nurse and reluctantly started moving towards the door. The nurse followed her and shut the door behind her the moment Elinborg was out in the corridor. Elinborg thought of calling in Sigurdur Oli to argue with the nurse and inform her how important it was for Robert to tell them what he wanted to say. She dropped the idea. Sigurdur Oli was certain to enrage her even more.
Elinborg walked down the corridor and could see Sigurdur Oli in the canteen devouring a banana with an apish look on his face. On her way to join him, she stopped. There was an alcove or TV den at the end of the corridor and she retreated into it and hid behind a tree that was planted in a huge pot and stretched all the way up to the ceiling. She waited there, watching the door, like a lioness hiding in the grass.
Before long the nurse came out of Robert's room, breezed down the corridor and through the canteen for the next ward. She did not notice Sigurdur Oli, nor he her as he chomped on his banana.
Elinborg sneaked out of her hiding place behind the tree and tiptoed back to Robert's room. He was lying asleep in the bed with the mask over his face just as when she had left him. The curtain was closed, but the dim glow of a lamp shed light into the gloom. She went over to him, hesitated for a moment and looked around furtively before bracing herself to prod the old man.
Robert did not budge. She tried again but he was sleeping like a log. Elinborg assumed he must be in a very deep sleep, if not simply dead, and she bit her nails while she wondered whether to prod him harder or disappear and forget the whole business. He had not said much. Only that someone had been hanging around the bushes on the hill. A green lady.
She was turning to leave when Robert suddenly opened his eyes and stared at her. Elinborg was unsure whether he recognised her, but he nodded and she felt sure she detected a grin behind his oxygen mask. He made the same sign as before to ask for a paper and pencil and she searched in her coat for her notebook and pen. She put them in his hands and he started writing in big capitals with a shaky hand. It took him a long time and Elinborg cast a terrified look towards the door, expecting the nurse to enter at any moment and start shouting curses. She wanted to tell Robert to hurry, but did not dare to pressure him.
When he had finished writing, his pallid hands slumped onto the quilt, and the book and pen with them, and he closed his eyes. Elinborg picked up the book and was about to read what the old man had written when the cardiac monitor that he was connected to suddenly started to beep. The noise was ear-piercing when it broke out in the silent room and Elinborg was so startled that she jumped back. She looked down at Robert for a moment, unsure of what to do, then rushed straight out of the room, down the corridor and into the canteen where Sigurdur Oli was still sitting, his banana finished. An alarm rang somewhere.
'Did you get anything out of the old sod?' Sigurdur Oli asked Elinborg when she sat down beside him, gasping for breath. 'Hey, are you okay?' he added when he noticed her puffing and panting.
'Yes, I'm fine,' Elinborg said.
A team of doctors, nurses and paramedics came running through the canteen and into the corridor in the direction of Robert's room. Soon afterwards a man in a white gown appeared, pushing in front of him a piece of equipment that Elinborg thought was a cardiac massage device, and went down the corridor as well. Sigurdur Oli watched the crowd disappear around the corner.
'What the hell have you been up to now?' Sigurdur Oli said, turning to Elinborg.
'Me?' Elinborg muttered. 'Nothing. Me! What do you mean?'
'What are you sweating like that for?' Sigurdur Oli asked.
'I'm not sweating.'
'What happened? Why is everyone running?'
'No idea.'
'Did you get anything out of him? Is he the one who's dying?'
'Come on, try to show a bit of respect,' Elinborg said, looking all around.
'What did you get out of him?'
'I haven't checked yet,' Elinborg said. 'Shouldn't we get away from here?'
They stood up and walked out of the canteen, left the hospital and sat down in Sigurdur Oli's car. He drove off.
'So, what did you get out of him?' Sigurdur Oli asked impatiently.
'He wrote me a note,' Elinborg sighed. 'Poor man.'
'Wrote you a note?'
She took the book out of her pocket and flicked through it until she found the place Robert had written in it. A single word was jotted there, in the trembling hand of a dying man, an almost incomprehensible scribble. It took her a while to puzzle out what he had written in the notebook, then she became convinced, although she did not understand the meaning. She stared at Robert's last word in this mortal life: CROOKED.
That evening it was the potatoes. He did not think they were boiled well enough. They could equally have been over-boiled, boiled to a pulp, raw, unpeeled, badly peeled, over-peeled, not cut into halves, not in gravy, in gravy, fried, unfried, mashed, sliced too thick, sliced too thin, too sweet, not sweet enough…
She could never figure him out.
That was one of his strongest weapons. The attacks always occurred without warning and when she was least expecting them, just as often when everything seemed rosy as when she could sense that something was upsetting him. He was a genius at keeping her on tenterhooks and she could never feel safe. She was always tense in his presence, ready to be at his beck and call. Have the food ready at the right time. Have his clothes ready in the morning. Keep the boys under control. Keep Mikkelina out of his sight. Serve him in every way, even though she knew it was pointless.
She had long ago given up all hope that things would get better. His home was her prison.
After finishing dinner he picked up his plate, surly as ever, and put it in the sink. Then went back to the table as if on his way out of the kitchen, but stopped where she still sat at the table. Not daring to look up, she watched the two boys who were sitting with her and went on eating her meal. Every muscle in her body was on the alert. Perhaps he would leave without touching her. The boys looked at her and slowly put down their forks.
Deathly silence fell in the kitchen.
Suddenly he grabbed her by the head and slammed it down on her plate, which broke, then he snatched her up by the hair and threw her backwards, off her chair and onto the floor. He swept the crockery from the table and kicked her chair into the wall. She was dazed by the fall. The whole kitchen seemed to be spinning. She tried to get back to her feet although she knew from experience that it was better to lie motionless, but some perverse spirit within her wanted to provoke him.
'Keep still, you cow,' he shouted at her, and when she had struggled to her knees he bowed over her and screamed:
'So you want to stand up, then?' He pulled her by the hair and slammed her face-first into the wall, kicking her thighs until she lost all the strength in her legs, shrieked and dropped back to the floor. Blood spurted from her nose and she could barely hear him shouting for the ringing in her ears.
'Try standing up now, you filthy cunt!' he screeched.
This time she lay still, huddled up with her hands protecting her head, waiting for the kicks to rain down upon her. He raised his foot and slammed it with all his might into her side, and she gasped with the scorching pain in her chest. Bending down, he grabbed her hair, lifted her face up and spat in it before slamming her head back against the floor.
'Dirty cunt,' he hissed. Then he stood up and looked at the shambles after his assault. 'Look what a mess you always make, you fucker,' he blared down at her. 'Clear it up this minute or I'll kill you!'
He backed slowly away from her and tried to spit at her again, but his mouth was dry.
'Fucking creep,' he said. 'You're useless. Can't you ever do anything right, you fucking useless whore? Aren't you going to realise that some day? Aren't you going to realise that?'
He didn't care if she was left marked. He knew there was no one who would interfere. Visitors were rare. Occasional chalets lay scattered around the lowlands, but few people ever went to the hill, even though the main road between Grafarvogur and Grafarholt ran nearby, and no one who had any business called on that family.
The house they lived in was a large chalet that he rented from a man in Reykjavik; it was half built when the
