Season of the Witch Read online

  “It’s a bit early, isn’t it? A week before Easter. Aren’t they for Easter Sunday?”

  “That’s so last century,” answers Jóa like a continuation of my thoughts at the wheel. “Now everything is allowed, always.”

  She has already started on her egg. I make it clear to her that I can’t drive and open the chocolate egg at the same time. She breaks it open and passes me the slip of paper with the proverb.

  “What does it say?” she inquires.

  “What goes around comes around.”

  Jóa chuckles, inadvertently blowing bits of chocolate out of her mouth. “Gotcha!”

  I grunt and chuck the proverb out the window. “What does yours say?”

  “You must be strong to endure the good times.”

  “Remember that, Jóa honey,” I say with a smile. “Remember that your days of wine and roses with Ásbjörn and me in the north start today, but they won’t last forever. You must be strong. Oh, yes, indeed.”

  She shakes her head gleefully. “At least I don’t have a phobia about everywhere outside the city—not like some people.”

  “Do you mean me?” I ask, pretending to be offended. “I don’t even know what that means. All I know is I’m a town mouse at heart.”

  And I also know in my heart of hearts, although I’m not about to say so to Jóa, that being exiled might do me good. I didn’t say so to Hannes either, when he informed me of what had been decided. Yep, informed. I argued for the sake of arguing, without even knowing why. Hannes leaned over his scratched, carved wooden desk at the Afternoon News, holding a thick cigar between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, knocked the ash off into the ashtray, turned his steady blue gaze upon me, stuck out his jaw, and said:

  “My dear Einar.”

  When he addresses me like that, I know I’ve gotten to the point where I have no choice but to do what Hannes has decided for me.

  “My dear Einar. I want you to do this…”

  And that was that. I was to abandon my old beat, crime reporting in the capital area, to be transferred for an indefinite period up north to Akureyri, where Ásbjörn and I would be in charge of “strengthening the newspaper’s position in the north and east of the country, during the period of rapid change and development that is now taking place there,” as Hannes had put it in his editorial in the paper. I was to be responsible for the news side, while Ásbjörn would run the office, along with sales and distribution. Jóa would be assigned to us for the time being as our photographer.

  Hannes is well aware that Ásbjörn and I don’t get along. Ásbjörn is submissive and hesitant when he should be bold and decisive, stubborn and rigid where he should be open-minded and flexible. And he gets his panties in a twist if you tell him so. We’re not a good combination.

  “The Odd Couple?” Hannes had commented. “Yes, admittedly. But Ásbjörn was born and brought up in the east, and he went to Akureyri High School. He’s familiar with the area. And you’re our best newshound…”

  Goddamn it.

  “…and the one I trust best for real news content. And you’ve been sorting out your, how shall I put it, sir? Your lifestyle?”

  Son of a bitch.

  “And you will have plenty to keep you busy, which will be helpful to you in your battle with your demons. That is how I dealt with my own similar problems, sometime in the last century.”

  Fucking shit.

  “Hermann and I are in agreement.”

  Oh my God. I thought of the new CEO of the Afternoon News and vice-chair of the board, Hermann Gudfinnsson. He attained that position after Hannes had cleverly maneuvered a merger with the Icelandic Media Company—the group owned by the wealthy ölver Margrétarson Steinsson—to form the Icelandic Media Corporation. Hermann was a rich and respected economist when he was convicted, twenty years ago, of killing his wife, and now he’s a reformed worker in the vineyard of the Lord. What I still don’t get is what particular god Hermann is toiling for, in deed rather than word. But I suppose that’s not my business.

  Hannes went on, puffing at his cigar: “There is no way, at this time, when the pillars of society are creaking, not least in the media market, that we can take account of some old personal conflict between you and Ásbjörn. We’ve got a battle on our hands, and in this battle, all of us, and I mean all, must stand together. Anyone who doesn’t has no place on our team. Ásbjörn was, as you are well aware, not a good news editor, not my cup of tea in that job. So he’s not doing it anymore…”

  “I’m not at all sure that his successor is any better,” I interjected.

