The Exception

by Christian Jungersen

  The next morning

  Peric had something to add when we met the following morning.

  ‘I’ve listened to those who say they always knew what Mirko was really like. It’s what they want to believe now that they know the truth. I used to go on bicycle rides into the woods alone with him. Now that I know he’s a rapist I would like to think that I had sensed a deep flaw in him, but the fact is, I didn’t.’

  Anne-Lise

  6

  It’s Monday morning. Anne-Lise arrives at DCGI and steps into the Winter Garden. She tries to clear her head and sound cheerful and friendly.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Camilla is the only one in. Her eyes are fixed on her monitor. ‘Good morning.’

  With her coat over her arm, Anne-Lise stops and looks about her. The library door is closed as usual. The only sound is the faint hum from Camilla’s computer.

  Camilla keeps staring at the screen and Anne-Lise walks off to the library. She hangs up her coat and checks her hair in a small mirror she keeps inside a cupboard. It looks all right, but she goes over it with the brush all the same. It is dark and carefully cut in a pageboy style, which covers the sides of her broad jaw, but her face still looks too square. She bends closer to the mirror. The skin under her eyes hasn’t aged more than you’d expect in someone over forty.

  She picks a few hairs off her black turtleneck sweater and has a quick look to make sure that there are none on her camel-coloured skirt. She’s ready to start work.

  From the beginning one of her main tasks has been to scan the keyword lists at the back of every volume in the library and use a text-recognition program to turn them into Word files. After editing the lists she enters the keywords into the library database. She is deep into her work when she hears Malene arrive. A few minutes later she hears Iben’s voice.

  Anne-Lise knows from the talk last Friday that Malene and Iben were invited to a party. She walks into the Winter Garden. ‘Hello. How was the party?’

  Malene replies, but looks at Iben. ‘It was OK.’

  Anne-Lise sees that the others have little plates with a fresh buttered roll on each. There’s also a tray with an extra roll, butter, plate and a knife.

  ‘Oh, look, fresh rolls! Did you bring them, Camilla?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is today special?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thanks anyway. I’ll bring some next Monday.’

  Anne-Lise butters one half of the spare roll. Holding her plate, she takes a few steps towards Iben’s desk, but Iben is engrossed in something on her computer.

  Anne-Lise stands motionless for a few seconds. Nobody takes any notice of her, so she walks away, back to the library.

  She tries to put her mind to the next keyword editing job. There is a neat stack of reports to the right of her on the desk and each one has to be checked to make sure that the keywords are relevant. She starts with a report describing the massacre of at least two thousand Muslims in India.

  She can hear the others chatting now and, sure enough, they’re discussing the party. It’s hard to follow what they’re saying from behind her closed door. Anne-Lise concentrates on the screen to block out their voices. The computer lists the keywords ‘electric’, ‘food’ and ‘sex’. Far too general. She quickly looks through the pages of the report, corrects the keywords and extends them to enable searches on specifics such as electrical shocks to the sexual organs, rotten food and sexual violation.

  Iben’s voice is louder now and what she is saying sounds important. Anne-Lise hurries to the door. She must become familiar with what they’re talking about or else she’ll be lost when they chat later over lunch.

  The Winter Garden is full of animated talk. They’re joking about one of the journalists who interviewed Iben when she came back home from Kenya. Iben says that she kept asking her about what they were fed in captivity.

  When the others have said their piece, Anne-Lise tries to join in. ‘Was it because she was doing a feature on food?’

  ‘No, not at all. No matter what I said, she wouldn’t let go. Back she’d come with another question about the food.’

  Iben looks impatient, but Anne-Lise carries on. ‘And did she write about it for the paper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Iben turns back to her computer.

  Anne-Lise glances at Malene. Is she looking this way? No. One more try. ‘I suppose you felt differently about reading interviews after your own experience?’

  Iben clicks again and again, scrolling through a file. Anne-Lise still does not want to leave. After all, Iben often keeps working while she speaks to other people.

