The Exception

by Christian Jungersen

  The papers loved quoting the other hostages when they described Iben as ‘the strongest member of the group’. A tabloid phoned one of them and didn’t leave him alone until he admitted that ‘without Iben the outcome might well have been less fortunate’. The media chased the story for a week and then totally lost interest. The group’s captivity had lasted just four days, which meant that Iben didn’t rank among seriously famous hostages. By now, the journalists have forgotten her.

  Iben realises that Malene is trying to sneak a look at her face to find out if ‘something’s the matter’.

  ‘Malene, I’m fine. Why don’t you go and change?’

  ‘Are you positive?’

  ‘Yes. Sure.’

  The furnishings in the flat are in a state of flux. The backs of a couple of basic IKEA folding chairs are still covered by Indian rugs from a Fair Trade shop. The rugs, like the cheap Polynesian figurines, are reminders of the time when Malene studied international development at university. Three years have passed since Malene received her degree. Soon afterwards her student job at the Danish Centre for Genocide Information was turned into a proper, well-paid post. Rasmus, who has a dead-end university degree in Film Studies, makes a good living, too, as a computer-hardware salesman. Now their furniture includes pieces by top designers, such as their Italian sofa and a couple of armchairs.

  The telephone rings. Iben answers and recognises the deep male voice with the Jutland accent. She has listened to Gunnar Hartvig Nielsen so many times on the current-affairs programme Orientation.

  Iben calls Malene, who is presently sporting jeans and a fashionable, colourful silk shirt. It looks like her last bid in the dressing-up stakes, because she has put on some make-up.

  Iben hears Malene turn down Gunnar’s suggestion that they should meet for dinner and invite him to join them at Sophie’s instead.

  When Malene hangs up, Iben wonders aloud: ‘Could he really be bothered to come to Sophie’s?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But what’s he going to do there?’

  ‘Meet people, talk to me. Have a good time. Like we are.’

  ‘Yeah … of course.’

  Iben switches off the television. Malene wants to finish her make-up.

  Iben had heard Gunnar Nielsen’s name for the first time when she was still a student. Everyone in her dorm shared a daily copy of Information, which published Gunnar’s stream of articles on international politics. They scrutinised every word and particularly admired his reports from Africa.

  Like Malene, Gunnar had grown up in rural Denmark. At nineteen, he went to Tanzania to work on a development project rather than going to university. He taught himself Swahili and stayed on in Africa, travelling around for nearly four years. His first book about Africa was called The Rhythms of Survival. It became not only required reading for young backpackers, but also was taken seriously by people concerned with international issues.

  By the time he was twenty-five Gunnar had been a well-established journalist. He had gone back to Africa several times. At one point, he had tried to combine university studies with his Information assignments to cover summit meetings and conferences, but the dull world of university life couldn’t compete with the excitement of being at the centre of things, so he had dropped out of the course after little more than a year.

  Iben and Malene were still at university when Gunnar’s newspaper pieces suddenly stopped. His fame as a star left-wing writer quickly faded.

  Four years ago when she was a student trainee at the DCGI, Malene had found out what had happened. She had managed to get hold of him for an interview about the horrific, but at the time unrecognised, genocide in the Sudan. Gunnar had taken a job as the editor of Development, a magazine published by Danida, the Danish state organisation for international development. He had told her that, after his divorce, he needed a steady income to pay child support and to rent a new flat with enough space for his children’s visits. His articles were as good as ever, but went almost unnoticed by people outside the circle of Danida initiates.

  Iben, who was studying comparative literature at the time, felt envious of her friend, who always met such exciting men through her work, and was good-looking enough to attract many of them. Her envy deepened when Gunnar invited Malene out to dinner.

  More meals followed. Malene and Gunnar explored restaurants in every corner of the city, but did nothing else. Gunnar’s strongly built body, his ‘disillusioned socialist’ attitude and, above all, the fact that he was in his mid-forties, meant that Malene thought the chemistry between them wasn’t right, much as she loved dining out with him. Now and then she would tell Iben about how weary she felt when she saw the pleading in his large eyes.

