The Exception (54 page)

When she opens the door to him, he glances quickly at her dress. A look of surprise crosses his face. Gunnar is tanned, which makes his eyes appear lighter. He has brought a bottle of wine. Smiling broadly, he hugs her and asks how things are.

Malene is about to start telling him, but realises it could ruin the evening. ‘Oh, you’ll get the whole story, but not now. I want to hear about your trip.’

Sitting on the sofa, he doesn’t begin to talk about his travels – instead he just looks at Malene with a certain amount of surprise. Does she seem drunk? She hopes not. He’s been laying siege to these walls for so long and now she is letting the gate swing open
with only the gentlest of knocks. He pretends to reach for his wineglass, letting his wrist touch her arm. She meets his gaze. It could be the expression on her face that makes him kiss her.

He’s good at it. His body feels warmer than Rasmus’s.

She has never been with a man over forty, but Gunnar is more in shape than she thought and surprisingly seems to know her body better than Rasmus ever did. When her breathing deepens, she remembers when she was once far out at sea in a sailing boat and had jumped naked into the ocean. The underwater sensation comes back to her now, the light pressure of the water all over her body, her hair streaming out and up around her. She comes up for air, gasping.

She and Rasmus used to swim naked and then surface together, spluttering, spitting salt water and laughing at each other.

She bursts into tears.

Gunnar holds her tight and lets her cry. ‘Does this feel wrong for you?’

‘No. No.’

‘I know that you must … you know, miss him. You must. But I thought that …’

‘Gunnar, it’s all right. We’ve known each other for years and I’m so glad that you’re here tonight. I’m very fond of you.’

Gunnar gets the wine and their glasses. They start to talk about Rasmus and Afghanistan. But their attention soon wanders back to each other’s bodies.

It’s almost three in the morning. They discover how hungry they are and move to the kitchen. Malene takes out olives, bread, a couple of different cheeses, fruit preserves, and slips off to the bathroom for another pill. The first one is still doing its job; the second one is just in case.

Gunnar begins to reminisce about when he was younger than Malene is now. He was determined to make a difference in the world, to make it a more just society and improve conditions in the Third World.

‘We all know that the bottle of wine we’ve drunk tonight could
have paid for vaccinating twenty kids and saving the life of at least one. We’re no different from the Germans during World War Two. They knew that Jews were being killed, but they ignored what it meant.’

Malene is massaging the knuckles on her right hand. ‘But it isn’t quite the same, is it? The state killed them back then. You’re talking about aid for the poor.’

‘I believe, in essence, it is the same. We put on shoes produced by a child who is being crippled by work. We drink coffee bought at starvation prices.’

Gunnar leans across the table, takes her aching hand and warms it between his hands.

‘I very much hope that the world will become a better place. And if it does, our grandchildren may look at us the way young people today regard the generation who collaborated with the Nazis. They’ll say, “I do not understand you.” We will explain that life simply was the way it was. “Famines came and went and no one did anything about it. People died of hunger to provide us with cheaper coffee.” We’ll have to admit that we knew, but chose to do nothing about it.’

Malene feels uneasy but can’t figure out why. She wants to pull her hand back, but doesn’t. She has an impulse to say, ‘You old socialist,’ and tease him, but knows she shouldn’t.

‘The kids will hate us because they have never been in our situation. They will turn on us and say, “You must’ve been so different back then. How could you watch a film or eat in a restaurant when you knew that the money you spent might have saved a child’s life?” They will say, “I don’t get it. I could never do anything like that.”’

Gunnar looks expectant, waiting for her response. Malene realises what’s making her feel uncomfortable. It’s his manner of speaking: the manic rhythm of his words, and his complete absorption in his subject. He reminds her of Iben.

Malene feigns exhaustion, but Gunnar’s energy is undiminished. She asks him if he slept on the plane.

‘Not much,’ he says vaguely and begins on a subject that has fascinated Iben these last few months: the psychology of evil.

‘Ignoring the small flash of doubt in yourself – that is what evil is. Nobody thinks of himself as evil, but that deception is part of evil’s nature. And you can’t lie to yourself all the time. Once in a while, there’s that moment when you question if you are doing the right thing. And that’s your only chance to choose what is good, to do the right thing. And the moment lasts maybe fifteen minutes every other month, maybe less.

