And Then You Die Read online

  Outside in the street, they separated. Zen drifted off, wondering at the invariable grey light. Summer days here in the north evidently didn’t have the classic three-act structure that he’d grown up with. They just maundered on like some experimental film in which the whole point is that nothing ever happens. It was then that Aurelio Zen decided to do something he had not done for a very long time indeed, so long that the person who had done it seemed almost as much of a stranger as the genetically modified strangers thronging by in the street. He decided to get quite deliberately and totally drunk.

  He took out the banknotes which the consul had given him. They came to fifty thousand kronur, whatever that might amount to. He went into the first bar he came to and ordered a vodka. This was not something he normally drank, but it was one of those useful international products, like taxis, which were available everywhere and always called the same thing in every language. The vodka was served ice cold in a small shot glass. Zen downed three of them in short order, then headed out to the streets in search of more bars.

  He found them quite easily. Indeed, after a while they began to find him. They were all more or less the same; dingy, poky, smelly little burrows with bad lighting and deafening music. But after a while he started to feel quite at home, despite the fact that the other clients were all half a metre taller than him and at least twenty years younger, with the studiously bored air of modern youth everywhere. On the streets he had noticed more of the short, dark, unkempt people like the one he had seen eavesdropping on Snæbjörn Guðmundsson’s phone conversation, but they didn’t seem to come into the bars. Couldn’t afford the prices, probably. They looked a bit like the East European refugees and migrants flooding into Italy from Albania and Romania, another race entirely, wearing clothes from another era.

  That was outside, though, where Zen no longer had any desire to go. He’d found a cosy nook at the back of a subterranean den where a few youngsters were half-heartedly dancing, and a lissom blonde refilled his shot glass as soon as he emptied it.

  Later on the action on the dance floor hotted up considerably, until Zen seemed to be the only person in the place not flinging himself about to the battering rhythms of the sound system. Several of the girls were now dancing topless, their breasts jiggling about in a touching, natural, slightly comical way. Their partners too had stripped down to the absolute minimum. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat and testosterone.

  Later still, the place was half empty, the lissom blonde ignored him, and the lights came brutally to life. Zen consulted his watch, but it was still on Italian time. Anyway, they were evidently closing. He got to his feet and shuffled over to the door. The streets were even more packed than the bar had been earlier. No one was dancing, but a couple of drunken scuffles broke out and were quickly subdued. The little, dark, shabbily dressed people were much in evidence too, looking on at the proceedings with that sly, half-mocking expression they all had.

  Zen’s first priority was to find a taxi and get himself driven to the consul’s house, but that was not so simple. The streets where he was were all pedestrianized, and his enquiries were either ignored or elicited a broad gesture and a string of verbiage he couldn’t understand. In the end he set off walking along the main street, confident that sooner or later he would find a taxi rank.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a car in a side street with an illuminated sign on top. Someone was getting out of it. Zen started to run, but he was still some way away when the taxi revved up and drove quickly away. The person who had got out of it entered a nearby block of flats and closed the door. Disheartened, Zen turned back towards the main street. He was still some twenty metres away from it when the figure came rushing at him out of an alley to his right, a knife in its hand.

  Zen’s drunkenness saved him initially. He was so startled that he fell over backwards, landing heavily on his buttocks as the assailant swerved past. It was one of the little dark men he had been seeing all evening. He turned now, the knife held out, and walked back to where Zen was lying sprawled on the paving stones. The blade of the knife gleamed in the light from the nearest street lamp, but the man’s face was in shadow.

  Tackling a man on the ground is a tricky business. You have to stoop to his level to get anything done, and if you do you lose your only advantage. Aurelio Zen was aware of this, having been in this situation before, but playing the other role. His attacker, oddly enough, was also aware of it. He made no further berserk moves, did not hurl himself on his prone victim, just stood there, sizing up the situation.

  Zen was still drunk, but drunks can often focus very effectively on just one thing, which was all he had to do at present. So when the dark figure made its move, aiming a kick at Zen’s ribs, he was ready. He flipped over, away from the blow, and was on his hands and knees before the other had regained his balance. The next assault was a straight lunge aimed at Zen’s chest, which he parried at the cost of slit knuckles, then rose to his feet, using his assailant’s impetus to throw him clear and to one side.

  They were both standing now. Taking the initiative, Zen moved in and aimed a kick at the hand holding the knife, following up with the heel of his right hand slammed up into the man’s jaw. He felt completely fearless, even when the swung blade returning stung him on the shoulder. Off balance but totally in control, he stripped the man’s shin with the instep of his left foot, causing a satisfying shriek, then stepped back to consider his next move.

  It was only then that he noticed the siren and the flashing lights at the far end of the street. A moment later a white Volvo with blue and red stripes and a yellow shield on the door pulled up. Disconcerted, Zen looked round for his attacker. He was nowhere to be seen. Two uniformed patrolmen got out of the car. One of them spoke to Zen, who shrugged and replied in Italian, ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’ One policeman inspected Zen’s hand, which was covered in blood. The other bent down and picked up a knife from the pavement. He got out his radio and made a call, then the two men led Zen over to their car.

