Silence of the Grave (14 page)

War was raging in much of the world and it had reached all the way up to the other side of the hill where British occupying forces had begun erecting buildings shaped like loaves of bread, which they called barracks. Simon did not understand the word. Inside the barracks there was supposed to be something with another incomprehensible name. A depot.

Sometimes he ran over the hill with Tómas to watch the soldiers. They had transported timber up the hill, roofing beams, corrugated iron and fencing, rolls of barbed wire, bags of cement, a cement mixer and a bulldozer to clear the ground for the barracks. And they built the bunker overlooking Grafarvogur, and one day the brothers saw the British bringing a huge cannon up the hill. The cannon was installed in the bunker with its gigantic barrel sticking several metres out through a slit, ready to blow the enemy to pieces. They were defending Iceland from the Germans, who had started the war and killed everyone they got their hands on, even little boys like Simon and Tómas.

The soldiers erected the fencing around what turned out to be eight barracks in total, which went up in no time at all, and they put up a gate and signs in Icelandic saying that unauthorised access was strictly prohibited. A soldier with a rifle was always on guard in a sentry post at the gate. The soldiers ignored the boys, who made sure to keep a safe distance. When the weather was fine Simon and Tómas carried their sister over the hill, put her down on the moss and let her see what the soldiers were building and showed her the barrel projecting from the bunker. Mikkelína lay looking at everything around her, but was silent and contemplative, and Simon had the feeling that she was scared of what she saw. The soldiers and the big cannon.

All the troops wore khaki uniforms with belts, and heavy-duty black boots laced up to their calves, and some had helmets and carried rifles or guns in holsters. In warm weather they took off their jackets and shirts and lay bare-chested in the sunshine. Every so often there were military exercises on the hill, when the soldiers would lie concealed, run from their hiding places, throw themselves to the ground and fire their weapons. Noise and music came from the camp at night. Sometimes they had a machine that made scratchy music with tinny singing. At other times the soldiers sang into the night, songs from their own country which Simon knew was called Britain and Grímur said was an empire.

They told their mother all that was happening on the other side of the hill, but she showed little interest. Once, though, they took her with them to the top of the hill and she had a long look over the British camp, then back home she talked about all the bother and danger there and banned the boys from snooping around the soldiers, because they could never tell what might happen when men had guns and she did not want them to come to any harm.

Time passed and one day the camp filled up with Americans; almost all the British left. Grímur said they were all being sent away to be killed but the Americans would have an easy time in Iceland, without a care in the world.

Grímur gave up shovelling coal and started working for the Americans on the hill because there was plenty of money and work to be had at the camp. One day he had strolled over the hill and asked for work at the depot, and without further ado he was given a job in the quartermaster's stores and the mess. Afterwards, the diet at their home changed for the better. Grímur produced a red can with a key on the side. He opened the lid with the key and turned the can upside-down, and a lump of pink meat plopped onto the plate covered in clear jelly. It wobbled and tasted deliciously salty.

"Ham," Grímur said. "From America, no less."

Simon had never tasted anything so good in his life.

At first he did not wonder how the new food found its way onto their table, but he did notice the anxious look on his mother's face once when Grímur brought home a boxful of cans and hid them in the house. Sometimes Grímur set off for Reykjavik with a sack full of those cans and other goods that Simon did not recognise. When he came back he counted out money onto the table, and Simon saw him happy in a way he had never witnessed before. Grímur ceased being so spiteful to their mother. Stopped talking about the Gasworks. Stroked Tómas on the head.

As time passed, the house was swamped with merchandise. American cigarettes, delicious canned food, fruit and even nylon stockings that their mother said all the women in Reykjavik yearned to have.

None of it stayed in their house for long. Once Grímur brought back a little packet with the most wonderful scent Simon had ever smelt. Grímur opened it and let them all have a taste, telling them that the Americans chewed it all the time, like cows with cud. You weren't allowed to swallow it, but after a while you should spit it out and take a fresh strip. Simon, Tómas – and even Mikkelína, who was given a pink, scented piece to chew – chomped away for all they were worth, then spat it out and took some more.

"It's called gum," Grímur said.

Grímur soon learned to get by in English and befriended the troops. If they were off duty he occasionally invited them to his house, and then Mikkelína had to lock herself in the little store room, the boys combed their hair and their mother put on a dress and made herself presentable. The soldiers would arrive and act politely, greet the family with handshakes, introduce themselves and give the children sweets. Then they sat around drinking. They left in their jeep for Reykjavik and everything fell quiet again in the chalet which, otherwise, no one ever visited.

Normally, however, the soldiers went straight to Reykjavik and came back at night singing. The hill resounded with their shouts and calls, and once or twice there was a sound like guns being fired, but not the cannon because, as Grímur put it, that would mean "the fucking Nazis are in Reykjavik and they'll kill us all in seconds". He often went for a night on the town with the soldiers and when he came back he was singing American songs. Simon had never heard Grímur sing before that summer.

And once Simon witnessed something strange.

One day one of the American solders walked over the hill with a fishing rod, stopped on the shore of Lake Reynisvatn and cast for trout. Then he walked down the hill with his rod and whistled all the way over to Lake Hafravatn, where he spent most of the day. It was a beautiful summer's day and he strolled around the lake, casting whenever he felt the urge. Instead of fishing with much motivation, he just seemed to enjoy being on the lakeside in the good weather. Sat down, smoked and sunbathed.