‘Most people will immediately decide not to act. The implications of having to change their lifestyles are just too over-whelming, and then it doesn’t take long before they forget that there is another option. They’re stuck in their old ways – good or bad.’

Malene wonders about Gunnar. ‘Why do you feel so strongly about this?’

‘Because I know what it’s like to be caught up in evil. Quite a long time ago, I was a hardcore member of the Communist Workers’ Party. I spent years fighting for the ideology of people who were responsible for more mass killings and genocides than the Nazis. In effect, we were sustaining those dictatorships. I knew the truth – of course I did. At least, every once in a while.’

Malene has never heard Gunnar speak so openly about his early life.

He interrupts her thoughts. ‘But I have no more to regret than today’s neo-liberals. Socialists aren’t responsible for as many people dying as those who support the policies of the US and Europe, policies that reinforce poverty and economic dependency. And it is happening here and now.’

It is pitch black outside the kitchen windows. Malene begins to put the food away. She sees how Gunnar loves to turn arguments on their heads. Iben, too. For years now Malene has enjoyed listening to him and to Iben.

The true source of her discomfort is the thought of how well Iben and Gunnar would get along together.

In the morning Malene is tired. Gunnar set the alarm for six because he has an early meeting. She would have loved to call in sick, but doesn’t dare to – not when the office is in such a state of flux. Instead she sleeps until nine, calls the office with a story about a dental appointment and says she’ll be in by eleven.

Camilla, who answers the phone, begins to apologise. She goes on and on. ‘I know I shouldn’t have left like that, without a word, but I … you know, being in a classroom brought back things that happened to me at school. And I felt terrible about Dragan Jelisic.’

Malene is lying on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. ‘You really didn’t know what kind of a person he was then?’

‘No, I didn’t. But, Malene, I’ve been so stupid. I should have told you about him straight away. I do realise that. It was wrong and I’m annoyed at myself. Please forgive me. I hope you’re not too angry?’

‘No, no. Not at all.’ Malene means it. If she had learned about Camilla’s indirect connection to Mirko Zigic a month ago, she might have been much angrier. But now she is much more concerned about how she’ll manage her life without Rasmus, as well as preoccupied with Gunnar and her crumbling friendship with Iben and the possibility of losing her job. There’s no room to be terrified of some Serbian mass murderer who might – might – have sent them scary emails. She knows it’s different for Iben.

When Malene arrives at the Centre, Iben is going full steam.

She spent last night phoning people again. First she called Camilla to pump her for more details and persuade her to call Paul and tell him everything about her Yugoslavian contact.
Then she called journalists and genocide experts all over the world. Listening to the women talk, Malene learns that Anne-Lise has also been finding out more about Jelisic.

I should have checked in on Iben last night, Malene tells herself. Instead Anne-Lise must have called her to commiserate.

They seem to have already discussed the likelihood of Zigic still having ties to Camilla’s ex-lover and analysed various options for finding out more about Jelisic. Clearly they have been sharing their fears with each other.

It isn’t long before Malene wants to go back to bed. When Rasmus died, Paul told her she could leave the office whenever she needed to. Only she doesn’t want to be alone. It would be great to phone Gunnar for sympathy, but that’s impossible now, after having just spent the night together.

She takes her mug of coffee and sits down opposite Iben. ‘How’s it going?’ they ask each other. Iben briefs Malene on her Jelisic research and talks about how scared she is of him.

Is this her oldest, dearest friend? She cannot believe how much things have changed between them and that she’s losing her just when she needs her most. Still, she must face up to the fact that Iben has changed, possibly for good. How can Iben be so cold and calculating, especially after Rasmus’s death? But it seems Malene has become an obstacle in Iben’s pursuit of both Gunnar and a new career in DIHR. Why bother being sentimental over the past? – regardless of the Iben-shaped void in Malene’s life?

