Season of the Witch (18 page)

Street Rider
turned out to be a so-so romantic tale for kids, about puppy love between a beautiful girl from a wealthy suburban family and a rebellious kid from the wrong side of the
tracks—if we had trains in Iceland, which we don’t. He and his single mom are outsiders who have moved from some small regional town to live in one of the housing projects in the Reykjavík suburbs. Failing at school, he struts and preens and rides his motorcycle as the leader of a tough gang that communicates in code, as in all the best children’s adventure stories. The girl’s father does his best, of course, to break up the young lovers. But when the rich dad is threatened by real crooks, the Street Rider rides to the rescue with his gang and shows his true character. And they all live happily ever after.

Not too bad, as a watered-down Romeo and Juliet theme
, I think as I have my first cup of coffee of the day. I’d probably have enjoyed it when I was the age of the main characters. I liked the rock-and-roll music on the soundtrack, which placed the events firmly in the early eighties.

And there was Skarphédinn—young, handsome, innocent, acting his little heart out, with his breaking voice and toned body—roaring around the mean streets on his motorbike. And I spotted Örvar Páll Sigurdarson in a small part as a fat policeman. Among the other kids I noticed a face that looked familiar, but I didn’t manage to place it before I dropped off to sleep.

When I get to the office, Jóa is already there, sitting talking to Ásbjörn over a coffee. Karólína’s not there. I haven’t seen her in the office for a while, and Ásbjörn has been rushed off his feet, scuttling between his own office and the reception area, answering the phones, dealing with the delivery staff, retailers, and God knows what else. He’s not looking good today—his hair is disheveled and greasy, and his eyes are red and sore.

Jóa, who is never at home anymore, remarks: “I’ve been given permission to stay on here for a while.”

“Great,” I say. “I haven’t been looking forward to you leaving us. How long are you allowed to stay?”

“I’ve asked for Jóa to help me out in the office now and then,” adds Ásbjörn. “Karó’s not well, and I simply can’t manage everything on my own.”

“Fortunately I’m not too busy taking pics,” Jóa continues. “I can easily add a few feathers to my cap. And I want to stay on for a while.”

I give her a smile. “Of course you do. Polly and I don’t see you anymore back at the homestead. Roughing it, are you?”

Jóa grins back. “It’ll give Polly and you the opportunity to develop your relationship further. Explore new things.”

Even Ásbjörn joins in the laughter, briefly.

Then he stands up and walks into his office.

“Is there something seriously wrong with Karó?” I whisper to Jóa.

“Don’t know. Ásbjörn says the Lady Wife is tense, whatever that means. Didn’t ask. I’m quite happy with the new arrangement.”

“I’d be tense myself if I were married to Ásbjörn,” I observe, then withdraw to my closet after asking Jóa to take photos of Ágústa Magnúsdóttir’s house and the building where Skarphédinn lived, then pop into the high school and take some background pictures. I’m going to look in there this afternoon and try to have a word with the principal.

But as I sit down at my desk, my first task is to consult the phone book. Movie director Fridbert Sumarlidason is listed with a Reykjavík address, with both landline and cell phone numbers. There is no reply at his home, but he answers his cell.

I explain why I’m calling.

“
Street Rider
. Oh, yes,” says Fridbert, who sounds as if he’s about my age. “My first and only full-length movie. I haven’t been given a chance since. I earn a crust doing commercials and TV work.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“No, don’t be. I’m doing much better now. In Iceland, movies are made only by masochists or fools. You can’t help them. They seem to want to bankrupt themselves. Over and over again, preferably.”

“I’m hoping you may be able to give me a comment on Skarphédinn. How did he come to be in the movie?”

“We just advertised for kids who wanted to be in a movie and held auditions. A huge number of youngsters applied. It took us three days to audition them all.”

“And why did you cast Skarphédinn in the lead?”

