Smilla's Sense of Snow (24 page)

Read Smilla's Sense of Snow Online

Authors: Peter Høeg

BOOK: Smilla's Sense of Snow
6.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
The next one is a tall black hull. An aluminum stairway leads upward amidships, but it all seems empty and deserted. The ship's name is
Kronos
. It's about four hundred feet long.
We walk back to the car.
“Maybe we should go on board,” he says.
I'm the one who has to make the decision. For a moment I'm tempted. Then comes the fear and the memory of the burning profile of the
Northern Light
against Iceland Wharf. I shake my head. Right now, at this moment, life seems too precious to me.
We call Lander from a phone booth. He's still at work.
“What if the name of the ship was
Kronos
?” I say.
He goes away and then returns. A few minutes pass as he turns the pages.
“
Lloyd's Register of Ships
lists five: a chemical tanker based in Frederiksstad, a sand dredger in Odense, a tugboat in Gdansk, and two ‘general cargo' ships, one in Piraeus and one in Panama.”
“The last two.”
“The Greek one is a 1,200-ton ship, the other 4,000 tons.” I hand the ballpoint pen to the mechanic. He shakes his head.
“I'm no good at numbers, either.”
“Any picture?”
“Not in
Lloyd's
. But quite a few statistics. Four hundred and fifteen feet long, built in Hamburg in '57. Reinforced for ice.”
“The owners?”
He goes away from the telephone again. I look at the mechanic. His face is in darkness; now and then car headlights make it appear, white, anxious, sensual. And under the sensuality, something intractable.
“
Lloyd's Maritime Directory
lists the shipowner as Plejada, registered in Panama. But the name looks Danish. A Katja Claussen. Never heard of her.”
“I have,” I say.
“Kronos
is our ship, Lander.”
We're sitting on his bed with our backs against the wall. In this light, against his naked whiteness, the scars around his wrists and ankles are as black as iron bands.
“Do you think that people determine their own lives, Smilla?”
“The details,” I say, “but the big things happen on their own.”
The telephone rings.
He removes the tape and listens to a brief message. Then he hangs up.
“You might want to take out your high-heeled shoes. Birgo wants to meet us tonight.”
“Where?”
He laughs secretively.
“A shady dive, Smilla. But put on your good clothes.”
He carries me up the stairs. I kick in his arms, and we laugh quietly so as not to attract attention. In Qaanaaq, when I was little, the bridegroom would drag the bride out to the sled on their wedding night, and they would drive off followed by hooting guests. Sometimes they still do that. The hour I'm going to spend alone getting dressed already seems long. I'd rather ask him to stay so I could keep on looking at him. He's still not completely anchored in reality
for me. His raw sweetness, his massive bulk and awkward politeness are still like a vivid dream. But only a dream. I reach out, grab hold of the door frame, and resist being set down. I let my fingers slide along the top hinge. The two pieces of tape have been broken, the ragged edges prick my fingertips.
I take his hands and move them up to the tape. His face grows somber. He puts his mouth against my ear. “We'll sneak off …”
I shake my head. My apartment is sacrosanct. You can take anything away from me, but I must have a corner somewhere to myself.
I try the door. It's not locked. I step inside. He has to follow me. But he's not happy about it.
The apartment is cold. That's because I always turn down the heat when I leave. I'm stingy about energy. I seal windows. I shut doors. It comes from living in Thule. From firsthand experience of how precious and scarce petroleum is.
That's why I naturally turn off all the lights behind me, too. And turn on only what's absolutely necessary. Now a light that I did not turn on is shining from the living room out into the hallway.
The swivel desk chair is pulled over to the window. A coat with wide shoulders is hanging over the back. A hat is floating on the shoulders. A pair of shiny black shoes is resting on the windowsill.
I don't think we've made any noise. But the shoes come down all the same, and the chair slowly turns around to face us.
“Good evening, Miss Smilla,” he says. “And Mr. Føjl.”
It's Ravn.
His face is ashen with weariness, and there's a shadow of a beard on his cheeks, which I don't think the district attorney for special financial crimes would approve of. His voice sounds groggy, like someone who hasn't had any sleep for a long time.
“Do you know what the first requirement is for establishing a career in the Ministry of Justice?”
I take a look around. But he seems to be alone.
“The first requirement is
loyalty
