The woman named Pála pours the coffee, taking great care not to fill the cups to the rims. A superstitious act, but there has been trouble and now is no time to court bad luck.
‘Now,’ Stefán begins, ‘the child.’
Outside the meeting hut the weather takes a sharp cold turn. A gust of wind cuts through the unheated room and mocks their fortitude to think clearly and creatively. Margrét arrives with a bundle of sheepskins and they huddle under them warming their hands with steaming coffee cups.
Four hours pass. The chores of the day wait as the discussion continues until noon. This soul searching is not a simple one; after all, they have no claim to the child. However, they have scissored through the muck to devise a clear direction, and a plan, though incredibly complex, emerges. A proposal is agreed.
Afterwards Stefán pauses before entering his house, his forehead rests on the door as he takes a moment to prepare for his awful task. He finds Elísabet sitting in his common room. For a moment he is disoriented to see her knitting, her head bowed, exactly at the angle his wife used to find comfortable, and sitting a little sideways in the chair to face the best light. He winces, it seems like yesterday.
‘I hope you do not mind my boldness. It calms me … the needles were lying there as if …’ She looks up at him and sees that he has changed in some way. ‘I am sorry.’ She folds her hands over the needles.
‘No, it … my wife always struggled with the needles; unlike you, your fingers fly.’
‘Is she, did she … die? Apologies … of course she has.’ Embarrassed, Elísabet turns back to knitting.
‘It happened before we knew … before any of us changed … and began to form our group. I lost her and the children before I could begin to make even some small sense of all this … she never knew. This is why I come to you now.’
‘You have a proposition for me,’ she interrupts. ‘You, all of you, want me to live within your community. I guessed as much.’
Stefán sits beside her.
‘That is part of it, yes …’ He pauses. ‘First. Would you agree that the single most important task is to secure the safety of your baby?’
‘Of course. Please. Speak plainly. I am not a child.’
‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean … I am asking you to do the most difficult thing you will ever do.’ He pauses. This is a damnable job. ‘Give your baby to Koldís to raise, until it is safe to bring the child back.’
‘Never.’
‘Please hear me out. We, all of us without exception, put it to you that when your child is born, the same group that murdered your husband will no doubt come for your child. Perhaps not right away, but one day they will come. There will not be a single safe haven in this country. We believe, temporarily, the best place for your baby is with your sister in England. We have the means for the voyage, and the child will want for nothing. It will give us time to plan for the future.’
Elísabet knows that what is important in this moment is to keep her composure; it is imperative to conceal the rage that immediately overwhelms her thoughts, and which threatens to overtake her entire being and become madness. She must make certain that not Stefán, nor any of them, later accuse her of that madness, though what she feels at his suggestion is wholly untethered.
‘Please. Listen carefully,’ Stefán pleads.
She strokes her belly and the baby that moves inside her and turns away from him.
‘We are a small country that sometimes seems vast. It is true that when the winter comes we are isolated on our farm, and we all know what it is to feel separated from the other farmsteads by ice and snow. There is a false sense of security in that. If our enemy discovers where your child is they will do anything to get to it. Your child would be nothing more than some living thing upon which to experiment. My God, Elísabet! I hate to think of what they might to do to the child. They have already spied on your husband, tracked him down and killed him – solely for experimentation. And due to their murderous act they have learned of one of the properties of the water – the most dangerous one.’
‘My husband is not yet a day dead and you ask this of me? No. I will protect my child. I will go away … to the north.’
‘Do you need any more evidence that you cannot cut yourself off from us entirely? Jón’s death is proof of that. And if both you and your child were to live here, it would no doubt bring danger to us all. Our plan, our suggestion to you is that you stay with us. We will care for you and protect you. And Koldís …’
‘Do not …’
Stefán sighs. Their acquaintance is a new one, but he has learned the story of her past and he is loath to broach it now.
‘It was a bad business,’ he says.
Elísabet’s hands tighten around the knitting needles.
For a few minutes they are silent until Elísabet responds in a soft, thick voice.
‘I was much happier and more fulfilled in my life with Jón than I ever could have been in England with the man that became my sister’s husband. They were both cruel to me. Sister or no. Lover or no. Jón was a patient man. He healed me.’
She stands and walks to the small hole in the wall, richly-covered with a pane of glass from which she views the
