SOUTH-EAST ICELAND,
SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, EVENING
‘Is he
dead?’
She could hear
nothing but static.
‘Is Elías dead?’
Kristín shouted into the phone. ‘Is he still with
you?’
The connection was
very bad and only the odd word was audible; Júlíus – the leader of
the rescue team – kept breaking up. She was standing out in Jón’s
entrance hall, holding a heavy, old, black telephone receiver and
pressing her forehead against her arm and the wall above the phone.
She closed her eyes tightly, concentrating on trying to hear what
Júlíus was saying. Jón and Steve were in the kitchen. Steve was on
his feet.
‘Júlíus!’ Kristín
shouted.
‘Heli . . . n’t . . .
yet,’ she heard him say. ‘. . . s . . .
dropping . . . doctor on the team.
Elías . . . alive.’
‘Is he alive? Is
Elías still alive?’
‘. . .
hanging in . . . Coast Guard helicopter’s on its
way. The storm . . . pretty
much . . . down.’
‘Are you going to
look for the soldiers?’
‘. . .
es . . . find
people . . .’
‘I can hardly hear
you so I’m going to tell you this, then hang up. The American
soldiers are probably no more than about ten to fifteen kilometres
from the edge of the glacier, directly above the farm of
Brennigerdi. They’re armed, so be careful. They’re digging a German
plane out of the ice. It’s up to you what you do but these men may
be extremely dangerous. We’re at the foot of the glacier now and
we’re going to climb up from this side. Hopefully we’ll meet you up
there.’
Again, the line
filled with the hiss and crackle of empty space, so she put down
the receiver and rejoined Jón and Steve in the
kitchen.
‘I think he’s still
alive,’ she said, heaving a sigh.
The news had given
her a renewed spark of hope, a new burst of strength to carry on.
The relief was indescribable; she knew she could not have borne it
had he died. Admittedly, the connection had been very poor but she
would allow herself no doubts; she was convinced that Júlíus had
managed to save her brother’s life.
‘I think they’re
planning to pay the soldiers a visit. We’ll try to rendezvous with
them up there.’
‘Good,’ Jón said. ‘I
can give you detailed directions. It’s not hard from
here.’
‘Kristín, can I have
a word?’ Steve said, and asked Jón to excuse them. They went into
the sitting room. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’
Steve said. ‘The rescue team will sort things out. They’ll inform
Reykjavík what’s going on. Won’t you wait and see what happens?
Going up there ourselves could mean taking an unnecessary risk.
There’s nothing more we can do.’
‘I want to see them
with my own eyes, Steve. I want to see what kind of people they
are. And I want to make sure they don’t get away with what they’ve
done. I have to be on the spot to be certain of that.’
Steve was about to
object when she went on.
‘You lot can’t be
allowed to play your war games wherever you feel like
it.’
‘What do you mean
“you lot”?’
‘You saw those men at
the pub. You know what they’ve done on the glacier. What kind of
people would sanction that sort of brutality?’
‘You came to me,
Kristín, don’t you forget that.’
‘I came to you for
information.’
‘And help. That’s the
point. You just can’t stand the fact.’
‘That’s
bullshit!’
‘No. I know that
attitude. We’re the invaders. We’re the military power. We fight in
wars. We’re the bad guys. But as soon as anything goes wrong, we’re
expected to save the day. We’re welcome to pump billions into your
banana republic, yet you regard us as no better than thugs, fit
only to be kept behind a wire fence. We’re welcome to intervene in
world wars started by Europe and keep an eye on the Russians and
hold down the Arabs but the shit hits the fan the
moment . . .’
‘Fuck you, Steve.
Don’t be so sanctimonious. You’re the guys who are forever seeing
Reds under the bed, who drove Chaplin and all the rest out of the
country.’
Steve looked at her
in her borrowed clothes, the black shadows of strain and exhaustion
beneath her eyes, her implacable expression. He knew he would not
be able to dissuade her from going up to the glacier whatever he
said. She had come too far to stop now.
‘I am going up to the
glacier.’
‘You’ll be taking on
armed soldiers, Kristín.’
‘The rescue team will
help. They can hardly massacre all of us. Anyway, Júlíus has
alerted Reykjavík. They won’t be able to hide what they’re up to
for much longer.’
