Excerpt of The Girl by the Bridge by Arnaldur Indridason

Eygló felt awkward and uncomfortable at the birthday party, with- out really knowing why. There were lots of children and adults there in the large, two-storey detached house. All of the girls in her class had come, along with three of the boys, although boys weren’t usually invited to girls’ birthday parties. The birthday girl’s fun and energetic aunts had organised all sorts of entertaining activities and games for the kids, including hide-and-seek, board games and tag in the garden, which was enormous. The kids downed fizzy drinks and popcorn and sugary birthday cakes dec- orated with sweets, and they even got to watch a movie, because the birthday girl’s parents had a projector and copies of American animated films.

All of it should have been enough for Eygló to have fun like the others, but something was holding her back. Maybe it was the environment. She’d never been in such a fancy house before and had a hard time tearing her eyes away from all the wonders within it. Large paintings hung on the walls and there was a gleaming black grand piano in one corner of the drawing room. All of the furniture seemed brand new. The white sofa looked unused, as if it were still on display in the furniture store. The carpet on the drawing-room floor was white as well, and so thick and incredibly soft that her feet sank into it. The home also had a television set with beautifully curved glass and buttons that seemed to be from an alien world. Eygló had never seen such a device before, and when she ran her hand over the glass, the birthday girl’s father came to the door and said in a kindly tone that she mustn’t touch the screen. Eygló was alone in the room, spared from the birthday party.

Her mind wandered back to her own home: the small, dark flat with the leaky tap in the kitchen and the basement window that was so high in the wall she couldn’t see out of it without climbing onto a chair. There was no soft carpet on the floor, just worn lino- leum. Her mother worked all day in a fish factory, and there was usually nothing besides fish for dinner. She didn’t know exactly what her father did. She did know that he was drunk sometimes, and her mother scolded him for it. She didn’t like seeing it because her father was a kind-hearted man and her parents were generally affectionate to one another. And he was always good to his daugh- ter and helped her with her homework and read her stories before disappearing for maybe a few days, without her mother knowing where he was.

The birthday girl, who was turning twelve today, was no special friend of hers. Eygló was at the party only because all the girls in their class had been invited. Actually, she shouldn’t even have been in the same class as these kids, seeing as how their families were all better off and poor kids like her were usually put in worse
classes. Her teacher had quickly recognised the girl’s aptitude for learning and saw to it that she was put in the best class, where conditions for education were better and the teacher’s energy went more into teaching than maintaining discipline. The kids were quite accepting of her. Only two boys had pinched their noses and asked why her clothes smelled so bad. ‘It’s probably the smell of mildew from my basement,’ she’d said.

Maybe she felt like she didn’t belong there, surrounded by all that wealth. She had decided to skip the games for a bit and instead walked through the house, from the bedrooms to the sitting and drawing rooms, the kitchen and laundry room, admiring every- thing she saw. Her mother had told her to have fun and get to know the kids, and Eygló knew she said that because she was wor- ried that her daughter was too much of a loner, feeling happier when she was by herself. Said that she inherited it from her father. But it wasn’t as if Eygló didn’t have many friends. She was sharper than most others her age and knew how to talk to the kids in her new class, and made sure they gave her her due. The other kids recognised that she had something about her and sought her com- pany, rather than the opposite.

Eygló had been wandering around the house for a while when she found herself again in the beautiful room with the soft carpet and the white furniture, and saw a girl she hadn’t noticed before at the party. She was around the same age as Eygló and even more poorly dressed, compared to the other kids.

‘Hello,’ said Eygló, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in the rounded television screen.

The girl seemed depressed, as if something had happened to her. She was wearing a well-worn dress, knee-high socks and sum- mer shoes with buckles.

‘Is everything OK?’ asked Eygló. The girl didn’t answer her. ‘What’s your name?’ asked Eygló.

‘I’ve lost her,’ whispered the girl as she walked towards Eygló and past her without stopping, then onward out of the room. Eygló watched the girl disappear out of the drawing-room door, then looked down at the carpet and saw something she never for- got, because it was all so new and exotic to her. When the girl walked past, her reflection didn’t appear in the television screen and she had left behind no footprints in the thick carpet, as if she were completely weightless.