  Hannes fumed: “You were offered the job yourself and turned it down.”

  The best decision I’ve ever made, I thought.

  Hannes went on regardless. “I believe that Ásbjörn’s abilities, his attention to detail, and his organizational skills will prove more useful in this important task, rather than handling paper clip purchasing and taxi receipts here at the head office. You and he, sir, are going north.”

  “And into the outer darkness,” I added.

  But I wasn’t sure I meant it. I wasn’t sure of anything. Except that it might be good to try something you haven’t tried before. And tried again. And again.

  I’m thinking of the biggest loss entailed by my exile: my daughter, Gunnsa. My only consolation is that she’s planning to visit me at Easter. And I can always make the odd flying visit to the south.

  It’s close to six o’clock when we drive up Eyjafjördur, past the Hlídarbær community center, which, once, long ago, before the days of pubs and clubs in Iceland, fulfilled its function, but now seems to be an empty shell.

  I switch the radio on for the evening news.

  When I look out my window,

  Many sights to see.

  And when I look in my window,

  So many different people to be

  That it’s strange, so strange…

  The lyrics of the old pop song seep into my consciousness in the silence between me and Jóa, who is dozing next to me. She stirs as the singer belts out the final notes.

  “Season of the Witch, from Donovan,” says the DJ, speaking from Akureyri, capital of north Iceland. “The song was played for Skarphédinn and the other kids in the Akureyri High School Drama Group, who will be giving their first performance of Loftur the Sorcerer at Hólar on Holy Thursday. And for our last song on this Saturday before Palm Sunday, here’s Donovan again. We’ll be here again next week at the same time. Thank you for listening, and good-bye.”

  “Thanks to you too,” mumbles Jóa.

  And the gentle voice begins, as if chanting a rhyme, first with a quiet guitar accompaniment; then a touch of piano is added:

  The continent of Atlantis was an island

  Which lay before the great flood

  In the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.

  So great an area of land, that from her western shores

  Those beautiful sailors journeyed

  To the South and the North Americas with ease,

  In their ships with painted sails…

  Nice image, I think, losing myself in it.

  “People are always claiming to have found traces of Atlantis here and there,” Jóa suddenly remarks. “I remember there was some American who said he’d discovered ruins using sonar soundings on the floor of the Mediterranean, off the coast of Cyprus. And there was a German scholar who revealed Atlantis, using satellite photographs, on the salt plains of southern Spain. And a Swede said that the descriptions were more consistent with Ireland. It’s only a question of time until someone finds Atlantis here in Iceland. We’re always claiming to find what we want to find.”

  “I don’t have a lot of luck with that,” I remark.

  “That’s because you don’t know what you want to find.”

  “Oh, yeah. But what descriptions do you mean? Are there accounts of Atlantis? Wasn’t the whole place supposed to have sunk into the ocean without a trace more than twelve thousand years ago?”r />
  “Er, it’s a legend, Einar,” Jóa replies, in rather too motherly a tone for my taste. “So far as I remember, in Greek mythology the gods are supposed to have been so enraged by the greed, immorality, and iniquity of those who lived in this land of milk and honey that they sent a tidal wave to destroy Atlantis. And since then people have always been searching for the lost island.”

  “How come you know so much about Greek mythology?”

  “Hail Atlantis!” exclaims Jóa with the vocalist, and the music swells. “I know about all sorts of things, if you haven’t noticed. I’ve even read Plato. Have you?”

  “Yes, actually, I read him in high school,” I haughtily reply. “He was an ancient Greek philosopher. I know these things. But what’s he got to do with Atlantis?”

  “He was the first person to give an account of Atlantis. And he was one of us.”

  “One of us?” I ask as we pass a sign welcoming us to Akureyri. “Or one of you?”

  “Both!” chortles Jóa.

  There is nothing on the evening news about an Akureyri woman being unconscious after having fallen into the glacial waters of the Jökulsá River.