. You also have to have a high score on your exams. And a desire to achieve which is far beyond the ordinary. But in the long run, the important thing is whether
you are loyal. Common sense is not a prerequisite, on the other hand. Might even be a drawback.”
I sit down on a chair. The mechanic leans against the desk.
“At some point we had to choose. Some became deputy judges and, eventually, judges. They often had a natural faith in justice, in the system. Faith in the possibility of healing and rebuilding. The rest of us became assistant detectives, investigators, and later assistants to the district attorney. With time, maybe assistant prosecutors. We were the suspicious ones. We believed that a statement, a confession, an incident was seldom what it purported to be. This suspiciousness was an excellent tool for us. As long as it wasn't directed at our work or at the Ministry itself. A bureaucrat in the prosecutor's office must never doubt that he is right. Any impertinent question from the press must be referred to higher-ups. Any article you publish with even a hint of criticism—well, virtually any article at all—will be interpreted as disloyalty toward the Ministry. In some ways you no longer exist as an individual in the Ministry of Justice. Most comply with this demand. I can tell you that most people secretly find it a relief to have the state divest them of the trouble of being an independent person. The few who can't comply are separated out at an early stage.”
I've seen it on long journeys. When someone is burned out, he suddenly discovers within himself a landscape of cheerful cynicism.
“And yet once in a while a slippery character happens to stay in the system. Someone who can hide his true nature until it's too late. Until he's made himself relatively indispensable, so it would be difficult for the Ministry to do without him. This type of person will never reach the top. But he can get partway up. Maybe even as far as the position of investigator for the district attorney. By that time he would be too old—and maybe even too expert in his field—to be dispensable. But he has made too much trouble to be promoted upward. This kind of person would be a pebble in the Ministry's shoe. It doesn't really hurt, but it's annoying. With time, they would try to put this kind of person into a niche. Where they could draw on his stubbornness and memory, but where they could keep him out of the public eye. Maybe he would end up taking on special assignments. Like intelligence work, where staying out
of the spotlight is part of the job. A complaint about the investigation of a little boy's death might even end up in his lap. If it turned out that there was already a report on file about the case.”
He doesn't look at either of us.
“It so happens that word comes from higher up that the person who filed the complaint must be reassured. ‘Pacified,' as they say at the Ministry at Slotsholm. They have a good deal of experience in this. But this time the case is more difficult. A child's death. Photographs of his footprints on the roof. It could easily turn into an embarrassment. So I voice the idea that there's some irregularity in the boy's death. But I don't get any backup, from either the police or the Ministry.”
He gets up from the chair with difficulty.
“Then that deplorable fire occurs. Unfortunately, it too has something to do with Greenland. And the name of the gentleman who perishes is listed in the aforementioned report. Yesterday morning I was taken off the case. ‘Due to its complex nature,' etc.”
He straightens his hat and walks over to the desk. He taps lightly on the red tape on the phone.
“Very clever,” he says. “There's no end to the trouble these apparatuses cause innocent citizens. But it would have been even better not to answer the phone at all, or not to give out your number. The ship was almost totally destroyed by the fire, but the telephone must have been made of a non-flammable material. And it was lying on the floor, too. It had a built-in memory that stored the last number called. The last number was yours. My guess is that you will soon be invited in for a little talk.”
“Wasn't it risky for you to come here?” I ask.
He has a key in his hand. “We borrowed a key from the custodian during the initial investigation. I took the liberty of making a copy. So I went through the basement rooms. I'm planning to go back out the same way.”
For a fleeting moment something happens to him. A light goes on in his face, as if a pinch of humor and humanity flares up behind the lava. The fossilized memory of the pumice stone, of the time when everything was hot and flowing. It's this light that makes me ask the question.
“Who is Tørk Hviid?”
The light goes out, his face becomes expressionless, as if his soul had left his body.
“Is that someone's name?”
