Read Smilla's Sense of Snow Online
Authors: Peter Høeg
Smilla's Sense of Snow (31 page)
“Back to where?”
“To Scoresbysund. We were on exercises in Greenland. It was cold. But that suited him fine.”
The snow closes around us in a chaotic gridwork, a wild confusion of slanted stripes.
“He's disappeared,” I say. “I tried to call him. Some stranger answered the phone. Maybe he's in jail.”
One minute before the ship appears, I can sense its presence. The pull of the hull against the anchor chains, the slow shifting of the entire vast, floating hulk.
“Forget about him, honey. That's what the rest of us have had to do.”
On the port side there is a short floating platform at the bottom of a steep ladder beneath a single yellow light. He doesn't turn off the motor but steadies the boat by holding on to an iron girder.
“You can go back with me, Smilla.”
There's something touching about him, as if he hadn't realized until now that we stopped playing games a long time ago.
“The thing is,” I say, “that I don't have anything in particular to go back to.”
I sling the box onto the platform myself. When I step up onto it and turn around, he stands there for a moment, gazing at me, a small figure, rising and sinking, the big rubber boat lending him a dancing movement. Then he turns away and pushes off.
My cabin is 8 by 10 feet. But they've still found space for a sink and mirror, a closet, a bunk with a reading light, a shelf for books, a chair, and under the porthole a little desk with the big dog on top.
He stretches from one bulkhead all the way across to the bed and is about six feet long. His eyes are sad, his paws dark, and with every list of the ship, he tries to touch me. If he succeeds, I will instantly disintegrate. My flesh will fall off my bones, my eyes will run out of their sockets and evaporate, my intestines will force their way out through my skin and explode in clouds of methane.
He doesn't belong here. He doesn't belong in my world at all. His name is Aajumaaq and he's from East Greenland, and my mother brought him home from a visit to Ammassalik. After seeing him once down there, she realized that he must have always been present in Qaanaaq, too, and after that she saw him regularly. He never touches the ground, and here, too, he floats a little above the desk. He's here because I'm on a ship.
I've always been afraid of the sea. They never got me into a kayak, even though it was my mother's greatest wish. I have never set foot on the deck of Moritz's Swan. One of the reasons I'm fond of ice is that it covers the water and makes it solid, safe,
negotiable, manageable. I know that, outside, the waves and the wind have picked up, and far forward the bow of the
Kronos
is pitching through the waves, splintering them, and sending loud cascades of water along the gunwale until, outside my porthole, they disperse into a whistling mist shining white in the night. On the open sea there are no landmarks, there is only an amorphous, chaotic shifting of directionless masses of water that loom up and break and roll, and their surface is, in turn, broken by subsystems that interfere and form whirlpools and appear and disappear and finally vanish without a trace. Slowly this confusion will work its way into the chambers of my inner ear and destroy my sense of orientation; it will fight its way into my cells and displace their salt concentrations and the conductivity of my nervous system as well, leaving me deaf, blind, and helpless. I'm not afraid of the sea simply because it wants to strangle me. I'm afraid of it because it will rob me of my orientation, the inner gyroscope of my life, my awareness of what is up and down, my connection to Absolute Space.
negotiable, manageable. I know that, outside, the waves and the wind have picked up, and far forward the bow of the
Kronos
is pitching through the waves, splintering them, and sending loud cascades of water along the gunwale until, outside my porthole, they disperse into a whistling mist shining white in the night. On the open sea there are no landmarks, there is only an amorphous, chaotic shifting of directionless masses of water that loom up and break and roll, and their surface is, in turn, broken by subsystems that interfere and form whirlpools and appear and disappear and finally vanish without a trace. Slowly this confusion will work its way into the chambers of my inner ear and destroy my sense of orientation; it will fight its way into my cells and displace their salt concentrations and the conductivity of my nervous system as well, leaving me deaf, blind, and helpless. I'm not afraid of the sea simply because it wants to strangle me. I'm afraid of it because it will rob me of my orientation, the inner gyroscope of my life, my awareness of what is up and down, my connection to Absolute Space.
No one can grow up in Qaanaaq without going to sea. No one can live as I have, as a professional student and expedition outfitter and guide in North Greenland, without being forced to go to sea. I've been on more ships and for much longer periods of time than I care to remember. If I'm not actually standing on a deck, I've usually managed to repress it.
The process of disintegration started the moment I came on board several hours ago. There's a boiling in my ears, a strange, internal displacement of fluids. I can no longer discern the points of the compass with certainty. Aajumaaq sits on my desk waiting to catch me off guard.