  Ásbjörn has found office accommodations for us in the heart of the town. The Afternoon News has its offices—three offices, reception, break room, and bathroom—on the upper floor of an old wooden building clad in red corrugated iron on Rádhústorg, the Town Hall Square itself, at the corner of Hafnarstræti and Brekkugata. Ásbjörn, naturally, didn’t waste money on renovations. When they open a new club, they rip out all the fixtures and start again, but Ásbjörn doesn’t see the Afternoon News premises as a place of entertainment, but a workplace. So we move straight into the old offices of a wholesaler, with ocher-yellow paint peeling off the walls. Ásbjörn and his wife live on the floor above.

  Town Hall Square is an expanse of concrete with the odd leafless tree and deserted benches. The few people who venture out into the square appear to be kids on skateboards—much the same as in Reykjavík. Our competitors, the Morning News and the state radio station, both have their offices in a modern glass-and-concrete structure rather like a fish tank on the corner of Kaupvangsstræti and Glerárgata, at the southern end of the harbor. They have a breathtaking view of the fjord, and an American fast-food chain is conveniently located in the same building. Next to us, on the contrary, is one of the many travel agencies offering wilderness tours and all sorts of trips in the quest for what we want to find, without knowing what it is. The view from my office window is the cracked wall of the building next door.

  All’s quiet on the Akureyri front on a Saturday evening: the weekend edition has long been delivered to anyone who’s interested. Nonetheless Ásbjörn is hanging over his computer in his office.

  “How did it go?” he asks without looking up when I knock on the doorframe.

  “Jóa got some pictures, and I did a rather uncomfortable interview with the organizer of the trip. He may be a great outdoorsman, but I think he needed trauma counseling as much as the rest of them.”

  “You can talk to Trausti about it, anyway,” he curtly remarks over his shoulder. “He phoned and asked you to get in touch.”

  If I don’t have a very high opinion of Ásbjörn, I’m not yet sure what I think of his successor in the news editor’s chair: Trausti Löve—who in another lifetime worked with Ásbjörn and me as a temporary summer employee, when he and I, by pure chance, started out on our journalistic careers together on the late, lamented People’s Times. Later he became a TV reporter and was once chosen “Iceland’s Sexiest Man” in a popularity poll.

  I hear the office door open, followed by shrill barking.

  “Ásbjörn!” calls a husky female voice. “Ásbjörn Grímsson!”

  He turns off the computer and struggles to his feet, a stocky figure with a sagging ass. He quickly takes off his green slippers, which he has unfortunately brought with him from the head office in Reykjavík, and thrusts his feet into black fur-lined boots. Sometimes Ásbjörn reminds me of an overripe tomato on two legs, wearing green slippers. For a moment I feel a twinge of pity for him. Even sympathy.

  His face is puffy and tired. His black hair, greasy and disheveled. He looks at me and says, in a not-unfriendly manner, “Please keep your cell phone turned on. I don’t want to have to speak to Trausti about it. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  I nod and accompany him out to the tiny reception area. Jóa is sitting drinking coffee as she watches the news on Vision 2, the Afternoon News’s new sister station. Karólína, Ásbjörn’s wife, is hovering at the reception desk, where she sometimes helps out, and flicking through the Sunday edition of the Morning News, which is printed and distributed on Saturday evening. The couple’s lapdog, a little white mutt with its body hair trimmed short but a sort of bouffant puff on his head, is tethered to the leg of the coffee table in the waiting area. The dog’s name is Pal. He’s keeping his mouth shut for the moment, but his stubby little tail wags when his other owner approaches.

  “Look, Pal,” says Karólína. “Daddy’s here.”

  If Ásbjörn had a tail it would definitely be wagging now—the little dog’s enthusiastic barking and tongue waving certainly cheer him up.

  “Daddy’s going to take Mommy and Pal out to the Bautinn Grill,” remarks the Lady Wife from behind the Morning News to anyone who’s listening. “Pal will get a treatie-weatie.”

  “Anything about that woman on Vision 2?” I ask Jóa.

  “Not a peep,” she answers, with a twinkle toward doggy and Dad.

  “Thanks for the tip,” I say to Ásbjörn, who’s untying the dog from the table. “How did you hear about it?”

