Smilla's Sense of Snow

by Peter Høeg

  “Four and a half times ten to the ninth; 4.6 billion years. That’s when the solar system began to assume its present form. The difficulty with the earth’s geological history is that it can’t be studied. There are no traces. Because since that time, since the time of Creation, rocks like these have gone through a countless number of metamorphoses. The same is true of the ice around us, the air, and the water. Their origins can no longer be traced. There are no substances on the earth that have preserved their original form. That’s why meteorites are so interesting. They come from outside, they’ve escaped the transformation processes that Lovelock described in his theory about Gaia. Their form goes back to the origin of the solar system. As a rule they consist of the first metals in the universe—iron and nickel—and silicates. Do you read fiction?”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s too bad. The writers see where we’re headed before the scientists do. What we discover in nature is not really a matter of what exists; what we find is determined by our ability to understand. Like Jules Verne’s book The Hunt for a Meteor, about a meteorite that turns out to be the most valuable thing on earth. Or Wells’s visions of other life forms. Or Piper’s Uller Uprising, in which a special form of life is described. Bodies formed on the basis of inorganic substances, from silicates.”

  We’ve reached a flat, windswept plateau. A series of regular crevasses opens before us. We must have reached the ablation zone, that spot where the glacier’s lower layers move up toward the surface. There’s a knob of rock that has parted the flow of ice. I didn’t notice it from below because it’s some type of white stone. Now it gleams in the fading light.

  The snow has been stamped down where the base of the rock slopes toward a crevasse. They’ve stopped here for a while. This is where Tørk turned around to come and get me. I ask myself why he thought I would come. We sit down. The ice forms a big bowl-shaped hollow, like an open clamshell. He unscrews the lid of his thermos. He continues to talk as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted, and maybe it hasn’t either, maybe it has continued on inside him, maybe it never stops in there.

  “It’s a beautiful theory, the theory about Gaia. It’s important for theories to be beautiful. But it’s wrong, of course. Lovelock shows that the globe and its ecosystem are a complex machinery. But he doesn’t prove that it’s more than a machine. Gaia is not fundamentally any different from a robot. Lovelock shares a flaw with other biologists. He fails to explain the beginning. The first forms of life, what came before cyanobacteria. Life based on inorganic matter would be a first step.”

  I move cautiously, to keep warm and to test his attentiveness.

  “Loyen came here in the thirties. With a German expedition. They were going to do preliminary construction for an airport on a narrow strip of flat coastland on the north side. They brought Thule Inuits with them. They couldn’t get any West Greenlanders to come along because of the island’s bad reputation. Loyen began his search the same way Knud Rasmussen did when he discovered his meteorites. By taking the Inuit stories seriously. And he found the meteorite. In ’66 he came back. He and Ving and Andreas Fine Licht. But they didn’t know enough to solve the technical problems. They constructed a permanent passageway to the stone. Then the expedition was cut short. In 1991 they came back. That’s when we came along, too. But we were forced to return home.”

  His face is almost invisible in the dark; the only solid thing is his voice. I’m trying to figure out why he’s telling me all this. Why he’s still lying, even under these circumstances, when he’s totally in control.

  “What about the pieces that were cut off?”

  His hesitation explains everything, and it’s a relief to figure out what he’s up to. He still isn’t sure how much I know or whether I’m alone. Whether someone might be waiting for him—on the island, at sea, or when he gets back home. For a short time, until I have talked, he still has some use for me.

  At the same time, another more important realization comes to me. The fact that he’s waiting, that he has to wait, means that the mechanic hasn’t told him everything; he hasn’t told him that I’m alone.

  “We examined the pieces. We didn’t find anything unusual. They consisted of a mixture of iron, nickel, peridotite, magnesium, and silicates.”

  I’m sure that he’s telling the truth.

  “So it’s not alive?”

  In the darkness I sense his smile.

  “There’s heat. It’s definitely producing heat. Otherwise it would have been carried out along with the ice. It melts the walls surrounding it at a rate comparable to the movement of the glacier.”