  Once Iben spoke out. ‘It isn’t fair to keep going out with Gunnar and letting him pay for one meal after another. He’s in love with you and you don’t even want to sleep with him.’

  ‘Oh, come on. We always have such a good time together. And he’s said that he isn’t expecting anything more – you know, like love or sex.’

  ‘But he’s got to pay for you all the same?’

  ‘No, it’s not like that. It’s simple: he enjoys eating in restaurants and so do I, but I’m broke. If he couldn’t afford it and I could, I’d pay for him.’

  When Malene met the younger, cooler Rasmus and became his girlfriend, he too tried to stop her evenings out with Gunnar. Iben overheard Malene say, ‘Rasmus, there’s nothing sexual between Gunnar and me. We’re just good friends.’ Still, Rasmus had insisted that she should pay her share.

  Before leaving, Iben and Malene wolf down some leftovers and empty their Mojito glasses. In the hall, Malene quickly changes to another pair of her expensive orthopaedic shoes, which she has to wear because of her arthritis.

  Iben and Malene hang up their coats in the narrow passage of Sophie’s flat. The air is heavy with the smell of fried food, wine and people.

  Sophie comes over to meet them. After the hugs and cries of ‘So good to see you’, she notices Malene’s clothes and make-up. ‘But Malene, it’s not that kind of party …’ Some of her other guests are drifting out through the sitting-room door and bump into her. Distractedly she finishes the sentence: ‘… it’s just, you know, the same old crowd coming round for a drink. You know I’m off tomorrow, don’t you?’

  When she phoned up about the party, Sophie, who had lived in the same student housing as Iben and Malene, explained that she was leaving Denmark to join her boyfriend, a biologist working in Canada on a two-year project.

  Someone in the sitting room calls out: ‘Hey, look, there’s Iben. The heroine has arrived!’

  ‘Went back to protect the others, instead of just looking after number one,’ another old college friend adds.

  Iben smiles. God only knows how many times she’s explained it all before. ‘I had no idea what I was doing. Everything was so confusing. I just didn’t think about the outcome.’

  ‘But that’s precisely what makes what you did heroic, Iben. You had the right instincts. Or whatever it is that kicks in when you’ve got to make a split-second decision.’

  Sophie gives Iben another little hug and looks her in the eye. ‘Most people would have run for it.’

  The sitting room is packed with familiar faces. Five years ago they were all students together, in their early twenties. Iben remembers how they would laze around on the grass in Fælled Park when there was a concert on. Almost all of them have finished with education by now. Some have jobs, but many more live on benefits, full or part-time. Despite failing in the job market they still feel less poor now, because the unemployment payments are quite an improvement on student grants. Individual lives are being pushed in utterly unforeseen directions along career paths, sometimes along straight routes and sometimes up blind alleys. Some of them already have children.

  They are everywhere, standing or sitting, drinking beer or red wine, chatting in the low light from a few dim lamps. Three young mothers drift around with babies in t
heir arms. Iben and Malene exchange glances. Obviously, dancing isn’t an option.

  There are more questions about Nairobi, but Iben only smiles. ‘I’ve been asked about all that so often I can’t even bring myself to discuss it any longer. Some other time. Look, what about you?’

  She does the rounds of the room and then tucks herself away in a corner where she can half-sit, half-lean on a table. A man starts reminiscing about nights spent clubbing. He’s a dentist, fresh from his qualifying exams and already well on his way to becoming an alcoholic.

  She looks up and, across the room, sees Gunnar. Malene once spoke of him as ‘such a big guy’ and Iben got the impression that he was John Goodman-sized. Now she realises that he is more like the young Gérard Depardieu.

  Iben sees Malene get up from an inflatable armchair and walk towards Gunnar; the dentist turns to watch.

  Iben crushes a crisp between her teeth. Some women, she thinks, would be bloody irritated if their friend had that sort of effect on every single guy they met. She observes Malene lead Gunnar away to the relative peace of the hallway.

