Free Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg Page B

840.
    If the temperature goes up right before sunrise, the way it did today, the frost will retreat last from a car's roof and above the windshield wipers. A banal fact that only the fewest people are aware of. The car on Kabbeleje Road that has no frost on it, either because it was wiped off or because it has been recently driven, is a blue Volvo 840.
    There are probably plenty of reasons why someone might have parked here at twenty after six in the morning. But just at the moment I can't think of any. So I walk to the car, bend over the hood, and peer in through the tinted front window. In the driver's seat sits a man, sleeping. I stand there for a few moments, but he doesn't move. Finally I saunter off toward Brønshøj Square.
    It's important to sleep. I would have liked a couple of more hours myself that morning. But I wouldn't have chosen to sit in a Volvo on Kabbeleje Road.
     
    "My name is Smilla Jaspersen."
    "Groceries from the store?"
    "No, Smilla Jaspersen."
    It's not entirely true that phone conversations are the worst communication imaginable. Security intercoms, after all, are much worse. To fit in with the rest of the building, which is tall, silvery gray, and imposing, the intercom is made of anodized aluminum and shaped like a conch shell. Unfortunately, it has also absorbed the roar of the great oceans, which now drown out the conversation.
    "The cleaning lady?"
    "No," I say, "and not the pedicurist, either. I have some questions about the Cryolite Corporation."
    Elsa Lübing takes a break. You have that prerogative when you're standing at the proper end of the intercom. Where it's warm, and where the buzzer to open the door is.
    "This is really most inconvenient. You will have to write or come back some other time."
    She hangs up.
    I take a step back and look up. The building stands alone, in the Fugle section of Frederiksberg, at the end of Hejre Road. It's unusually tall for Copenhagen. Elsa Lübing lives on the seventh floor. On the balcony beneath hers the ornate wrought iron is covered with planters. From the directory it's apparent that these flower lovers are Mr. and Mrs. Schou. I give the doorbell a short and authoritative ring.
    "Yes?" The voice is at least eighty years old. "Delivery from the florist shop. I have a bouquet for Elsa Lübing upstairs, but she's not home. Would you please let me in?"
    "I'm sorry, we have strict instructions not to open the door for the other apartments."
    I am enchanted by people in their eighties who still obey strict instructions.
    "Mrs. Schou," I say, "they are orchids. Straight off the plane from Madeira. They're languishing down here in the cold."
    "That's terrible!"
    "Awful," I say. "But a tiny little push on that little buzzer will bring them into the warmth where they belong."
    She buzzes me in.
    The elevator is the kind that makes you want to ride up and down seven or eight times just to enjoy the little built-in plush sofa, the polished Brazilian rosewood, the gold grating, and the sandblasted cupids on the panes of glass, through which you can see the cable and the counterbalance sink into the depths you've left behind.
    Lübing's door is shut. Downstairs Mrs. Schou has opened hers to hear whether the orchid story is a cover for a quick Christmas rape.
    I have a piece of paper in my pocket, among the loose money and reminders from the science department of the university library. I drop the paper through the mail slot. Then Mrs. Schou and I wait.
    The door has a brass mail slot, hand-painted nameplate, and panels of gray and white.
    It swings inward. In the doorway stands Elsa Lübing. She takes her time looking me over.
    "Well," she says finally, "you are certainly persistent." She steps aside. I walk past her into the apartment.
    She and the building share the same coloring, polished silver and fresh cream. She is quite tall, almost six feet; and she is wearing a long, simple, off-white dress. She has put up her hair, but several loose locks fall like a