Smilla's Sense of Snow (53 page)

The mechanic stands up and goes over to the porthole. I lean forward. With one hand I pick up the bottle. With the other I pull out the drawer and touch the cloth inside. It's wrapped around a rounded, ridged metal object.

I look at him. I see his weight, his slowness, his vigor, his greed, and his simplicity. His need for a leader, the danger he represents. I also see his solicitude, his warmth, his patience, his passion. And I see that he is still my only chance.

Then I close my eyes and wipe my internal slate clean. Gone is our mutual lying, the unanswered questions, the justifiable and the morbid suspicions. The past is a luxury we can no longer afford.

"Føjl," I say, "are you going to dive near that stone?"

He nodded at my question. I didn't hear whether he said anything or not. But he nodded. For a moment this affirmation blocks out everything else.

"Why?" I hear myself ask him.

"It's lying in a lake of meltwater. It's almost covered. It's supposed to be close to the surface of the ice. Seidenfaden doesn't think it will be difficult to get to it. Either through a meltwater tunnel or through the cracks in a crevasse right next to the saddle. The problem is getting it out. Seidenfaden thinks we should enlarge the tunnel that drains the lake and bring the stone out that way. It will have to be enlarged with explosives. It will all be underwater work."

I sit down next to him.

"Water," I say, "freezes at 32°F. What reason did Tørk give you to explain why there's water surrounding the stone?"

"Isn't there something about the pressure in the ice?"

"Yes. There's something about the pressure. The farther down you go in a glacier, the warmer it gets. Because of the weight of the ice masses above. The ice cap is -10°F at a depth of 1,600 feet. Sixteen hundred feet farther down it's 14°F. Since the melting point depends on the amount of pressure, water actually exists at temperatures below freezing. Maybe even at 29°F. There are temperate glaciers in the Alps and the Rocky Mountains in which meltwater exists at a depth of a hundred feet and below."

He nods. "That's what Tørk explained to me."

"But Gela Alta isn't in the Alps. It's a so-called cold glacier. And it's quite small. At the present time its surface temperature must be 14°F. The temperature at its base is about the same. The melting point under that pressure is around 32°F. Not a drop of liquid water can form in that glacier."

He looks at me as he takes a drink. What I've said doesn't bother him. Maybe he didn't understand it. Maybe Tørk provokes a sense of trust in people that locks out the rest of the world. Maybe it's just the usual problem: ice is incomprehensible to those who were not born to it. I try another approach.

"Did they tell you how they found it?"

"The Greenlanders found it. In prehistoric times. It was in their legends. That's why they got Andreas Fine Licht involved. In those days it might have still been on top of the ice."

"When a meteor enters the atmosphere," I say, "the first thing that happens, at about ninety miles out, is that a blast wave goes through it, as if it had rammed into a concrete wall. The outer layer melts off. I've seen black stripes like that strewn on the ice cap. But this decreases the speed of the meteor and the heat. If it reaches the earth without breaking up, it typically has the earth's median temperature of 41°F. So it doesn't melt down. But it doesn't just sit there either. The force of gravity calmly and quietly presses it down. No meteorites of any size have ever been found on top of the ice. And none ever will be. Gravity presses them down. They become encapsulated and with time are carried out to sea. If they get caught in a crevice underground, they'll be pulverized. There's nothing delicate about a glacier. It's a combination of a stone crusher and a gigantic carpenter's plane. It doesn't create enchanted caves around objects of geological interest. It files them down, mashes them to powder, and empties the powder into the Atlantic Ocean."

"Then there must be warm springs around it," the mechanic says.

"There's no volcanic activity on Gela Alta."

"I've seen the photographs. It's lying in a lake."

"Yes, I've seen those photographs, too. If the whole thing's not a hoax, it's sitting in water. I sincerely hope that it's a hoax."

"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 universeand 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."