Jónatan – Yo-natan

Pétur – Pye-tuur

Guðmundur – Guth-mund-uur viii

1

With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that Úrsúla’s promise, made on her very first day in office, was her downfall. At the same time it cracked open the armour that had encased her heart for far too long.

The night after accepting the keys in front of the press, she had dreamed terrible things. Her dreams were of fevered bodies, open sores, despair in the eyes of those bringing sick relatives to the camps, and then explosion after explosion, as if her former roles in Liberia and Syria had merged into one seamless nightmare.

The next morning she was still dazed and exhilarated after the previous evening’s reception at the ministry, and the cards bearing messages of goodwill and the flowers that had been presented to her were still piled high in her office. But the dream had left her feeling raw, so she was ill-prepared for the heartfelt rage of the woman who sat opposite her, begging her to help bring to justice the police officer who had raped her fifteen-year-old daughter back home in Selfoss.

The girl had hardly spoken a word since, didn’t want to leave the house. She had lost herself completely, the woman said as the tears flowed down her face. She wiped them away, whimpering with frustrated fury, and asked where the case had got to. She had asked the police, the state prosecutor’s office and her lawyer, but nobody seemed to know anything. So Úrsúla made a promise. She promised to make it her business to find out. She took the woman’s hand, who clasped it in her own, looked into Úrsúla’s eyes and thanked God that the minister of the interior was a woman. 2

3

Friday

1

He was still full after the hot porridge at the Community Aid canteen, and the snow was deep, reaching halfway up his calves, so he ambled rather than walked. The snow was still coming down hard, so he decided to shorten his usual walk today. He wouldn’t go all the way down to Kvos as coming back again would be heavy going.

He started at Hlemmur, always at Hlemmur. There was a kind lady there at the bakery who always pushed a pastry his way. He’d usually keep it in his pocket so he had something for later on, when he’d feel the need of it. Sometimes he was hungry and would eat it the same day, and at other times he’d save it and have it a day or two later. Danish pastries kept well. Normally they were just as good after a couple of days. He left this time with both a twisted doughnut and some kind of fancy, nutty pastry in his pocket. It was a comfort to know that he had something to fall back on, in case he couldn’t make it to the Community Aid canteen but was still hungry, just like that summer when he had broken his leg. He had been properly in the shit then, living on his own in the bushes up at Öskjuhlíð, unable to walk and find himself anything to eat. It would have been great to have had something in his pocket then.