The Exception: A Novel Part 41

Malene doesnt reply.

Are you writing to Rasmus?

Mmm.

Thats good. I mean, its good for you to write down what you feel. Im sure there are so many things youd like to tell him.

Mmm.

Afterward, Malene walks around turning on lights. Someone who didnt know about her arthritis might miss the small signs of her illness scattered around her apartment: a plain metal-framed adjustable chair set among the wooden dining chairs; special knives and other equipment in the kitchen; small toylike 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 shouldnt lower our own standards. Yet it was Anne-Lise who started it all. She was the one who convinced Paul to give her some of my most exciting responsibilities. She was the one who maneuvered it so that I would be the first in line to be fired if we merge with Human Rights. It doesnt matter that Ive been here the longest and that Im 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, cant you understand how awful all of this is making me feel? Bitter enough to do things Id never have thought I was capable of doing?

Even so, Ive always behaved professionally toward Anne-Lise. I wasnt 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 shouldnt have played along, and I regret it now. Yet, 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. Im too angry to write now. I cant She gets up, grabs her tea, and drinks half of it before sitting down again.

Of course, Im not so stupid I cant 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. Thats what self-righteousness will do for you.

Oh, Rasmus, Im so dreadfully disappointed in her. I cant 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 youre gone. Iben says that she thinks our relationship wasnt as good as I remember it, but what does she know? What does anyone know? Except you and me!

chapter 42.

it is a special day for the DCIG.

A genocide researcher has just completed her Ph.D. thesis and today she will take her oral examination at the Historical Inst.i.tute of the University of Copenhagen. Anita studied the ma.s.s killings during Stalins Great Terror, a period during which, according to some estimates at least, 4.5 million Soviet citizens died.

Ole, who chairs the DCIG board, was her advisor. At one time Anita spent practically every day in the large meeting room going through the extensive but rather chaotic collection of Soviet doc.u.ments. Everybody in the Center 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 afterward. The Center has closed for the morning so that Paul and his staff can go as well.

Malene is rushing along the confusing network of wide concrete corridors at the universitys Amager campus. She takes a wrong turn, tries another one, and gets it wrong again. She knows that even former students cant 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-colored hair. She designed her new knee-high boots herself, drawing them in detail for the orthopedic shoe maker.

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 wasnt in and she didnt 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. Frederiks blond head is sticking up above the crowd. She goes to greet them.

Ole is there too, in the center of the group. Where is Paul? Have he and Frederik met since the board found out about Pauls anti-Frederik machinations?

Malene says h.e.l.lo to everyone. She and Frederik chat in their usual mildly flirtatious way while people begin to drift into the lecture theater. She looks around for Iben and the rest of the DCIG crew. Theyre 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 theyve come to get into Oles good books, or Tatianas? Still no Paul. It depresses her. As things stand now, he of all people should try to humor 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, thats not the point. I asked if they know each other.

Dragan hates him!

But, have they met?

No, never. They havent! Camilla shakes her head. Something about her body language shows that shes 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 Center this morning, I tried to find it, but its not in the library anymore, although the record shows that it hasnt been checked out.

Malene sits down and asks whats going on, but they are all too absorbed in their conversation 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 theyve dropped all charges against the Chicago Serb who said hed sent the e-mails.

Okay, but what is ?

Malene can easily imagine how that would have upset Iben. However, she has more serious things to worry about.

n.o.body 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 dont.

Camilla purses her lips and stares at the tabletop. Why is she so bad at lying? Its like shes 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.

Ibens eyes stay on Camilla. Anyway, someone has been in the Center and has Then she realizes that shes 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 e-mails wasnt under arrest after all. And until yesterday, Malene would have been the first person she phoned with the news. Not anymore. 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 Dragans name and checked it out in the DCIG 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 cant concentrate on what shes saying. She leans forward a little to observe Camilla, who is sitting very still, almost paralyzed. Malenes eyes meet Anne-Lises. She too keeps glancing at Camilla.

Iben has put her cell phone in front of her on the table. It blinks but doesnt ring. Iben gets up and tries to leave discreetly, but shes carrying her computer bag and has to push past a whole row of people. The sc.r.a.ping of chairs makes quite a racket. She waves her cell phone apologetically at Anita, who seems unfazed and carries on talking.

The Center isnt putting on a good show today. The chief is playing truant, the staff cant keep their mouths shut, and the information officer gets up and leaves in the middle of Anitas presentation.

Why is the call so important? Something to do with Dragan Jelisic? Even so, couldnt it wait? Ever since Iben came back from Kenya she has been quite paranoid, on and off. By now shes probably imagining all kinds of horrors about Camillas ex-lover.

