksack. He stole a glance at Vigdís’s tits before wandering inside the warehouse.
‘Let’s see,’ he murmured to himself with a grin, as he pressed the record button, reflecting about the possibility, the faint possibility that this might be of some interest one day in the future, when this was all over, consigned to memory like a bad dream.
He penetrated as far into the warehouse as he could, leaned against the back wall and felt how stoned he still was after the joint. He pointed the camera at the doorway, where Vigdís’s outline was just visible.
‘I’m standing in a warehouse at the northern edge of Vatnajökull,’ he whispered into the machine, ‘one of the most inhuman, desolate places on the planet. And yes, unique. We all know words like sour, which are sometimes used to describe our traditional winter fare, or the stench of brothels where nobody has seen hot water in years. But why do we always shun the other end of the pH scale – Icelandic nature is alkaline, the equivalent of forcing Grettir the Strong down your throat.’
He saw something shoot across the floor then come to a halt nearby. A mouse. It sniffed suspiciously in his direction.
He zoomed away from Vigdís and onto the mouse.
‘And yet despite everything, here we see a little mouse . . .’ he resumed, but couldn’t think of a punchline, his voice taking on a childlike wonderment that made him cringe.
The mouse vanished, and Egill walked back towards the door, where Vigdís had given up trying to fall asleep and was browsing Icelandic Flora.
‘And here she sits, unable to fall asleep. What do you say to a brief interview for future reference, for posterity? Tell me, Vigdís, how do you reconcile your work as a therapist with belonging to Friends of Nature, the members of which have sparked controversy by travelling naked around the highlands, and because of their permissive behaviour during the evening entertainments?’
Vigdís glanced up from her book.
‘We’re all good friends, of course.’ She smiled. ‘Here in the desert we’re free, au naturel. We can all be the way we are supposed to be: wild and free.’
‘I sense a trace of irony in the therapist’s voice, possibly even a repressed aversion towards nature. Which comes as a surprise, since repression itself is inimical to the Friends of Nature, is it not?’
They both giggled, and Egill was surprised by how playful she was, flirtatious almost. Perhaps it was the camera.
‘Tell me, I sometimes wonder what is the matter with this nation. What do you think? What is wrong with it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She closed her book and became pensive. ‘I read some figures once about how many Icelandic women visit crisis centres each year because they have been raped. Approximately one hundred and fifty. Out of a population of three hundred thousand, that’s about three times more proportionately than in the other Nordic countries. And in a UN survey of unprovoked public violence, Reykjavík came third, behind two other port cities in the developing world.’
‘I understand. In fact, I know about this, about why our society is broken, why women here are raped the way they are in the worst port cities, and why no one, including the politicians and the media, bats an eyelid. Do you want to know why?’
Vigdís nodded.
‘I never understood either, until I went out for a stroll one night. Take a walk down Laugarvegur late on a Saturday night, and you’ll see the reason for everything that goes on in Iceland – binge drinking. Stand on the corner of Laugarvegur and Skólavörðustígur at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning and look around you; it’s like a zoo where all the animals have been let out of their cages, whipped on the backsides and encouraged to create mis-chief – they have no idea how, but you can tell from their faces they are determined to find out.’
‘I’ve been there myself,’ she said, and grinned, revealing a row of even white teeth. ‘What were you doing there, simply taking a stroll?’
‘Well, I certainly wasn’t raping anyone! In any civilized society they’d treat it like a riot: station cops on every corner, use water cannon and tear gas to clear the streets. The Icelandic nation is full of drunks: from civil servants and bankers to politicians and petrol pump attendants; everyone is either hung-over or about to go on a drinking binge. The checkout woman at Bónus, the sales rep, your lawyer, the checkout guy at BYKO, the guy who serves hotdogs at the Bæjarins Bestu stall, the young female assistant at Eymundsson’s bookshop, all of them are either pissed or about to get pissed. The few that aren’t are either plotting to take over the world, blogging on the Eyjan website, or attending debates at young conservative or socialist clubs. Then there are two or three who live in Mosfellsbær and are just laid-back, into handicrafts and painting stones and things. And they’ll never have anything to say about this society.’
