Peter Høeg - Smilla's Sense of Snow aka Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

He looks from Verlaine to me. Anger clouds his voice. "But you can barely stay on your feet."

I look straight at Verlaine. "I fell. When the alarm went off, I took a step back and fell down the stairs. I must have hit my head on the steps."

Lukas nods, slowly and bitterly. "Any questions, Tørk?"

He doesn't shift his position. He simply cocks his head slightly. He might be in his mid-thirties or his mid-forties. "Do you smoke, Jaspersen?"

I remember his voice clearly. I shake my head.

"The sprinkler system is turned on by section. Did you smell smoke anywhere?"

"No, I didn't."

"Verlaine. Where were your people?"

"I'm looking into that."

Tork gets up. He stands there leaning on the table, looking at me thoughtfully.

"According to the clock on the bridge, the alarm went off at 1557 hours. It stopped three minutes and forty-five seconds later. During that time you were in the activated section. Why aren't you soaking wet?"

My previous feelings have vanished. The only thing I notice through the fever is that one more person with power is persecuting me. I look him straight in the eye. "Practically everything rolls right off me."

Hot water is soothing. I, who grew up with milky-white baths in glacial meltwater, have grown addicted to hot water. One of the few dependencies I acknowledge. Like my occasional need to drink coffee, or to see the sun shining on the ice.

The water in the faucets on board the Kronos is boiling hot. I mix it with cold to just about scalding, and then I let the shower wash over me. It makes the flames burst out from my back, at the base of my skull, the bruises on my pelvis, and especially my foot, which is still swollen and sprained. The fever and shaking grow worse; I stand there until it all goes away, leaving me listless.

I get a thermos of tea from the galley and take it back to my cabin. In the dark, I put it down, lock the door, take a deep breath, and then turn on the light.

Jakkelsen is sitting on my bunk, wearing a white jogging suit. His pupils seem to have receded into his brain, giving him a quartz-like gaze of artificial self-confidence.

"You realize that I saved your life, don't you?" he says. I wait for the terror to let go of my limbs so that I can sit down.

"Life at sea is too brutal for Smilla, I tell myself. So I go down to the engine room and wait. If somebody wants to find you, he just has to go below. Sooner or later you'll come past on your way to the bottom. And right behind you come Verlaine and Hansen and Maurice. But I stay where I am. I'd locked the doors up to the deck, you know. You would all have to come back the same way." I stir my tea. The spoon clatters against the cup.

"When they come back with you in the bag, I'm still sitting there. I'm familiar with their problem. Dumping garbage from the mess and tossing people you don't like overboard is a thing of the past. There are always two on watch on the bridge, and the deck is lit up. Anyone who drops something bigger than a toothpick over the railing will face trouble and a marine inquiry. We'd have to put in at Godthåb and have little bowlegged Greenlanders in police uniforms running around like ants."

It occurs to him that I'm one of those little bowlegged ants he's talking about.

"Sorry," he says.

Somewhere a clock strikes four bells, the measure of time at sea, a time that doesn't distinguish between night and day but only the monotone changeover of four-hour watches. These bells reinforce the feeling that we're at a standstill, that we've never left port but have remained stationary in time and space, merely twisting ourselves farther down into meaninglessness.

"Hansen stays next to the hatch in the engine room. So I saunter up on deck and over to the port stairway. When Verlaine comes up, I see what's going on. Verlaine keeping watch on deck. Hansen at the hatchway. And Maurice alone with you down below. What does that mean?"

"Maybe Maurice wants a quick fuck," I say.

He nods thoughtfully. "That's possible. But he prefers young girls. An interest in mature women comes later, with experience. I'm positive that they're going to drop you into the cargo hold. What a great plan, man! It's forty feet down. It'll look like you fell. All they have to do is take off the sack afterward. That's why they were carrying you so carefully. So there wouldn't be any marks." He beams at me. Pleased that he figured out their plan.

"I go down to the between decks and over to the stairs. Through the steps I can see Maurice lugging you through the door. He's not even breathing hard. But he goes to the weight room every day. Four hundred pounds on the bench press and fifteen miles on the exercycle. I have to make a decision. You've never done anything for me, have you? In fact, you've given me trouble. And besides, there's something about you that's so…so damned…"

"Old-maidish?"

"Exactly. On the other hand, I never could stand Maurice."

He pauses dramatically.

"I'm a fan of the ladies. So I light the cigar. I can't see you anymore. You're out on the platform. But I put my mouth on the smoke detector and blow, and it goes off." He gives me a searching look.

"Maurice comes toward the stairs, covered with blood. The sprinklers wash it down the steps. A small flood. It makes me want to throw up. Why are they going to so much trouble? What have you done to them, Smilla?"

I need his help. "They've put up with me until now. Things started going wrong as soon as I got too close to the stern."

He nods. "That's always been Verlaine's territory."

"Now we're going to go up to the bridge and tell Lukas all about this," I say.

"No can do, man."

There are red patches on his face. I wait. But he can hardly speak.

"Does Verlaine know that you're a little needle freak?" He reacts with that baroque cockiness you sometimes encounter in people who have almost hit bottom.

"I'm the one controlling the drug; the drug doesn't control me!"

"But Verlaine has seen through you. He's going to put the finger on you. Why would that be so bad?"

He meticulously studies his tennis shoes.

"Why do you have a pass key, Jakkelsen?" He shakes his head.

"I've already been up on the bridge," I say. "With Verlaine. We agreed that the alarm went off by itself. That I fell down the stairs out of sheer astonishment."

"Lukas won't buy that."

"He doesn't believe us. But there's nothing he can do. You weren't mentioned at all."

He's relieved. Then a thought occurs to him. "Why didn't you tell him what happened?"

I have to win his help. It's like trying to build something on sand. "I'm not interested in Verlaine. I'm interested in Tørk."

The panic is back in his eyes. "That's much worse, man. I know a creep when I see one, and he's bad news."

"I want to know what we're on our way to get."

"I've told you, man. We're on our way to get some dope."

"No," I say. "It's not dope. Narcotics come from the tropics. From Colombia. From Burma. From Pakistan. And it goes to Europe. Or the U.S.A. It doesn't come to Greenland. Not in quantities that require a 4,000-ton ship. That forward cargo hold is specially built. I've never seen anything like it. It can be sterilized with steam. The air composition, temperature, and humidity can be regulated. You've seen all of this and thought about it. What did you come up with?"

His hands take on their own helplessly fluttering life on top of my pillows, like baby birds that have fallen out of the nest. His mouth opens and shuts.

"Something alive, man. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. They're going to transport something that's alive."

Sonne unlocks the sick bay for me. It's nine o'clock at night. I find a gauze bandage. He bolsters his uncertainty by standing at attention. Because I'm a woman. Because he doesn't understand me. Because there's something he wants to say.