“First, he had the look. He was the right type for a biker antihero. Second, he had that countrified lilting northern accent, which was just right for the lead character. He was an outsider among the prosperous Reykjavík middle class. Thirdly, he had a real talent for acting, although he was a complete beginner. And fourthly, he was so keen on playing the role. He convinced me that he would put his heart into it. And he certainly did. A bit too much, perhaps.”

“Too much?”

“Yes, he sometimes butted in over things that were nothing to do with him. Not because he was pushy. He was just passionate about what he was doing. The boy was a born leader. The other kids in the cast knew that from the start.”

“Especially the girls?”

Fridbert takes a pause for thought. “All the girls had crushes on him. Every single one.”

“And did that get them anywhere?”

“Off the record?”

“Yes. I’ll only quote what you said about his acting talent.”

“All I remember is that there were some broken hearts.”

“And you don’t know any more about it?”

“No.”

“In the movie, Örvar Páll Sigurdarson had a small role. He’s been directing Skarphédinn in
Loftur the Sorcerer
here in Akureyri. It’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“You think so? Well, the Icelandic acting world is pretty small.”

“So it was pure coincidence?”

“I can’t imagine it being anything else.”

“But Skarphédinn’s violent death—you must have been shocked when you heard?”

“Absolutely. I would have bet money on that young man having a glittering career.”

“Well, thank you very much…”

“But it’s a strange coincidence…,” he seems to be thinking out loud, then falls silent.

“What’s a strange coincidence?”

“No, I just remembered something I heard a few years ago. Inga Lína, who played Skarphédinn’s girlfriend in the movie, had a lot of problems after that, and died when she was only sixteen, I think.”

Could that have been the face that seemed familiar? Would I have seen her photo in the papers? “How did she die?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. But I think she got into drugs or suffered from depression. Something like that.”

“So both the leading actors in
Street Rider
are dead before they reach the age of twenty. That is a strange coincidence, as you say.”

“Coincidence,” echoes Fridbert Sumarlidason. “It seems more like a curse.”

Akureyri High School is a cluster of buildings, large and small, dating from different periods and eclectic in style. The school is located on Eyrarlandsvegur, above the town center and the church. Instinctually, I assume that the principal’s office will be in the oldest part of the school. It’s an elegant wooden building looking out over the fjord, with gabled roofs, carved trims, and a flagpole. It reminds me of a ski chalet. Annexes and extensions have been added to the old schoolhouse bit by bit over the past hundred years. As I wander the corridors, I see sky-blue walls covered with mementos of the school’s history: plaques, paintings of former principals, group photographs of graduating classes as they grow steadily bigger over the decades, from a handful of grave young men with bow ties to clusters of girls in their party dresses. A century of fashions is preserved here: crew cuts, brilliantine, beehives, Beatle mop-tops, long hippie locks, shiny disco girls, until we reach our own time when, once again, anything goes. And here are photos of productions by the school’s drama group, in which the students express both joy and grief—but mostly joy, it seems to me. Will a picture from
Loftur the Sorcerer
make it onto this wall of remembrance?

After drifting around the corridors retracing history, it is time for the fifteen minutes the principal has said he can spare me from his busy schedule. I had the sense to mention the scandal about the
Question of the Day
, Kjartan Arnarson, and Sólrún Bjarkadóttir myself. I reiterated the explanation that had been given in Trausti’s front-page apology. That precaution saved me from a long, predictable rant about sensationalist hacks and the irresponsibility of the media. But I still had to sit through the short version.

Stefán Már Guttormsson is fortyish, tall and slender, with receding hair, clean-shaven, with old-fashioned spectacles perched on his bulbous nose. He ponderously stands up and offers me a seat.

“What a tragedy,” he says, slurring his words a little. “We’re all in shock. We canceled all lessons on the first day of term. And we’re doing all we can to help the students get over the worst of the crisis. Those who want help.”

“Did you know Skarphédinn personally?”

“No, not really. He wasn’t one of those students who have to be read the riot act. We maintain a high level of discipline here in the high school. We have a long tradition to uphold. This old schoolhouse was built on the estate of Eyrarland, which dates right back to the early settlers of Iceland, over a thousand years ago. We’re very proud of our long and illustrious history. All the students’ social events are required to be alcohol-and drug-free. At our annual dinner, for instance, we don’t serve alcohol, and smoking is forbidden. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the school or on school property.”

