The Exception: A Novel Part 10

Then she looks calmly at her visitors and smiles.

Aha They talk about the possibility that Anne-Lise is envious of them, maybe because of their friendship, or because their jobs are more exciting, or their relationship with Paul is better than hers; any envy she feels that might remind her of other disturbing situations in her past, when she felt undervalued and excluded. Maybe she didnt dare allow herself to show anger then.

At last, theyve arrived at the point where psychological expertise might help them understand.

Malene sums up: Something about Anne-Lises personality makes her reactions unpredictable. We wondered if that something means its essential that we treat her with special care? Could she cope if we confronted her and told her that we think she has sent the e-mails?

Malene waits for Grith to say something illuminating.

She doesnt.

Malene tries again. Of course, weve also come to you because we want to help Anne-Lise. Do you think she needs psychological counseling?

Grith says that they mustnt expect yes-or-no answers and doles out psychological tidbits straight from an advice column.

Malene starts checking out the furniture. The large bra.s.s standard lamp behind Iben is elegant and casts a pretty light. The cachepot on the windowsill is stylish too and would be perfect for her own place.

What a disappointing session. Or it wouldve been if she had come here expecting something special.

Malene realizes that her main reaction is relief. If youre close to someone, you can easily develop all kinds of funny ideas about that persons relationships with others. Now that she has seen Iben with her other friend, she can be rea.s.sured that Iben is much closer to her than to Grith.

Malene warms her hands on her mug. G.o.d knows what Grith has observed tonight and what she thinks about the whole episode.

Grith sets out bags of potato chips and they devour them instantly. Malene thinks that they should leave soon.

Grith starts to speak about one of her patients: Shes a woman with what people used to call a split or multiple personality.

Christ! One of your patients?

Malene has always been fascinated by stories of people with split personalities but has never met anyone who has actually known someone with them. Her interest makes Grith warm to her subject.

Yes. Only the new cla.s.sification for psychiatric conditions calls it dissociative ident.i.ty disorder, or DID for short. My patient has at least two personalities, in addition to her dominant one. One of them is a little girl. Thats very common.

At last Grith is coming alive. Its impossible to tell what has held her back, but she is completely animated now; her eyes seem even larger, and as she talks, her thin arms flail about.

In psychiatry weve come to take a much greater interest in DID than we did before. All those Hollywood films packed with cliches about split personalities were distracting, I suppose. Somehow they made psychologists and psychiatrists take their cases less seriously than they should. Most people in the trade thought it was embarra.s.sing and dull to write up DID case histories in professional journals, but its not like that anymore things are moving fast. During the last twenty years or so, the number of recorded cases in the U.S. has risen sharply, and so have the much more common borderline cases.

How many people do you think suffer from DID, including the minor cases?

Just over six billion, give or take.

But thats the entire Think about it. Weve all done things that we would hardly have believed we were capable of. Its especially common in young people, while the personality is still in transition, to a certain extent. You do things and then you forget all about them.

Grith looks at Iben and then over at Malene. Can either of you recall having done anything like that?

They both try hard to remember. Neither speaks.

After a while, Grith continues: See what I mean about forgetting? Keep trying. Can you recall ever experiencing a deep feeling of regret?

I suppose so Maybe I can There, you see! Behaving badly is dramatic, so it ought to be something you remember. But sitting alone in your kitchen and repenting over a gla.s.s of milk is sad and dull, so in theory it should be more difficult to remember. In practice, though, we recall these dreary moments of regret quite easily. You know that and I do too. Its because were all split a little anyway. But in the kitchen, with that gla.s.s of milk, we are who we know ourselves to be.

Malenes voice sounds faint at first. Grith, you describe it so well the whole scene, that gla.s.s of milk, everything.

Thanks. Everyone knows that when youre depressed you can only remember sad things and its difficult to think of something cheerful. Its as if the happy experiences have vanished. The important thing to remember is that the divide between one aspect of a personality and another neednt be anywhere near as extreme as with the characters you see in films. The sides to dissociated personality are usually much less starkly differentiated, but even so, the split can be enough for a patient to forget what he or she was up to ten minutes earlier. Or it can make days or months or even whole years of a life disappear into the shadows.

Malene has a question: So, just as an example, is it conceivable that Anne-Lise might have sent the e-mails but cant remember having done it?

