The worst part, though, was the dread he felt deep down that his relationship with Aníta might end in disaster. Of course, there was nothing to suggest it would,and Aníta was everything that Bergthóra wasn’t. It was simply that, having gone through that horrible ordeal, that maelstrom of destruction, he now saw dangers on every side.
Perhaps that was why he was so desperate to avoid talking to Aníta about Bergthóra, the fear that her name alone was enough to poison things between them.
‘Has she been back to your office again?’ he asked, suddenly struck by an uneasy suspicion that this might be why she was asking.
‘No… er… no,’ Aníta faltered.
She couldn’t fool him.
‘No, really? Has something happened?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Helgi. Let’s just relax.’
But he could hear the tension in her voice.
‘Did she come to your office again?’ he demanded.
Aníta shook her head.
‘No, it wasn’t like that.’
‘Did you meet her?’
‘Helgi, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment. This isn’t important. She’s quite harmless and, anyway, I may have been mistaken. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Aníta…’
‘Look, it was just on the bus, on my way home… I was sitting at the back, like I always do, when I saw her – I’m fairly sure it was her – sitting at the front. She didn’t approach me, but at one point she turned round and stared at me and it… it was so sinister. I panicked a bit, though of course that was irrational of me… but…’
Helgi felt a surge of resentment and rage, the samecorrosive feelings Bergthóra had so often stirred up in him. He had believed he was free once he had finally taken the step of leaving her, yet it seemed she still had a hold over him. He could have borne it better if she had been harassing him, but she had discovered his weak spot by turning her sights on Aníta.
‘Maybe it was just a coincidence,’ Aníta said. ‘Maybe she just happened to be on the same bus as me – assuming it was actually her—’
Helgi interrupted. ‘It’ll be OK. I just need to have a word with her.’
Of course it hadn’t been a coincidence, he thought. The whole thing had been deliberately staged.
‘Should I try talking to her next time – you know, if I run into her again?’ Aníta asked, her voice tight with fear but also with determination.
‘Better not,’ Helgi said quickly. ‘Let’s not give her the gratification. Like you said, hopefully it was nothing. She’s obviously not in a good way.’
‘Did she behave like that to you? I remember you saying…’ Aníta paused. ‘I remember you mentioning psychological violence…’
‘It was difficult, a stressful relationship.’
‘In what way? I mean, she didn’t lay hands on you or anything?’
Helgi dodged a direct answer to this. ‘Let’s just say I wasn’t happy with her. Look, I don’t think we should waste any more time talking about her. Don’t let her spoil our evening.’
Yet Bergthóra had succeeded in doing precisely that.All of a sudden there were three of them in the room, and Bergthóra’s brooding presence was anything but welcome.
He would have to speak to her; he couldn’t avoid it any longer. But he dreaded the conversation. He needed time to muster the courage, find the right words. The mere thought of it made him break out in a cold sweat.
People disappear all the time, Magnús had said the other day.
Why the hell couldn’t Bergthóra just disappear?
2012
