TE22 Potpourri

Lilja Sigurðardóttir

Cold as Hell

the eye, which failed to see the fissure slashed into the hard surface. Some of these jagged ravines stretched so deep and so far that they reached the sea. There was more to this place than what was on the surface. You needed to look closely to make out what lay beneath. He set off over the uneven lava, and found the place where it opened into the fissure where the red suitcase lay, caught fast between two outcrops, far below. He wasn’t going down there now. That would take too much time, and he didn’t have any energy to waste. He was exhausted, and the last hurdle was still ahead of him. ‘So, this is it,’ he whispered into the fissure, then walked back to the car, where he opened the back door. It was easier than he thought to haul the case out, but he noticed with horror that there was a patch of blood on the seat. He froze for a moment, and the terror deep inside him gave a low moan. He brushed his concerns aside. This was a detail he could pay attention to later in the day. Now there were more urgent things to attend to. He set off, dragging the suitcase behind him, cursing every step, as each rewarded him with only a few centimeters of progress. Thegravel underfootwas coarseand the canvas caught onevery jagged edge. But in the lava field itself the going was easier, as the case slid along more smoothly over the hard surface of the rock. He had hauled it a metre or more when he noticed the case left a trail of blood that was clearly visible, so he had to use 70

precious energy to turn the case over. Then he sat for a while on the cold rock at its side and rested, the sadness echoing a steady tone inside his head, and the dark bloodstain on the suitcase a clear symbol that his life would never be the same again. He finally got to his feet and dragged the case further, more by force of will than muscle power, and managed with an extraordinary effort to shove it over the edge so that it tumbled into the fissure, making dull thuds as it collided with the walls. He was too weak to stand, so he lay on his belly at the edge of the ravine and peered down. The grey case hadn’t fallen alongside the red one that contained Ísafold’s remains, but had dropped on the top of it, so that only the grey case could be seen. For a moment Grímur wondered whether to climb down and push the grey case aside so that it would slide further down, but decided against it. It was better left as it was. Grey was less visible from a distance than red, in the unlikely even that anyone were to come this way and peer into this gap in the lava. And anyway, Ísafold was long gone, so she would hardly mind. Her soul, with its feelings and joy, and the beauty that was inside her, had forsaken this deep, dark hole long ago. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered to her, all the same, before he got to his feet andmade hisway back to thecar. Ísafold’s soul would be somewhere free and beautiful, maybe here above the lava field, or higher up, above the clouds, where the sun always shone. Wherever she was, he felt it was right to ask her forgiveness for dishonouring like this the last resting place of her earthly 71