The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [171]
“Fjola,” she exclaimed. “Your aunt is found. She still lives in Stykkisholmur, where she and your father grew up.”
Delight swept me out of my seat. “That’s wonderful. That’s fantastic. I have an aunt and you know where she lives. Can I go and see her?”
“Tomorrow. You have missed the bus today. She is eager to see you.”
“That’s wonderful,” I repeated.
“Wonderful,” agreed Hallie. “There are two things she asked me to tell you.” She held up her hand with its gold rings, and I caught a note of warning. “First, she is blind; she lost her sight a number of years ago. Second, she speaks no English. Happily her daughter, Berglind, can translate. She will meet the bus.”
For months, I had daydreamed about finding someone who would look at me and see my parents; who would find my mother in my ears, my father in the shape of my hands, both of them in my straight brown hair and grey eyes. But my aunt might never have seen my mother and had last seen my father many years ago. It would be I who had to study her features for evidence of kinship. I remembered a book I had read about Helen Keller and how, when she met someone new, she ran her fingers over the person’s face. Perhaps my aunt would do that.
“She can talk,” I said. “She knew my parents.”
We agreed that I would return to stay with Hallie the night before my flight back to Glasgow. That way I could tell her what had happened and be at the airport in good time.
The remainder of the day passed in helping Hallie—I weeded her small garden and cleaned the windows—and in visiting the Hallgrimskirkja. “You can be sure,” she said, “that your father went there at least once.” As I walked up the road to the church, it got bigger and bigger, and when I stepped inside I could not help marvelling at how bright it was, and how empty. Like the landscapes I had passed through on my way from the airport, it was utterly bare.
During the six-hour journey the bus-driver stopped more times than I could count for people to get on and off, or to be sick, or to go to the bathroom. Out of the window I saw the twisted black rocks, the pointed shapes of old volcanoes, herds of brown and black ponies, and small sheep grazing on the brown grass. The occasional field shone emerald green in contrast to the greys and blacks. The countryside was wilder and emptier than any I had ever seen—for miles we saw no other cars, no houses, no animals, no birds—and yet it was here that I’d come to find my family. One of our stops was beside a road running east into a broad valley.
“Reykholt,” called the driver, and I recognised the name of the village Archie had mentioned where the saga writer lived. Would he, I wondered, ever come to Iceland?
Stykkisholmur was not like the Scottish villages I knew, houses standing shoulder to shoulder along neatly organised roads. Instead the brightly coloured houses were fitted into the landscape wherever the rocks permitted. Even on the main road there were wide gaps. The bus rounded one last corner and stopped beside a small grey church. For several minutes I gave no thought to the fact that I was in my father’s birthplace, my first home; I was glad simply to be on steady ground. I set my suitcase on the steps of the church and walked up and down, taking deep breaths. When I was able to look around, I saw that the harbour, filled with boats, was only a hundred yards away. I sat down and got out the lunch Hallie had made me.
I was finishing the last sandwich when I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves. Round the corner came a young woman riding a brown pony, waving. “Hallo, hallo,” she cried. “I am Berglind.”
She rode over, slid off the pony, and held out her hand. “Hallo, Fjola.”
For a moment I simply stared at her wide grey eyes, her fair, freckled skin. Mistaking my silence, she started to apologise. “I wanted to meet you like a hero, but Isolfur is lazy. He wouldn’t trot.” Her brown hair was almost the same colour as the pony’s and she wore it in a single thick braid.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I was just surprised. I’m not used to being called