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Authors: Peter Høeg

Smilla's Sense of Snow (49 page)

BOOK: Smilla's Sense of Snow
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“Why?”
I wonder whether he'll be able to grasp it. But there's no other alternative than to tell him the truth. Or what I suspect is the truth.
“I don't know for sure, but it looks as if the heat might be coming from the stone. It's emitting some kind of energy. Maybe in the form of radioactivity. But there's also another possibility.”
“What's that?”
I can tell by looking at him that these are not new ideas for him, either. He, too, knew that something was wrong. But he pushed the problem aside. He's a Dane. Always choose the comfort of suppressed information rather than the burdensome truth.
“The forward tank of the
Kronos
has been rebuilt. It can be sterilized. It's equipped with supplies of oxygen and compressed air. It's constructed as if they were going to transport a large animal. It has occurred to me that Tørk may believe that the stone you are going to pick up is alive.”
The bottle is empty.
“That was a good idea with the fire alarm,” I say.
He smiles wearily. “It was the only way to put the papers back and at the same t-time explain why they were wet.”
We're sitting at opposite ends of the bed. The
Kronos
is moving more and more slowly. A gloomy and lively battle is raging inside my body between two kinds of poison: the crystal-clear unreality of the amphetamines and the fuzzy pleasure of the alcohol.
“It was when Juliane told you that Loyen had regularly examined Isaiah that I decided it might have something to do with a disease. But when I saw the X-rays, I was convinced. X-rays from the expedition in '66. Lagermann got them from Queen Ingrid's Hospital in Nuuk. They didn't die from the explosion. They were attacked by some kind of parasite. Maybe some sort of worm. But bigger than any I've ever seen. And faster. They died within a few days. Maybe in a few hours. Loyen wanted to find out whether Isaiah had been infected.”
The mechanic shakes his head. He doesn't want to believe me. He's on a treasure hunt. On his way to find diamonds.
“That's why Loyen has been involved right from the start. He's a scientist. Money is secondary. He was after the Nobel Prize. He's been anticipating a scientific sensation from the moment he found out about it back in the forties.”
“Why didn't they tell me all this?” he asks.
We all live our lives blindly believing in the people who make the decisions. Believing in science. Because the world is inscrutable and all information is hazy. We accept the existence of a round globe, of an atom's nucleus that sticks together like drops, of a shrinking universe—and the necessity of interfering with genetic material. Not because we know these things are true, but because we believe the people who tell us so. We are all proselytes of science. And, in contrast to the followers of other religions, we can no longer bridge the gap between ourselves and the priests. Problems arise when we stumble on an outright lie. And it affects our own lives. The mechanic's panic is that of a child who for the first time catches his parents in a lie he had always suspected.
“Isaiah's father was diving,” I say. “Presumably the others were, too. Most parasites go through a stage in water. You're going to
dive, and you'll get others to dive. You're the last person they're going to tell.”
Emotion drives him to his feet.
“You have to help me make a phone call,” I say.
As I stand up, my hand closes around a piece of metal wrapped in a cloth in the drawer, and around a flat, round container.
The radio room is located behind the bridge, across from the officers' mess. We manage to make it there without being seen. Outside the door I hesitate. He shakes his head.
“It's empty. The IMO requires it to be manned twice an hour, but we have no radio technician on board. Instead, they set the HF at 2182 kHz, the international emergency frequency, and then they connect it to an alarm which sounds when someone sends a distress signal.”
Jakkelsen's key won't open the door. I feel an urge to scream.
“I
have to
get inside,” I say.
The mechanic shrugs.
“You owe it to both of us,” I say.
He still wavers for a moment. Then he carefully places his hands on the door handle and pushes the door in. There's no splintering of wood, only a scraping sound as the latch forces the steel frame inward.
The room is quite small and crammed with equipment. There's a little VHF, a double longwave transmitter the size of a refrigerator, some kind of box that I've never seen before, with a Morse sender mounted on top. A desk, chairs, telex machine, fax, and a coffee machine with sugar and plastic cups. On the wall there's a clock with paper triangles of different colors taped to its face, a mobile telephone, a calendar, equipment certificates in thin steel frames, and a license certifying Sonne as a radio operator. On the desk there's a tape recorder that has been screwed down, manuals, and an open radio log.
I write the number on a piece of paper.
“This is Ravn's number,” I say.
He freezes. I take him by the arm, thinking that this is the last time in my life I'll ever touch him.
He sits down in the chair and is transformed into a different
person. His movements become quick, precise, and authoritative, just like in his kitchen. He taps on the face of the clock.
“The triangles indicate the internationally established times when the channels have to be kept free and open for distress signals. If we go into that time the alarm will go off. For the HF this means within three minutes past the half hour and the hour. We have ten minutes.”
He hands me a telephone receiver, taking the main receiver himself. I sit down next to him.
“It's hopeless in this weather and this far from the coast,” he says.
At first I can follow what he's doing, even though I couldn't have done it myself.
He selects the maximum output of 200 watts. At that level the transmitter risks drowning out its own signal, but the bad weather and distance from shore make it necessary.
There's the crackling of empty space, and then a voice comes through.
“This is Sisimiut. What can we do for you?”
He decides to transmit on the carrier wave. The transmitter has analog readouts and automatic settings. Now it will continue to adjust according to the carrier wave while the conversation is transmitted over a side band. It's the most efficient method, and probably the only one on a night like this.