Whew!
I think. I wonder whether this glossy image of the school can possibly be consistent with the pattern of personal development that tends to take place at this age. And the way the principal describes the school is totally at odds with my own colorful experience of student social life in high school in Reykjavík. We strove to drink, smoke, and otherwise try out any substance that came our way.

I don’t know whether my skepticism is obvious from my expression, but the principal fixes an even more ferocious glare upon me.

“Does that surprise you?”

“Yes, I must admit it does. Asceticism wasn’t really a feature of my high school years.”

He relaxes a little. “I’m not talking about asceticism, but self-discipline and moderation. We appeal to the students’ sense of responsibility, but it’s not as if we have moral police all over town enforcing our policies.”

I nod, still dubious.

“And school authorities have an obligation to do what they can to counteract the negative influences on young people in society today and safeguard them. Don’t you agree?”

“Uhh, yeah, I’m with you there. But I’m pretty sure that young people can never be safeguarded from their own curiosity about new things. All of us have to make our own mistakes before we find out what’s right for us.”

Stefán Már seems thoughtful. “I expect there’s something in what you say. But it’s our duty to strive to draw the attention of these young people in our care to the positive aspects of their surroundings and at the same time to counteract the attraction of the negative, dangerous, even life-threatening. Here at Akureyri High School we were, for instance, one of the first schools in the country to introduce a program of alcohol and drug counseling.”

In my day in high school, an anti-drink counselor would have been laughed right out of town and up into the mountains, I think to myself. “But so far as you know, Skarphédinn Valgardsson had no need for such counseling?”

He shakes his head. “To the best of my knowledge, absolutely not. You can seek confirmation from the student counselor if you wish, although we naturally maintain confidentiality about individual students’ personal affairs. Skarphédinn set a fine example for other young people. And that makes it all the more appalling that he should suffer such a tragic fate.”

“Was he a good student?”

“So far as I know. He was majoring in social studies, and his grades were consistently high. But his teachers and the student counselors know more about that than I do. And I’d like to point out that Akureyri High School was the first Icelandic school to introduce student counselors. Unfortunately, as principal I haven’t time to keep up with the progress of individual students at the school. They number well over five hundred. I tend to see the exceptions, students who find themselves in some kind of difficulties. We are proud that our dropout rate here at Akureyri High School is one of the lowest in the country. About two-and-a-half percent, so far as I remember.”

The principal is getting antsy.

“I gather that Skarphédinn was a local boy. But he didn’t live at home with his family after his first year at the high school. He moved into the student dorm and then into his own apartment last fall. Any idea why?”

“Why what? Why he moved into the dorm or why he moved out?”

“Um, both.”

“No. It’s not my business to go prying into the private lives of students. Akureyri High School is the largest boarding high school in the country. About half the students are local, the other half from other parts of the country. Where they choose to live is their business, provided they observe the discipline and rules of the school.”

“So would it be reasonable to deduce that a student who chooses to live off-campus is looking for more freedom and less discipline?”

“If you like,” answers Stefán Már curtly.

The principal’s secretary gives me a list of school staff. I see that Kjartan Arnarson teaches in the social studies program. I call his extension at the school, but there is no answer. The secretary consults his schedule and tells me that he should be free in half an hour. The social studies program is taught in the school’s newest building,
Hólar
, named after the old episcopal seat, Hólar in Hjaltadalur.

“Hólar is where Iceland’s first scholastic establishment was founded, eight centuries ago,” she remarks. “The Learned School, attached to the cathedral.”

I carry on wandering the corridors. From the old schoolhouse a long passage leads over to Hólar, which I gather is the focus of student life. The proportions are different in the new building: bigger classrooms and workshops, a large library, a spacious hall on the lower floor, and the school reception area on the upper floor, where the students also have coat closet facilities and lockers.