If there is a merger, Malene, as project manager, would almost certainly be the first in line to be laid off, even though she has been in her post the longest time. The look on Malene’s face now reminds Iben of Cathy’s, back in that filthy hut, when she realised that Iben had become friendlier with Omoro than the rest of them. But unlike Cathy, Malene doesn’t say anything conciliatory.
Instead, she mimes: ‘Are you coming?’
They go to talk in the small storage room where, only two and half months ago, they and Rasmus had played around, hunting for Anne-Lise’s password.
Malene sits down on the old chair and looks at Iben. ‘Did you truly believe that we were talking about Anne-Lise?’
‘Yes, but … you were.’
‘Of course we weren’t.’
‘But …’
Malene interrupts her. ‘Anne-Lise is hallucinating. And you didn’t seem all there yourself. Like you hadn’t slept all night. Are you positive about what you did and didn’t hear?’
Someone walks past in the corridor. Anne-Lise? Iben and Malene are silent until the sound of footsteps has disappeared.
‘You aren’t sure, are you? I can see it in your face.’
‘Yes, I am sure.’
‘I can’t stand the way we always have to put up with Anne-Lise’s paranoia. We’ve been reasonable. Unlike her, we’ve acted professionally and done our best to make this place work properly. We tried to help her, even though she shouted at us and Paul refused to give her sick leave.’
While Malene speaks she presses the tips of her fingers against the wrist of her other hand. The last time Iben saw her do this was once when they were in Malene’s flat. Malene was lying on the sofa, propped up by a lot of cushions. She had just said, ‘When I’m resting like this, I can hear my bones crumbling, all on their own.’
‘I simply don’t understand why you’re encouraging her by saying that we were talking about her, when we weren’t.’
‘But you were talking about her.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. It’s not too hard to work out what you’re up to.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You don’t want to admit it, do you?’
‘Well, you’ll have to tell me what you mean first …’
‘All this with Paul and jobs and co-operating with Anne-Lise.’
‘What are you saying? Malene, you mustn’t think …’
‘You know, what that email said about you is absolutely true. I’ve always thought so. You are self-righteous.’
They are back at their desks. Iben isn’t sure that they are friends any longer. She watches as Malene types away on her ergonomic keyboard. How can she concentrate? How is she able to write? Surely, like Iben, she must want to go home? But Malene is a survivor too.
What next? Iben has visions of a future when she will be free to spend time with Gunnar. They will have dinner together, their heads close together, her hands in his, intimate.
Iben starts to leaf through the massive pile of documents.
Malene is obviously capable of believing that she hasn’t said something she really did say. What other things might she do without remembering them afterwards? Pour blood into a box file? Send emails full of threats?
Iben watches her old friend. She has no idea of what’s going on inside Malene’s head. Malene feels Iben is looking at her and ignores her. Instead she seems to be engrossed in a couple of folders that are next to the bulletin board.
It couldn’t possibly be Malene’s voice that Iben heard on the staircase just before Rasmus fell. Until now, Iben thought it was out of the question.
Malene
41
One of the first times Iben and I went to the cinema together after she had started at the Centre, we were walking across the square in front of the City Hall, and she said, ‘Isn’t our City Hall unbelievably similar to the main SS guardhouse at Auschwitz-Birkenau?’ And a little later, ‘Did you see that dog? It’s just like the dog that belonged to the Assistant Commandant at Treblinka.’
Iben hadn’t worked long for DCGI, but she was already thinking constantly about genocide and its psychology. I don’t think she has the mental stability you need to work in a place like this; she’s too sensitive. Unlike the rest of us, she can’t keep her cool. I shouldn’t blame her – she is who she is. But it drives me absolutely crazy when she stares at me, like she thinks I’m some kind of Nazi officer about to subject Anne-Lise to the Final Solution. What can you do with a friend who thinks that about you?
She hasn’t said it straight out, but she keeps insinuating it. I get so angry with her. What she’s saying makes a mockery of people who have experienced real genocide. How can she draw a parallel between their suffering and a spoilt librarian’s failure to understand why people don’t like her? How can Iben see me in terms of a genocidal killer? I think she might be close to a nervous breakdown.
As you may have figured out, I can’t help but suspect that it’s actually Iben who sent the emails and exchanged my pills. I’m certain she’s weird enough to hide
The phone rings. Malene gets up from her computer and looks around. She realises how dark the room has become while she has been writing. Positively gloomy. She’ll switch on some lights after she deals with the phone call.
It is Malene’s mother. ‘Malene, you really must change the message on your answering machine.’
‘Oh, Mum, I know. I know.’
‘It gives you such a shock, hearing his voice.’
‘I know. It’s just one of those things …’ Malene rubs her face with the knuckles on her left hand. ‘You know, I still get bills addressed to him. Like he’s still using his mobile phone and … it’s awful.’
‘But Malene, changing the voice message isn’t just for your sake – it’s about being considerate to other people.’
‘I’ll do it. I promise.’
Should I really spend money on another answering machine? she thinks. She knows she can’t bring herself simply to erase Rasmus’s voice. Some nights she plays his recorded greeting repeatedly. She might drink a bottle of white wine, sliding slowly into oblivion as she presses the button over and over again.