  The next hour and a half was spent in the emergency department of a hospital, where the injuries to Zen’s hand and shoulder were cleaned and the former stitched. At a certain point he remembered the consul’s card and the receipt with his address, which he handed to the hospital staff. When Snæbjörn Guðmundsson showed up in person, he initially seemed more agitated by Zen’s lack of agitation than by what had actually happened. Zen just ignored him. He was feeling better than he had for months. He had no idea what had happened, still less why. That didn’t matter. Something had, and he had dealt with it. He was in charge again, engaged with the real world, making and breaking. It felt good, and he wasn’t going to let some weedy, neurotic diplomat tell him otherwise. In fact it was only with the greatest difficulty that Guðmundsson managed to convince Zen to come home with him and go to bed rather than take to the streets and see if there were any bars still open, but in the end he prevailed. They drove somewhere, Zen got out, they went inside, there was a bed, he lay down.

  He awoke in a bright, hard light. His shoulder and hand ached abominably, but neither could begin to match his head. He was lying fully clothed on a narrow wooden bed in a musty room filled with cardboard boxes. He had no idea where he was, or any memory of how he got there. The world was a painful enigma whose solution, if there was one, eluded him utterly.

  Some time later, Snæbjörn Guðmundsson appeared with a cup of tea in his hand.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked in an excessively loud and patronizingly cheery tone. ‘Bathroom’s to the left. I’ll be next door when you’re ready to talk.’

  Twenty minutes later, Zen shambled into the room next door. It was a bleakly austere space stretching from one end of the small one-storey house to the other. The walls were white, the floor bare wooden boards, the furnishings hard and minimal. Since the front door was at one end, he must have crossed the room to get to the bed where he had woken up, but he had absolutely no memory of this.

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sp; ‘So how are you feeling?’ Snæbjörn Guðmundsson demanded, putting down the book he had been reading.

  ‘Like hell,’ Zen replied succinctly.

  ‘Yes, well, you seemed a bit the worse for wear last night, I have to say. Apart from your various injuries, I mean.’

  ‘I drank a lot.’

  ‘Expensive business here in Iceland.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. You’re evidently a VIP. I’ll bill the embassy.’

  Zen collapsed in a chair made of wooden slats on a stainless steel frame. It was as uncomfortable as it looked.

  ‘Did they find the person who attacked me?’ he asked.

  Guðmundsson looked at him oddly.

  ‘No, they didn’t. You say he was dark, unkempt looking and short?’

  ‘Shorter than me, and I’m shorter than most people here.’

  ‘That’s very unusual. Our genetic pool here in Iceland is remarkably homogenous. Or to put it another way, everyone’s related to everyone else. We don’t have a distinct class of shorter, dark-skinned people, like the Lapps in Finland.’

  ‘They must be immigrants.’

  ‘That’s not really a problem here. We’re an island, of course, which helps. The points of entry are strictly controlled and we’re very particular about who we let in. Excessively so, some might say, especially if it’s a matter of non-Northern European individuals. When the United States military applied to build Keflavik as a base during the war, the government agreed on condition that no black servicemen be stationed there.’

  Zen waved dismissively.

  ‘Well, all I know is that I saw plenty of these people about last night. And this was before I got drunk. Like that one I told you I saw standing beside you outside the café yesterday, while you were talking on the phone. They looked different, they dressed different and they acted different. And one of them tried to kill me.’

  An odd look came into Guðmundsson’s eyes.

  ‘You say they dressed differently. How?’

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. Like people who had just arrived from some remote village in the country. They were wearing coarse, homespun garments, badly cut and badly put together. They looked completely out of place, like the gypsies in Italy, but it didn’t seem to bother them. On the contrary, they were staring at the other people in a really blatant way, with this sort of mocking, malicious smile.’

  Snæbjörn Guðmundsson nodded slowly, considering all this. Then he stood up and beckoned.

  ‘Come this way a moment.’

  He walked over to the front door and opened it on to the tiny patch of garden that divided the house from the street. The consul looked both ways, then turned to Zen.

  ‘How many people are there in sight at the moment?’

  Zen counted rapidly.

  ‘Eleven,’ he replied.

  ‘Ah,’ said Guðmundsson.

  ‘Why?’

  The consul ushered him back inside and closed the door.

  ‘The reason why the police were on the scene so quickly last night was that all of downtown Reykjavik is monitored by a system of closed-circuit video cameras connected to viewing screens at the central police station, to deter and control violence among the roving packs of drunken youths who often go on revelling until five or six in the morning at this time of year. The patrol cars are parked strategically around the perimeter of the area, and can reach any trouble spot in seconds.’

  Zen took out his cigarettes and looked questioningly at his host, who nodded.

  ‘The street in which you claim to have been attacked …’

  ‘What do you mean, “claim”? Look at my hand! Why do you think I needed all these stitches?’

  ‘Let’s leave that for a moment. At all events, the street is not very well lit, and the nearest camera was quite a long way from where this happened. Nevertheless, one of the police officers on duty saw you fall over and then start lashing out with your feet and fists, and called in a patrol car. What he didn’t see, and what re-examination of the video tape has failed to reveal, is any evidence of a second person.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ demanded Zen, really angry now.