  “Radioactivity?”

  “We tested for it, but didn’t find any.”

  “And the dead men?” I ask. “What about the X-rays? The light-colored stripes inside their internal organs?”

  He pauses for a moment.

  “You wouldn’t want to tell me how you know about that, would you?” he asks.

  I don’t answer.

  “I knew it,” he says. “You and I, we could have made a good team. When I called you that night, it was on an impulse; I trust my intuition. I knew you would pick up the phone. I had you all figured out. I could have said, ‘Come over to our side.’ Would you have come?”

  “No.”

  The tunnel starts at the foot of the rock. It’s a simple design. They dynamited their way down where the ice had a natural tendency to let go of the rock, and then they cemented large concrete sewer pipes to the wall of the tunnel. The pipes slant down at a steep angle; the steps inside are made of wood. This surprises me at first, until I remember how difficult it can be to pour cement on a permafrost foundation.

  Thirty feet down there’s a fire.

  The smoke is coming from a room adjacent to the stairs, a cement shell reinforced with beams. Several sacks are spread on the floor. On top of the sacks there’s an oil barrel filled with burning, chopped-up wooden crates.

  Against the opposite wall, instruments and equipment are piled on a wide table. Chromatographs, microscopes, large crystallization jars, an incubator, and an apparatus I’ve never seen before, built like a big plastic box with glass on the front. Underneath the table there’s a generator and more wooden crates like the ones burning in the barrel. Nowadays everything goes in and out of style, even laboratory equipment, and these instruments remind me of the seventies. Everything is covered with a layer of gray ice. They must have been left behind in ’66 or ’91.

  Tørk places his hand on the plastic box.

  “Electrophoresis. To separate and analyze proteins. Loyen brought it along in ’66. When they still thought they were dealing with some form of organic life.”

  He gives a small nod. Everything he does is pervaded with the knowledge that these small signs and gestures are enough to make the rest of the world fall into place. Verlaine is standing at a tall worktable with a dissecting microscope. He adjusts it for me, the ocular on 10 and the objective on 20. He moves a gas lamp closer.

  “We’re in the process of thawing out the generator.”

  At first I don’t see a thing. Then I adjust the focus and see a coconut.

  “Cyclops marinus,” says Tørk. “Water flea. It or its relatives are found everywhere, in all the oceans of the globe. The threads are organs of equilibrium. We’ve given it a little hydrochloric acid; that’s why it’s so still. Try looking at the back of the body. What do you see?”

  I don’t see anything. He takes over the microscope, moving the petri dish under it and adjusting the focus again.

  “The digestive system,” I say. “The intestines.”

  “Those aren’t intestines. That’s a worm.”

  Now I see it. The intestines and stomach form a dark field along the underside of the animal. The long bright channel goes up along its back.

  “The primary group is Phylum nematoda, roundworm, and it belongs to the subclass Dracunculoidea. Its name is Dracunculus borealis, the Arctic worm. Known and described since at leas
t the Middle Ages. A large parasite. Found in whales, seals, and dolphins ; it penetrates the musculature from the intestines. The males and females mate, the male dies, and the female wanders to the subcutis, where it forms a nodule as big as a child’s fist. When the mature worm senses that there are Cyclops in the surrounding water, it perforates the skin and releases millions of small living larvae into the sea, where they’re eaten by the water fleas, forming what is called a host, a place where the worms can go through a process of development lasting several weeks. When the flea, via seawater, gets into the mouth cavity or intestines of a larger mammal, it disintegrates and the larva gets out and bores into this new and larger host. There it matures, mates, makes its way to the subcutis, and completes the cycle. Apparently neither the water flea nor the mammal suffers any harm from it. One of the world’s most well-adapted parasites. Have you ever wondered what prevents parasites from spreading?”

  Verlaine puts on more wood and pulls the generator over to the fire. The radiant heat burns one side of my body; the other is cold. There’s no proper ventilation. The smoke is suffocating. They must be in a hurry.

