Page 120 - The Midnight Library
P. 120
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Conversation was tempting, but dangerous. Nora smiled a small, polite
smile and then looked out of the window. e islands of ice turned into
actual islands. Little snow-streaked pointed hills, like the tips of mountains,
or flatter, cragg y plates of land. And beyond them, the glacier Nora had seen
from the cabin porthole. She could get a better measure of it now, although
its top portion was concealed under a visor of cloud. Other parts of it were
entirely free from fog. It was incredible.
You see a picture of a glacier on T V or in a magazine and you see a
smooth lump of white. But this was as textured as a mountain. Black-brown
and white. And there were infinite varieties of that white, a whole visual
smorgasbord of variation – white-white, blue-white, turquoise-white, gold-
white, silver-white, translucent-white – rendered glaringly alive and
impressive. Certainly more impressive than the breakfast.
‘Depressing, isn’t it?’ Hugo said.
‘What?’
‘ e fact that the day never ends.’
Nora felt uneasy with this obser vation. ‘In what sense? ’
He waited a second before responding.
‘ e never-ending light,’ he said, before taking a bite of a dr y cracker.
‘From April on. It’s like living one interminable day . . . I hate that feeling.’
‘ Tell me about it.’
‘You’d think they’d give the portholes curtains. Hardly slept since I’ve been
on this boat.’
Nora nodded. ‘How long is that again?’
He laughed. It was a nice laugh. Close-mouthed. Civilised. Hardly a laugh
at all.
‘I drank a lot with Ingrid last night. Vodka has stolen my memor y.’
‘Are you sure it’s the vodka?’
‘What else would it be?’
His eyes were inquisitive, and made Nora feel automatically guilty.
She looked over at Ingrid, who was drinking her coffee and typing on her
laptop. She wished she had sat with her now.
‘Well, that was our third night,’ Hugo said. ‘We have been meandering
around the archipelago since Sunday. Yeah, Sunday. at’s when we le
Long yearbyen.’