  ‘Not at all. I’m merely telling you what the police report stated.’

  ‘You think my idea of a good time is to get so drunk I see people who aren’t there and then slash my hand and shoulder with a knife I brought along for the purpose?’

  ‘Are you drunk now?’ asked the consul.

  ‘No! Just horribly hung over.’

  ‘Of course. Just a moment.’

  He walked out to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a small glass filled with a brownish liquid.

  ‘Drink this.’

  ‘What is it?’ Zen asked, sniffing the liquid. It smelt indescribably foul.

  ‘Just drink it. Knock it back in one. You’ll feel much better.’

  Zen did as he was told. A sharp burning sensation in his mouth and throat was abruptly followed by the most intense onrush of nausea he had ever experienced. He knew without the slightest doubt that he was going to vomit massively there and then, all over the consul’s hardwood floor. Then it passed, and was succeeded by a warm glow. The consul nodded.

  ‘It’s an infusion of hakarl, decomposed shark’s meat pickled in raw alcohol. In about five minutes you’ll feel much better. But it was important to check whether you were still suffering the active effects of the drinks you had last night before evaluating the results of my little test.’

  ‘What test?’

  ‘When I asked how many people there were in the street.’

  ‘I told you, there were eleven.’

  Snæbjörn Guðmundsson regarded him solemnly.

  ‘I only saw eight,’ he said.

  Zen laughed harshly, getting some of his own back at last

  ‘Maybe you need glasses!’

  ‘There are no glasses made for this.’

  ‘For what?’

  Guðmundsson sighed.

  ‘We call it fylgja. It’s a special faculty. People who have it are called skyggn. All children are skyggn until they’re about five, and many after that. Almost all lose it when they reach puberty, but a few people retain the gift into adult life. It appears that you may be one of them, Dottor Zen. If so, you are only the second foreigner I’ve ever heard of with this faculty.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  The consul laughed.

  ‘And when I tell you, you’re going to think that I’m drunk. But try and accept that this is a well-attested phenomenon. What it means, of course, is another matter. It’s like talking about religion. You may believe in God or you may not, but it’s a perfectly respectable intellectual position to hold that God does not exist and that religion is simply a tissue of meretricious falsehoods designed to give people an illusory sense of purpose. What is not a respectable intellectual position is to hold that people do not have religious experiences. You follow me?’

  ‘What’s all this got to do with whatever it is you said I had or was?’

  ‘It’s completely analogous. Some people believe in the existence of the huldufolk, others don’t. Their existence is therefore debatable. What is not debatable is that there are people who claim to be able to see them.’

  ‘See who, for God’s sake?’

  ‘The “hidden people”. Traditionally, they have been regarded as a race of supernatural beings who live all around us, but in a parallel dimension which is only perceptible to those who are skyggn.’

  ‘But you surely don’t believe in this nonsense, do you?’

  Snæbjörn Guðmundsson shrugged.

  ‘I don’t have fylgja, so it’s all rather theoretical. I’m simply trying to come up with a rational explanation for what happened to you last night, the people you saw in the street, and the one you say attacked you.’

  ‘A rational explanation based on totally irrational premises. If the po
lice camera didn’t pick him up, it’s because he was dark skinned and wearing dark clothing, that’s all.’

  The consul laughed.

  ‘Iceland is an odd place, dottore. Geologically, it’s the youngest landmass on the planet. Think of it as the pizza country. It’s about the same shape, and hot out of the oven. Up north they have geysers, volcanoes, lava flows. You can stand there and watch the terrible process of the earth being made, right in front of your eyes, while across the fjord the glaciers are calving icebergs. But enough of all this abstruse talk. How about some lunch?’

  Zen shivered visibly.

  ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

  And he meant it. He was hungry, but not for anything you could get here. He needed food for his soul. He needed to go home, before he crossed to the other side of the shadow line Snæbjörn Guðmundsson had described, and became one of the huldufolk himself, an invisible alien haunting the streets of this unreal city where it was always midday on the thirtieth of February.

  ‘I think I’ll go and lie down for a bit,’ he said. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’

  Guðmundsson nodded.

  ‘Of course. I’ll let you know if there are any developments.’

  He was awakened by a light tapping at the door. It opened to reveal the consul.

  ‘You have a visitor,’ he said.

  Zen rolled up off the bed. It was like being back in hospital, he thought. People came in and out of your room and told you what to do next. He had been living like this for almost a year now. When would he sleep in his own bed again? But where was that bed? Rome, he supposed, but the idea didn’t carry complete conviction.

  His visitor turned out to be þórunn Sigurðardòttir, the policewoman who had interviewed him at the airport the day before. She nodded at him and made a short speech which Snæbjörn Guðmundsson translated.

  ‘She brings good news. The chief pathologist has now confirmed the preliminary findings of the autopsy performed yesterday. His conclusion is that Signòr Angelo Porri died of natural causes, a heart attack to be precise. The police therefore have no further interest in the matter, and you are free to go, with apologies for the unavoidable delay.’