The Girl without Skin

by Mads Peder Nordbo

  ‘Yes!’ the photographer exclaimed as his massive camera clicked away. ‘Bloody amazing.’ He turned and looked at Matthew, wide-eyed. ‘Do you think my pictures will be in all the foreign newspapers?’

  ‘To begin with, yes.’ Matthew nodded lightly without taking his eyes off the ice beneath them.

  ‘Will they credit me?’

  ‘We’ll make sure they do,’ Matthew said. ‘But first let’s just find out who he is, shall we?’

  ‘This is insane,’ the photographer exclaimed, ignoring Matthew’s last words. ‘I’m gonna be world-famous. Holy shit, it’s insane! Yes!’

  There was a jolt as the helicopter bumped against the ice. Matthew felt it sink as the wheels pressed into the belly of the heavy red body for one long second. It was his first trip in one of the big Air Greenland helicopters and, if his editor was to be believed, he might as well get his nerves and his stomach used to it, as many such trips awaited him—especially in the winter, when fixed-wing aeroplanes were often grounded by fog, storm, ice or thick snow.

  None of that mattered right now. They had landed and were about to see the first Norseman mummy ever found. Dried out and preserved by the frost and the arctic air. Matthew could already visualise the headline: The iceman from the past. The last Viking. He tried to decide what would sound best in English, and how much drama he could inject into the story. A killing would be good. The last Viking, wounded and dying alone on the ice. That sounded intriguing. The last Viking. Left behind. Dying from his wounds.

  3

  The reflection from the ice was so bright that Matthew was almost forced to shut his eyes as he climbed through the helicopter door and made his way down the short iron ladder that had unfolded below his feet.

  They were surrounded by a piercing whiteness more intense than anything he’d seen before.

  The magic, however, was ruined by the still noisy rotors, which continued to chop the air into pieces above their heads with heavy, monotonous thuds.

  One of the men signalled to the pilot, and soon the blades slowed as the engine was switched off. The din from the engine faded to a turbine-like drone before this tiny spot on the edge of the vast ice cap lay in deafening silence once more.

  There had been three other men and a woman on board the helicopter. All were from Denmark originally, but as far as Matthew had gathered, they were now working at Ilisimatusarfik, the University of Greenland, except for one of the men, who was from the museum where Matthew had seen the Inuit mummies.

  ‘Hi, are you the reporter?’

  Matthew looked around and saw a police officer who, in contrast to the group from the helicopter, looked Inuit.

  The photographer was also Inuit. His name was Malik. He had been leaping about on ice and rocks ever since he could walk, and he was one of the few people from the newspaper Matthew had made friends with.

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew said, still with his eyes almost closed. ‘I’m supposed to write about the man found out here.’ His fingers instinctively sought out the wedding band that he no longer wore.

  The police officer nodded. ‘He’s over there, but that’s not why I’m asking.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘You mustn’t touch him, but I’m sure you’ve already guessed as much.’ He turned to Malik. ‘And you keep your distance—are we clear?’

  ‘Why?’ Malik demanded. ‘I mean, he’s frozen solid.’

  The police officer shrugged and nodded in the direction of the archaeologists from the helicopter. ‘It’s their call.’

  ‘But it’s all right if we take some pictures and write about him, isn’t it?’ Matthew said, hoping that the archaeologists might hear him and invite him to join them. ‘This is big news, and we want to break the story before everyone else comes up here and steals our thunder. The whole world will want to know about this.’

  He could see that his words hit home with the young police officer.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ Matthew continued. ‘I want to be sure I spell it right in my story. After all, it’ll also go out in English.’

  The officer pressed his lips together, but then he nodded. ‘Ulrik Heilmann. With two n’s.’ He gestured briefly to the photographer. ‘I went to school with Malik.’

  ‘All right, Heilmann with two n’s,’ Matthew confirmed, and looked at Malik. ‘Could you please take some pictures of Ulrik for the paper?’