Around three o'clock he seemed to have had enough, gathered up his rod and a bag containing the three trout he had caught that day and strolled as casually as ever from the lake and up the hill. But instead of walking past the house he stopped and said something incomprehensible to Simon, who had been keeping a close watch on his movements and was now standing at the front door.

"Are your parents in?" the smiling soldier asked Simon in English and looked inside the house. The door was always kept open in good weather. Tómas had helped Mikkelína over to the sunny spot behind the house, and was lying there with her. Their mother was indoors, doing the housework.

Simon did not understand the soldier.

"You don't understand me?" The soldier said. "My name is Dave. I'm American."

Gathering that his name was Dave, Simon nodded. Dave held out the bag in front of the boy, put it down on the ground, opened it, took out the three trout and laid them beside it.

"I want you to have this. You understand? Keep them. They should be great."

Símon stared at Dave, uncomprehending. Dave smiled, his white teeth gleaming. He was short and thin, bony-faced, his thick, dark hair slicked over to one side.

"Your mother, is she in?" he asked. "Or your father?" Simon looked blank. Dave unbuttoned his shirt pocket, took out a black notebook and flicked through it to the place he wanted. He walked up to Simon and pointed to a sentence in the book.

"Can you read?" he asked.

Simon read the sentence that Dave was pointing to. He could understand it because it was in Icelandic, but was followed by something foreign that he could not fathom. Dave read the Icelandic sentence out loud, as carefully as he could.

"Ég heiti Dave,"
he said. "My name is Dave," he said again in English. Pointed once more, then handed the book to Simon, who read out loud.

"My name is . . . Simon," he said with a smile. Dave smiled even wider. Found another sentence and showed it to the boy.

"How are you, miss?" Simon read.

"Yes, but not miss, just you," Dave laughed, but Simon did not understand. Dave found another word and showed it to Simon. "Mother," Simon read out loud, and Dave pointed to him with a nod.

"Where is?" he asked in Icelandic, and Simon understood he was asking about his mother. Simon beckoned to Dave to follow him and he took him into the kitchen where his mother was sitting at the table darning socks. She smiled when she saw Simon enter, but when she saw Dave behind him her smile froze, she dropped the sock and leapt to her feet, knocking over the chair. Dave, equally taken aback, stepped forward waving his arms.

"Sorry," he said. "Please, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to scare you. Please."

Simon's mother rushed over to the kitchen sink and stared down at it as if not daring to look up.

"Please take him out, Simon," she said.

"Please, I will go," Dave said. "It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm going. Please, I . . ."

"Take him out, Simon," his mother repeated.

Puzzled by her reaction, Simon looked at them in turn, and saw Dave backing out of the kitchen and into the yard.

"Why did you do that to me?" she said and turned to Simon. "Bringing a man in here. Why would you do that?"

"Sorry," Simon said. "I thought it was all right. His name is Dave."

"What did he want?"

"He wanted to give us his fish," Simon said. "That he caught in the lake. I thought that was all right. He only wanted to give us some fish."

"God, what a shock! Good Lord, what a shock! You must never do that again. Never! Where are Mikkelína and Tómas?"

"Out the back."

"Are they all right?"

"All right? Yes, Mikkelína wanted to be in the sunshine."

"You must never do that again," she repeated as she walked out to check on Mikkelína. "Do you hear! Never."

She walked round the corner of the house and saw the soldier standing over Tómas and Mikkelína, staring down at the girl in bewilderment. Mikkelína pulled faces and craned her neck to see who was standing over them. She could not see the soldier's face because the sun was behind his head. The soldier looked at her mother, then back at Mikkelína writhing in the grass.

"I . . ." Dave said falteringly. "I didn't know," he said. "I'm sorry. Really I am. This is none of my business. I'm sorry."

Then he turned round and hurried away, and they watched him disappear slowly over the hill.

"Are you all right?" their mother asked, kneeling down beside Mikkelína and Tómas. She was calmer now that the soldier had left without apparently wanting to cause them any harm. She picked up Mikkelína, carried her into the house and put her down on the divan in the kitchen. Simon and Tómas ran in behind her.

"Dave isn't bad," Simon said. "He's different."

"Is his name Dave?" their mother said vacantly. "Dave," she repeated. "Isn't that the same as David in Icelandic?" she asked, directing the question more at herself than anyone else. And then it happened, something that struck Simon as very strange.

His mother smiled.

Tómas had always been mysterious, reticent, a loner, a little nervous and shy, the silent type. The previous winter Grímur seemed to notice something in him that aroused his interest more than in Simon. He would pay attention to Tómas and take him into another room. When Simon asked his brother what they had talked about Tómas said nothing, but Simon insisted and wheedled out of him that they had been talking about Mikkelína.

"What was he saying to you about Mikkelína?" Simon asked.

"Nothing," Tómas said.

"Yes he was, what?" Simon said.

"Nothing," Tómas said with an embarrassed look, as if he was trying to conceal something from his brother.

"Tell me."

"I don't want to. I don't want him to talk to me. I don't want him to."

"You don't want him to talk to you? So you mean you don't want him to say the things he says? Is that what you mean?"

"I don't want anything, that's all," Tómas said. "And you stop talking to me too."

The weeks and months passed by and Grímur displayed his favour for his younger son in various ways. Although Simon was never party to their conversations, he found out what they were doing one evening towards the end of the summer. Grímur was getting ready to take some goods from the depot into Reykjavik. He was waiting for a soldier named Mike who was going to help him. Mike had a jeep at his disposal and they planned to fill it with goods to sell in town. The children's mother was cooking the food, which was from the depot as well. Mikkelína was lying in her bed.