Right before he sets the dials, the receiver picks up a Canadian station sending classical music over the shortwave net. For a moment the room disappears, as I'm overwhelmed by childhood memories. It's Victor Halkenhvad singing
Gurrelieder
. Then Sisimiut is back.
The mechanic doesn't ask for Lyngby Radio. He asks for Reykjavik. When the station responds, he asks for Torshavn.
“What's happening?” I ask.
He covers the microphone. “All the larger stations have an automatic directional finder that is switched on when they receive a call. They compute the costs for a conversation under the name of the ship you give. In case a false name is used, they take a bearing on the ship's position, so that a conversation can always be charged back to a set of coordinates. I'm creating a smokescreen.
With every new station it'll be harder to trace the call. By the fourth linkup it'll be impossible.”
He gets Lyngby Radio, tells them he's calling from the good ship
Candy 2
, and gives them Ravn's number. He gives me a long look. We both know that if I demand a different procedure, a direct call that would make it possible for Ravn to track the position of the
Kronos
, the mechanic will break off the connection. I don't say a word. I've already pressed him too hard. And we're not done yet.
He requests a security line. Far away, in a different part of the world, a telephone rings. The signal is faint and intermittent.
“What's it like outside, Smilla?”
I try to remember the night and the weather. “Clouds with ice crystals.”
“That's the worst. The HF beams arc along the atmosphere. When it's overcast or snowing, they can get caught in a reflection trap.”
The telephone rings, monotone and lifeless. I give up. Hopelessness is a numbness that emanates from your gut.
Then someone picks up the phone.
“Yes?”
The voice is close, crystal-clear, but groggy with sleep. It must be about five in the morning in Denmark.
I envision her the way she looked in the photos in Ravn's wallet. White-haired, wearing a wool suit.
“May I speak to Ravn?”
As she puts down the receiver, a child starts crying nearby. It must be sleeping in their bedroom. Maybe between them in the bed.
“Ravn here.”
“It's me,” I say.
“You'll have to call some other time.”
Because his voice comes through so clearly, the rejection is quite clear, as well. I don't know what has happened. But now I've gone too far to wonder about it.
“It's too late,” I say. “I want to talk about what happened on the roofs. In Singapore and in Christianshavn.”
He doesn't reply. But he's still listening.
It's impossible to visualize him as a private citizen. What does he wear to bed? How does he look right now, in bed next to his grandchild?
“Let's imagine that it's late afternoon,” I say. “The boy is walking home alone from kindergarten. He's the only child who isn't picked up every day. He's walking along the way children do, wandering and skipping, with his eyes on the ground. Only aware of his immediate surroundings. The same way your grandchildren walk, Ravn.”
I can hear him breathing as clearly as if he were in the room with us.
The mechanic has pulled the headset away from one ear so that he can follow the conversation and also listen for sounds in the corridor.
“That's why he doesn't see the man until he's right next to him. He was waiting in the car. The buildings have no windows facing the parking lot. It's almost dark. It's the middle of December. The man grabs him. Not by the arm, but by his clothes. By the bib of his rain overalls, which won't tear, and where he won't leave any marks. But he miscalculates. The boy recognizes him at once. They've spent weeks together. But that's not why he remembers him. He remembers him from one of the last days. The day when he saw his father die. Maybe he saw the man force the divers back into the water after one had died. At a time when they didn't know what was wrong. Or maybe it was the experience of death itself which the boy has come to associate with the man. At any rate, he doesn't see a human being in front of him. He sees a threat. The way only children can experience threats. It's overwhelming. At first he freezes up. All children freeze up.”
“You're guessing,” says Ravn.
The signal is getting worse. For a moment I almost lose my train of thought.
“The child beside you would freeze up, too,” I say. “That's where the man miscalculates. The boy looks so small. He bends down toward him. He's like a doll. The man is going to lift him onto the seat. For a moment he lets go. And that's his mistake. He hadn't anticipated the boy's vitality. Suddenly the boy takes
off. The ground is covered with packed snow. That's why the man doesn't catch him. He doesn't have the boy's training in running on snow.”
Now they're paying attention, the man next to me and the man an infinite distance away. It's not so much me they're listening to. It's fear that binds us, the child's fear we all carry within us.
“The boy runs along the building. The man runs out into the street and blocks his way. The boy reaches the warehouses. The man comes after him, slipping and stumbling. But calmer now. There's no escape. The boy turns toward him. The man relaxes. The boy looks around. He has stopped thinking. But inside him an engine is spinning that will keep on going until all his strength is used up. It's this engine that the man hasn't counted on. Suddenly the boy is on his way up the scaffolding. The man follows. The boy knows what's behind him. It's terror personified. He knows that he's going to die. This feeling is stronger than his fear of heights. He continues up to the roof. And then he runs forward. The man stops. Maybe he wanted this to happen from the very beginning, maybe the idea first occurs to him now, maybe up here he first becomes aware of his own intentions. The possibility of eliminating a threat. To avoid having the boy ever tell anyone what he saw in a cave on a glacier somewhere in Davis Strait.”
“You're guessing.” Ravn's voice is a whisper.
“The man moves toward the boy. Watches him running along the edge, looking for a way down. Children can't grasp the whole picture, the boy probably doesn't even know where he is; he only sees what's a few yards ahead. At the edge of the snow the man stops. He doesn't want to leave any tracks. He's hoping it won't be necessary.”
BOOK: Smilla's Sense of Snow
5.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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