‘Is everything all
right?’ asked Jón, appearing at the sitting room door. The old man
had largely kept to himself since they returned from the stable and
Kristín had wondered if he was suffering from a conflict of loyalty
towards Miller. Maybe he felt guilty for having assisted the
Americans and kept quiet about the fact.
‘Everything’s fine,’
Kristín reassured him. ‘What about you? Is everything all right
with you?’
‘What does that
matter?’ Jón asked. ‘I don’t have much time left.’ He said this
without any sense of regret, as if it were just another fact of
life he had resigned himself to.
‘But
are . . .’
Jón interrupted; he
did not want to talk about himself.
‘If you mean to go up
to the glacier you should rest for an hour or two,’ he said.
‘You’re welcome to lie down in Karl’s room.’
Kristín nodded
reluctantly. She did not feel tired, despite not being able to
remember when she last slept, but it made sense to rest a little
now. Jón escorted them upstairs to a room off the landing with a
large mattress and a desk; there was yellow linoleum on the floor
and the walls were lined with books. It felt cool compared to the
overpowering heat downstairs.
Kristín lay down on
the bed. Realising that Steve intended to lie on the floor, she
shifted to make room for him. He stretched out beside her. She
could not relax. When she closed her eyes she could feel the
fatigue creeping up her legs like an anaesthetic and spreading
through her body.
‘Thanks for your
help, Steve,’ she murmured.
‘It’s nothing,’ he
replied.
She opened her eyes
and turned to him.
‘It is. You didn’t
have to help me. You could have sent me packing, forgotten the
whole thing. I don’t deserve any favours from you.’
‘What, a damsel in
distress?’
She laughed quietly.
‘Yes, and that makes you the knight in shining
armour.’
‘I’m no knight. I’m
just a Yank from the base.’
‘Yeah, you’re just a
Yank from the base.’
Something in her
voice had changed. He looked at her, their faces almost touching.
In spite of everything that had happened to her, the chase and the
danger, her anxiety for Elías, her fears for her own life, her
anger; in spite of it all she had never felt so alive, so
confident, so perfectly in control. It was as if her ordeal had
given her a new lease of life, stripping away the veils of mist and
forcing her to get a grip on herself, take control of her life,
acknowledge her feelings – and find an outlet for
them.
‘You remember when I
ran out on you?’ she said.
‘The peace protester
turned Yankee whore? How could I forget it? I understand a little
better now but still . . .’
He trailed off. He
could not help admiring her for the unfailing courage and loyalty
she had shown her brother, for the way she refused to be cowed by
the superior forces ranged against her but managed to elude her
would-be assassins and was now undertaking a difficult, dangerous
journey, the outcome of which remained uncertain. She seemed to
have discovered some hidden well of strength that had just been
waiting to be plumbed. He had had an intimation of this potential,
this suppressed life-force, the first time they met, and when he
looked at her now, knowing her courage and what she was capable of,
he felt himself falling even further under her spell.
‘Why did you let
things go as far as they did?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t have any
doubts about you until that evening on the base. Maybe it was the
time and place. I must have needed more time to get used to the
idea. Suddenly it was all too much and I couldn’t go through with
it. It wasn’t your fault. Anything but your fault. It was all that
crap to do with the military. Isn’t that idiotic? I can’t believe
how stupid I was.’
Neither
spoke.
‘Well, I don’t
suppose the last twenty-four hours will have done anything to
improve your opinion of Americans.’
Kristín
sighed.
‘I don’t hate
Americans. It’s just that there’s an army on Icelandic soil and I’m
opposed to its presence. That’s all there is to it.’ She was
anxious not to put him off. Steve had come to her aid voluntarily
and she owed him. She had seen all that was good about him over the
past twenty-four hours: his stoicism, his courage, his unlimited
capacity for understanding.
‘Let’s change the
subject. We should try to get some rest,’ he said now.
‘I’m glad I came to
you,’ Kristín said. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped without
you. Thank you, Steve.’
‘It was a good thing
you did. I always hoped we could somehow . . . I’d
have approached things very differently if I’d
known . . .’
He broke
off.
‘When this is over,’
Kristín said, ‘when all this is over, let’s try again and see what
happens. Would you be up for that?’
Steve nodded slowly.
She kissed him.
‘What was that all
about?’ he asked.
‘No idea. The
friendship between our two great nations, perhaps,’ she murmured,
kissing him again, this time on the mouth as she started tugging at
the zips of his winter clothes. Women in wartime, her conscience
reminded her, but she was past listening.