  Malik looked back at Matthew with his eyebrows raised, and then across to Ulrik. ‘But I thought we—’

  ‘Sure, sure, but we need the basics in place first,’ Matthew interjected. ‘We don’t want to miss anything.’

  Before Malik had time to protest, Matthew turned to Ulrik again. ‘So can I write that you found him?’

  ‘Well, some hunters discovered him and contacted us at the station, so they’re the ones who found him.’

  Matthew looked around. ‘And have they left?’

  Ulrik nodded, his eyes big and round. ‘Yes, they’ve headed further up the ice to look for reindeer. Enok is getting married soon and they’ve gone hunting for meat for his wedding.’

  ‘Enok?’ Matthew echoed.

  ‘One of their cousins,’ Ulrik said with a shake of his head. ‘It’s not important. Only they were keen to move on.’

  ‘There aren’t many reindeer out here,’ Malik whispered to Matthew. ‘But they might come across a lost musk ox—you never know.’

  Matthew looked at Ulrik. ‘It’s simpler if we write that you found him, but that you were acting on a tip-off from some hunters. It’s better that it’s your name in the paper when the calls start coming in from abroad. You’re much easier to track down than…’ Matthew looked across the fjords and the mountains, ‘…three hunters out there somewhere.’

  Malik’s lens caught the now beaming officer, who nodded to himself before he turned to the small cluster of archaeologists and the museum curator, who had gathered around a long, brown cocoon of old fur.

  Matthew craned his neck but could see nothing but the brown fur. His thoughts were still juggling different headlines in Danish and English, and all the media attention he would soon be getting.

  He shook his head and stamped his feet on the glittering snow carpet. It felt solid, and yet when he stomped hard his feet would sink in. The heat of the sun was intense—he could feel it nipping at his skin and tightening his face. The snow was porous and coarse-grained. Summer snow. Its density increased with every centimetre it went down. That was pretty much all he knew about glacier formation. Eventually the pressure grew so great that the snow was compacted into ice. Several kilometres of it. Over the years the cloudy ice became clear as the purest crystal.

  He looked up again. There was a dark crack in the ice cap not far from them. ‘Did you find him down there?’ he asked Ulrik, pointing at the crevasse.

  Ulrik nodded with a smile, then his face fell. ‘They’re saying I shouldn’t have touched him before they’d had a chance to secure the discovery site, but we thought it was a dead hunter.’

  Matthew smiled. ‘Of course—how were you to know? I’m sure they understand.’

  Ulrik shrugged. ‘Perhaps…I hope so, anyway. It wasn’t until I’d brought him up and had a proper look at him that I realised how yellow he was and how the skin on his face and feet had dried up like a hide that’s been stretched out and hung up in the wind.’ He unzipped his black uniform jacket, took it off and draped it over one arm.

  ‘Feet?’ Matthew said. ‘He has bare feet?’ Again he tried to catch the eyes of the archaeologists, but to no avail.

  Ulrik sniffed hard. ‘I didn’t see everything, but I think he was naked inside the fur as well. It seems to be stuck to him. The fur, I mean. Almost as if it’d grown together with his skin.’ He scrunched up his nose. ‘He’s been there a long time, let me tell you.’

  ‘About six hundred years, if he’s a Norseman,’ Matthew said.

  ‘I don’t remember the dates,’ Ulrik said.

  ‘But they think it’s
a Norseman?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been told, and there’s nothing to indicate that the body is more recent or that a crime has been committed, but they’ve requested forensic pathologists and crime scene technicians from Denmark, just to be sure. I don’t think they’ll get here until next week. Until then our job is to secure the area.’ He nodded towards the archaeologists. ‘But they’ve been given permission to look at him.’

  ‘This is global news,’ Matthew said. ‘BBC, NBC, National Geographic, Time. They’ll all want to know. So do you think we could have a quick look?’

  Ulrik nodded. ‘All right—I’ll see how far they’ve got. You can check out the crevasse in the meantime. But hey!’ He caught Malik’s eye. ‘Watch your step. I don’t have time to fly the pair of you to the hospital.’

