Smilla's Sense of Snow aka Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

by Peter Høeg

  I go on board via a gangway with a thick coir mat and railings with polished bronze knobs. The entire deck is filled with big wooden crates marked FRAGILE and stacks of planks and paint cans. All the ropes are meticulously coiled up, all the wood has the deep, dark brown sheen of a dozen layers of expensive ship's lacquer. The white enamel shines like glass. The air shimmers with polish, two-component epoxy, and joint paste. Aside from this shimmering, the ship is apparently deserted.

  A narrow ladder between the crates leads to a lacquered double door that isn't locked. Beyond the door a companionway descends into the darkness.

  A man is standing at the bottom of the steps. He's leaning on a spear, and he doesn't move. Not even when I'm quite close to him.

  The room must have several skylights that are still covered. But along the edges of the covers, thin stripes of white light filter in. Enough so that I can see it's a big hall. All the dividing walls have been torn out to create an area that is about eighty feet long and just as wide as the ship.

  Now there is enough light for me to see that the man in front of me is an Inuit. What he's leaning on is a long harpoon. In his left hand he's holding a dart thrower. He is only partially dressed, in high kamiks and an inner coat of bird skin. He isn't much taller than me. I pat him on the cheek. He is cast from hollow fiberglass and then cleverly painted. His face is alert.

  "Lifelike, isn't it?"

  The voice comes from somewhere behind a screen. On my way over to it I have to go around a kayak that is still partially wrapped and a glass counter lying there like an empty 800-gallon aquarium. The screen is a hide stretched between two whalebones. Behind it is a desk. Behind the desk sits a man. He stands up and I shake his proffered hand. He looks exactly like the mannikin. But he's thirty years older. His hair is thick and cut pageboystyle, but gray. His background is like mine. Greenlandic a in some way.

  "You're the curator?"

  "Yes, I am."

  His Danish is without accent. He gestures with his hand. "We're in the process of setting up the collection. It cost a fortune."

  I place the tape in front of him. He touches it cautiously.

  "I'm trying to identify the man speaking. I found my way over here by calling the Institute for Eskimology."

  He smiles with satisfaction. "Word of mouth is the best advertisement. And by far the cheapest. Do you know what it costs to advertise?"

  "Only personal ads."

  "Is that expensive?" He is sincerely interested. Humor is wasted on him. "Very."

  He nods. "It's terrible. They clean you out. The newspapers. The tax system, the customs office…"

  It seems to me that I've seen him before. It's a feeling that I get from faces and places more and more often. I don't know whether it's because I've seen so much that the world is starting to repeat itself, or whether it's due to premature wear and tear on the mental apparatus.

  He has a square, flat, matte-black cassette tape recorder on the table in front of him. He puts in the tape. The sound comes from distant speakers on the perimeter of the room. Now that my eyes are becoming adjusted to the darkness, I can sense the way the walls curve along with the sides of the ship.

  He listens for half a minute with his head in his hands. Then he stops the tape.

  "Mid-forties. Grew up near Angmagsalik. Very little formal education. On top of the East Greenlandic there are traces of more northern dialects. But up there they move around too much to say which exactly. He has probably never been away from Greenland for any appreciable length of time."

  He looks at me with light-gray, almost milky eyes, with an expression as if he's waiting for something. Suddenly I know what it is. It's the applause after the first act. "Impressive," I say. "Can you tell me more?"

  "He's describing a journey. Across ice. With sleds. He's probably a hunter, because he uses a series of technical terms, such as anut for the dog harnesses. He's probably talking to a European. He uses English names for locations. And he seems to think he has to repeat many things."

  He listened to the tape for a very short time. I wonder whether he's pulling my leg.

  "You don't believe me," he says coldly.

  "I just wonder how you can conclude so much from so little."

  "Language is a hologram." He says this slowly and firmly.

