“Do you remember touching anything in there?”
“I was just looking at things in the parlor, some stamps in a frame, and then I opened the piano and played a few chords to hear what it sounded like. It was the only thing that interested me in there.”
“The poem Ella wrote, do you know it off by heart?”
Sigurdur smiled wanly. “Well, at least the first verse. I finished writing the song while I was over in Ólafsvík.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Sigurdur pondered the request for a beat. He seemed to be singing the song in his head, but then he recited the first verse out loud.
“Awake I lie, and wintry visions
within life’s path to me appear;
as bitter winds they blow, to weaken
the boldness of your yesteryear.”
Although Hrefna had only heard the verse once, she knew it well enough to recognize that he had recited it correctly. “Why did you bolt when they came to pick you up for questioning last Thursday evening?”
“It’s probably in the blood.”
“Have you got something on your conscience?”
“No, my conscience is clear, but my experience with the police is lousy.”
“How come?”
“How come! Lots of reasons. When I was growing up in the west part of town, on Brekkustígur, my family was virtually starving. My two elder brothers occasionally nicked stuff from vegetable gardens or fish sheds for us to have something to eat. Sometimes they were spotted—they weren’t exactly master criminals at twelve and thirteen. This meant that the whole lot of us was branded as thieves, so that whenever as much as a bucket of shit disappeared from a piss house in the west of town, the cops came looking to us. When I was ten, my teacher gave me his old guitar. The next time the cops came they took the guitar from me, figuring it must have been stolen. My teacher had to go down to the station himself to get it back for me.”
Hrefna asked no more questions, and they sat in silence until the doctor was ready to see them. He took a look at Sigurdur’s hands and decided to send him for an X-ray. Hrefna and Jóhann returned to the waiting room. “What do we do now?” Hrefna asked.
“Go home and have a rest,” Jóhann replied. “Apparently it’s Sunday today. I’ll wait for the guy and drive him home. You can take a taxi.”
“Okay, I’ll go home but not to a rest; I’ve got to keep reading old Jacob’s diaries.”
Diary XVI
September 19, 1938. I have been collecting new foreign material about railroads in order to write an article for Morgunbladid. There are a few aspects that I intend to focus on: trains’ superiority lies in the fact that they can carry heavier loads and go faster than automobiles; those automobiles that can go faster than trains do so purely for the purpose of sport, and have no practical value; the best modern passenger motor cars only match the speed of trains provided that all conditions are perfect and the road is hard and as smooth as an egg…
October 2, 1938. Went to church this morning. The pastor prayed for peace in Europe. It has to be said, though, that the outlook is much improved after the Munich Agreement. Rarely has the world seen the outlook take a more rapid turn for the better. There seemed to be no room for negotiations when, suddenly, everything cleared. We have the leaders of the major nations to thank for this successful outcome, and there is no doubt that they were influenced by a public that is completely set against war…
January 10, 1939. I have had informal talks with members of the government about a foreign exchange license for railroad materials. It has been an uphill struggle, but I have made some progress. The ministers know that I am not a member of their party, which dampens their willingness to help, even if they see this as a useful project that will benefit the nation. The city mayor has agreed that I should renew the railway track from the harbor to Öskjuhlíd. It will have to be widened by ten centimeters…
February 21, 1939. I obtained a foreign exchange transfer to purchase cross ties from Norway. To simplify things, I am referring to this as timber for building. A large part of the capital stock will be used for this purchase, and I will have to rely on loans to buy the steel. I am going to test the waters in Copenhagen, as the District Heating Company did…
March 1, 1939. Today a new commercial agreement between Iceland and Germany comes into effect. It is a good deal more advantageous than in previous years. Our export to Germany of a variety of producer goods is being increased, and the frozen fish quota has been scaled up. I have no doubt that this will facilitate my plans for purchasing rails…