Free Walking Into the Night by Olaf Olafsson

beneath his gaze—the jetty a splinter in the sea, the houses like pebbles in his palm—his kingdom, until the mountain called in reply:
    “What?”
    His voice broke as he shouted from the rock:
    “I can fly!”
    He knew he could. He knew he had the strength and the determination. He took to the air, above the abyss, the precipice; the birds heeding his command and raising him towards the sky, the rocks echoing his voice, the sun watching from above.
    Then all of a sudden he fell.

21
    A sweet smell of alcohol clung to Elisabet’s father when he and his daughter came to visit shortly after midday on the Friday before the wedding. He was singing as he approached the house by the lake and suddenly gave his daughter a smacking kiss on the cheek for no apparent reason, twirling her in a circle and shouting as he opened the garden gate:
    “Open up, Tomas, and welcome your brother-in-law!” Elisabet’s uncle was startled and Kristjan heard him say to his wife:
    “Your brother’s here. Were you expecting him?”
    Without waiting for anyone to come to the door, her father opened it himself and breezed into the front room.
    “Now, how about a coffee at Hotel Iceland? While it’s still dry. That was a hell of a downpour this morning.”
    He refused to take off his coat and sit down in the parlor, saying if he did they’d never set off.
    “You and your wife should do a bit of sightseeing while you’re in town,” he said to Kristjan’s father. “It wouldn’t make any sense to come all this way from the West Fjords and not visit some of the better establishments. So let’s go now, let’s get moving!”
    He spoke loudly. His brother-in-law tried to avoid going with them, asking whether he and his wife wouldn’t be in the way.
    “We’ve just
had
coffee,” said his wife.
    “Come on,” said Elisabet’s father. “It’s not every day that you’re invited out.”
    He went back out onto the steps, taking off his hat and looking up at the sky, brandishing his walking stick in the air.
    “No, damn it,” he said as if to himself. “I refuse to believe it’ll still be raining tomorrow.”
    Elisabet went straight out into the garden to pick some daisies. She returned with a bunch just as the others were putting on their coats.
    “I’ll put them in a vase for you, Gudrun,” she said.
    “Aren’t you coming with us?” asked her aunt.
    “No, I’m staying behind with Kristjan.”
    Her aunt looked at her brother.
    “They could do with some time together,” he said. “What with the wedding tomorrow . . . There’s a lot to think about.”
    Tomas closed the garden gate carefully behind him, with its number seven woven into the midst of the decorative ironwork, gold-painted and trustworthy. Kristjan had seen the maid polishing it twice since he arrived.
    Elisabet waved them goodbye, then closed the door. Kristjan was standing in the shadows in the front room. She handed him the daisies. A sunbeam found its way through the round pane of glass in the front door and fell between them; a butterfly danced in the light.
    “Look!” she said.
    She took off her coat and laid it over a chair in the front room. Somewhere in the house a clock chimed, but she didn’t notice. The silence was overwhelming. Finally she went over and put her arms around him.
    He stood rigid, staring in front of him, his hands at his sides. Gradually, however, he moved, dropping the daisies, slowly lifting his hands and laying them on her shoulders. She felt them tremble.
    “Come here,” she said and led him into the parlor. “Come here . . .”
    She walked ahead of him; when they crossed the threshold he took her in his arms and carried her to the sofa where her aunt like to sit. He laid her down gently, then loosened his suspenders.
    Above the sofa there were photographs of the family: the aunt beside a round table; her husband posing, pipe in hand; their grown-up children; distant relatives. When he lowered himself on top of her he found he