  But Iben turns to Camilla instead. ‘Camilla, do you remember that email they sent us, with the new French links? Do you have it?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Could you mail it to me, please.’

  ‘Sure. You’ll have it in just a moment.’

  All three of them stare at their screens. Anne-Lise fiddles with things she finds on a shelf next to the fax machine.

  ‘I shouldn’t ask you any more questions, should I?’

  Iben looks up and smiles for a fraction of a moment. ‘Of course you should. It’s fine, Anne-Lise – but later, when I’ve got time to explain. Right now my head is full of things I have to do.’

  Back in the library, Anne-Lise hears them laugh. Malene has said something funny.

  Anne-Lise has mentioned quite a few times that she’d like to be in the Winter Garden too. In the beginning Paul used to tell her that he thought it was a good idea, but after a while he backed off. It would be impractical, he said, blaming lack of space and problems with telephone lines and computer connections. He added that it would be better if her workplace was close to the main book collection.

  She thought that the real reason was that the others had conspired to keep their cosy threesome. Presumably Paul had asked for their opinion.

  Anne-Lise’s first day at the DCGI was just a few days after the death of Malene’s aunt and it had seemed natural enough that they shut her out back then. She had assumed that it would get easier, the longer they worked together. Now it seems that the barriers will never come down.

  Paul had emphasised that Anne-Lise should go into the Winter Garden whenever she liked. He repeats this every so often and she takes him at his word, even when it makes her feel awkward.

  During the lunch break, Camilla echoes Anne-Lise’s question and asks Iben if she feels differently about reading interviews after having been interviewed herself. Iben responds at length.

  Some days, usually after a holiday or a nice weekend, Anne-Lise steps into the office naïvely hoping that things will soon change for the better. As recently as yesterday evening she told Henrik that she felt much more able to cope, and that she would try and have a proper conversation with everyone. But most of the lunch break is spent discussing Swedish dentists. Three hours into the work week and already Anne-Lise feels limp and dull. Still, she steels herself, making one more effort to join in.

  She picks up on something Camilla has just said. ‘Isn’t it expensive to drive to Malmö? The bridge tolls, I mean. You know, something happened to me when …’ She turns to Malene, and just as she is about to continue, Malene interrupts and talks past Anne-Lise to Iben and Camilla. There is no opportunity in their three-way exchange.

  Anne-Lise can’t take any more.

  Lunch is over and she walks down one of the remote passages behind the library’s East European collection. At these times she always brings her compact; her face must not show that she has been crying.

  Twenty minutes later she returns to her desk. Once again, Anne-Lise makes up her mind to ignore them for the rest of the day.

  Obviously, an individual can’t ostracise a group. Most likely, they won’t even notice, but that’s not the point. She has to protect herself, especially today. After work she has to prepare a special birthday dinner for Henrik and she must have enough energy left for their guests.

 
She throws herself into her work. There are reports waiting to be scanned, Word files to be transferred into the database, and keywords to be checked.

  She makes her own coffee in the kitchen to avoid using the Thermos in the Winter Garden. After a while she phones Henrik, wishes him a happy birthday, and talks to him for a little longer, using a tone of voice that betrays a hint of what she’s going through. It helps her to think that he understands her situation.

  Since Malene is the Centre’s contact person for everyone using the DCGI facilities, including all library borrowers, Anne-Lise works alone and almost exclusively with archival work. Boxes full of documentation pour in steadily, and there are few chances to talk to anyone during an ordinary working day.

  Anne-Lise phones a colleague in the Strasbourg genocide library, whom she met during a course about the HURIDOCS cataloguing system. She tells him that she has come across a reference to an article in a UN report that would interest him. She mentions other reports and keeps talking, spinning the conversation out.

  He listens to her. She hopes that he won’t notice that she’s drinking in his every word. Talking to him will keep her going for a few more hours. She needs a friendly voice to mask her colleagues’ silence.

  Afterwards Anne-Lise turns her attention to proofreading. The German, Spanish and English observers have reported the torching of Nigerian villages and the perpetrators’ names must be checked and cross-referenced. The text-recognition program has recorded their names, but just one small slip could lead to confusion later.

