Kjartan said nothing but nodded. This was also how he had imagined the course of events.
The rocks of Ketilsey glistened in the morning sun as they approached. Then they saw a black boat drifting about a kilometer west of the island. As they drew closer to it, they saw Jon Ferdinand standing by the engine bay, staring vacantly at the sea and shivering in the cold. A dark stain ran from the crotch of his trousers down his thigh.
“He’s soiled himself,” Grimur uttered in a low voice. The old man sat down on the thwart as they arrived and seemed to be totally oblivious to their presence. Grimur stretched out to grab the hawser on the other boat and tied it to the back of his own. Then he continued to sail on to Ketilsey at full speed. They spotted Valdi long before they reached the island. He was standing on its highest point, waving his sweater. Then he came running down to the slip. He was crying with rage.
“What the fuck were you doing, Dad, leaving me like that?” he yelled as soon as they were within earshot.
“Take it easy, Valdi. Your father is incapable of answering that question,” said Grimur as he let his boat drift toward the slip. “Just hop on board and tell us what happened.”
Valdi clambered on board, and Grimur carefully backed the boat away from the shore. As soon as they had reached a short distance from the island, he turned on the motor again and dragged the Ystakot boat up by their side. Grimur held a hand out to Jon Ferdinand and helped him to step between boats. He sat the old man on the thwart and draped his jacket over his shoulders. Grimur then headed toward home at full speed, towing the Raven behind them. Jon Ferdinand sat transfixed on the thwart, staring blankly at the backwash. Every now and then he called out in his raucous old voice: “Where are the nets, lads?”
Valdi struggled to recover and said in a tremulous voice, “The stupid old fool just abandoned me on the island.”
Grimur silently nodded, as Valdi continued in his quivering tone: “We were checking out the eider duck’s nests and collecting down, and then I suddenly noticed that he was back on the boat. I thought he was just putting down some eggs or a bag of down so I wasn’t really watching him, but then I heard him turn on the motor. I ran down then, but he’d already untied the moorings and gone off by the time I got to the slip. He didn’t even look back. No matter how loudly I cried out, he just stared into empty space, as if he were the only person in the world. Then I heard the motor die, and since then the boat’s been drifting back and forth here for almost twenty-four hours. No matter how much I yelled, he didn’t seem to hear me.”
Grimur took out the picnic box and gave the father and son something to eat, and little else was said on their journey back to Flatey.
As they approached the island toward noon, they saw a flag flying at half-mast in front of the church and people on their way to the cemetery.
“They’re burying the late Bjorn Snorri,” said Grimur. “It was supposed to be a quiet affair before the coast guard ship sailed south with the inspectors and the prisoners, but that’s all changed now, thank God.”
The district officer steered his boat past the coast guard ship and over to the end of the pier. Little Nonni was standing on it all alone, and every now and then he ran back and forth a few steps. They tied the boat to the pier and climbed the steps.
“Take your father home, Valdi,” said Grimur, “and try to all have a bit of a rest.”
Grimur and Kjartan watched the three generations of men walking up the slope without glancing back, and then Grimur turned his gaze to the coast guard ship.
“I need to talk to the inspectors,” he said wearily.
“Gaston Lund’s visit to Iceland last fall was not his first visit to this country. He came here in the summer of 1926 with a few of his buddies from the University of Copenhagen. They were young and lively men and got up to all kinds of things during their two-week stay in Iceland. They followed the Njal saga’s trail in the south, and the upshot of it all was a pretty young country girl from Rangarthing ended up pregnant, and Gaston, who was still just a student at the time, was the father. A boy was born, and the mother moved with him to Hafnarfjordur. The child was registered as ‘Gestsson,’ or guest’s son, which wasn’t an unusual name in those days for children whose fathers hadn’t stuck around with their mothers for long. But there was more behind this name, because the professor’s Christian name, Gaston, was also the German word for guest: ‘gast.’ This young boy grew up with his mother, without any reproaches to his father. His mother told him his father was a cultured man from a respectable family and highly regarded by the Danish king. The boy was proud of him and became a big fan of all things Danish and anything connected to the king. Then, in the summer of 1936, Professor Lund came to Iceland again, as part of the delegation that accompanied King Christian X, and his name appeared in the Icelandic press. The mother took the boy to go and meet Gaston Lund where he was staying at Hotel Borg with the intention of introducing them to each other. That was the sole purpose of her visit and nothing more. But Lund took it very badly, claimed the woman was mentally unstable, and categorically denied any knowledge of the boy. He had the mother and son forcibly and shamefully thrown out of the hotel. It was a terrible shock for a young and impressionable soul, and it marked the boy for life. He had always been brought up with the myth of a father who mixed with kings and queens abroad and held far too important a post to be able to spend time with him and his mother. The boy’s self-esteem had been shattered in an instant, and the mother changed from being a proud, independent, driven woman to a grumpy bundle of nerves who had been deprived of the only recognition she needed in life. Ten years later she died of TB. Her son’s name was Bryngeir Gestsson. We lived together as a couple for a while, and I know he also had a vast impact on your life, too. But Lund didn’t dare to come back to Iceland until last summer, and he tried to avoid any further encounters with the mother of his child and the boy by concealing his identity.”
CHAPTER 58
Kjartan tried to lie down after his return from Ketilsey, but he was unable to sleep. He tossed and turned until he eventually gave up and decided to take a walk to calm his mind. As he walked up the steps toward the church, he saw Thormodur Krakur standing by the flagpole, propping himself up with his walking stick. He was wearing his Sunday suit, which after its repeated use over the past few days was by now beginning to look pretty crumpled and smudgy. An old sea bag lay at his feet.
“Good day to you, Assistant Magistrate,” said Thormodur Krakur when he noticed Kjartan.
“Hello, Krakur,” Kjartan answered. “The weather is clearing up.”
“Yes, good weather for traveling now,” said Thormodur Krakur, and they both fell silent a moment.
“Are you going on a journey then?” Kjartan asked.
“Yes, they want to take me south on the coast guard ship to have more of a chat about my nocturnal escapade with the reporter’s body. They want the doctors at the mental asylum to check out my brain to make sure I’m not mad or something.”