The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [175]
“What a pity,” said Kristjana. “When you come back we will make arrangements. Now we will wait for you at the van.”
Alone I circled the house. Then I tiptoed towards it and looked through each window in turn: a bedroom, a small sitting-room, a kitchen. The furniture was plain, like my aunt’s. On the walls were several pictures of boats. Nothing was familiar until I looked in the kitchen window. Then I caught sight of the red and brown linoleum. I knew at once I had crawled and walked over it many, many times. Every seam, every spot and scar, was familiar. If I had been able to go inside I would have lain down and kissed that faded floor.
I had no idea how much time passed before I tore myself away. In my notebook I drew a picture of the cottage and a little map of where it stood in relation to the jetty and the two beaches. I scrambled down to each in turn and chose a black stone from one, some pink shells from the other. I might never find the contents of my box, but Mr. Donaldson had mentioned shells.
As we drove back past the harbour Berglind slowed. “See the blue boat,” she said. “She is called after you.”
In bold white letters there was my name, Fjola, on the bow of the boat.
At supper Berglind told me she had to work the next day. Thinking she meant cleaning the house or making soup, I said I could help. She laughed her boisterous laugh. “Not unless you know how to dry fish. Today I didn’t go because of you, but tomorrow I must be there at the big building near the harbour.”
It had not occurred to me that she had a job. Abashed, I thanked her. “I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a day off work for me before,” I said.
“It’s not often I find a lost cousin. What will you do tomorrow?”
“Could you draw me a map of how to get to the mountain that grants wishes?”
“Helgafell? I can. It is about five or six kilometres south. I can lend you a bicycle. Although we call it a mountain it is only a few hundred metres high.”
Gisli began to clear the plates from supper; I rose to help. Last night I had sat shyly while he and Berglind joked over the washing-up, but I knew enough of the household now to fetch and carry. As I scraped the plates into the bucket for the hens, Kristjana said something in which I caught my parents’ names. Berglind took the plates out of my hands.
“Mother wonders,” she said, “if you would like to visit the grave of your parents. We could take flowers from the garden. Is something wrong?”
I looked over at my aunt, who was smiling in my direction. “No, I’m just sorry I didn’t think to ask. I must seem very thoughtless.”
Berglind shook her head. “We both say you are very thoughtful, and my mother adds the grave is not the important thing but that you live far away and maybe it would be good to see.”
In the garden we picked tall daisies. Berglind found a jam jar and filled it with water. Once again she borrowed the van. I had pictured a little cemetery romantically overlooking the harbour, but she told me no, it was on the outskirts of town; I had passed it, without noticing, on the bus. The cemetery was surrounded by a thick hedge and, as we stepped through the gate, the leaves rustled in the breeze. Small birds flew in and out of the branches. Many of the graves were marked by white wooden crosses, some by stones; they all faced in the same direction. My parents had two stones side by side.
“Here is your name,” said Berglind, pointing to the second line. “ ‘Agnes, beloved wife of Einar, and mother of Fjola.’ I used to think they were quite old when they died. Now they seem young.”
The idea that I had all along, without knowing it, been here in this cemetery, in Iceland, took my breath away. I reached out my hand and traced the letters: F-J-O-L-A.
The next morning I helped my aunt in ways that