‘She was so frightened we’d be deported if she left him,’ Stella said. ‘Anyway, what about your parents?’

‘They divorced,’ he said. ‘Which is just as well. Mum lives in Tenerife with her cousin, and I don’t know about the old man. We’re not in touch.’

Gunnar looked her up and down, struggling to see her as a young woman. She had been such a cute child, and even though he had little patience with children when he had been a teenager, there had been something about the two of them shipwrecked together in the refuge that brought them together. He had called her his Curlytop, and they had played endless hands of cards. He just couldn’t see her as a grown woman; all he could see was the strange, delicate child who had leaped from chair to chair in the refuge in endless attempts to fly.

‘You’re still casting spells?’ he asked with a wink.

‘Yeah!’ she laughed.

Most of the little girls he had encountered had wanted to be princesses, or Pippi Longstocking, but this one had definitely aspired to become a witch.

68

Marita hadn’t slept at all. But now, well into the morning, with daylight ready to assert itself before too long, everything seemed better. She set the percolator to run a second time and cleared the breakfast things away, while Jónatan sat at the kitchen table, reading the weekend papers with interest.

Every now and again he’d chuckle with satisfaction, before heaving a sigh and getting to his feet. She glanced at the spread he had been reading and saw it was something about the minister of the interior and that homeless guy, but she couldn’t be 164bothered to read more and wondered why Jónatan had found it so amusing.

The percolator had done its work so she switched it off, pouring the coffee into a Thermos. This was the last of the coffee, so there would be no choice but to go to the shop. She would either get dressed and drive to Hveragerði to go shopping, or else send Jónatan down to the shop with a list. He didn’t seem to notice the whispers and people gawping.

‘What?’ she called out when she heard him saying something in the bedroom. He didn’t reply, but she could hear his voice. ‘What did you say?’ she called again. She opened the door out into the corridor so she could hear him more clearly, and realised he was on the phone.

‘Just take a look at what’s in the newspapers, and don’t forget that you owe me one,’ he was saying. Then he turned around, pocketed the phone and looked at her with a smile. ‘Everything all right, love?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I thought you were saying something to me,’ Marita said.

‘No, just on the phone,’ he said and smiled again.

She looked at him enquiringly. He looked cheerful, as if he had something to be happy, even optimistic, about. She hadn’t seen him like that for a long time; not since this terrible business had begun. He gave her a wink and went into the bathroom where she heard him turn the tap on full blast. He always did that to get hot water to shave. Before long he would reappear, freshly shaved and sweet-smelling, with that cheerful look on his face. and Marita suddenly felt an urge to hit him. She wanted to slap that shaven, silky-smooth face, to knock the happy look from it, to beat it until he could understand, completely and with all his heart, that she would in all likelihood never again be happy. 165