  Later, Iben and one of Rasmus’s best friends end up side by side on the sofa. He wears a neon-blue jacket with contrasting seams and is proudly telling her that he’s just landed a job as a copywriter in an advertising agency. His voice sounds louder than it used to be and his laughter seems more mechanical.

  ‘Human rights and art – great stuff, but there’s no money in it!’

  He sees the expression on Iben’s face. ‘Sure, it’s not so bad being more or less broke. But unemployment, that’s something else. It’s awful. I mean, just look at the way you’re treated by your prospective employers. They couldn’t give a fuck. They know perfectly well they can take their pick from thousands of graduates.’ Some of the people standing nearby are listening in and he turns to them as well. ‘But in a good agency you get treated differently. The bosses know how few there are who have both the talent and the stamina to put up with that line of work.’ He smiles. ‘Like, watch the style; fuck the substance.’

  He mentions the name of his agency and Iben is obviously meant to recognise it. ‘We’ve been on TV. Like you.’

  Iben pours fruit juice into her plastic cup while keeping an eye on Gunnar, who has come back into the room. He isn’t surrounded by any female admirers. Maybe because by now they’re old enough to feel self-conscious or because they think that, in the flesh, he doesn’t quite live up to their fantasies. Or maybe because he is just too old.

  Rasmus’s friend is still working his story. Now he’s telling everyone about how his agency paid for him and the rest of the crew to take a three-day Christmas break, partying in Barcelona, and how it was worth it, given the firm’s investment in their salaries.

  Maybe it’s the impressed looks on the faces of the listeners that prompts Iben to jump in and defend traditional values, such as ‘Money isn’t everything’ and ‘You can’t buy happiness’. In no time she realises that this discussion is just a rerun of their old debates, as if they are all battle-worn politicians in the last days of an election campaign, able to predict their opponents’ arguments.

  Avoiding eye contact, she deliberately turns away from the discussion and tries instead to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two strangers sitting opposite.

  But Rasmus’s friend hasn’t finished. ‘Iben, your job is different. I would’ve liked it myself. You investigate serious stuff. Humanitarian issues. That’s really worthwhile. It means something.’ He pats his bright-blue jacket. ‘You try to make the world a better place, sure. But I’m not convinced that will ever happen. It’s not top of the agenda.’ He breaks off, apparently amused by his own paradox.

  Later, Iben finds herself standing next to a child’s folding cot, all aluminium and nylon, like a tiny piece of camping equipment. She is balancing a glass of red wine and three broken crackers.

  Suddenly Gunnar materialises at her side. ‘What’s it like to be back home?’ That calm voice of his.

  She looks at him. He has grey-blue eyes. ‘I’m not sure if I am back.’

  They laugh.

  Iben doesn’t know where to look. Sophie has put on one of her Buddha Bar CDs. At the other end of the room Malene walks over to a wooden chair and sits down. Only Iben knows exactly how Malene looks when her feet begin to hurt. She will want to go home soon.

  Gunnar is telling her about being in Dar es Salaam to interview Habyarimana, the former Rwandan President. Not long afterwards the presidential plane was shot down and his widow kept herself busy by killing Rwandan Tutsis. These revenge killings alone led to half a million deaths. Gunnar speaks of when he handled one of the heavy, nail-studded wooden clubs used to break human skulls.

  ‘A lot of the murdering was done inside churches, where many of the Tutsis sought refuge. It was hard work killing human beings with whatever was at hand – mostly household implements and agricultural tools. Faced with hundreds of victims, the Hutus found it expedient to cut the Achilles tendons of their victims straight away. Then they could take their time about the slaughter – days, if necessary.’

  In his company Iben finds it easier to recall the three months she spent in Nairobi before being captured. She tries to express how surreal it all was. Most people are bemused, but Gunnar knows Africa.

