"Shut up," I say.

In his apartment he wraps me up in wool blankets and massages me until it hurts too much. Then he makes me drink one cup of milk tea after another. The cold won't go away. It feels as if it has penetrated my whole skeleton. At some point I also accept a glass of liquor.

I cry a lot. Partly out of self-pity. I tell him about Isaiah's hiding place. About the cassette tape. About the professor. About the phone call. About the fire. I feel as if my mouth is going while I stand somewhere else looking on.

He doesn't comment.

At some point he fills the bathtub with water for me. I fall asleep in the tub. He wakes me up. We lie side by side in his bed and sleep. A few hours at a time. I don't really feel warm until it starts to get light.

It's morning when we make love. I guess I'm not quite myself.

Part Three

The City

1

I change cabs twice and get out at Farum Road. From there I take the path through Utterslev Marsh, and I look back 250 times.

I call from Tuborg Road. "What is Neocatastrophism?"

"Why do you always call from those insufferable phone booths, Smilla? Is it money? Have they disconnected your phone? Shall I get it hooked up again?"

For Moritz, a New Year's Eve party is the king of all parties. He suffers from a cyclical, recurrent delusion that it's actually possible to start afresh, that you can build a new life on resolutions. On New Year's Day the pounding in his head is so bad that it's audible over the phone. Even a pay phone.

"There was a conference on the topic in Copenhagen, in March of '92," I say.

He stifles a groan as he tries to make his brain function. What finally gets it going is the fact that my question turns out to have something to do with him.

"I was invited," he says.

"Why didn't you go?"

"There was too much to read."

He has been saying for years that he has given up reading. First of all, it's a lie. Second, it's an insufferable way of intimating that he has grown so smart that the rest of the world has nothing more to teach him. "Neocatastrophism is a collective term. It was coined by Schindewolf sometime in the sixties. He was a paleontologist. But all kinds of scholars in the natural sciences have taken part in the debate. What they agree on is that the earth-and, in particular, its biology-has not evolved at an even pace but in leaps, which have been directed by great natural catastrophes that favor the survival of specific species. Meteor showers, comets, volcanic eruptions, spontaneous chemical disasters. The core of the debate has always been the question of whether these catastrophes occur at regular intervals. And if they do, what determines the frequency? An international association was established. Their first meeting was in Copenhagen. At the Falkoner Conference Center. Opened by the Queen. They spared no expense. They get money from left and right. The unions contribute because they think it's research about environmental disasters. Those in the industrial sector contribute because they think that at least it's not about environmental disasters. The research councils contribute because the association has some big names to flaunt."

"Does the name Hviid mean anything in that connection? Tørk Hviid?"

"There was a composer named Hviid."

"I don't think he's the one."

"You know I can't remember names, Smilla."

That's true. He can remember bodies. Titles. He can reconstruct every golf stroke in every sizable tournament he has played in. But he regularly forgets the name of his own secretary. It's symptomatic. For the truly self-centered person, the surrounding world pales and becomes nameless.

"Why didn't you go to that conference?"

"It was too much of a hodgepodge for my taste, Smilla. With all the opposing interests, all the politics. You know I avoid politics. They didn't even dare use the word 'catastrophe' when it came right down to it. They called it the `Center for Developmental Research.' "

"Can you find out who Hviid is?"

He takes a deep breath, full of his unexpected power. "Then I can count on you coming out here tomorrow," he says.

I'm about to tell him to send the information to me. But I'm feeling weak and rather soft. He can tell.

"You can meet me and Benja at the Savarin tomorrow."

It sounds like an order, but it's meant as a quick compromise.

One of the children opens the door.

I'm among the first to admit that a cold weather climate is unpredictable. But I'm still momentarily surprised. Outside, it's five o'clock in the evening. The first stars have appeared in the navy-blue, cloudless sky. But inside, around the child, it's snowing. A fine layer covers her red hair, her shoulders, her face, and her bare arms.

I follow her. In the living room there is flour everywhere. Three children are kneading dough right on the hardwood floor. In the kitchen their mother is greasing cookie sheets. On the kitchen table a little girl is kneading something that looks like pastry dough. Now she's trying to knead an egg yolk into it. With her hands and feet.

"The bottom fell out of the flour sack in the living room."

"I see. The floor will be wonderfully clean."

"He's out in the conservatory. I've forbidden him to smoke in here."

She has an authoritative strength, like my childhood image of God. And an unflappable gentleness like Santa Claus in a Disney film. If you want to know who the real heroes of world history are, just look at the mothers. In the kitchens, with the cookie sheets. While the men are sitting on the toilet. Out in the hammocks. Out in the conservatory.

He's brushing off the cactuses. The air is thick with cigar smoke. He has a little brush, as narrow as a toothbrush but with long bristles, curved, and maybe twelve inches long.

"It's so the pores won't clog up. That would prevent them from breathing."

"All things considered," I say, "that might be an advantage."

He gives me a guilty look. "My wife won't let me smoke around the children."

He shows me the stump of his cigar.

"Romeo and Giulietta. A classic Havana. And it tastes damn good. Especially the last inch. When you're just about to singe your lips. That's where it's saturated with nicotine."

I hang my yellow down jacket over the back of one of the white wrought-iron chairs. Then I take the scarf off my head. There's a piece of gauze underneath. I take that off, too. The mechanic cleaned the wound and rubbed chlorhexidine ointment on it. I bend my head down so he can see it.

When I lift my head up, his eyes are hard.

"A burn," he says thoughtfully. "You were in the vicinity, perhaps?"

"I was on board."

He washes his hands in a deep stainless-steel sink. "How did you manage to survive?"

"I swam."

He dries his hands and comes back. He touches the wound. It feels as if he's sticking his hands into my brain. "It's superficial," he says. "You're probably not going to be bald."

I called him at University Hospital earlier that day. I don't give my name, but it's not necessary, anyway. "The ship that burned in the harbor," I say. "There was a man on board."

It was the lead story on the radio. The newspapers had it on the front page. The photo was taken at night, in the light of the fire department's spotlights. In the middle of the harbor three charred masts loom out of the water. The rigging and yardarms are gone. But nothing was mentioned about any casualties.

He says very slowly, "Is that right?"

"I must have the results of the autopsy." He's silent for a long time.

"Hell and damnation," he says. "I have a family to feed."

I have nothing to say to that. "This afternoon. After four."