5

The address of the Trade Commission is Kampmanns Street 1, and it appears well maintained, newly painted, efficient, reliable, helpful, and exclusive without being pretentious.

The man who helps me is a mere boy. He is twenty-three at most, with a double-breasted, custom made suit of thin Harris tweed, a white silk tie, white teeth, and a broad smile.

"Where have I seen you before?" he asks.

The papers have been put in a spiral notebook, the pile is as thick as an illustrated Bible and stamped Annual Report of the Cryolite Corporation of Denmark for Fiscal 1991.

"How can you tell who controls the corporation?" His hands brush mine as he turns the pages.

"It doesn't say directly. But according to corporate law, all shareholdings above 5 percent must be listed on the first page. Was it at a party at the Business School?"

The list is fourteen lines long, with individual and company names mixed together. Ving is there. And the National Bank. And Geoinform.

"Geoinform. Could you show me their annual report?" He sits down at the computer. While we wait for the PC he smiles at me.

"I'll remember where it was," he says. "You didn't study law, did you?"

He has been reading a French newspaper. He follows my gaze.

"I've applied to the foreign service," he says: "So it's important to keep up on things. We don't have anything on Geoinform. It's probably not a public corporation."

"Is it possible to find out who's on the board of directors?"

He gets out a volume as big as two telephone books called Green's Danish Foundations. He looks it up for me. There are three people on Geoinform's board. I write down their names.

"Can I take you to lunch?"

"I have to go for a walk in the Deer Park," I say.

"I could go, too."

I point at his loafers. "There's two feet of snow."

"I could buy a pair of galoshes on the way."

"You're working," I say. "On your way into the diplomatic service."

He nods dejectedly.

"Maybe when the snow melts," he says. "In the spring."

"If we live that long," I say.

I go out to the Deer Park. It snowed in the night. I've taken my kamiks along. Well past the entrance, I put them on. The soles of kamiks cannot stand much wear. When we were kids we were never allowed to dance with them on if there was sand on the floor. You could wear them out in a single night. But on the snow and ice, where the friction is different, their durability is astounding. The new snow is light and cold. I walk as far away from the paths as possible. For an entire day I wade slowly and heavily among black branches glittering with snow. I follow the lurching tracks of a deer until I know its rhythm. The animal's sudden hopscotching every hundred yards, its habit of scattering urine in small portions, a little to the right of its tracks. The regularity with which it scratches an open, heart-shaped area down to the dark earth to find leaves.

After three hours I run into it. A buck. White, wary, interested.

I find an out-of-the-way table at Peter Liep's Restaurant and order hot chocolate. Then I lay out the paper with the three names in front of me:

Katja Claussen

Ralf Seidenfaden

Tørk Hviid

I take out Moritz's envelope with the copies of the newspaper clippings. I'm looking for a specific one.

The room fills up with a group of children and adults. They've parked their skis and sleds outside. Their voices are loud and full of glee. Full of the snow's mysterious warmth.

The clipping is from an English-language newspaper. Maybe that's why I've latched on to it. It was cut out crooked, so part of the headline is missing. It was added back on by hand, with a green ballpoint. The date is March 19, 1992. "First Copenhagen Seminar on Neocatastrophism. Professor Johannes Loyen, M.D., member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, presenting the opening lecture."

Loyen is standing on the stage, apparently without a script or podium. It's a large hall. Behind him sit three men at a table that curves like an arc of a circle.

"Behind him Ruben Giddens, Ove Nathan, and Tork Hviid, the…"

The text has been cut off, the rest of the sentence is gone. Their typesetting machines didn't have an ø for his name. That's why it had caught my eye. That's why I remembered it.

The setting sun is glowing as I set off for home. My heart is pounding.

The minute I step through the door, the telephone rings.

It takes forever to get the red tape off. I think it must be the mechanic. He must have tried calling dozens of times.

"This is Andreas Licht." The voice is weak, as if he has a cold. "I suggest that you come at once."

I feel a surge of annoyance. Some of us never learn to take orders.

"You mean today?"

There's a strangled sound, as if he's suppressing a laugh. "You're interested, aren't you?…"

He hangs up.

I'm standing there with all my outdoor clothes on. In the dark, because I didn't have time to turn on the light. Where did he get my phone number?

I detest being rushed. I had other plans for the day.

I put down the kamiks and go back out into the Copenhagen evening.

On my way down the stairs, I stop outside the mechanic's door. I feel tempted to take him along. But I recognize the feeling as a form of weakness.

I have a felt-tip pen in my pocket but no paper. On a 50-krone note I write: "South Harbor, Svajer Wharf, Berth 126. Back later. Smilla."

This message is a compromise between my need for protection and my belief that the plans you keep secret are the ones most likely to succeed.

I take a cab to the South Harbor power plant. Maybe it's the mechanic's paranoia about phones that has infected me, but I don't want to leave a clear trail.

It's a fifteen-minute walk from the plant.

Even the machines are asleep now. The city seems far away. But there is still a shimmer of light in the deserted streets I pass through. Now and then scattered fireworks etch trails of light across the blue-black sky and explode. The distant boom takes a moment to reach me. It's New Year's Eve.

There are no streetlights. The cranes are silent silhouettes against the lighter sky. Everything is closed, ciimmed, resigned.

Svajer Wharf is a white surface in the dark. The new snow on the ice gathers the scant light in the air and gleams dully. Only a solitary car has been here before me, and I walk in its tracks.

The sign on the post is still covered with plastic. With the little rip I left behind. The dock, the gangway, and part of the deck have been cleared of snow. A few crates have been moved to make room for a pallet of red barrels. Aside from the snow and the barrels and the darkness, everything is the same as yesterday.

There is no light on board.

On my way up the gangway I start thinking about the car tracks. In snow, tire tread makes a slight backward slide inside the track itself. The track I had followed went down to the harbor. There was no return track. There are no other roads to or from Svajer Wharf than the one I came along. But the car is nowhere to be seen.

The lacquered door is shut but not locked. Inside, there is a faint light.

I know that the fiberglass Inuit will be there. The light is coming from somewhere behind the screen.

A little reading lamp is on the desk. Behind the desk sits professor and museum curator Andreas Licht with his head cocked, smiling at me broadly.

When I walk around the desk, the smile does not leave his face.

He is gripping the seat of his chair with both hands. As if to hold himself upright.

Close up I can see that his lips are pulled back from his teeth in a grimace. And he isn't gripping the chair. His hands are bound with thin cords of copper wire. I touch him. He's warm. I put my fingers on his neck. There's no pulse. He has no heartbeat, either. At least none that I can feel.