  Malene comes in to collect some volumes, carrying a growing pile of books around with her. Still buoyed from her conversation with her Strasbourg colleague, Anne-Lise smiles at Malene, but Malene leaves the room without saying a word.

  Anne-Lise stops working. For the umpteenth time she starts filling out another job application. As she types, she realises that she’s losing control. I shouldn’t be feeling like this, she thinks. They’re turning me into a different Anne-Lise. This could’ve been the perfect job. She imagines each tap on the keyboard as if it were a knife plunging into Malene’s body. Or Iben’s.

  Malene! Anne-Lise screams inwardly as she hits the keys as hard as she can.

  But this is not the real me.

  Towards the end of the afternoon the Winter Garden is alive with laughter. One of the computers is running Chris and the Chocolate Factory audio files.

  True, Anne-Lise had decided to stay away from them for the rest of the day, but the last time they listened to Chris, all four of them had had so much fun together. Anne-Lise had joined in their jokes and laughed along as if it were all perfectly normal.

  The familiarity did not last, but that evening she had met Henrik in the driveway.

  ‘We had a really good laugh together today!’ She went on to say that it looked as if the others were coming around at last. Wasn’t it good that she had stuck it out despite everything?

  Later Henrik copied a CD with Chris episodes that a colleague of his had recorded from a morning radio show. Anne-Lise had put the CD in her handbag and it was still there. There had been no opportune moment to tell the women about it.

  Chris’s voice is coming from Camilla’s computer.

  Iben and Malene stand at Camilla’s desk. Anne-Lise joins them, trying to act natural. When Malene does her Paul imitation Anne-Lise laughs. Then she turns to the others. ‘I have a CD with Chris episodes that aren’t on the Internet. Would you like to hear it?’

  ‘Sure! Why don’t you go and get it?’

  ‘Great idea.’

  She goes to the library and when she returns with the CD seconds later, Iben and Malene are already back at their desks.

  Anne-Lise stops. ‘Oh, you’re busy now. We should listen to it another time?’

  Malene looks up. ‘No, no. Put it on, by all means.’

  ‘But are you still in the mood?’

  ‘Of course we are. Put it on.’

  Anne-Lise loads the CD on to Camilla’s computer. Camilla has pushed her chair away to leaf through a document folder. Anne-Lise turns to look at the others. The atmosphere has changed. She should never have gone ahead – not now they’re all back at work.

  Camilla is looking up at her expectantly.

  Anne-Lise selects track eight, an episode that she thinks is the funniest. She presses Play. ‘I hope you’ll like this one.’

  It’s a brilliant sketch, but no one comes over to listen and no one laughs. Now and then Camilla looks up from the documents. Malene and Iben are studying their computer screens.

  Anne-Lise keeps standing at Camilla’s desk. After another thirty seconds she speaks. ‘I’ll stop it now. You’re not listening.’

  ‘No, don’t. Leave it.’

  ‘But you’re not enjoying it.’

  Malene swings around to face Anne-Lise. ‘I always work while I’m listening to something.’

  Now Iben looks up. ‘This is where we work, you know. We’re meant to get things done. It can’t all be fun and games.’

  Anne-Lise lets the CD run. She remembers listening to some of these episodes at home and how she and Henrik were practically crying with laughter. In an attempt to work and listen as the others are doing, she turns the pages of an American journal, but she’s unable to absorb a single word. When the episode ends, she presses Stop.

  Camilla puts down her folder. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I’m taking the CD out. You’re all too busy just now.’

  ‘Don’t. Leave it.’

  ‘But you aren’t listening.’

  ‘How would you know? I was.’

  ‘But … not properly … you’re all …’

  Iben punches hard on the Enter key. ‘I was listening too. You said you wanted us to hear it. Why are you changing your mind?’

  Malene looks up and sighs. ‘Anne-Lise, please. Do stop whining.’