  “Some kind of obstruction is what always stops the parasites. Take, for instance, the Guinea worm, which is the closest relative of the Arctic worm. It’s dependent on heat and stagnant water. It’s found wherever people are dependent on surface water.”

  “Such as on the border between Burma, Laos, and Cambodia,” I say. “For instance, in Chiang Rai.”

  They both freeze. In Tørk it’s a barely visible pause.

  “Yes,” he says, “in Chiang Rai, for example, during the relatively rare periods of drought. As soon as it rains and the water begins to flow, as soon as it cools off, the conditions become more difficult for the worm. That’s the way things have to be. Parasites have developed along with their hosts. The Guinea worm has developed along with human beings, perhaps over the past million years. They are mutually compatible. Every year 140 million people are exposed to the risk of being infected with the Guinea worm. There are 10 million cases annually. Most of those who are infected endure a painful period of several months, but then the worm is expelled. Even in Chiang Rai only half a percent of the adult population, at the most, suffer any permanent damage. This is one of the primary rules of nature’s delicate balance: A good parasite does not kill its host.”

  He moves slightly, and I involuntarily step back. He looks in the microscope.

  “Imagine their situation in ’66—Loyen, Ving, and Licht. Everything has been planned. There are problems, of course, but they’re mere technicalities and solvable. They’ve pinpointed the stone, constructed the entryway and these rooms; the weather is good, and they have plenty of time, relatively speaking. They realize that they can’t bring the whole stone back, but they know they can take home a piece of it. There are photographs of their saws, a brilliant invention, a hardened steel band that ran across rollers. Loyen was opposed to cutting the stone with blowtorches. Then just as the Inuits are putting the saw in position, they die. Forty-eight hours after their first dive. They die almost simultaneously, within an hour of each other. Everything changes. The project has failed and time is running out. They have to improvise an accident. Loyen is the one who does it, of course. He has enough presence of mind not to destroy the bodies. At that point he already has a feeling that something is wrong. As soon as they reach Nuuk he does an autopsy. And what does he find?”

  “Look at the time,” says Verlaine.

  Tørk ignores him. “He finds the Arctic worm. A widespread parasite. Big, twelve to sixteen inches long, but quite ordinary. A roundworm whose cycle is known and understood. There’s only one thing wrong: it’s not found in human beings. In whales, in seals, and dolphins, and occasionally in walruses. But not in human beings. Nearly every day infected meat is eaten, especially by Inuits. But the moment the larva enters the human body, it’s recognized by our immune system as a foreign object and is devoured by lymphocytes. It has never adapted to our immune system. It has always been limited to certain large sea mammals with which it must have developed simultaneously. It’s part of the balance of nature. Imagine Loyen’s astonishment when he finds it in the corpses. And quite by accident, too. Because at the last minute he was forced to take X-rays to identify the bodies.”

  I don’t want to listen to him or talk to him, but I can’t help it. And besides, it stretches out the time.

  “Why did it happen?”

  “That’s the question Loyen couldn’t answer. So he concentrated on a different question: How did it happen? He had brought samples home from the water around the stone. Aside from the meltwater, the lake is fed by another lake higher up, on the surface. There’s some bird life up there. And quite a lot of trout. And several kinds of fleas. The water around the stone is full of them. All of the samples Loyen brought home were infected. So he decided to graft the larva onto living human tissue.”

  “That sounds lovely,” I say. “How did he manage to do that?”

  As I ask the question, the answer comes to me. He did it in Greenland. In Denmark the chance of being discovered would be too great.

  Tørk sees that I realize how it was done.

  “It took him twenty-five years. But he found out that the larva had adapted to the human immune system. As soon as it’s in the mouth it penetrates the open mucous membranes and forms a kind of skin, created from the person’s own proteins. In this camouflage the parasite is mistaken for the human body itself and the defense system leaves it in peace. Then it starts to grow. Not slowly, over a period of months, the way it does in seals and whales, but rapidly, hour by hour and minute by minute. Even the mating and wandering through the body, which can take up to six months in a sea mammal, now take only a few days. But that’s not the decisive factor.”