He waits right inside the doorway leading to sleep, and every time I hear my own breath grow deeper and know that now I'm asleep, I don't slip into that peaceful obliteration of reality that I need. Instead, I fall into a dangerous new clarity beside that guiding spirit, the floating dog with three claws on each paw, amplified by my mother's imagination; ever since I was a child, he has been grafted into my nightmares.
It's been about an hour since the engines started up, and from a great distance I sensed rather than heard the play of the anchor
and the clattering of the chain, and I'm too tired to stay awake and too tense to sleep, and in the end I just wish for some kind of diversion.
and the clattering of the chain, and I'm too tired to stay awake and too tense to sleep, and in the end I just wish for some kind of diversion.
It comes with the opening of my door. There's no knock, no warning footsteps. He tiptoes up to the door, jerks it open, and sticks his head inside.
“The captain wants to see you on the bridge.”
He stands in the doorway, trying to make it difficult for me to get out of bed and put on my clothes, trying to make me expose myself. With the quilt around my shoulders I slide down to the foot of the bunk and give the door a kick so that he just manages to pull back his head in time.
Jakkelsen. His name is Jakkelsen. He might have a first name, too, but on the
Kronos
only surnames are used.
Kronos
only surnames are used.
I stand there in the rain until the rubber boat with Lander's silhouette disappears. Since there's no one in sight, I try to lift my box by myself, but have to forget about getting it up the ladder. I leave it behind and climb into the darkness beyond the single light.
The steps end at an open cargo door. Inside, a dim bulb illuminates a green corridor on a level with the second deck. Sheltered from the rain, with his feet up on a cable-end box, a boy sits smoking a cigarette.
He's wearing black steel-toed shoes, blue work pants, and a blue wool sweater, and he's too young and much too gaunt to be a sailor.
“I've been waiting for you. Jakkelsen. We use last names here. Captain's orders.”
He scrutinizes me. “Stick with me, because I can do things for you, know what I mean?”
He has a dusting of freckles across his nose, his hair is red and curly. Above the cigarette his eyes are half-closed, lazy, inquisitive, insolent. He could be seventeen.
“You can start by getting my baggage.”
He gets up reluctantly, letting his cigarette fall to the deck, where it continues to glow.
He barely manages to get up the ladder with the box. He
puts it down on the deck. “I have a bad back, know what I mean?”
puts it down on the deck. “I have a bad back, know what I mean?”
He walks on ahead, sauntering, with his hands behind his back. I follow with the box. A deep, continuous vibration of giant engines passes through the hull, like a reminder that departure is imminent.
A stairway brings us to the level of the upper decks. Here the smell of diesel fuel dissipates, the air tastes of rain and cold. One corridor has a white wall on the right, a long row of doors on the left. One of them is mine.
Jakkelsen opens it, steps aside so I can enter, follows me in, closes the door, and stands in front of it.
I shove the box aside and sit down on the bed.
“Jaspersen. According to the crew list, your name is Jaspersen.”
I open the closet.
“How about a quick fuck?”
I wonder whether I've heard right.
“Women are crazy about me.”
A certain eagerness and excitement has come over him. I stand up. It's important to avoid being caught by surprise.
“That's a good idea,” I say. “But let's wait until your birthday. Your fiftieth birthday.”
He looks disappointed. “By then you'll be ninety. So I won't be interested.”
He gives me a wink and goes out the door. “I know the sea, remember. Stick with me, Jaspersen.”
Then he shuts the door.
I unpack. The bathroom is down the corridor. The water from the hot-water tap is scalding. I stand under the shower for a long time. Then I rub my skin with almond oil and put on a jogging suit. I lock the door and lie down under the quilt. The world can come and get me if it needs me. I close my eyes and sink down. Through the gateway. On the desk, Aajumaaq slowly appears. In my dreams I know that it's a dream. It's possible to reach a certain age and a point in your life when even your nightmares start to have a halfway soothing and familiar sense to them. That's about the stage that I've reached.
The engine noise grows louder and they weigh anchor. Then the
Kronos
sets off. And Jakkelsen opens my door.
Kronos
sets off. And Jakkelsen opens my door.
I'm positive that I locked it. I make a note that he must have a key. It's a small thing that's worth remembering.
“Your uniform,” he says outside the door. “We wear uniforms here.”
In the closet there are blue pants that are too big, blue T-shirts that are too big, a blue smock that's too big and as shapeless as a flour sack, and a blue wool sweater. On the floor there's a pair of short rubber boots with plenty of room to grow into. About five or six sizes, if they're really going to fit.
Jakkelsen is waiting for me outside. He inspects me over his cigarette but doesn't say a word. His fingers drum against the bulkhead; there's a new restlessness about him. He walks on ahead.
At the end of the corridor he turns left to the stairs leading to the upper levels. But I take a right, out onto the deck, and he has to follow me.
