I found the same thing in Isaiah. He might suddenly switch over to Danish in order to use De, the polite form of address, with me after he came to understand the inherent respect contained in that expression. Over the last three months, when Juliane's self-destruction was greater and more directed than ever, he sometimes didn't want to go home at night.

"Do you think," he said, addressing me formally in Danish, "that I could sleep here?"

After I had given him a bath I would put him up on the toilet seat while I rubbed him with lotion. From there he could see his own face in the mirror, sniffing suspiciously at the rose scent of Elizabeth Arden's night cream.

He has never, while awake, touched me. He never took my hand, he never gave any caresses, and he never asked for any. But during the night, he would sometimes roll over toward me, sound asleep, and lie there for several minutes. Against my skin he would get a diminutive erection that came and went, came and went; like Punch in a puppet show.

On those nights I wouldn't sleep much. At the slightest change in his rapid breathing, I woke up. Often I would simply lie awake, thinking that the air I was breathing was the air he had just exhaled.

8

Bertrand Russell wrote that pure mathematics is the field in which we don't know what we're talking about or to what extent what we say is true or false.

That's the way I feel about cooking.

I eat mostly meat. Fatty meat. I can't keep warm on vegetables and bread. I've never managed to acquire an understanding of my kitchen, of raw ingredients, or of the basic chemistry of cooking. I have only one simple work principle: I always make hot food. That's important when you live alone. It serves a mental hygienic purpose. It keeps you going.

Today it serves another purpose as well. It puts off two telephone calls. I don't like talking on the phone. I want to see whom I'm talking to.

I put Isaiah's cigar box on the table. Then I make the first call.

I'm actually hoping that it's too late; it'll be Christmas soon, and people should be leaving work early.

I call the Cryolite Corporation. The director is still in his office. He doesn't introduce himself; he is merely a voice, dry, implacable, and unsympathetic, like sand running through an hourglass. He informs me that the government was represented on the board, and since the company was now in the process of closing down, and the foundation was being reorganized, it had been decided to transfer all papers to the national archives, which houses documents dealing with decisions made by public authorities. Some of the papers-he was not able to tell me which ones-would fall into the category of "general resolutions," which remain confidential for fifty years, while others-again he could not, as I must understand, tell me which ones-would be regarded as personal files, which enjoy eighty years of protection.

I try asking him where the papers are, the papers in general.

All information is still physically under the safekeeping of the corporation, but formally the documents have already been accepted into the national archives, which is where I would have to inquire, and is there anything else he could do for me?

"Yes," I say, "drop dead."

I take the rubber bands off Isaiah's box.

The knives in my apartment are only sharp enough to open envelopes with. Cutting a slice of coarse bread is on the borderline of their ability. I don't need anything sharper. Otherwise, on bad days, it might easily occur to me that I could always go stand in the bathroom in front of the mirror and slit my throat. On such occasions it's nice to have the added security of needing to go downstairs and borrow a decent knife from a neighbor.

But I understand the love for a shiny blade. One day I bought a Puma skinner for Isaiah. He didn't thank me. His face showed no surprise. He lifted the short, widebladed knife out of the green felt box, carefully, and five minutes later he left: He knew, and I knew, and he knew that I knew, that he left to go down to the basement under the mechanic's workbench to curl up with his new possession, and that it would take months for him to comprehend that it was actually his.

Now it's lying in front of me, in its sheath, in his cigar box. With a wide, meticulously polished hilt of antler. There are four other things in the box. A harpoon point of the type children in Greenland find at abandoned encampments and which they know they're supposed to leave for the archaeologists but which they pick up and lug around anyway. A bear claw, and as usual I'm amazed at the hardness, weight, and sharpness of this one nail. A cassette tape, without a box but wrapped in a sheet of faded green graph paper covered with figures. At the top it says in capital letters: NIFLHEIM.

And there is a plastic bus pass holder. The pass itself has been removed, so the holder now serves as a sleeve for a photograph. A color photo, probably taken with an Instamatic. In the summer, and it must be in North Greenland, because the man has his jeans stuffed into a pair of kamiks. He's sitting on a rock in the sunshine. He's bare-chested and has a big black diver's watch on his left wrist. He's laughing at the photographer, and at that moment, with every tooth and every wrinkle enhanced by his laughter, he is Isaiah's father.

It's late. But it seems to be a time when those of us who keep the machinery of society going give it one last kick before Christmas in order to earn our bonuses-this year it's a frozen duck and a little kiss behind the ear from the director.

So I open the phone book. The Copenhagen district attorney has offices on Jens Kofods Street.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to say to Ravn. Maybe I just need to tell him that I haven't been duped, that I haven't given up. I need to tell him, "You know what, you little fart? I just want you to know I'm keeping an eye on you."

I'm prepared for any sort of reply. Except for the one I get.

"There is no one by that name working here," says a cold woman's voice.

I sit down. There's nothing to do but breathe gently into the receiver to stall for time.

"To whom am I speaking?" she asks.

I almost hang up the phone. But there's something in her voice that makes me stay on the line. There's something parochial about her. Narrow-minded and nosy. I'm suddenly inspired by that nosiness.

"This is Smilla," I whisper, trying to put cotton candy between me and the mouthpiece. "From Smilla's Sauna Parlor. Mr. Ravn had an appointment for a massage that he wanted to change…"

"This Ravn, is he short and thin?"

"Like a toothpick, honey."

"Wears big coats?"

"Like huge tents."

I can hear her breathing harder. I'm positive her eyes are shining.

"It's the guy in the fraud division."

Now she's happy. In her own way. I've given her this year's Christmas story to tell her bosom buddies over coffee and pastry the next morning.

"You have simply saved my day," I say. "If you ever need a massage…"

She hangs up.

I take my tea over to the window. Denmark is a lovely country. And the police are particularly lovely. And surprising. They accompany the Royal Guard to Amalienborg Palace. They help lost ducklings cross the street. And when a little boy falls off a rooftop, first the uniformed police show up. And then the detectives. And finally the assistant district attorney for special economic crimes sends his representatives. How reassuring.

I pull out the jack. I've talked enough on the phone today. I've had the mechanic rig up something so I can turn off the doorbell, too.

I sit down on the sofa. First come the images from the day. I let them pass. Then come memories from when I was a child, vacillating between slight depression and mild elation; I let them go, too. Then comes peace. That's when I put on a record. Then I sit down and cry. I'm not crying about anything or anyone specific. The life I live I created for myself, and I wouldn't want it any different. I cry because in the universe there is something as beautiful as Kremer playing the Brahms violin concerto.