  ‘You’ve become really boring—did you know that?’ Malik said with a grin. ‘Before we know it, Lyberth will have got you voted into the Inatsisartut, and then all hope is lost. By next year you’ll be just as dried up and wrinkly as that mummy.’ Malik turned to Matthew. ‘Ulrik is a Siumut Party candidate at the next election, backed by Jørgen Emil Lyberth. We’re looking at a future minister for the environment or justice.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Ulrik mumbled, although he couldn’t quite hide a smile that sent a red glow of pride to his cheeks. ‘Let’s just wait and see what the voters have to say about it, ilaa? It’s only been sixteen months since the last election.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get in. Lyberth has a seat in the cabinet with your name written on it.’

  Ulrik shook his head. ‘I think it’ll take a bit more than just a sticky label.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Malik raised his eyebrows. ‘Listen, if your ministry ever needs a photographer, promise you’ll give me a call?’

  ‘You just mind where you go and watch your step once you get down that crevasse, all right?’

  ‘We will, mate—you know me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s my point precisely.’

  Malik rolled his eyes. ‘He’s never going to let me forget the time I drifted out to sea on an icefloe and they had to dispatch several helicopters to find me.’ He flung out his arms. ‘But seriously, mate, the light on the ice that day was mind-blowing!’

  4

  Matthew perched gingerly on the edge of the crevasse as he watched Malik, who was already quite far down the ice wall. When Matthew had seen the crevasse from the helicopter, it had appeared like a dark slash in the ground, but now that he was staring right into it, it was more like looking into a luminous iceberg.

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ Matthew called out.

  Malik turned and looked up at him with exasperation. ‘This isn’t an active part of the glacier. The crevasse is solid, and the footholds I’m using have been here forever. Don’t worry. I’m only going to that ledge over there where they found him.’

  Matthew looked down at him tentatively. Then he took a deep breath and stretched his neck from side to side a few times.

  ‘Why don’t you come on down?’ Malik went on. ‘We’re going no further than this, so you’ll be completely safe.’

  Matthew rolled over slowly and let himself slide down until his feet found a foothold. He looked around. Malik was several metres below him, but the photographer was right—the ice felt safe and solid. Matthew looked to the side. Not far from him there was a vertical drop, and he couldn’t see where the crevasse ended. Deep down, there was nothing but total darkness.

  Malik had followed his gaze. ‘We’re not going down there today, but let me know if you want to do that sometime. The caves around here are absolutely insane. Mind-boggling. Completely turquoise. I can show you my pictures when we get back, if you like.’

  Matthew nodded slowly. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ He was shivering, and regretted leaving his jacket in the helicopter. The moment they had climbed down between the enormous walls of ice, the temperature had dropped and their breath turned to wispy fog. ‘So you’ve been down here before?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not here, but you find the same world in every crevasse and cave.’

  There was silence for a moment. They could no longer hear voices from above. Matthew looked at Malik. He wore sturdy boots, thick orange trousers and a grey knitted jumper. A wiser choice than the sneakers and jeans in which Matthew had left his apartment.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Malik continued. ‘This is the place. I can see where he was lying.’

  Matthew didn’t respond, but let himself glide down another level, grabbing hold of cracks and protrusions in the ice and compacted snow.

  ‘Look, there it is!’ Malik’s camera clicked away first from this angle, then from that. Then he straightened up and looked towards the rim of the crevasse above them. ‘The storm the other day must have uncovered him. We don’t usually have such windy weather at this time of year, but you never can tell.’

  ‘How would the storm have done that?’

  ‘It must have swept away the snow to reveal him.’ Malik tilted his head and ran a hand through his dense black hair. ‘The wind here can move a mountain of snow in a matter of hours.’ He glanced at Matthew. ‘Let’s head back up into the sunshine. I have some good pictures.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you want some mattak? I’ve got some in my rucksack.’

  ‘Mattak? That’s whale skin, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and blubber. It’ll warm you up in no time, I promise.’

  Matthew shook his head. ‘I think a bit of sun is all I need.’

  ‘But it tastes fantastic and it’s full of warming oil. Are you sure? You look like you could do with a cube or two.’