  They lean against one of Sophie’s bookshelves. She loses track of time. Then somebody passing by accidentally bumps into Iben and she discovers that she’s been standing there with her mouth half open a bit too long, gazing up into Gunnar’s regular features and drinking in his long, absorbing explanations. She gives herself a little shake, like a dog that’s clambered out of the water.

  I’d better go and talk to someone else, Iben tells herself. But she sees Malene heading over to join them. This is not good.

  Malene doesn’t look at Iben, only Gunnar, when she tells him about meeting one of his journalist friends at the Centre and what a weird encounter it was.

  Iben wants a glass of water. She turns to go, but Gunnar grabs hold of her wrist. ‘Who knows, I might run into you one day at the Metro Bar.’

  ‘Metro Bar?’

  ‘Don’t you know it? I was sure I’d seen you there. It’s the café, next to Broadcasting House. I go there several times a week.’

  ‘No, I don’t know it.’

  Iben realises what he has just said and quickly looks at Malene.

  Malene pats Gunnar’s broad shoulder. ‘Look, I really came over to tell you that I’d better leave. My feet …’ She smiles a big goodbye instead of finishing the sentence.

  Gunnar and Iben nod in silence, looking at her arthritic hands and feet.

  Malene smiles again. ‘Iben, are you coming?’

  2

  The Danish Centre for Genocide Information, or DCGI for short, was set up to collect data about genocide and make it available, both in Denmark and abroad, to researchers, politicians, aid organisations and anyone else with a genuine interest. Over the years, the organisation has accumulated Scandinavia’s largest collection of books and documents on the subject.

  The DCGI is housed in a restored old red-brick building, along a lane in Copenhagen’s central Østerbro district. Its offices and library take up the entire attic floor, a space once occupied by the city council archives.

  The library is expanding all the time. Grey steel shelves cover the walls almost everywhere – in the kitchen, the hallway and the space they call the Small Meeting Room. They have also invaded the largest room, which serves as a shared office for Iben, Malene and Camilla. Wider and heavier industrial-style shelves, the steel lacquered dark green, have been tucked into the less accessible corners and are laden with cardboard boxes full of documents such as diplomatic reports and transcripts of foreign court proceedings.

  Only five people are employed to manage the Centre and handle the mountains of printed material. In addition to Iben (the information officer) and Malene (the projects manager) are Paul, the head of the Centre, Camilla, Paul’s secretary, and Ann
e-Lise, the librarian.

  Apart from Paul’s room, the spacious main office is the brightest and most pleasant. Iben and Malene sit facing each other at ergonomically correct desks. Although most of the walls are lined with books, the shelving is not as tightly packed as it is in the library. Malene has put potted plants on the sills in front of the three windows, which is why the office is lovingly referred to as the ‘Winter Garden’. The point of the joke is, of course, that the room will always look like a library, regardless of how much vegetation is crammed into it.

  Iben and Malene have tried to make their office look more homely in other ways as well. They have put up a notice board and with time it has become covered with photos, conference invitations, newspaper cuttings and postcards with teasing messages about the sender having a great holiday while they’re slaving away in an office.

  It’s the Monday morning after Sophie’s get-together and Iben and Malene are at work as usual. They sometimes chat with each other, sometimes with Camilla, whose desk is at the other end of the large room, next to Paul’s door.

  Iben can sense something – something in Malene’s eyes.

  At one point, Malene sighs audibly and Iben looks up. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh … nothing.’

  Malene prints out a piece that she’s been working on and starts correcting it, first with a green marker and then with red. After a while she sighs again.

  Iben looks away from the screen, hesitates and tries a little smile. They are such good friends that Malene can’t help smiling back.

  ‘What’s up?’ Iben asks.

  Malene slams the printout down on the wrist-support in front of her keyboard.

  ‘I just can’t get it right. Not the way I want it.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ve got to get the text ready for at least three posters about how Danes rescued lots of Danish Jews. It’s for the exhibition. It’s so hard … Whatever I write sucks. It sounds so self-satisfied and so … evangelical!’