Her mother cuts into her thoughts. ‘It matters to people who call you.’
Sooner or later there might be a power cut, Malene thinks. Or someone might fiddle around with the cables, and then I’d lose his message anyway. I should definitely buy a new machine.
Her mother says that she bumped into a few old friends in Kolding. They’d heard about Rasmus and expressed their sympathy for Malene.
‘You must let us know if there is anything that Dad or I can do for you. Anything at all. We worry about you so much.’
Malene doesn’t reply.
‘Are you writing to Rasmus?’
‘Umm.’
‘That’s good. I mean, it’s good for you to write down what you feel. I’m sure there are so many things you’d like to tell him.’
‘Umm.’
*
Afterwards Malene walks around turning on lights. Someone who didn’t know about her arthritis might miss the small signs of her illness scattered around her flat: a plain metal-framed adjustable chair set among the wooden dining chairs; special knives and other equipment in the kitchen; small toy-like objects for exercising her fingers.
She sits down and continues her letter.
I admit that Iben is right about some things. We have been too rough on Anne-Lise. We shouldn’t lower our own standards. Yet it was Anne-Lise who started it all. She was the one who persuaded Paul to give her some of my most exciting responsibilities. She was the one who manoeuvred it so that I would be the first in line to be fired if we merge with Human Rights. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been here the longest and that I’m suffering from this vile, diabolical illness, which could make it difficult for me to get another job. And that I lost you three weeks ago.
Rasmus, can’t you understand how awful all of this is making me feel?
Bitter enough to do things I’d never have thought I was capable of doing?
Even so, I’ve always behaved professionally towards Anne-Lise. I wasn’t friendly, but I was always polite. Iben made me join in with some of her antics – she thought up some really crazy things. I know I shouldn’t have played along, and I regret it now. Still, to think that Iben told me off, in that smug way of hers, for what she had coaxed me to do in the first place.
Malene hits the wrong keys several times. ‘I’m too angry to write now. I can’t …’ She gets up, grabs her tea and drinks half of it before sitting down again.
Of course, I’m not so stupid I can’t work out why this is happening right now. Iben needs to think up a reason for getting rid of me and she probably believes every word she says. That’s what self-righteousness will do for you.
Oh, Rasmus, I’m so dreadfully disappointed in her. I can’t imagine ever trusting her again.
Malene looks around the room. The remains of her supper are on the coffee table. She sits on the sofa to eat because she never did buy a new dining table.
Now you’re gone Iben says that she thinks our relationship wasn’t as good as I remember it, but what does she know? What does anyone know? Except you and me!
42
It is a special day for DCGI.
A genocide researcher has just completed her PhD thesis and today she will take her oral examination at the Historical Institute of the University of Copenhagen. Anita studied the mass killings during Stalin’s Great Terror, a period during which, according to some estimates at least, 4.5 million Soviet citizens died.
Ole, who chairs the DCGI board, was her adviser. At one time Anita spent practically every day in the Large Meeting Room going through the extensive but rather chaotic collection of Soviet documents. Everybody in the Centre liked her. A trained nurse and the mother of three children, she started to study history at the age of thirty-three. Now, after ten years and a divorce, she is up for a doctorate.
Ole, Frederik and several other board members are going to attend the formal public examination. It is an academic occasion, but also a reason to celebrate with the doctoral candidate at the reception afterwards. The Centre has closed for the morning so that Paul and his staff can go as well.
Malene is rushing along the inscrutable network of wide concrete corridors at the university’s Amager campus. She takes a wrong turn, tries another one and gets it wrong again. She knows that even former students can’t always find their way about this place. Iben once likened it to a web spun by a schizophrenic spider.
Two male students are sitting with their papers spread out on top of one of the fixed concrete seats. They turn to look at Malene, who is wearing a tightly fitted dark-green jacket that looks good with her light-coloured hair. She designed her new knee-high boots herself, drawing them in detail for the orthopaedic shoemaker.
She thinks about when would be the right time to call Gunnar. It would be good to get together again. She phoned him once, but he wasn’t in and she didn’t leave a message. She knows that his magazine has sent him to Afghanistan, but he should be back by now. Maybe his trip was extended.
At last she sees a group of well-dressed historians at the far end of another corridor. Frederik’s blond head is sticking up above the crowd. She goes to greet them.
Ole is there too, in the centre of the group. Where is Paul? Have he and Frederik met since the board found out about Paul’s anti-Frederik machinations?
Malene says hello to everyone. She and Frederik chat in their usual, mildly flirtatious, way while people begin to drift into the lecture theatre. She looks around for Iben and the rest of the DCGI crew. They’re probably already seated.
On her way in Malene sees several other familiar faces. Many have no special links either to Anita or to the Soviet purges, as far as Malene knows. Maybe they’ve come to get into Ole’s good books, or Tatiana’s? Still no Paul. It depresses her. As things stand now, he, of all people, should try to humour the chairman.
Then she spots Iben sitting between Anne-Lise and Camilla. So, how far away should I sit from Iben? Malene asks herself. It would look too obvious to go to the opposite end of the room.