  "In every human utterance lies the sum total of that person's linguistic past. Now, you yourself… You're in your mid-thirties. Grew up in Thule or north of there. One or both parents Inuit. You came to Denmark after assimilating the entire linguistic foundation of Greenlandic, but before you lost the child's instinctive talent for learning a foreign language perfectly. Let's say you were between seven and eleven years old. After that it gets harder. There are traces of several sociolects. Perhaps you lived or went to school in the northern suburbs, Gentofte or Charlottenlund. There is also a trace of a North Sealand accent. And strangely enough, even a later hint of West Greenlandic."

  I make no attempt to hide my astonishment. "That's true," I say. "It's all basically true." He smacks his lips in satisfaction.

  "Is there any possibility of determining where the conversation took place?"

  "You really can't tell?"

  I notice it again. His bold self-confidence and his sense of triumph at his knowledge.

  He rewinds. He doesn't look at the tape recorder while he's handling it. He plays about ten seconds for me. "What do you hear?"

  I hear only the incomprehensible voice. "Behind the voice. Another sound."

  He plays it again. Then I hear it. The faint, escalating sound of a motor, like a generator starting up and then shut off.

  "A prop plane," he says. "A big prop plane."

  He fast-forwards. Turns it on again. A segment with the faint clatter of dishes.

  "A large room. Low-ceilinged. Tables being set. Some kind of restaurant."

  I can see that he knows the answer. But he's enjoying pulling it very slowly out of his top hat.

  "A voice in the background."

  He plays the same segment several times. Now I can just make it out.

  "A woman," I say.

  "A man talking like a woman. He's yelling. In Danish and American English. Danish is his mother tongue. Presumably he's yelling at the person setting the table. He's probably the restaurant manager."

  One last time I wonder whether he's just guessing. But I know he's right. He must have an abnormally precise and skilled sense of hearing and a gift for languages.

  The tape is playing again. "Another prop plane," I suggest.

  He shakes his head. "A jet. A smaller jet. Quite soon after the previous plane. An airport with heavy traffic." He leans back.

  "Where in the world can an East Greenlandic hunter sit and talk in a restaurant where the tables are being set, where a Dane is yelling in American English, and where you can hear an airport in the background?"

  Now I know, too, but I let him tell me. Let little kids have their fun. Even grown-up kids.

  "Only one place. At Thule Air Base."

  On the base the club is called the Northern Star. A restaurant in two sections, with a dance hall.

  He starts the tape again. "It's strange." I don't say a word.

  "The music… behind the voice… remnants from the previous recording. It's pop, of course. 'There Must Be an Angel' by the Eurythmics. But the trumpet…"

  He looks up.

  "Of course you can hear that the piano is a Yamaha grand."

  I can't hear any piano at all.

  "A loud, heavy, flashy tone. A rather clumsy bass. Often a little off-key. Certainly no Bosendorfer… But it's the trumpet that surprises me."

  "There's some of the music left at the end of the tape," I say.

  He fast-forwards. When he presses the play button, we're at a spot right after the music starts.

  "Mr. PC!" he says. Then his face goes blank, self-absorbed.

  He lets it play to the end. When he stops the tape, he seems very far away. I give him time to come
back. He wipes his eyes.

  "Jazz," he says quietly. "My passion…"

  It was a brief moment of letting down his guard. When he comes back, he's as cocky as ever. Three-quarters of the politicians and bureaucrats who are part of the Home Rule belong to his generation. They were the first Greenlanders to get a university education. Some of them have survived and held on to their identities. Others-like the curator-with their fragile but abnormally overblown self-confidence, have become genuine, intellectual Northern Danes.

  "It's actually quite difficult to recognize a musician from the tone. Who can you identify this way? Stan Getz when he plays Latin-American style. Miles Davis from his naked, precise, vibrato-less sound. Armstrong by his meticulous crystallization of New Orleans jazz. And this musician."

  He looks at me, full of anticipation and reproach. "Great jazz is synonymous with the John Coltrane quartet. McCoy Tyner on the piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones on drums. And in the periods when Jones was in prison: Roy Hanes. Just those four. Except on four occasions. The four concerts at the New York Independent Club. That's when Roy Louber joined them on trumpet. He learned his sense for European harmonizing and his incantatory African nerve from Coltrane himself."

