The threatening phone call drives Smilla from her apartment

The threatening phone call drives Smilla Jaspersen from her apartment at the instant she is trying to leave quietly. The caller’s voice confirms that the danger she had only just escaped has followed her home; unable to risk another moment inside, she drops the receiver and flees to Birgo Lander, who is waiting with the engine running.

Preparing to Leave

Smilla returns to her own floor and finds the tape across her door undisturbed. Inside, everything remains as she left it. She gathers essential clothes, but they fill two suitcases so heavy that transporting them would require a moving van. Because she dares not turn on a light, she repacks by the reflection of the city lights on the snow outside, eventually reducing her belongings to one large duffel bag at the cost of what she describes as heart-rending sacrifices.

Before leaving, she stands in the room for a final look around, places Isaiah’s cigar box in the bag, and says a brief mental farewell to her home. The small box gives the hurried departure a second weight: she is not only abandoning a place but carrying an object tied to the boy whose absence still shapes her life.

The Call and Recognition

The phone rings after Smilla has prepared to go. She knows she should let it ring: she has promised the mechanic not to return upstairs, does not want to speak to the police, and believes she has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Still, she loosens the tape and answers. The caller says her name, and his voice sounds languid and almost distracted, yet also golden and resonant, like a television commercial.

Smilla has never heard the voice before, but she is certain who it belongs to. The man was standing less than a yard away from her only moments earlier. He calls again, saying that he knows she is there, while his breathing comes through the receiver deep and calm. The recognition transforms an ordinary phone call into proof that the immediate threat has reached the apartment; the calmness of the voice contrasts with the certainty of Smilla’s alarm.

Flight and Immediate Aftermath

Smilla puts the receiver on the table rather than back on the phone, using both hands so she will not drop it. She does not stop to change shoes. With the duffel over her shoulder, she races down the dark stairway, leaves the building, and runs along Strand Street, across the bridge, and up Havne Street. Her narration marks the moment as one in which panic takes control, making flight a bodily response rather than a considered plan.

Birgo Lander is waiting with the engine running. Smilla throws herself into the passenger seat and clings to him. He calls it a good start; after slowly bringing her breathing down to a tolerable level, she dismisses her embrace as a one-time acknowledgment of sympathy and warns him not to let it go to his head. Her denial does not undo the immediate gesture of seeking refuge in him, and the exchange closes the episode with danger still unresolved but escape briefly underway.