Quickly she squeezes between some tables so that she can approach them from the other side and sit next to Camilla, rather than Anne-Lise.
She can hear them talking. Their voices carry. Iben, especially, is speaking a little too loudly.
‘Do Dragan and Zigic know each other?’
Camilla turns her head nervously from side to side. She seems as if she would like nothing better than to be somewhere else.
‘But Iben, Dragan hates Zigic!’
‘Camilla, that’s not the point. I asked if they know each other.’
‘Dragan hates him!’
‘But, have they met?’
‘No, never. They haven’t!’ Camilla shakes her head. Something about her body language shows that she’s lying.
Malene looks around quickly. How many others are listening in? Most likely, quite a few.
Iben charges forth. ‘We looked up Dragan Jelisic in our database. His name is mentioned in a book called Days of Blood and Singing. When I was at the Centre this morning, I tried to find it, but it’s not in the library any more, although the record shows that it hasn’t been checked out.’
Malene sits down and asks what’s going on, but they are all too absorbed in their conversations with Camilla to answer her. She asks again and Anne-Lise explains, leaning back behind the other two.
‘Last night, Iben saw on the Internet that they’ve dropped all charges against the Chicago Serb who said he’d sent the emails.’
‘OK, but what is …?’
Malene can easily imagine how that would have upset Iben. However, she has more serious things to worry about.
‘Nobody informed us. Iben decided to phone up people to make sure,’ Anne-Lise adds.
Meanwhile Iben continues her interrogation of Camilla. ‘Do you know where that book might be?’
‘No, I don’t.’
Camilla purses her lips and stares at the table top. Why is she so bad at lying? It’s like she’s asking to be punished.
The murmur of voices around them dies down when the audience sees that the chairman of the examiners has stood up.
Iben’s eyes stay on Camilla. ‘Anyway, someone has been in the Centre and has …’ Then she realises that she’s the only one still speaking.
The chairman welcomes everyone and introduces Anita. In a long, blue dress, she looks radiant and very much in charge. She says that she is delighted to see so many friends and colleagues with whom she has worked over the last four years and adds an apology to those who have had to stand at the back. As Anita starts explaining her thesis, Malene figures out what has happened.
Yesterday evening, Iben found out that the supposed sender of the emails wasn’t under arrest after all. And until yesterday, Malene would have been the first person she phoned with the news. Not any more. It could be that she contacted Paul as well as Camilla. But either way, she obviously phoned Anne-Lise.
A while ago, Anne-Lise said she had heard that Camilla had a former lover who was a Serbian refugee. Camilla denied it at the time and they agreed that Anne-Lise had made it up. Now, Iben has clearly changed her mind.
Iben and Anne-Lise must have Googled Dragan’s name and checked it out in the DCGI database. Anne-Lise must have been so pleased to be working together with Iben on this.
Asking Camilla to explain herself is out of the question while Anita is lecturing, but Malene can’t concentrate on what she’s saying. She leans forward a little to observe Camilla, who is sitting very still, almost paralysed. Malene’s eyes meet Anne-Lise’s. She too keeps glancing at Camilla.
Iben has put her mobile in front of her on the table. It blinks but doesn’t ring. Iben gets up and tries to leave discreetly, but she’s carrying her computer bag and has to push past a whole row of people. The scraping of chairs makes quite a racket. She waves her
mobile apologetically at Anita, who seems unfazed and carries on talking.
The Centre isn’t putting on a good show today. The chief is playing truant, the staff can’t keep their mouths shut, and the information officer gets up and leaves in the middle of Anita’s presentation.
Why is the call so important? Something to do with Dragan Jelisic? Even so, couldn’t it wait? Ever since Iben came back from Kenya she has been quite paranoid, on and off. By now she’s probably imagining all kinds of horrors about Camilla’s ex-lover.
There is an interval after the first speaker finishes debating Anita’s thesis with her. Crowds of people slowly drift out of the hall and at the door, Malene finds herself standing next to a couple of university lecturers with whom she worked on a project investigating Danish immigration policy during the 1930s. She feels it’s only polite to talk to them. Once she reaches the corridor, Iben and the others are already out of sight. She pops her head around the door to the reception area, where wine, cheese and assorted tapas are waiting to be served. The others aren’t in there either. Mikala, another historian, says that she’s helping Anita by setting out the party food.
They chat for a while and suddenly Ole and Frederik turn up. Ole has a Coke in his hand. He turns to Malene, who notices there’s a minute crumb of chocolate stuck in his beard.
‘Where’s Paul?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘He’s avoiding me. I couldn’t get hold of him on his mobile either.’
‘That’s odd. He usually keeps his mobile on all the time.’
Malene doesn’t care for the way Ole and Frederik seem to be in cahoots.
‘Maybe his battery has run down.’
Ole and Frederik exchange a strange glance.
‘Oh, I hope he hasn’t had an accident,’ she adds.
Frederik smiles at her. ‘No, that’s not it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Frederik makes a face and Malene senses that she mustn’t ask him any more. She can usually make him tell her everything. Maybe it’s Ole’s presence that’s stopping him.
The Exception Page 41