Vigdís laughed and asked him whether he was talking about himself.
‘Do you know what the difference is between men and women?’ she added. ‘When a man drops a glass on the floor, he blames the glass, and when a woman drops a glass she blames herself.’
‘Yeah, go figure.’
They heard a rustle from inside the warehouse, and a moment later Hrafn emerged from the gloom. Egill moved the camera off from Vigdís, considered turning it off but pointed it at Hrafn instead.
‘Good morning,’ said Vigdís.
Hrafn didn’t reply, he walked over to them and gazed out at the storm.
‘Shouldn’t we make a move?’ he said, taking out a packet of cigarettes.
‘The visibility isn’t good enough,’ said Vigdís. ‘As I’m sure you can see for yourself . . . Did you have a good nap?’
Hrafn shook his head, nudging with his toe the bag in which Vigdís kept the flares.
‘I couldn’t fall asleep.’
He lit a cigarette and Egill zoomed in on him, for no particular reason, perhaps simply because he wanted to annoy him.
‘Take that fucking camera out of my face,’ said Hrafn, without looking at Egill.
‘Don’t be so rude, Hrafn,’ said Vigdís, and Egill swung the camera onto her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m absolutely fine, thanks. Shouldn’t we try one of those flares to make sure they work? It would be good to know,’ said Hrafn, making a visible effort to contain himself. But the old hatred was still simmering, as Egill had always suspected – only it was better hidden after being channelled by the twelve steps, or the higher power, or whatever it was called.
‘To see if the old woman comes to our aid?’ said Egill, and Vigdís grinned. Clearly she had chosen to side with him.
‘How tiresome you two are,’ said Hrafn. ‘At least I want to do something, not just sit here staring into space. I want to go back—’
‘Then go back,’ said Vigdís with a flash of anger. She stood up. ‘We’ll follow later! Or do you expect us to go with you after you just told us how tiresome we are?’
‘Didn’t you say I was rude? I couldn’t fall sleep. And it was tiresome listening to you two. Giggling like a couple of kids, high on their own imaginations.’
Egill glanced at them furtively, taking care to hold the camera still. Their words echoed softly off the roof of the warehouse.
‘Didn’t we talk about this before we came on the trip?’ said Vigdís. ‘You feel irritable and you’re trying to blame it on us. You’re a grown man, stop behaving like a child.’
Hrafn walked deeper inside the warehouse, gritted his teeth then stormed back.
‘I’m behaving like a child? I’m not the one sitting here flirting with your friend right under your nose! It’s been like that the whole fucking journey! What do you expect, how did you two think I would react?’
‘My love—’ Vigdís started to say, but Hrafn cut across her.
‘I’m exhausted, I know. I can’t tell any more whether it’s all in my head, but I don’t think it is. Not in your case, at any rate,’ he said, rounding on Egill. ‘Why do you look at her in that way? Do you think I don’t see? Is your brain so numb from self-pity, from worrying about your own pathetic life—’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Egill, lowering the camera, but Hrafn grabbed it and flung it through the door, where it disappeared noiselessly into the storm.
‘And stop talking about my girlfriend as if you want to go out with her. As if you know how to appreciate her more than I, as if you deserve her and I don’t! Stop sniffing around her and harping on about her as if she were the mother you never had, stop abusing everything that comes near you—’
‘Now you’ve lost me completely, my friend.’
Egill raised his hands in a gesture of surrender even as he thought about the mouse safe in her little nest.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. But isn’t that just typical of you to pretend you don’t. Or rather, not to give a damn. You are so self-pitying you don’t even understand that other people can suffer or have problems.’
‘Of course I give a damn. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know me very well. Look, I’m sorry about what happened with that girl. I already apologized to you about that. And I’m sorry if I’ve done anything, or – how should I put it? – talked too much with your girlfriend. What do you want me to do?’
‘What are you two on about?’ asked Vigdís, looking from one to the other.