  Verlaine takes him by the arm. Tørk looks at him. Verlaine removes his hand.

  “I want to ask her about something,” says Tørk.

  Maybe that’s what he believes, but that’s not why he’s talking. He’s talking in order to win attention and recognition. Beneath his self-confidence and apparent objectivity there is a wild pride and triumph at what he has discovered. Both Verlaine and I are sweating and have started to cough. But he is cool and at ease; in the flickering light of the fire his face is utterly calm. Maybe it’s because we’re standing in the middle of the ice, maybe it’s because it’s so obvious that we’re nearing the end, that he suddenly seems so transparent to me. As always when an adult becomes transparent, the child inside him steps forth. I remember Victor Halkenhvad’s letter, and suddenly, irresistibly, the words spew out of my mouth of their own accord.

  “Like the bicycle you never had when you were a child.”

  The remark is so absurd that at first he doesn’t understand it. Then the meaning sinks in, and for a moment he staggers as if I’d hit him. He almost loses it, but then he pulls himself together.

  “You might think we’ve discovered a new species. But that’s not the case. It’s the Arctic worm. But with a vital difference. It has adapted to the human immune system. But without adapting to our equilibrium. The pregnant female does not make its way to the subcutis after mating. It enters the internal organs, the heart and the liver. That’s where it releases its larvae. The larvae that have been living inside the mother, that aren’t familiar with the human body, that aren’t covered with a protein skin. The body reacts to them with infection and inflammation. It goes into shock. There are 10 million larvae in a single release. Inside the vital organs. The person dies on the spot. There’s no way to save him. No matter what else has happened to the Arctic worm, it has upset the balance. It has killed its host. It’s a poor parasite, in terms of human beings. But an excellent killer.”

  Verlaine says something in a language that I don’t understand. Tørk again ignores him.

  “Verlaine grafted the larva onto all the fish we could get hold of: saltwater fish, freshwater fish, big ones and small ones, at varying temperatures. The parasite ada
pts to every single one. It can live anywhere. Do you know what that means?”

  “That it’s not fussy?”

  “It means that one of the most important factors restricting its dispersal is lacking: the limitation of the hosts that are capable of transmitting it. It can live anywhere.”

  “Why hasn’t it spread all over the world?”

  He gathers up several coils of rope, picks up a bag, and dons a miner’s lamp. His sense of time has returned.

  “There are two answers to that question. The first is that its development in sea mammals is slow. Even if the parasite from this lake—and from other lakes on this island as well—is washed out to sea, it has to sit and wait for some passing seals to carry it farther, if it’s still alive when the seals come by. One answer is that there still haven’t been enough people here. The development process doesn’t pick up speed until there are human beings involved.”

  He leads the way. I know that I’m supposed to follow him. For a moment I hang back. As he leaves the room, I’m struck with a feeling of powerlessness. Verlaine looks at me.

  “When we were working for Khum Na,” he says, “twelve police officers arrived. The only one who escaped was a woman. Women are vermin.”

  “Ravn,” I say. “Nathalie Ravn?”

  He nods. “She came over as an English nurse. Spoke English and Thai without an accent. At that time we were at war with Laos, Cambodia, and, in the end, Burma too, with support from the U.S. There were many casualties.”

  He holds the petri dish between his thumb and forefinger and lifts it toward me. My body instinctively tries to shrink away from the worm. It must be sheer stubbornness that keeps me standing there.

  “When it penetrates the skin, it pushes its womb out and emits a white fluid full of millions of larvae. I’ve seen it.”

  Disgust contorts his face.

  “The females are much bigger than the males. They burrow into the flesh. We followed them with ultrasound scanners. Loyen had grafted them onto two Greenlanders who had AIDS. He had them flown to Denmark and admitted to one of the small private hospitals where they don’t ask about anything except your account number. We could see everything—how it reached the heart and then emptied itself out. The womb and everything. All females are that way, even humans, especially humans.”