The girl blinked once. Yes.
‘That’s good. We’re not in a hurry, Ragna, so just take your time. I have the cards and you know them quite well by now, don’t you?’
Again the girl blinked once. Yes. Her eyes were an unusual colour, so dark blue that Thóra thought at first they were brown. She felt as if they were expressing some terrible sorrow, even though she couldn’t put her finger on what was making her feel this way. There were no tears in the girl’s eyes, nor did she seem upset in any way; she just stared ahead, wide-eyed. Before they’d gone into the room the therapist had told Thóra that the few people who’d been injured in this way always started by spelling out the same thing from the cards: Kill me. After sitting at the girl’s bedside for a few minutes, Thóra wasn’t surprised. The woman had added that this death wish generally passed; humans had an extraordinary capacity to adapt and these people usually took comfort from the knowledge that their situation could be even worse. When Thóra had exclaimed in surprise and asked how that could possibly be, the therapist had replied that there was a slightly more severe version of this condition, where the brain couldn’t make contact with any voluntary muscles at all, including the ones that controlled eye movements. In order to distinguish such a condition from a coma, they had to measure brainwaves; the only difference between the two was consciousness. Thóra’s mouth went dry, all the way down into her throat, as her mind automatically started trying to fathom what such an existence could possibly be like.
‘Then perhaps it’s best if Thóra takes over now, and I’ll just deal with the cards.’ The therapist smiled at the girl and then looked at Thóra. ‘Go ahead.’
Thóra was actually speechless. She’d become lost in her own thoughts and was quite unprepared to take over, but she recovered quickly. ‘I don’t know how well you knew Jakob, who lived at the residence, but I’m working for him. I honestly think, as do several others, that he’s not guilty of starting the fire.’ The girl’s eyes remained still. ‘It would help me considerably to be able to ask you some questions about your time there, because you’re the only surviving resident apart from Jakob; and he has a limited ability to describe or understand what happened.’ Thóra was deliberately not beating about the bush; it was part of her policy of treating Ragna in the same way as she would a fully functioning individual. ‘Some of what I want to ask is unpleasant and personal, and I understand and respect it if you don’t want to answer some of the questions. It’s your choice.’ Ragna still gave no indication of whether they should proceed or not; naturally, she had blinked, but had been careful to do so in the middle of Thóra’s statements so that her blinking would not be misunderstood as replies. Thóra inhaled sharply as she ran her eyes over the smattering of notes that she’d jotted down in the quarter of an hour she’d had to prepare. ‘Actually, I need to know one thing before I start, and that’s whether you knew all the residents by name?’ If she hadn’t, it would be difficult for Thóra to phrase her questions in such a way that Ragna would understand who she was referring to in each instance.
One blink. Yes. Saliva trickled from the girl’s mouth and a little wet spot appeared on her pillow.
‘I’m happy to hear it.’ Thóra smiled at her. She looked at her paper and then again at the girl. ‘Considering your acquaintance with Jakob, do you think that he could have had reason or the ability to set the residence on fire?’
The young girl’s eyes sought out the therapist, who gripped Thóra’s shoulder. ‘Make sure you ask only one question at a time. That was two: whether he might have, and whether he could have, started the fire. It makes it much easier keeping it simple.’
Thóra nodded, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, directing her statement at Ragna. ‘I’ll be more careful. What I want to know is whether you consider it possible for Jakob to have started the fire.’
Ragna looked again at the therapist, who raised one of the cards and started pointing at the symbols on it. Finally she looked at Thóra. ‘She doesn’t know, or has no opinion on it.’ As the woman spoke she looked at Ragna, who blinked once in approval at what the woman had said.
‘Very good.’ Thóra saw no reason to ask Ragna the first part of the original question, about whether Jakob might have had a reason for starting the fire. She probably wasn’t in any position to know. ‘I expect you never went into Natan’s apartment, but do you know of anything that might have been connected to a short hose there?’ The girl’s eyes flitted back and forth and she appeared to have been upset by the question, though perhaps Thóra wasn’t sufficiently qualified to judge. The therapist used her cards and finally asked Thóra to ask a different question, since the girl’s answers weren’t sufficiently clear; she was spelling out hose short in my room. These words told Thóra nothing, but she had no idea what she could ask that would help to clarify. In order not to waste time going down a dead end, she asked another question she felt more confident about. The therapist had warned her before they went in that they couldn’t spend much time with Ragna as patients tired easily during this kind of communication. ‘Was there much interaction between the residents?’
Again the two women communicated through the cards. ‘Her answer to this is both yes and no, which I interpret to mean that it varied, presumably depending on who was involved.’ Ragna blinked once, so the therapist’s understanding was apparently correct.
‘Did the other residents regularly come to visit you in your apartment?’ One blink, which allowed Thóra to continue along the same lines. She read the names of the residents one by one and received either one blink or two in return. The result was that two of them visited her with any frequency: the deaf-blind girl, Sigríður Herdís, and the epileptic Natan. Ragna’s reply concerning Tryggvi was difficult to understand and the therapist told Thóra she was indicating that she couldn’t answer the question with a simple yes or no. There was a short exchange between them, and finally the therapist put the cards down carefully in her lap and informed Thóra that Tryggvi had come to see Ragna only once. It was a similar situation with Jakob: he had only visited twice, which fitted in with his saying he’d felt uncomfortable in her presence. However, it was Tryggvi’s visit that interested Thóra, because here she had a witness who could confirm that he’d moved voluntarily around the centre, even if such a thing was rare. His involvement in the fire was starting to look more likely than she had thought, and this possibility was enhanced by the way his parents and Glódís had remained silent about so much that concerned him. Why did they seem to want to keep his progress secret, even though it had been relatively minimal? Perhaps the therapy sessions had not only improved Tryggvi’s social skills but also further opened up the horrified fascination with fire that his parents had also kept quiet about. Thóra had made contact with an employee of the summer camp, who had been only too happy to tell her about the incident when the sleeping bag had been set on fire. According to her, Tryggvi had got hold of some matches and lighter fluid that had been used to light a small bonfire the previous night, which had fascinated him. He had used them to set fire to a sleeping bag in one of the bunks, no doubt to relive the enjoyment he’d experienced during the bonfire the night before. Luckily he hadn’t been all that stealthy and they’d managed to extinguish the fire before it did much damage. The woman went on to tell Thóra that Tryggvi’s parents had been extremely upset and informed the camp organizers that the boy was obsessed with fire and that they should always be sure to lock away any firelighting materials so that he couldn’t get his hands on them. His parents had omitted to mention this when enrolling him in the camp; it had been so long since anything like that had happened that they had simply forgotten to mention it. It somehow hadn’t occurred to them that any fires would be lit at the camp. Tryggvi’s father had then decided to visit him immediately, and everyone had considered the matter closed, especially as it had been just one of many trying incidents during that difficult week.