I stand by the railing. The air is dripping with ice-cold moisture, the wind is strong and gusty. But you can see lights straight ahead.
“Helsingør-Hälsingborg, the strait between Denmark and Sweden. The world's busiest channel, you know. Swedish car ferries, Danish train ferries, a giant marina, container traffic. Every three minutes a ship crosses. There's no other place like it. The Strait of Messina, for instance, I've been there lots of times, it's nothing. This is really something. And in this kind of weather there are disturbances on the radar, it's like taking a submarine through buttermilk soup.”
His fingers are drumming nervously on the railing, but his eyes are staring out into the night with what looks like enthusiasm.
“We came through here when I was in the merchant marine school. On board a fullrigger. Sunshine, Kronborg Castle on the port side, and the little girls in the marina got all excited when they saw us.”
I go first. We climb up three levels to reach the navigation bridge. To the right of the stairs is the chart room behind two big glass
windows. It's dark, but faint red light bulbs glow above laid-out sea charts. We step inside the wheelhouse.
windows. It's dark, but faint red light bulbs glow above laid-out sea charts. We step inside the wheelhouse.
The room is dark. But below us, in the light of a single deck lamp, 250 feet forward in the night, lies the deck of the
Kronos
. Two 60-foot masts with heavy cargo booms. At each mast four cargo winches; at the entrance to the short, elevated foredeck, a control box for the winches. Between the masts, on the deck, is a rectangular shape under a tarp where several small blue figures are working to secure long, criss-crossed rubber straps. Maybe it's the LMC, the navy's surplus landing vessel. On the foredeck, a huge anchor winch and a hatch in four sections over a cargo hold. Every three feet along the sea rail there's an upright white floodlight. In addition, fire hydrants, foam fire extinguishers and rescue equipment. Nothing else. The deck is clear and shipshape.
Kronos
. Two 60-foot masts with heavy cargo booms. At each mast four cargo winches; at the entrance to the short, elevated foredeck, a control box for the winches. Between the masts, on the deck, is a rectangular shape under a tarp where several small blue figures are working to secure long, criss-crossed rubber straps. Maybe it's the LMC, the navy's surplus landing vessel. On the foredeck, a huge anchor winch and a hatch in four sections over a cargo hold. Every three feet along the sea rail there's an upright white floodlight. In addition, fire hydrants, foam fire extinguishers and rescue equipment. Nothing else. The deck is clear and shipshape.
And now empty as well. While I've been surveying the deck, the blue figures have disappeared. Now the light is turned off and the deck vanishes. Far forward, where the bow chops through the waves, white protuberances of displaced water suddenly appear. On both sides of the ship, surprisingly close, the lights of the shores can be seen. The little passenger ferries cross behind and in front of us. In the rain the yellow floodlights make Kronborg Castle look like a drab modern prison.
Two slowly rotating green radar images glow from the darkness of the room. A red dot of dull light in a big liquid compass. In front of the window, with one hand on the manual tiller, stands a man, his back partly turned toward us. It's Captain Sigmund Lukas. Behind him a straight-backed, motionless figure. Next to me Jakkelsen is rocking restlessly on the balls of his feet.
“You can go.” Lukas speaks softly, without turning around. The figure behind him slips out the door. Jakkelsen follows him. For a moment his movements show no reluctance.
My eyes slowly grow used to the dark, and out of nothingness appear the instruments; some I recognize, some I don't, but I've always kept my distance from all of them because they belong to the open sea. And because, for me, they symbolize a culture that has inserted a layer of lifeless instruments between itself and its attempt to determine its location.
The liquid crystals on the SATNAV computer, the shortwave radio, consoles for LORAN C, a radio location system that I've never understood. The red numbers on the sounding device. The console of the navigational sonar. The inclinometer. A sextant on a tripod. Instrument panels. The phone to the engine room. Visibility dials. A radio locator. The automatic pilot. Two panels full of volt meters and control lights. And above all of it Lukas's alert, expressionless face.
The VHF emits a continuous crackle. Without shifting his gaze, the captain reaches over and turns it off. There is silence.
“You're on board because we needed a cabin attendant. A stewardess, as it's now called. Not for any other reason. That conversation we had was an employment interview, nothing else.”
In my floppy sea boots and much too large sweater I feel like a little girl being disciplined in school. Not once does he look at me.
“We haven't been able to find out where we're going. We'll be told later. Until then we're following our noses due north.”
There's something different about him. It's his cigarettes. They're gone. Maybe he doesn't smoke at sea. Maybe he sails to get away from the gambling tables and the cigarettes.
“First Mate Sonne will show you around and point out your work areas. Your duties include light cleaning, and you're responsible for the ship's laundry. You will also occasionally wait on the officers.”
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