She listens as Iben calls the Belgrade office of the International War Crimes Tribunal and is passed from contact to contact without learning anything new. Malene looks at the familiar details: the broken spring on Iben’s lamp, the plastic troll on her own desk. Then she turns to the board with all its cheery photos of Iben and Malene posing with Tatiana in Prague, sitting next to Frederik and Paul at a dinner table in Odense, and standing around with academics at a conference in Oslo.

She is worn out. Malene gets up and goes to the kitchen. She refills her mug and returns. She prints some information and
goes to get it from the central printer next to the library. On the way, she pops in to browse through the large collection of East European documents. She looks for a couple of articles in the magazine boxes behind Camilla’s desk. She’d do anything not to be sitting opposite Iben, looking at her pale face.

Later, while Malene is hanging out in the kitchen eating biscuits from an old plastic bag, Camilla comes bursting in, obviously not expecting to find anyone. She is visibly upset. Seeing Malene, she quickly tries to change her expression, but it’s too late. Malene asks her what’s happened.

Camilla paces up and down in the small space. ‘They won’t stop!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now they’re asking me about Dragan’s friends. “Are any of them blond?”’

‘Really?’

‘They started on the phone last night and they haven’t stopped all morning. I gave them a blow-by-blow account of every person I ever met with Dragan.’

Malene looks incredulous.

‘It’s Iben, really,’ Camilla explains. ‘She is convinced that Zigic is in Denmark and that I’ve met him without knowing it. She thinks he’s here under a false name and she’s doing everything she can to find out. But I had to tell her that none of the men I’d met with Dragan looked anything like the pictures of Zigic! But still she picks and picks and picks on me. She says that I must’ve met lots of former Serbian militiamen when I went out with Dragan.’

Malene wants to soothe her and tries to take Camilla’s hand, but Camilla brushes her away. She rubs her hands on her blouse and keeps walking around.

‘She thinks I’m lying, all the time. She now thinks it was me who was there … on the staircase, with Rasmus!’

Her voice becomes whiny. ‘Malene, you don’t think so, do you? Only Iben would dream up something like that – right?’

‘No, of course I don’t. Not at all.’ Malene puts the biscuits on a plate and offers one to Camilla. ‘I do understand how you’re feeling. It’s totally crazy.’

Camilla stops and shakes her head, staring down at the plate. ‘No, I mustn’t. But thanks.’

‘It would do Iben good to sleep more than four hours a night, don’t you think, Camilla? And not spend most of it reading books full of descriptions of psychiatric diseases or the murders of millions of people? It could help her, couldn’t it?’

This is the first time anyone in the office has heard Malene criticise Iben. They both realise that, starting today, all the old alliances are null and void. Unless Malene wants to become a lone wolf in the office, she’ll need to find a new ally: Camilla. She knows that they’re too different to become close friends, but that doesn’t matter. After all, Anne-Lise will never become truly close to Iben.

Malene tries again to comfort Camilla. She tells her how she feels about the way Iben has behaved these last few days. But there are things about Iben that Malene won’t give away. Right after her father’s death, Iben would apparently wander the streets in a state of deep depression. She acquired a profound aversion to people, and this antipathy caused such an overpowering reaction that on two occasions Iben had to spend the night in a psychiatric ward.

Now Iben is seen as a very competent person. Few would guess the hidden flaws that Malene knows so well. Or do the others sense something? Could this be the reason why everyone was so amazed by the heroic stories of Iben in Kenya?

When Malene returns to the Winter Garden, Iben still hasn’t unearthed any more information about Jelisic. Nothing, that is, apart from the familiar Omarska stories that have already been circulated in the press and reported to the War Crimes Tribunal. Like the ones about how Jelisic and two other volunteer camp guards killed a couple of prisoners by forcing them to drink
engine oil, and made fathers bite off the balls of their own sons. Horrors of that kind.

Iben has no evidence as to where he is and what he is doing. Camilla insisted this morning that, unlike Zigic, Dragan is not a member of the Yugo mafia and says he is not in contact with Zigic any longer. But Iben can’t hide the fact that she doesn’t trust Camilla one inch.

Anne-Lise keeps coming in to tell Iben about her latest phone calls. She’s good at pretending that she’s as scared as Iben. And when they walk from one computer to the other, Anne-Lise follows Iben like a lapdog – an anxious one who glances nervously from time to time at Malene.