Peter Føjl's stutter

Peter Føjl's stutter is a persistent feature of his speech, shaping how he gives information and marking moments when tension makes communication difficult. The novel presents it not as an isolated impediment but as part of his physical presence in scenes of surveillance and shared danger.

Speech and Surveillance

While seated in the mechanic’s living room, Peter recounts what a colleague on the cleaning staff at the telephone company’s switching station on Nørre Street told him: officials could claim to have a court order, connect clips to a relay, and listen to calls through the telephone network. His account begins with a stammer, and the practical warning leads to an equally practical gesture: he cuts a long strip from a roll of wide red insulation tape and attaches it to the telephone receiver.

He advises that the same tape be put on the telephone in the apartment. Removing it before each incoming or outgoing call, he says, will remind the caller that someone in the city may be listening. His example of a declaration of love turns a technical precaution into a matter of private feeling. The stutter accompanies the warning, but it does not prevent Peter from explaining the method or from giving the danger a concrete, memorable form.

Under Pressure

Later, after Peter has followed Smilla out toward the marsh, he explains that he parked near Tuborg Road and saw her pass through it. The account comes in halting fragments: he says he followed her, stopped, and watched her go through the marsh, with the initial sounds of several words catching and repeating. His stutter is especially pronounced as he speaks, and the scene makes his difficulty audible rather than merely describing it.

The exchange takes place beside his little Morris, with Peter and Smilla sitting next to each other in silence before he speaks. He has followed her, but the narration does not treat the act as simple confidence or uncomplicated pursuit: Smilla understands that she need not ask why, because in some ways they are equally frightened. His strained speech belongs to this atmosphere of mutual fear, where the information he manages to convey is also an admission of how closely he has kept watch.

Narrative Function

Across these scenes, Peter’s speech is both a means of practical communication and a marker of vulnerability. In the living room, he can pass on specific knowledge about telephone interception and turn it into a safeguard; near Tuborg Road, he struggles to report what he has witnessed. The difference lies not in whether he can communicate, but in the effort his speech makes visible under pressure.

The novel offers no explanation for the origin of the stutter and does not present it as something Peter overcomes. Instead, it remains part of how he speaks, even as he participates in consequential acts of warning and follows Smilla into danger. Its recurrence keeps the bodily difficulty of speech alongside the urgency of what must be said.