  ‘I think I’ll pass,’ Matthew replied, and grabbed at the ice, preparing to climb back up. He placed one foot on a small protrusion while the other felt around for a good crack or a lump of hard snow to stand on. Getting down had been much easier than going up. It was like trying to climb up a slide, and the smooth soles of his sneakers weren’t helping. His foot found a hollow and he pulled himself up with one arm, but soon he felt the snow shift, throwing him off balance. The void below reached out for him, and he had a vision of himself lying at the bottom of the turquoise deep with a hundred broken bones and a cloud of frozen breath hanging over him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Matthew felt Malik’s firm grip on his jumper, and allowed himself to be pulled back to his foothold in the snow.

  ‘I thought we were being careful?’ Malik reminded him.

  The snow filled Matthew’s hands as he dug his fingers into it. He was panting now, and could feel the cold ice wall against his face.

  ‘That never would have happened if you’d eaten some mattak.’ Malik grinned and slapped Matthew on the back a couple of times. ‘And mattak clears your mind, so you can look into nature rather than just walk around it.’ Still smiling, he pointed out a couple of holes in the ice wall close to them. ‘Climb up over there. It’s safer.’

  ‘I just slipped, that’s all,’ Matthew grunted. He collapsed on the ice ledge and fished out his cigarettes from his jeans pocket. He looked up at Malik. ‘Do you want one?’

  Malik nodded and sat down next to him. Matthew took out two cigarettes and lit them both.

  ‘Jørgen Emil Lyberth,’ Matthew said, blowing smoke into the cold air. ‘He was the speaker of the Inatsisartut for quite a few years, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he was the longest-serving speaker ever. He served several terms, but he’s been out for a few years now. When Ulrik gets elected, the old man will recapture some of his former glory.’ Malik took a deep drag on his cigarette and pressed his chin towards his chest. ‘I don’t remember where Ulrik is from—one day he was just there. He came from some small village and Lyberth took him in. It’s probably thanks to Lyberth that Ulrik was popular from day one, even though he was so strange and dark.’ He took another deep drag on his cigarette, then tossed what was left of it into the void. ‘And now he’s married to Lyberth’s youngest—would you believe it? Have you seen h
er?’

  Matthew shook his head.

  ‘She’s seriously hot…He’s done good, he has, the boy without a past.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Matthew said, and he tossed his glowing cigarette butt after Malik’s. ‘That’ll help when I start writing my story.’

  ‘That’s kind of my point. Don’t make an enemy of Lyberth—it’s not worth it. Nuuk is a very small town.’

  5

  The sun was still beating down on the ice cap, and Matthew warmed up the moment he was free of the crevasse. Once again the snow blinded him with its thousands of tiny white mirrors, but his eyes soon adapted to the sharp light. The surface of the ice cap was rippled like a calm sea. Small hollows, mounds and frozen waves spread as far as the eye could see, formed over the years by the snow, the rain and the wind. All around them, steel-blue mountains stretched towards the azure blanket of the sky. At this time of year only a few peaks had any serious snow on them—although the snow had started to fall on the highest ones, it only stayed on the shaded sides, in ravines and crevices. There, however, it had been lying the whole summer. Matthew had yet to go hiking in the mountains, but knew it was only a matter of time. He had gathered that it was one of the things you had to do, if you were a new Dane in Nuuk and wanted to earn a little respect.

  ‘So did you get some good pictures down there?’ Ulrik asked.

  Malik gave him a thumbs-up.

  ‘Excellent,’ Ulrik said. ‘I’ve been told that you can have a look at him now, and that they’re happy to answer questions.’ He turned to Matthew. ‘After all, we want Greenland’s own media to be first with this news, don’t we?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Matthew said with a nod.

  Ulrik smiled, possibly at the thought of the many pictures of him that would soon be beamed around the world on the strength of a story about the man they had found in the ice.

  The archaeologists and the museum curator had retreated to near the helicopter, where two of them were on their satellite phones while the others were staring at a couple of open laptops.