They phoned for help from Eskifjördur and the news soon spread around the district that the two boys were fighting for their lives in the violent storm that had now hit the village as well. A volunteer search party gathered at Bakkasel that evening but deemed it impossible to start the search until the wind dropped a little and daylight returned. These were difficult hours for the parents, knowing that their two sons were out there on the moor, caught in the blizzard. The boys’ father in particular was distraught and barely in a fit state to talk to anyone, overwhelmed – beside himself, almost – with grief. He considered the boys beyond all aid and refused to take part in organising the search party, whereas his wife, Áslaug was tireless in looking after the helpers and at the head of the company when they finally set out at first light next day.
By then search parties had been called out from the villages of Reydarfjördur, Neskaupstadur and Seydisfjördur, and quite a crowd had gathered. Although the wind had lost much of its force the searchers were hindered by deep drifts. They made first for Eskifjördur Moor, armed with long poles to poke into the snow, and tried to find the brothers’ tracks. But with no luck. It had been snowing heavily all night. It was thought that the brothers were together and had probably dug themselves into a drift. They had been missing for some eighteen hours by the time the rescue operation commenced and, given the freezing temperatures on the mountainsides, it was clear that the searchers were involved in a race against time.
The brothers had been warmly kitted out when they left home, in winter coats, scarves and woollen hats. After about four hours of searching a scarf was found, which Áslaug said belonged to the elder boy, and the search was intensified in the area where it was discovered. A volunteer by the name of Halldór Brjánsson from Seydisfjördur thought he met resistance when he stuck his pole into the snow and when people began to dig there they discovered the elder brother. He was lying as if he had fallen face down. Although he was showing signs of life, he was very cold and frostbite had started to form on his hands and feet. He was barely conscious and could give the searchers no clue as to his brother’s whereabouts. The man who could travel fastest was sent to fetch hot milk, then people took it in turns to carry the boy down from the moor and home to Bakkasel. A doctor was waiting there to examine him and issued instructions for restoring warmth to the boy. He dressed his frostbite and in time the boy began to recover, though it was obvious that he had had a narrow escape. He had come very close to dying of hypothermia.
The search was intensified again in the area where the elder boy had been found but without success. It seemed as if he had been forced by the wind back towards the Thverárdalur valley and Mount Hardskafi. The area of the search was widened again when news came from Bakkasel that the brothers had become separated in the storm and the elder boy did not know what had happened to his brother. He said that they had stuck together for a long time but then he had lost him in the blizzard. He had hunted for him and shouted out his name until he was exhausted and fell again and again into the snow. The boy was said to be inconsolable and barely capable of human interaction. He was frantic to return to the mountains and look for his brother and in the end the doctor had to give him a sedative.
Dusk began to fall again and the weather worsened, so the searchers were forced to retreat to the inhabited area. By then reinforcements had arrived from Egilsstadir. A headquarters was set up in Eskifjördur. At dawn next day a large number of people set out to comb both the moor and the Thverárdalur valley, and the slopes of the mountains Andri and Hardskafi. They tried to work out the boy’s movements after he had become separated from his brother. When the search in that area proved unsuccessful, it was extended both to the north and south but the boy was not found. So the day passed until evening fell.
The organised search lasted for more than a week but, to cut a long story short, the boy was never found. There were a great many conjectures about his fate because it was as if the earth had simply swallowed him up. Some thought he had drowned in the Eskifjördur River and been carried down to the sea, others that he had been driven by the weather higher up into the mountains than anyone had envisaged. Others still thought he must have been lost in the bogs above the head of Eskifjördur fjord as he was making his way home.
Sveinn Erlendsson’s grief at the fate of his sons was said to be terrible to behold. Later the rumour arose in the neighbourhood that his wife Áslaug had warned her husband against taking both boys with him on to the moor that day but that he had ignored her warning.
The elder brother recovered from his frostbite but was said to have been left gloomy and withdrawn by his ordeal. He was reputed to have continued searching for his brother’s remains for as long as the family lived at Bakkasel.
Two years after these events, the family left the district and moved to Reykjavík and Bakkasel was left derelict, as we have said.
Erlendur closed the book and ran his hand over the worn cover. Eva Lind sat silently facing him on the sofa. A long moment passed before she reached for the packet of cigarettes on the table.
‘Gloomy and withdrawn?’ she asked.
‘Old Dagbjartur didn’t mince his words,’ Erlendur said. ‘He needn’t have been so blunt. He didn’t know if I was gloomy or withdrawn. He never met me. He was barely acquainted with your grandparents. He learnt his information from members of the search party. People have no business printing gossip and rumour and dressing it up as the truth. He hurt my mother in a way that was quite uncalled-for.’
‘And you as well.’
Erlendur shrugged.
‘It was a long time ago. I haven’t been keen to advertise the existence of this account, probably out of respect for my mother. She wasn’t happy with it.’
‘Was it true? Didn’t she want you to go with your father?’
‘She was against it. But later on she didn’t blame him for what happened. Of course she was grief-stricken and angry but she knew it wasn’t a question of guilt or innocence. It was a question of survival, survival in the battle against nature. The journey had to be made. There was no way of knowing beforehand that it would turn out to be so dangerous.’
‘What happened to your father? Why didn’t he do anything?’
‘I never really understood that. He came down from the moor in a state of shock, convinced that Bergur and I were both dead. It was as if he’d lost the will to live. He himself only survived by the skin of his teeth after we were separated, and when it grew dark and night fell and the storm intensified your grandmother said it was as if he simply gave up. He sat on the edge of his bed in his room and took no further interest in what was going on. Admittedly he was exhausted and suffering from frostbite. When he heard I’d been rescued he revived a little. I crept into his room and he took me in his arms.’
‘He must have been glad.’
‘He was, of course, but I… I felt oddly guilty. I couldn’t understand why I was spared while Bergur died. I still don’t really understand. I felt as if I must have caused it in some way, as if it was my fault. Little by little I shut myself in with those thoughts. Gloomy and withdrawn. Maybe he was right after all.’
They sat in silence until finally Erlendur laid the book aside.
‘Your grandmother left everything in good order when we moved. I’ve been to derelict farms where it seems as if people have walked out in a hurry and never looked back. Plates on the table, crockery in the cupboards, furniture in the living room, beds in the bedrooms. Your grandmother emptied our house and left nothing behind, took our furniture to Reykjavík and gave the rest of the stuff away. No one cared to live there after we left. Our home fell derelict. That’s a peculiar feeling. On the last day we walked from room to room and I felt a strange emptiness that has stayed with me ever since. As if we were leaving our life behind in that place, behind those old doors and blank windows. As if we no longer had a life. Some power had taken it away from us.’