  “I have my contacts,” he replies self-importantly.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see that Karólína has put the paper down and is looking at us with a surprised look on her face. I don’t know much about their marriage, except that it is childless. I haven’t really gotten to know the Lady Wife. Just shaken her hand at the paper’s annual dinner-dance, my ability to stand upright permitting. Like her husband and me, she’s on the wrong side of thirty-five. Her flat voice doesn’t fit her appearance. She is tall and she must once have been slender, but she’s getting a little softer and plumper at the waist. She has a long neck and a curved nose, so she looks a little like a bird, with pretty features and shoulder-length straight hair, bleached white. I’ve always had the impression that Karólína is about to explode from some internal tension, like a bird caught in a trap and longing to take flight.

  When Mommy, Daddy, and the dog have gone I tell Jóa I must just quickly call the new news editor. She grunts and switches over to the news on the state TV station.

  My office is an oversize closet. Although I’ve only been here a week it already has that lived-in look. Three shelves on one wall, laden with newspapers, books and papers, computer disks, old diaries, and all sorts of junk. My tattered old poster with the words of wisdom A tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind is on the wall, along with an old photograph, which was there when I arrived, of fishing vessels in Akureyri Harbor. That’s all the view I have, other than the wall of the neighboring building.

  I dig my phone out of the junk on my desk and call Trausti’s cell phone. I’m pretty sure he’ll be eating out with some other Beautiful People.

  “Trausti,” he answers. In the background is a hubbub of chatter and the clink of glasses.

  “It’s Einar,” I say, lighting up a cigarette. “You wanted to talk to me.”

  “Hello, buddy,” replies the news editor.

  Yet another word I really loathe.

  I can just see him in my mind’s eye, in his trendy clothes, feasting on red wine and a steak marinated in brandy, as tan as a freshly minted chocolate Easter egg. I wonder what maxim this egg will produce. Could it be the old Afternoon News slogan—which has as yet survived the disruptions and merger, and which Ásbjörn has emblazoned on the outside of our outpost in the north: Truth Be Told?

  The resonant and—in t
he opinion of TV viewers at least—confidence-inspiring voice continues: “Tomorrow I want you and Jóa to go east to Reydargerdi. Things got wild there last night, and it will probably be the same tonight. It may get out of hand at any time. Riots in Reydargerdi and all that.”

  “Are you talking about more fights? It’s just the usual Icelandic weekend binge, Trausti. It’s been going on ever since our Viking ancestors first got here.”

  “No, it hasn’t. These are fights between Icelanders and immigrants. If you can’t see the difference, you’re just not competent, buddy.”

  Although I feel an almost overwhelming urge to stick my tongue out at the receiver, I resist it, since inanimate objects can’t be held responsible. “You may not be aware that once upon a time everyone in Iceland was an immigrant,” I remark with icy politeness. “You yourself are descended from immigrants of olden times. Löve doesn’t sound like an Icelandic name to me. Or is there a difference I’m not seeing?”

  There’s a brief silence. Either he’s considering what I’ve said or he’s taking another bite of his steak.

  “The difference,” he finally says, “is that one is the past and the other is the present. Your job is to reflect the present, where you are.”

  “I’ve still got to write up the piece on the woman who fell in the glacial river…”

  “That will be featured on all the radio and TV news bulletins tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure drunken reveling at Reydargerdi will be too. And Jóa’s got exclusive pictures…”

  “You can do that over the phone, while you’re on the other story…”

  “Couldn’t I cover the Reydargerdi story by phone, then?” I continue to argue.

  It would have been nice to have a leisurely Sunday stroll around “the town of prosperity and good fortune, the town of education, culture, and flowers,” as Akureyri was called by local poet Davíd Stefánsson. To breathe in the sea air at the harbor, look out over the still waters of the fjord, walk up and down the Hafnarstræti pedestrian street, admire the botanical gardens, the high school, the picturesque old wooden houses, sneer at the modern concrete ones, have a cup of coffee in the artists’ quarter, and go to morning service with Jóa in Akureyri Church, which stands on its hilltop site with its two towers, at the top of the stairway to heaven.