It certainly is. She might not have a complete alternative ident.i.ty, with a name and so on; but even so, she could have sent them and forgotten about it.

Malene had taken off her shoes earlier. She gently rubs the sole of one foot over Griths rug, registering the rough surface with her toes.

We could never be frightened of Anne-Lise, she says. At least, the Anne-Lise we know thats why we wouldnt take her threat to kill us seriously. But how different might her other personality be?

If Ive understood you correctly, no one knows if Anne-Lise wrote the e-mails. They could have been sent by anyone at all. Right?

Right. Absolutely anyone. I was just wondering, you know, If then what?

If she did, then she could be like the other cases Ive come across. Each ident.i.ty can have any combination of characteristics, and other ident.i.ties are entirely independent of the person you think you know. The other could be the complete opposite.

Iben stares at the tropical fruit slices. She raises her hand a little but doesnt actually reach out for the bowl. What youre saying is that hypothetically we all could have many sides to our personality that we dont know of. And these others might be out of control, doing all kinds of things, while we have no memory of it?

Thats right.

Logically, then, its impossible for a person to know if there are any others.

Yes well, no. People often seem to have an idea that something is going on, if they dare to pick up the signs. The possibility of fluid ident.i.ty boundaries is one of the new areas of research. So are the implications of discovering that splitting is relatively common. Even if youre one of the rare cases of zero awareness of other ident.i.ties, looking for physical traces usually works: objects in your home in unexpected places, something as simple as a shopping bag in the wrong room that sort of thing.

Malene accidentally kicks out with one foot and her toes. .h.i.t a table leg. It hurts, but not too much. The others dont notice. She bends over a little to examine her foot and ma.s.sages a tender arthritic toe.

She hears Iben laugh. But, Grith, if we stick to just these two e-mails then what? Could they have been sent by anyone? Apart from ourselves, that is?

Grith appears to flounder momentarily. What Im about to say isnt that Of course, they cant but in purely theoretical terms At last she finds a way of saying what she really means.

Look, if I didnt know you, I would have guessed that the likeliest possibility would be that a split personality would send messages to herself. We arent talking about two sides of the same personality, but two separate individuals, even though they inhabit the same body. One of them might remember everything from the others life, but not vice versa. Its usual for one ident.i.ty to hate the other, accusing it of being evil or self-righteous. She pauses for a moment and stares at Malene.

Dropping her professional manner, she becomes more relaxed. But why should it be one of you? Why should the e-mails have anything to do with a split personality? People who develop deeper than normal splitting usually have other psychological problems, like a traumatic childhood.

The atmosphere in the room has changed. It seems so strange to be in this place, sitting on this sofa, watching each other and wondering. Twenty years of science have proven that strange things could be hiding inside their minds. Absolutely anything. Or anybody. And at the same time, they are looking at you and wondering about you.

For a while no one speaks.

This atmosphere did Grith plan to create it?

Malene cant help but remember how often Iben told everyone that she was someone else in Nairobi. And though the police were positive that no one had broken into her apartment, Iben had insisted that the door was open and a stack of papers had been arranged more neatly than she had left it. Iben is so knowing about aspects of her personality and uses scientific terminology when she discusses her own psychology with Malene and Grith. But perhaps there is another hidden self, one she couldnt know of logically, to use her own word.

Malene makes a pact with herself not even to think about this, regardless of what Ibens other best friend and her science might say.

Its late when Malene phones Iben.

Are you in bed?

Yeah.

Sorry. Did I wake you?

No, dont worry. I was reading.

I cant stop thinking about how it couldve been anybody.

I shouldnt have brought you along?

Of course you should! It was good. Fascinating.

Thats what I thought. Grith often says something unexpected.

chapter 12.

when Malene steps into the office the following morning, she notes that the library door is closed, as usual.

She tries to catch Camillas attention. Is she in?

Camilla nods.

Malene checks the corridor. Sure enough, the door from the hallway to the library is open, so Anne-Lise did come in today.

She whispers to Camilla: What happened?

Nothing special.

Did she say anything?

No. Just Good morning.

Camilla is always curt in the mornings. Malene sits down at her desk. Something is wrong, but she cant quite put her finger on it. As her computer goes through its start-up routine, she ponders the odd atmosphere in the office. What might have caused it? Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Is it she who has changed?