  The next track starts. Once again they are deep in their work. Nobody utters a sound.

  7

  They’ve chosen to invite only their immediate family and a couple who are old friends. Anything grander to celebrate Henrik’s birthday is not practical – not on a weekday night. Even then it should still be quite a party, with a total of eight grownups and seven children. It’s such a challenge to serve a good dinner that suits everyone.

  Once home from work, Anne-Lise went straight to the kitchen and now, with the guests due to arrive in three-quarters of an hour, Henrik has joined her. They send the children off to play in the garden, but Ulrik and Clara are too excited and keep running back into the kitchen. To keep them occupied, Anne-Lise gives them a game of garden quoits so she and Henrik have time to prepare the food.

  Their idea is to stick to an autumn menu. Anne-Lise cuts up root vegetables for the soup, while pieces of bacon for the garnish are frying in a pan. Henrik washes the mushrooms for one of his famous three party pieces, a casserole, which will go nicely with the venison steaks. He’s bending low over the sink and his thin six-foot frame makes him look out of place. They have talked about getting another sink that is higher, but it’s pointless, since he is seldom in the kitchen.

  It would help Henrik more if he could change the way he sits at work. Spending sixty hours a week in the bank has meant that his posture has grown steadily worse.

  While he chops the mushrooms, Henrik natters on. ‘I’ve often fantasised that I’m a guest at a dinner party and find that Malene and several of her family and friends have been invited too. When the hostess tells me that I’m seated next to Malene, I reply that I don’t want to sit anywhere near her. I say calmly, but loudly enough for everyone to hear it, “I’m so sorry – anyone but Malene Jensen.” And the hostess will wonder why. What’s wrong with dear Malene, so young and talented and pretty? And in such a fascinating job as well.’

  Anne-Lise looks up from her work. Henrik is still wearing his office clothes: white shirt and neatly pressed trousers. There’s a concerned frown on his face.

  ‘I’d have to explain and I w
ould. I’d say, “It’s offensive, I know, but I simply could not bear having Malene next to me at the table. If I can’t sit away from her I shall have to leave.” In my fantasy, the other guests become anxious and stare, but I’m not bothered. In front of these people, who all think they know her, I continue: “Every day at work Malene torments my wife Anne-Lise. My wife is developing problems with stress as a direct result of Malene’s behaviour. I would rather sit beside a drug-addled gangster. She’s so mean and selfish. She may appear to be well-educated and privileged, but she clearly couldn’t care less that her behaviour is making our entire family suffer.”’

  Anne-Lise tips the chopped vegetables into the blender. ‘You don’t think I’m a bad mother, do you?’

  ‘No, no. Not at all! You know that. But what if Malene is really making you physically ill?’

  She pulls his face down close to kiss his cheek quickly before she adds the celery to the blender. ‘Do you think you would truly do all that … what you just said?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Something tells me that the guests would still believe that Malene is a wonderful person. And you’d never be invited back.’

  ‘They wouldn’t take kindly to it, of course. At dinner parties you’re meant to behave yourself and make polite conversation. It’s at home and at work that people show their true colours. I suppose people must think she is a fine woman.’

  Clara, their daughter, has come in, complaining that Ulrik, her older brother, has hit her.

  Anne-Lise takes the sizzling pan off the burner. ‘Did he hit you? Show me where it hurts and I’ll blow on it.’

  Clara sobs, but it doesn’t sound that bad.

  Anne-Lise and Henrik have lived together for nearly twenty years, but waited longer than most before starting a family. Anne-Lise wanted to give Henrik space and time to satisfy his youthful ambitions and capacity for hard work. If they waited, she’d thought, they would both have more time to enjoy their children and their home life. Many years passed before she realised that Henrik would never change. It was a stark choice for her: would she take on the whole burden of raising the children or resign herself to being childless? She made her decision and has coped well, feeling that she has grown as a person. Henrik is working at least as hard as she does. He has had a meteoric career as an economist with a major Danish bank. It is thanks to his income that they were able to buy a large house and turn it into the home they had always wanted.