There is an interval after the first speaker finishes debating Anitas 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 its 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 a.s.sorted tapas are waiting to be served. The others arent in there either. Mikala, another historian, says that shes helping Anita by setting out the party food.

They chat for a while and suddenly Ole and Frederik turn up. Ole has a c.o.ke in his hand. He turns to Malene, who notices theres a minuscule crumb of chocolate stuck in his beard.

Wheres Paul?

Ive no idea.

Hes avoiding me. I couldnt get hold of him on his cell phone either.

Thats odd. He usually keeps his cell phone on all the time.

Malene doesnt 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 hasnt had an accident, she adds.

Frederik smiles at her. No, thats not it.

What do you mean?

Frederik makes a face and Malene senses that she mustnt ask him any more. She can usually make him tell her everything. Maybe its Oles presence thats stopping him.

The talking outside the room has grown to a roar.

Malene manages to slip through the crowd and follows the corridor to the end. No luck. She returns through the crowd and goes to the opposite end. No one here either. Then she turns a corner and hears voices from behind the closed door of a seminar room.

Iben is shouting. How do you explain this?

Malene opens the door just as Iben starts to read from the screen of her laptop: It is a well-known fact that the lifelong trauma affecting people who have survived severe torture will include vivid, intensely painful flashbacks in which they reexperience all their past suffering. Such recall phenomena are triggered every time they see something that reminds them of the torture. The militiamen entering the Omarska camps manipulated the flashback phenomenon with endless inventiveness. Mirko Zigic, now wanted by the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, and one of his soldiers, Dragan Jelisic !

Iben stops dramatically and stares at Camilla, who cant seem to stop crying. She continues to read: And one of his soldiers, Dragan Jelisic, thought up the trick of placing bottles of Coca-Cola within sight of prisoners being tortured. For decades to come, survivors of their torture will relive the full terror of the destructive pain they were once subjected to every time they see a bottle of c.o.ke. And where in the world can they hide from the occasional sight of a bottle of Coca-Cola?

Anne-Lise, who has been perched on the edge of a table, gets up. This man was your lover!

Camilla somehow looks like a scolded schoolgirl. But I didnt know it back then. She looks up at them. It was dreadful when I found out. Thats why I went for the job in the Center. You know me. I think things like that are terrible, and you must know me better than that!

How long were you and Dragan together? Iben asks.

Four months.

Camilla is weeping even louder now, her head in her hands. Iben makes a move to put her arms around her, but Camilla angrily waves her away.

Now they can only stand and look. Theyre at a loss. No one has switched on the lights despite the gray day. The dull daylight turns the walls the color of damp cardboard and makes the tabletops look like pools of stagnant water. Iben and Anne-Lise are drained of color too.

Iben puts down her computer on a table and Malene walks over to it. Iben was reading from an e-mailed selection of scanned book pages from Days of Blood and Singing, and the source is someone working for the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. The e-mail arrived during Anitas lecture.

Camilla wraps her arms around herself. Her eyes have a distant look and she speaks in a soft, low voice: He wasnt at all like the way they describe him in that book. I was with him before I got together with Finn. Dragan cared about me even though Im so fat. He didnt mind my body.

Malene looks from the computer screen to Camillas body, which doesnt appear to be overweight at all.

Anne-Lise takes up the questioning. Where did you meet?

At a party. He was such a little guy, almost weedy. He looked like hed never hurt a flea. I felt sorry for him. He was a refugee, chased out of his own country. He said that his three sisters had been raped by Bosnians. They killed the girls afterward. He told me all that, and he seemed so unhappy that I I dont know. Anyway, we met afterward and then again.

Camilla wipes her face on her sleeve. And he says everything about him in that book isnt true.

Iben is still clearly agitated, but her voice is quieter. Did it ever occur to you that a man like Jelisic, who has killed hundreds of human beings, might lie to you?

Camilla doesnt answer. They are all silent.

After a while Camilla speaks again. He admitted that he had done bad things. Countless people did, thats true. But he wasnt at all like that when I met him. And he didnt want to talk about it. He was so torn up inside.

Do you still see him? Iben asks.

No, I dont of course I dont.

Have you seen him since you read this book?

No.

But you did ask him if what the book said was true isnt that what youve just said?

Its strange to see Camilla like this. She always seemed so sensible. Now its as if she were someone else. Her crying and transparent lies remind Malene of what Grith had told them about women with DID, especially the part about them being subjected to abuse as children. Often one of their ident.i.ties tends to be a distressed child.

Iben takes a deep breath. Are our views of this man really so far apart? When you believed he had sent you that hate e-mail, you seemed terrified. More frightened than we were and you still are. Why?