The Quiet Girl by Peter Høeg Read Free Book Online Page A

physical trace of her; only her sound remained.
    He had looked for her when she was away. He hoped she would have left a toothbrush or some lotion in the bathroom; there was nothing. One evening he put it into words as they sat eating.
    "I could clear out a couple of shelves in the closet."
    She put down her knife and fork and wiped her lips. She did it delicately, but at the same time like an animal, the way a cat washes itself, the way a jaguar is delicate.
    "You've heard about voodoo," she said. "Some years ago we purified groundwater in Haiti. We were warned by our department head and by COWI, an international consulting firm, that we must never leave personal belongings behind. If a sorcerer wants to put a spell on you and gets hold of anything of yours, he'll have power over you."
    The food had turned to sawdust in his mouth.
    "We can't see each other anymore," he said. "If that's how you view me. I can't stand humiliation. We've known each other for a month and a half. I've behaved with total respect. Toward you. Toward all women. Like a little boy who peeks over the hedge at the neighbor girl. But never jumps over it. Always waits for her to want to Play."
    "But who, deep inside," she said, "is hatching a plan. About how to take over the whole neighborhood."
    A week later he'd had the drawer made. He hadn't said anything. She arrived, the cabinet was attached to a wall in the trailer, and the drawer was pulled out slightly. Her hands glided over the wood, pulled out the drawer, pushed it in, without a word. He had taken its measurements from the drawers in her apartment. It exactly fit a four-centimeter-scale map.
    The next time she brought a briefcase with her. Without saying anything she left a small stack of maps, copy paper, an etui containing a bow compass. The things had been there ever since.
    One of the maps was of Copenhagen Harbor, 1:25,000. Now he took the compass, and recalled the sound picture from the telephone conversation.
    Foremost were the Marble Church bells, electrically amplified, but muted so as not to awaken Amalienborg Palace. In open surroundings the sound pressure level decreases six decibels each time the distance to the sound maker doubles. With the compass he measured two and a half miles according to the scale at the bottom of the map. Using the church as the center, he drew a circle with this distance as the radius.
    Grundtvig Church lay far back in the sound picture, but it was very clear. The huge vibrating bell seemed to be playing, quite alone, "Christmas Bells Are Ringing." It was also in D; the composer had imitated the sound of the church bell. So it was likely that the telephone had been located high up. Above the sixty-five feet that would have made it higher than the roofs of Nørrebro and Østerbro. He estimated the distance at three miles. He heard the Church of Our Savior chimes. Farther out in the sound picture were the City Hall chimes; he must have caught their quarter-hour tolling. They were made of iron ore instead of bronze, and had a hard clang. The frequency wasn't as pure as that of the church bells. Their distance from the telephone was three miles. Using Grundtvig Church as the center, he drew a new circle with this radius. The two circles shared a common area that included all of outer Østerbro.
    He listened again. He identified the English Church and St. Jacob's Church; their interference created a corona of suggested major keys from A to D. He drew two additional circles.
    They intersected the two original circles fifty-five yards offshore. North of the entrance to Copenhagen Harbor. Beyond the tip of the peninsula, at a depth of thirty-nine feet. He hadn't heard correctly.
    * * *
    He drank from the glass. In the midst of failure all the sounds he heard seemed very near. The sounds of April were unlike any others. No leaves on the trees. No vegetation to dampen reflection and diffusion. He heard the last rush-hour traffic from Glostrup. The distant drone from