Waiting for Spring - Chapter II
Before Breakfast
This is Chapter 2 of Waiting for Spring.
If you missed Chapter 1, you can find it here.
II
Dear Mother,
The days are very regular here. They still make us sit outside in the cold. The air near the water feels sharper in the mornings somehow. The new doctor arrived yesterday. Younger than I expected. He listens carefully. Perhaps too carefully. They say I should remain until spring. I suspect they say that to everyone. I’m sleeping better again. Mostly. How is Loppa? Does she still wait near the door in the evenings? And tell Jón not to touch the shed. He’ll only make things worse. I think about the light there sometimes. Especially in the mornings here, before the wind rises.
Give my regards to everyone.
— Einar
Someone knocked hard against the door.
Mikael woke at once, though for a moment he did not know where he was.
Another knock.
“Doctor?”
He sat up. The room was dark except for the window, which had begun to pale slightly at the edges.
“Yes.”
“You need to come.”
The voice belonged to one of the assistants. Young. Nervous.
Mikael was already reaching for his trousers.
“What happened?”
A pause.
“She started bleeding.”
—
The corridor felt colder than the night before.
Mikael followed the girl quickly past the closed rooms. His shirt was half-buttoned beneath the sweater. He could feel the cold air on his neck.
Ahead of them, a woman coughed. Then again. Then something else entered the sound. Wet. Heavy.
The assistant glanced back briefly.
“Not again,” she said quietly.
Kristín was already inside when Mikael entered the room.
The woman sat forward in the bed, one hand gripping the sheet beneath her. Blood covered the front of her nightdress and had already soaked through the towel against her mouth. A basin stood beside the bed, not empty. Kristín held another cloth ready in her hand.
“Higher,” Mikael said.
She did not move immediately.
“She’ll choke if she lies flat.”
“I know.”
But she raised the woman further. The woman coughed again. Blood spilled between her fingers before Kristín caught the cloth beneath it. The smell reached him then. Metallic. Thick.
“What’s her name?”
“Guðrún.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
Mikael moved closer.
“More towels,” he said.
The assistant hesitated only a second this time before disappearing back into the corridor.
Guðrún tried to speak.
“No,” Kristín said quietly.
The woman looked at Mikael instead. Her breathing had become irregular now. Fast, then interrupted. Mikael placed one hand behind her shoulder.
“Slowly,” he said. As soon as he said it, he knew how useless it sounded.
Another cough came suddenly. Stronger. Blood struck the cloth, the blanket, Mikael’s sleeve. The woman bent forward sharply. Kristín steadied her with one arm across the chest.
“Turn her further forward,” Mikael said.
“We are.”
“More.”
Kristín looked at him then. Only briefly. Then adjusted the woman again. The assistant returned carrying linen badly folded in both arms. One towel slipped onto the floor.
“Leave it,” Kristín said.
Guðrún coughed again. Less blood this time. But the breathing had changed. Mikael listened to it for a moment. The pauses between breaths grew longer.
“Can we stop it?” the assistant asked quietly.
Nobody answered.
Outside, wind pressed once against the window.
The woman’s hand moved suddenly against the blanket, searching for something. Kristín took it.
Guðrún’s eyes shifted once toward the ceiling, then back toward Mikael. He thought she might speak again. Instead, the breath caught halfway. Stopped. Returned briefly. Then stopped again.
Nobody moved immediately. The assistant lowered her eyes first. Kristín remained beside the bed holding the woman’s hand a few seconds longer than necessary. Then she let it rest on the blanket.
Mikael realized only afterward that he had been holding his breath.
—
Afterward, the room returned to its routines. Kristín folded the stained cloth inward before setting it aside. The assistant emptied the basin and returned with water. Someone opened the window a little. Cold air entered the room. It changed the smell, though not entirely. Mikael stood near the foot of the bed, looking down at the blood on his cuff.
“You should change that,” Kristín said.
He looked up.
“She knew,” he said.
Kristín continued straightening the blanket.
“They usually do.”
Mikael watched her hands.
“You’ve seen this before.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Kristín did not answer immediately.
“Enough.”
The assistant stood uncertainly near the door.
