Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg Read Free Book Online

sentimentality.
    "Couldn't you try the Old Men's Home?"
    I have stood up, and now he comes over to me. "You're damned heartless, Smilla. And that's why you've never been able to hold on to a man."
    He's as close to tears as he can get. "Father," I say, "write me a prescription."
    He switches immediately, fast as lightning, from complaint to concern, just as he did with my mother.
    "Are you ill, Smilla?"
    "Very. But with this piece of paper you can save my life and keep your Hippocratic oath. It has to be five figures." He winces; it's a matter of his life's blood. We're talking about his vital organs: his wallet and his checkbook. I put on my fur. Benja does not come out to say goodbye. At the door he hands me the check. He knows that this pipeline is his only connection to my life. Even this he is afraid of losing.
    "Don't you want Fernando to drive you home?" Then something dawns on him. "Smilla," he shouts, "you're not going away, are you?"
    There is a snow-covered lawn between us. It might just as well have been the ice cap.
    "There's something weighing on my conscience," I say. "It'll take money to do something about it."
    "In that case," he says, half to himself, "I'm afraid that check isn't nearly enough."
    In this way he has the last word. You can't win every time.
     

7
     
    Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's not a coincidence, that he arrives when the workers are at lunch, so that the roof is deserted.
    There is bright sunshine with a hint of warmth, blue sky, white seagulls, a view of the shipyard at Limhamn in Sweden across the Sound, and not a trace of the snow that was the reason for us standing here: me and Mr. Ravn, the investigator for the district attorney.
    He's short, no taller than I am, but he's wearing a very large gray coat with so much padding in the shoulders that he looks like a ten-year-old boy acting in a musical about Prohibition. His face is dark and burned-out like lava, and so gaunt that his skin is stretched across his skull like a mummy. But his eyes are alert and observant. "I thought I'd just stop by," he says.
    "You're much too kind. Do you always stop by regarding complaints?"
    "Only rarely. Normally the case goes to the local board. Let's just say it's because of the nature of this case and because of your thought-provoking letter of complaint."
    I say nothing. I let the silence work on the investigator a little. It has no visible effect. His sand-colored eyes rest on me without flinching and without embarrassment. He will stand here as long as it takes. This alone makes him an unusual man.
    "I spoke to Professor Loyen. He told me that you came in to see him. That you thought the boy was afraid of heights."
    His position in the world makes it impossible for me to have any real trust in him. But I feel an urge to reveal part of what is bothering me.
    "There were the tracks in the snow."
    Very few people know how to listen. Their haste pulls them out of the conversation, or they try internally to improve the situation, or they're preparing what their entrance will be when you shut up and it's their turn to step on stage.
    It's different with the man standing in front of me. When I talk, he listens without distraction to what I say, and only to what I say.
    "I read the report and looked at the pictures . . ."
    "There was something else, something more."
    Now we're on our way into something that has to be said but can't be explained.
    "They were acceleration tracks. When you take off from snow or ice, a pronation occurs in the ankle joint. Like when you walk barefoot in the sand."
    I try to demonstrate the slight outward rotation with my wrist.
    "If the movement is too fast, not firm enough, there will be a little slip backward."
    "As with every child who is playing . . ."
    "When you're used to playing in snow, you don't leave that kind of track because that movement is not efficient, like faulty distribution of your weight going uphill on cross-country skis."
    Even I can hear how