“And he’s a bit gorgeous,” Hrefna added.
“Yeah, it’s such a pity he’s so weird. It was hilarious at Kerlingafjöll, when the new girls were all out to hook him the first evening. They were so embarrassed when they realized he was retarded.”
Halli spotted them and straightened up. He smiled, carefully examined the car license plate, and then walked over to greet them.
“Have you been skiing this winter?” Hrefna asked cheerfully.
“Oh yeah, several times, absolutely,” Halli said.
“But the weather’s been so bad.”
“We went yesterday and also on Sunday.”
“Did you go by bus?”
“Oh yeah, and I sat at the front.”
“Did you compete last Sunday?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“You must be a senior class by now? How old are you?”
The smile suddenly disappeared from the boy’s face.
“I’m not yet seventeen, no, absolutely not.”
Then he said enthusiastically, “If you multiply the first three digits on your car license plate by two, because they are two different numbers, and add nineteen, because it’s January the nineteenth today, you get 1973; and it is exactly 1973 now. Absolutely.”
A broad grin lit up his face again.
Erlendur emerged from the house, made his way down the shoveled path, and climbed into the backseat. They waved to Halli and pulled away.
“Halli was a bit down earlier when I asked him his age,” Hrefna said to Erlendur a moment later.
“Yeah, poor chap,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “He was seventeen in November, but they decided his IQ wasn’t high enough for the driving test. He’s not likely to develop any further, so that’s probably a final decision. He’s taking it hard, so this is how he deals with it; he pretends he’s not yet seventeen.”
“Well, I’m not going to take a driving test when I’m seventeen,” Elsa said.
Erlendur smiled. “No, but Halli has been car mad since he was a toddler. I’m sure that I could teach him to drive safely, but it’s no use arguing about it. The trip to Austria is a way to make it up to him.”
Diary IV
May 2, 1917. They are entrusting me with more and more complicated projects. The railroad company is very busy, and I am continually traveling round the state of Illinois. Mr. Wolfert has given me good references…
May 8, 1917. Traveled in one stage from St. Louis to Chicago today. Passed the whole journey in the caboose car with Joe Benson. We talked about the war. He wanted to hear about the Germans, and finds it difficult to understand that most of them are just ordinary folk like he and I. Joe complains bitterly about being too old for military service. He was a Federal soldier in the Civil War…
May 9, 1917. I have lived abroad for nearly 7 years now, and have dwelt in Denmark, Germany, and now in the United States. During this time I have had to become fluent in three new languages. I fear that my Icelandic would have suffered had I not placed such emphasis on keeping this diary; each evening I must sit down and think in my own native language for a while as I write these lines…
Egill was sitting at his desk, staring irritably at a small black-and-white photograph of a boy with slicked-down hair.
Erlendur, on the other hand, was in a good mood. “If you let your hair grow to just below your ears, you might be able to connect a bit better with the younger generation,” he advised.
Egill didn’t even bother to reply. He had been up since before six a.m. to check if the fugitive had returned to his apartment in the Old Town. This time he had brought two police constables with him to watch the windows behind the house while he knocked on the door. A skinny youth with scruffy hair had answered the door in his underpants, and let Egill in to look for Sigurdur, but the search had been fruitless. The young man had no idea where Siggi might be, but promised to contact Egill if he heard anything.
Egill found it difficult to look for someone without having a photograph, so he had gone to the main office at Central Police Headquarters as soon as it opened that morning, only to discover that Sigurdur had never applied for a passport or a driving license. All they had was a photograph he had brought in when he got his ID card at the age of twelve. Egill had borrowed this picture but doubted that anyone would recognize the guy from it; he certainly didn’t.
“Shall we put an announcement on the radio?” Egill asked when Halldór arrived at the office.
“That’s hardly necessary,” Halldór replied. “Just keep looking for him today. He must be with a friend, and if you ask around you should be able to find him.”