House of Evidence(90)
March 26, 1939. My struggle continues to be arduous, this time as a result of the German airline Lufthansa’s request to operate a weekly service to Iceland. The government immediately announced that, given the current volatile political situation, they would not grant such a license. I have been asked if the railroad operation will be subject to the same limitations, but I naturally reply that the Iceland Railroad Company is a purely Icelandic company, in no way linked to Germany. The company’s dealings with German businesses are completely normal in all respects. The communists have stirred up a great fuss about the influence and rapacity of Germans here in Iceland, and have fantasized about Nazi sympathy among Icelanders.
April 18, 1939. A new government, an all-party national coalition, came into power today. The hope is that import restrictions will be lifted and foreign exchange regulations revised. I listened to the ministers’ statements, but otherwise the public gallery was half-empty…
April 25, 1939. I have still not received the import license for the steel for rails. In the meantime, I am postponing the shipping of the cross ties. There is no point in spending money on that part of it unless all the material can be brought into the country…
May 20, 1939. Visited the new German Consul-General, who arrived in Iceland earlier this month. He is very familiar with my work on the railroad and wished me well. He assured me that people’s fear of confrontation because of the Danzig dispute was unnecessary…
June 20, 1939. The photograph Matthías took of our train in Hamburg arrived in the post this morning. I showed it to Thórdur and Kristján but then locked it away. Now is not the right moment to talk about this…
July 25, 1939. Whenever two people meet here in town, they talk about the omens of war. I still do not believe that it will come to that, despite all the threats. The leaders of the major nations will think twice before inflicting such horror on their peoples again. I dare not even think about the effect war would have on our work on the railroad…
September 1, 1939. Morgunbladid today publishes Hitler’s “sixteen points” regarding Danzig. The first one is that the city should be handed back to the Germans immediately and unconditionally. There are also reports that Polish soldiers have crossed the German border in Silesia and captured a radio station. I told Elizabeth that there would be war…
September 3, 1939. News came in the early afternoon that Britain and France have declared war on Germany…
September 20, 1939. I am following the news about the confrontation in Poland. This will end in disaster. Elizabeth is very listless and fears for our future. I tell her not to worry; I shall make sure she never wants for anything…
September 26, 1939. At the shareholder meeting this morning, it was decided to put the rail enterprise on hold until after the war. All prices have rocketed, and business dealings are subject to all manner of conditions. Shipping is also treacherous. Hopefully this will only last a few months…
Halldór had at last managed to get a search warrant from the criminal court for Matthías’s home, but he needed someone to go with him. Unfortunately, everybody seemed to be busy.
The phone rang. It was Egill.
“Now we’re in deep shit,” he said, sounding unhinged, which was unusual for him.
“Oh?”
“Marteinn and I took the guy to Sídumúli as agreed, and that went pretty well; he seemed calm and under control on the way there. But when we were about to stick him in a cell, he freaked out and lost it completely. He screamed and howled.”
“I hope you decided not to lock him up,” Halldór said anxiously.
“Not lock him up?” Egill repeated. “No, was that what we should have done?”
“He could have waited here while we searched the apartment,” Halldór said, exasperated.
“I didn’t think of that,” Egill said quietly.
“Right, so what happened then?”
“Well, it took three of us to get him into the cell and lay him down. We cuffed him before we went out and the duty officer phoned the doctor because he was shivering and shaking all over.”
“What did the doctor say?” Halldór asked, uneasily.
“The doctor never came, because when we looked in on him a bit later he had puked and was unconscious, so we immediately called an ambulance. I’m at the hospital now.”
“How is he doing?” Halldór asked.
“That’s the deep-shit part. He’s dead,” Egill said.
“What! Are you telling me that the prisoner is dead?”
“Yeah, the doctor thinks he probably had a stroke.”