After a good nights sleep Malene has decided that they all overreacted yesterday. If youre attacked, thats what you do: go on the defensive. They should be able to rise above their anger, though. Working here brings certain obligations. They spend every day compiling and pa.s.sing on information about the tragedies that follow when anger overrules common sense. So, if not even Malene, Iben, and Camilla can show self-control, who can?

Obviously Anne-Lise is in bad shape just now. Maybe her home life isnt that great and, if so, her colleagues should support her. Malene considers dropping in on Anne-Lise in the library and asking her how she is, but feels that would be overdoing it. Instead she stays where she is, dealing with a few jobs she didnt complete yesterday afternoon. Shes waiting for Iben.

Iben turns up at a quarter past nine. She and Malene talk in low voices, leaning across their desks. Its hard to know how much Anne-Lise can hear through the closed door. To catch what theyre saying, Camilla has to walk over to them.

Malene explains what shes figured out: When someone behaves like Anne-Lise, the normal response is for her coworkers to crucify her. We didnt and thats good. But it isnt good enough.

The others are listening attentively.

We could carry on as if nothing happened, or be more distant than before, because she behaved so aggressively. That sort of treatment would make anyone resign, sooner or later.

Malene says, while she looks at Iben: It would be so easy to do: just let things take their natural course. Wed get everything we wanted: peace and quiet, and a new colleague who might be an a.s.set to the Center. Great, but it would be the same as deliberately shutting her out, and we must try to do better than that.

What, then?

We should learn from the conflict-resolution projects we write about. The first, crucial step is to get the opposing sides to sit down together and talk about their problems. And we know that an independent adjudicator must be present at the meetings.

Camilla is taken aback. Its a bit heavy, dont you think?

But Iben agrees. Id like to have a meeting with her.

Im sure shed like the idea, Malene says. Usually its the stronger party that has the most reservations about a reconciliation process. In this situation, we are the strong ones. And we should tell Paul. Well need a neutral adjudicator, someone with authority.

Camilla looks skeptical. But the projects deal with international conflict resolution. And youre suggesting Paul is to be our judge and peacekeeping force all rolled into one?

Malene gives a little laugh.

When Paul arrives, they chat about this and that; then he disappears into his office. Malene stares at the closed door and hesitates. The presentation of their case could wait until lunchtime.

Her working day is taken up mainly with phone calls to foundations in Germany on behalf of a research team at the Inst.i.tute of History at Copenhagen University. The team is arranging a conference focused on the crimes against humanity at the end of World War II when Germany was defeated. Fifteen million Germans were expelled from Eastern and Central Europe and some two million women were raped. The researchers turned to the DCIG for help in raising funds, and Malene suggested that they should appeal to German as well as Danish sources of grant money. Her first lead was a human rights inst.i.tute called Schutzgemeinschaft fur Menschenrechte, Humanitat, und Toleranz.

Her hands feel tender. She hopes it doesnt mean that another attack of arthritis is on its way. It would be so irritating now, when its important to be in the office. Besides, tonight Rasmus comes back from Cologne.

The whole morning pa.s.ses without Paul emerging from his room. Anne-Lise is also lying low. n.o.body has spotted her outside the library.

At eleven-thirty Paul puts a call through to Camilla despite the fact that shes only a few steps away to say that hes going out for lunch. Camilla pa.s.ses this on to the others, and they all exchange glances. In the end Malene responds with an Oh, Ill do it shrug.

She walks slowly toward Pauls office and knocks on the door.

Yes?

She mumbles about the German human rights conference, but after a few minutes she gets to the point: Im not sure if you heard, but did you know that Anne-Lise had a kind of breakdown yesterday, here in the office?

No, I did not!

Malene tells him what happened. She adds that its time they all sat down together, so that everyone can express her views.

Paul sits up. Youre right, Malene. Good of you to tell me.

When do you think we should meet?

Now. We need to nip this in the bud straight away.

Malene goes to tell the others. On her way to the library she reflects that to behave in the way she has must be a part of being mature. A colleague has thrown wild accusations in your face and, as likely as not, sent you threatening hate mail. You overcome your dislike and invite her to talk about moving on and working together. Could anything be more constructive?

Anne-Lise sits behind piles of books stacked on her desk. In here, the books absorb the light and it always seems darker than the Winter Garden, even though there are the same number of lamps and windows in both rooms.