“What now?” she asked.
Kristín looked toward her.
“Breakfast,” she said.
—
Breakfast had already begun.
At the far end of the table, the man with the newspaper sat with the pages spread beside his plate. Before speaking, he folded the newspaper carefully into exact quarters.
“They have a name for it now,” he said.
Nobody answered.
He tore the bread in half.
“Kristallnacht.”
Someone farther down the table asked for butter.
“Because of all the glass,” the man with the newspaper said. “Shop windows mostly. But not only.”
He looked down at the paper again.
“They burned synagogues too.”
Mikael sat without touching the food. The man turned the page.
“I’m sure Heydrich is behind the arrests,” he said. “Himmler uses him for that sort of thing.”
He shrugged slightly.
“Men like that usually rise.”
—
Einar was not on the veranda that morning.
The chairs faced the fjord as before. Blankets, books, lowered faces. The wall blocked some of the wind, not all of it. Kristín moved along the row adjusting blankets.
Mikael stopped beside the empty chair.
“Where is he?”
“Inside.”
“Why?”
“He slept badly.”
Mikael looked at her.
She continued to the next patient.
—
Sigríður held a book open in her lap.
“You were called early,” she said.
“Yes.”
She nodded once. The wind moved a strand of hair loose beside her cheek. She did not seem to notice it.
“Did everyone hear?”
“Most things are heard here.”
Mikael looked out toward the fjord. Far from shore, birds moved low across the water before disappearing into the light.
“She was fifty-five,” Sigríður said.
Mikael turned back.
“Guðrún?”
“She arrived the year after me.”
He said nothing.
Sigríður closed the book over one finger.
“People fear the blood more than the fever,” she said.
“Why?”
Sigríður looked out toward the fjord.
“Because sometimes there’s no time to call anyone.”
After a moment, she opened the book again.
“She hated the outside rest,” she said. “Said the wind had teeth.”
—
Later, Mikael found Einar awake in the men’s ward.
“You missed the view,” Mikael said.
Einar shifted slightly beneath the blanket.
“It’ll still be there tomorrow.”
“Optimistic.”
“It’s one of my better qualities.”
Mikael pulled the chair closer and sat down. For a while, neither of them spoke. Somewhere down the corridor, a tray struck the floor, followed by a muffled apology. Einar smiled without opening his eyes.
“New assistant.”
“How can you tell?”
“The older ones swear first.”
Mikael almost smiled.
Einar opened one eye slightly.
“You look tired.”
“Long night.”
Einar watched him a moment.
“Was it bad?”
Mikael hesitated.
“Yes.”
Einar looked toward the window.
“They don’t tell us much here.”
“No.”
“We usually know anyway.”
For a moment nobody spoke. Then Einar nodded toward the corridor.
“Kristín keeping you busy?”
“Something like that.”
A faint smile appeared again.
“She can be harsh until she decides you’re useful.”
“And after that?”
“Still harsh.”
Mikael laughed quietly before he meant to. Einar heard it.
“There,” he said softly. “Now you sound less like a doctor.”
—
The closed door became part of the corridor by afternoon. People passed it without slowing. Meals arrived, temperatures were taken, blankets were carried outside and returned stiff with cold.
Once Mikael slowed outside Guðrún’s door. Kristín approached from the far end of the corridor carrying folded linen.
“You’ll block the hall,” she said.
He stepped aside.
“Did she have family?”
“Yes.”
“Nearby?”
“No.”
Kristín continued past him.
After several steps, she stopped.
“It’s my job to take care of that,” she said.
Then she went on.
—
That evening, Mikael remained in his room longer than usual.
The letter still lay unopened on the table.
Agnes had written twice before he left Reykjavík. The second letter shorter than the first.
He tried to picture her face clearly.
Instead, he found himself remembering a man standing too close beside him outside a café near the harbor several months earlier. The smell of tobacco on his coat. The brief touch against his hand before either of them moved away.
Mikael stood abruptly and crossed to the window.
The fjord had darkened almost completely now. Below him, the veranda lay empty. One blanket had been left draped unevenly across a chair.
He stayed there a long time.
Looking into the darkness.
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Next - Chapter 3