  We sit there for a moment thinking about this. "Alcohol," he says suddenly, "has never been good for music. Cannabis is supposed to be great. But alcohol is a ticking bomb under jazz."

  We sit there listening to the bomb ticking.

  "Since that time in '64, Louber has been working on drinking himself to death. On his way down, in both human and musical terms, he happened to come through Scandinavia. And he stayed here."

  Now I remember his name from concert posters. From certain scandalous newspaper headlines. One of them said: FAMOUS DRUNK JAZZ MUSICIAN TRIES TO TIP OVER CITY BUS. "He must have been playing in the restaurant. It's the same acoustics. The people eating in the background. Someone has seized the opportunity to make a pirate recording."

  He smiles, full of sympathy for such a project. "They've managed to get themselves a free live recording. You can save a lot of money with a little Walkman. If you dare take the risk."

  "Why would he go to Thule?"

  "Money, of course. Jazz musicians live on so-called bare-ass jobs. Imagine what it costs…"

  "What costs?"

  "To drink yourself to death. Have you ever thought about how much money you save by not being an alcoholic?"

  "No," I say.

  "Five thousand kroner," he says.

  "Excuse me?"

  "That will be five thousand kroner for the session. Ten thousand if you want a notarized transcription of the contents."

  There's not a trace of a smile on his face. He's dead serious.

  "Can I get a receipt?"

  "Then I'll have to add sales tax."

  "Go ahead," I say. "Go right ahead."

  I really can't use the receipt for anything. But I'm going to hang it up on the wall at home. As a reminder of what can happen to the famous Greenlandic generosity and indifference to money.

  He types it up, on a sheet of typing paper.

  "I'll need at least a week. Do you want to call me five or six days after New Year's?"

  I take five crisp new 1,000-krone notes from the bundle. He closes his eyes and listens as I count them out. He has at least one passion more burning than modal jazz. It's the sensual crackle of money changing hands, with him on the receiving end.

  After I stand up I think of one other thing I have to ask him.

  "How did you learn to get so much from what you hear?"

  He beams like a sun. "I was originally a theologian. An occupation that presents excellent opportunities for listening to people."

  It's because the pastoral robes are such a total mask that it has taken me so long to recognize him. Even though it's less than ten days since I saw him bury Isaiah.

  "Occasionally I still step into the role. Assist Pastor Chemnitz when he's busy. But in the last forty years it's been mostly languages. My teacher at the university was Louis Hjelmslev. He was a professor of comparative linguistics. He had a solid knowledge of forty or fifty languages. And he had learned and forgotten just as many. I was young then and as surprised as you are. When I asked him how he had learned so many languages, he replied"-and now he imitates a man with a severe overbite-" `The first thirteen or fourteen take a long time. After that, it goes a lot faster.' "

  He roars with laughter. He's in a great mood. He has demonstrated his brilliance and earned money for it. It strikes me that he is the first Greenlander I've ever met who used the formal De with me and expected me to do the same.

  "There's one more thing," he says. "Since I was twelve years old, I've been totally blind."'

  He enjoys my sudden stiffness.

  "I make my eyes follow your voice. But I can't see a thing. Under certain circumstances, blindness sharpens the sense of hearing."

  I shake the hand he offers me. I ought to keep my mouth shut. There's really something perverse about harassing a blind man. And a fellow countryman at that. But for me there's always been something mysterious and provocative about genuine, sincere greed.

  "Mr. Curator," I whisper, "you should be careful. At your age. With all the money you have on you. Surrounded by these treasures. On a ship that's screaming like an open bank vault. South Harbor is crawling with crooks. You know the world is full of people unscrupulously striving to obtain the possessions of their fellow human beings."

  He swallows hard.

  "Goodbye," I say. "If I were you, I would barricade the door after I leave."

  The last golden rays of sunshine have settled on the flat stone of the dock. In a few minutes they'll be gone, leaving behind a raw, damp cold.