I pick up his coat and help him into it. He's a little shorter than me. I brush off a speck of dust from his shoulder. He looks at me.
“My home number is in the book. Think about calling me, Miss Smilla. But from a phone booth, if you wouldn't mind.”
“Thanks,” I say.
But he's already gone.
The chimes of Our Saviour's Church are ringing. I look at the mechanic. I have my hands behind my back. The room is full of what Ravn brought with him and left behind: candor, bitterness, insinuations, some kind of human warmth. And something else.
“He was lying,” I say. “He lied at the end. He knows who Tørk Hviid is.”
We look into each other's eyes. Something is wrong.
“I hate lies,” I say. “If any lying has to be done, I'll do it myself.”
“Then you should have told him that. Instead of coming right out and hugging him.”
I can't believe my ears, but I see that I've heard correctly. In his eyes there is the gleam of pure, unadulterated, idiotic jealousy.
“I didn't hug him,” I say. “I helped him into his coat. For three reasons. First, because it's a courtesy you ought to show toward a fragile, elderly man. Second, because he presumably risked his position and pension to come here.”
“And the third?”
“Third,” I say, “because it gave me the chance to steal his wallet.”
I put it on the table, under the light, where Isaiah's cigar box once stood, a wallet made of heavy brown leather.
The mechanic stares at me.
“Petty theft,” I say. “Considered a minor offense under the law.”
I empty its contents onto the table. Credit cards, krone notes. A plastic case with a white card which states, under a black embossed crown, that Ravn has the right to park in the Ministry's parking lots at Slotsholm. A bill from Andersen Brothers tailor shop. To the tune of 8,000 kroner. A small fabric sample of gray
wool attached to the bill with a paper clip. “Man's overcoat, Lewis tweed, delivered October 27, 1993.” Until now I thought his coats were a mistake. Something he had bought used. Now I see that they're intended to be that way. On the income of an ordinary bureaucrat he spends a fortune for the fragile illusion of an extra foot and a half across his shoulders. For some reason this puts him in a conciliatory light.
There's a pouch for coins. I shake them out. Among them I find a tooth. The mechanic bends over me. I lean back against him and close my eyes.
“A baby tooth,” he says.
In the back there is a bundle of photographs. I lay them out like playing cards in a game of solitaire. On a mahogany buffet there is a samovar. Next to the buffet a shelf full of books. The word “cultivated” is one of those Danish words that I've never been able to regard as anything but a linguistic truncheon to hit people over the head with. But maybe it could be used to describe the woman in the foreground. She has white hair, rimless glasses, a white wool suit. She must be in her mid-sixties. In the other photos she sits surrounded by children. Grandchildren. That explains the baby tooth. She pushes a child on a swing, cuts a cake at a table out in the yard, takes a baby being handed to her by a younger woman who has her jaw but Ravn's gauntness.
These pictures are in color. The next one is black-and-white. It looks as if it's been overexposed.
“These are Isaiah's footprints in the snow,” I say.
“Why does it look like that?”
“Because the police don't know how to photograph snow. If you use a flash or lights at more than a 45° angle everything disappears in the glare. It has to be done with Polaroid filters and lights down at the level of the snow.”
The next photo shows a woman on a sidewalk. The woman is me, the sidewalk is in front of Elsa Lübing's building. The picture is blurry, taken from a car window—part of the car door blocked the lens.
They were luckier with the mechanic. His hair seems too short, but otherwise it looks like him. There is both a profile and a full-face photo.
“From the service,” he says. “They got out the old pictures from when I was in the service.”
The last picture is another color photo; it looks like a vacation shot, with sunshine and green palm trees.
“Why t-take pictures of us?”
Ravn doesn't take notes and wouldn't need photographs to prod his memory.
“To show around” I say, “to other people”
I put the papers and the tooth and the coins back. I put everything back. Except the last photo. Palm trees beneath an undoubtedly intolerable sun. Humidity guaranteed close to 100 percent. But the man in the photograph is still wearing a shirt and tie under his lab coat. He looks cool and comfortable. The man is Tørk Hviid.

Other books

Vida by Marge Piercy
Bone River by Chance, Megan
Collide & Burn by Conn, Claudy
FireStarter by Khloe Wren
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
What an Earl Wants by Shirley Karr