Smilla Escapes the Kronos Infirmary

Smilla Escapes the Kronos Infirmary is the shipboard escape sequence in which Smilla, injured and still under threat, arms herself with a concealed revolver, fights her way out, and forces Captain Lukas to lead her onto the deck. Its decisive turn is from confinement under other people’s control to an unstable freedom she must secure by keeping a weapon trained on them.

The Hidden Means of Escape

The escape begins not with a planned route but with objects concealed close at hand. Inside the cushion Smilla has been using as a pillow, she finds Jakkelsen’s key, a blue plastic container, and a piece of metal wrapped in cloth. The metal is a Ballester Molina Inunangitsoq revolver, manufactured in Nuuk under an Argentine license. Smilla distinguishes it from hunting rifles, which can serve as protection against musk oxen and polar bears; this short-barreled weapon, with its flat-tipped lead-jacketed bullets, has no such plausible hunting use. Its box is full, and its cylinder holds six rounds. The weapon offers a means of resistance, but possessing it does not make escape simple or safe.

The Fight with Maurice

To get the cabin door open, Smilla makes a rattling cough, then kicks the remaining shards of glass in the cupboard door until they crash to the floor and the door swings open. When Maurice comes in, she braces herself against the table and aims the revolver with both hands. She orders him to his knees, but he advances. Smilla points the barrel at his legs and pulls the trigger; nothing happens, because she has forgotten to release the safety catch. Maurice strikes her in the chest with his good left arm, hurling her against the cupboard. Glass from the broken window cuts into her back, and his kick breaks her nose and briefly knocks her unconscious.

When she comes to, Maurice is standing over her. Smilla reaches into the tool pouch in her work pants for scalpels wrapped in Band-Aids and cuts his ankle, severing his Achilles’ tendon. He falls as he tries to pursue her. Still holding the revolver, she strikes him in the mouth with its barrel when he reaches inside his windbreaker, then leaves and locks the door behind her with his key. The improvised escape depends on successive close-range acts rather than on the firearm alone: the weapon initially fails, and Smilla gets past Maurice by turning the tools she has at hand into weapons and securing the door after she leaves.

From the Infirmary to the Deck

The infirmary door is only the first barrier. At sea, doors are left unlocked when people are inside so they can be opened quickly in a fire, and Captain Lukas is asleep behind an unlocked door. Smilla closes it behind her and sits at the foot of his bunk. When Lukas wakes, she says she has temporarily discharged herself. He tries to grab her, but she shows him the revolver; when he keeps coming, she raises it to his face and takes off the safety. Her threat changes the balance: Lukas tells her to return, insisting that arrest is her security, but Smilla counters that Maurice outside is hardly reassuring and orders him to put on his coat and go out on deck with her.

The Deck as a Provisional Escape

Lukas complies, and the two go out across the deck. As they pass the stairs to the upper decks, Sonne comes down. Smilla moves close to Lukas; when Sonne stops, Lukas waves him on. Sonne hesitates, then yields to his naval training and discipline and steps aside. Smilla and Lukas continue to the railing, where she stands several yards away so that he cannot easily grab her. The distance forces them to raise their voices to be heard, turning open space into a tactical safeguard rather than a place of ease.

From the railing, Smilla sees the island rising above the frozen sea. After so many days on the open water, its narrow, high outline has a dark and painful beauty: ice covers most of the rock, spilling from the bowl-shaped summit down the steep sides, while the Barren Glacier projects toward the Kronos. The landscape does not settle the danger or make her escape secure. It marks instead the precarious change the episode has achieved: Smilla has left the infirmary and forced her way onto the open deck, but she remains injured, armed, and in control only so long as the men around her keep their distance.