  There's not a soul in sight. I use a key to slit the white plastic on the sign. Just a rip, just enough to see inside. It was painted by a sign painter. Black letters on a white background. "Copenhagen University, the Polar Center, and the Cultural Ministry hereby establish the ARCTIC MUSEUM." Then a list of the foundations paying for the fun. I don't bother to read it. I start walking along the dock.

  The Arctic Museum. That's where Isaiah's ship was bought. I pull the curator's receipt out of a deep pocket.

  It's impeccably composed, and yet another miracle, considering that he's blind. He signed it. His signature is illegible. But he has also stamped it. I can read the stamp.

  It says "Andreas Fine Licht, Ph.D. Professor of Eskimo Languages and Cultures."

  I stand still until the shock subsides. Then I consider going back.

  I decide to keep going. The tape is a copy. And when you're hunting, it's sometimes beneficial to make yourself visible, to stop and wave the butt of your rifle.

  4

  I arrive just about on time. The little blue Morris is parked on H. C. Andersens Boulevard, in front of Tivoli.

  The mechanic looks like a man who's been waiting, and thinking too many gloomy thoughts.

  I get in beside him. The car is cold. He doesn't look at me. His face reveals his pain like an open book. Together we stare straight ahead in silence. I'm not on the police force. I have no reason to press him for a confession.

  "The Baron," he says finally, "he remembered. He never forgot."

  I've had the same thought myself.

  "S-sometimes three weeks would pass without him coming to the basement. When I was a kid and went away to camp for three weeks, I had practically forgotten my parents by the time I came home. But the Baron did little things. If I'm on my way home and he's at the playground playing, he stops. And then runs up to me. And then walks along with me for a while. As if to show me that we know each other. Just up to the door. There he stops. And nods to me. To show that he hasn't forgotten me. Other children forget. They like anyone who comes along, and then they forget about them."

  He bites his lip. I have nothing to add. There's relatively little that words can do for grief. Words can do relatively little about anything. But what else do we have?

/>   "We're going to have tea," I say.

  On our way through the city I tell him nothing about my visit to Berth 126. But I do tell him about my phone call afterward, from a phone booth, to Benedicte Clahn.

  La Brioche d'Or is on Stroget, near Amager Square, on the second floor, a couple of buildings past the Royal Porcelain store.

  Even in the doorway there are photographs of the cornucopia, three feet in diameter, that the pastry shop delivered to the royal court with a crane. On our way up the stairs there is a display of particularly memorable cream cakes that look as if they've been given a coat of hairspray and will remain there for all eternity. The entrance is guarded by a life-sized model of the boxer Ayub Kalule – that was made out of dark chocolate when he became European Champion, and inside there is a long table covered with cakes that look capable of practically anything except flying.

  The ceiling is decorated with plaster curlicues like whipped cream, and there are chandeliers, and on the floor is a carpet as thick and spongy and the same color as an angel-food cake soaked in sherry. Elegant ladies are sitting at small tables with white tablecloths, washing down a second piece of Sacher torte with pint cups of hot cocoa. To ameliorate the expected shock of the bill and the encounter with the bathroom scale, a pianist wearing a toupee is sitting on a platform absentmindedly playing a Mozart potpourri, which turns downright sloppy when he attempts to wink at the mechanic at the same time.

  In one corner, sitting alone, is Benedicte Clahn. Certain people don't seem to match their voices. I can still remember my own surprise when, for the first time, I stood face to face with Ulloriannguaq Christiansen, who had delivered the news for twenty years on Greenland Radio. His voice had created expectations of a god. He turned out to be merely a human being, only slightly taller than I am.

  The voices of other people mirror their appearance so precisely that once you've heard them speak, you're bound to recognize them when you see them. I spoke to Benedicte Clahn on the phone for one minute, and I'm sure that's her. She's wearing a blue suit, she has kept her hat on indoors, she's drinking mineral water, and she's as beautiful and skittish and unpredictable as a racehorse.