And now empty as well. While I've been surveying the deck, the blue figures have disappeared. Now the light is turned off and the deck vanishes. Far forward, where the bow chops through the waves, white protuberances of displaced water suddenly appear. On both sides of the ship, surprisingly close, the lights of the shores can be seen. The little passenger ferries cross behind and in front of us. In the rain the yellow floodlights make Kronborg Castle look like a drab modern prison.

Two slowly rotating green radar images glow from the darkness of the room. A red dot of dull light in a big liquid compass. In front of the window, with one hand on the manual tiller, stands a man, his back partly turned toward us. It's Captain Sigmund Lukas. Behind him a straight-backed, motionless figure. Next to me Jakkelsen is rocking restlessly on the balls of his feet.

"You can go." Lukas speaks softly, without turning around. The figure behind him slips out the door. Jakkelseri follows him. For a moment his movements show no reluctance.

My eyes slowly grow used to the dark, and out of nothingness appear the instruments; some I recognize, some I don't, but I've always kept my distance from all of them because they belong to the open sea. And because, for me, they symbolize a culture that has inserted a layer of lifeless instruments between itself and its attempt to determine its location.

The liquid crystals on the SATNAV computer, the shortwave radio, consoles for LORAN C, a radio location system that I've never understood. The red numbers on the sounding device. The console of the navigational sonar. The inclinometer. A sextant on a tripod. Instrument panels. The phone to the engine room. Visibility dials. A radio locator. The automatic pilot. Two panels full of volt meters and control lights. And above all of it Lukas's alert, expressionless face.

The VHF emits a continuous crackle. Without shifting his gaze, the captain reaches over and turns it off. There is silence.

"You're on board because we needed a cabin attendant. A stewardess, as it's now called. Not for any other reason. That conversation we had was an employment interview, nothing else."

In my floppy sea boots and much too large sweater I feel like a little girl being disciplined in school. Not once does he look at me.

"We haven't been able to find out where we're going. We'll be told later. Until then we're following our noses due north."

There's something different about him. It's his cigarettes. They're gone. Maybe he doesn't smoke at sea. Maybe he sails to get away from the gambling tables and the cigarettes.

"First Mate Sonne will show you around and point out your work areas. Your duties include light cleaning, and you're responsible for the ship's laundry. You will also occasionally wait on the officers."

The question is why he's taken me along at all.

When I reach the door he calls after me, his voice bitter and low. "You heard what I said, didn't you? You understand that we're sailing without knowing our destination?"

Sonne is waiting for me outside the door. Young, polite, his hair close-cropped. We go down one level to the boat deck. He turns toward me, lowers his voice, and looks at me gravely.

"We have representatives from the shipping company with us on this trip. They live in the forecastle on the boat deck. There's no admittance whatsoever. Unless you're called on to serve a meal. Otherwise no. No cleaning, no little errands."

We continue down. The laundry, the drying room, and the linen supply area are located on the promenade deck. On the upper deck, along with my cabin, there are living quarters, offices for the engineer and electricians, the galley and the crew's mess. On the second deck are the cold storage rooms and freezer for foodstuffs, storerooms, two workshops, the COZ room. All of this is located in and below the superstructure; just in front of it and farther forward are the engine room, tanks, tunnels, and the cargo holds.

I follow him up to the upper deck. Along the corridor past my own cabin. Farthest back on the port side is the mess. He pushes open the door and we step inside.

I take my time and count eleven people in that little room. Five Danes, six Asians. Two of the latter are women. Three of the men look like little boys.

"Smilla Jaspersen, the new stewardess."

It's always been this way. I stand alone in the doorway, the others in front of me. Sometimes it's a school, sometimes a university, sometimes it's some other kind of gathering. They may not have anything in particular against me, they might be more or less indifferent, but aImost every time they look as if they'd rather not be bothered.

"Verlaine, our bosun. Hansen and Maurice. The three of them are in charge of the deck. Maria and Fernanda, ship's assistants."

In the doorway to the galley stands a tall, heavyset man with a full reddish-brown beard, wearing a white cook's outfit.

"Urs. Our cook."

The hostility is stronger in the eyes of the women than of the men. But there is also a raw directness which has managed to thwart the rule dictating the use of surnames.

There's something subdued and disciplined about all of them. With the exception of Jakkelsen. He's leaning against the wall, under the NO SMOKING sign, with a cigarette in his mouth. He has one eye closed against the smoke while the other regards me quizzically.

"That's Bernard Jakkelsen," says the first mate. He hesitates for a moment. "He also works on deck." Jakkelsen ignores him.

"Jaspersen is supposed to keep our cabins clean," he says. "There'll be plenty of work mucking out for eleven men and four officers. I seem to have a tendency to just drop things all over the floor, if you know what I mean."

My socks have slipped down around my heels because my rubber boots are too big. You can't live like a human being when your socks are drooping. Not when you're tired and scared besides. And now they're laughing, not a hearty laughter. But a feeling of dominance emanates from the gaunt figure of Jakkelsen, affecting everyone in the room.

I lose my temper. I grab hold of Jakkelsen's lower lip and pinch it hard. I pull it away from his teeth. When he takes hold of my wrist, I grab his little finger with my left hand and bend back the top joint. He drops to his knees with a whimper like a woman. I increase the pressure.

"Do you know how I'm going to clean your cabin?" I say. "I'll open the porthole. And then I'll pretend that I've opened a big closet. And then I'll put all your things inside. And then I'll wash it down with salt water."

I let him go and step aside. But he doesn't try to grab me. He stands up slowly and goes over to a framed photograph of the Kyonos in front of a flat-topped iceberg in the Antarctic. He mournfully examines his face in the glass.

"I'll get a blood blister, damn it, a blood blister." No one in the room has moved.

I straighten up and look around at them. People don't like saying "I'm sorry" in Greenlandic. I've never bothered to learn the phrase in Danish.

In my cabin I pull the desk over to the door and wedge Bugge's Greenlandic dictionary under the door handle. Then I go to bed. I have every reason to believe that tonight the dog will leave me in peace.