The Exception

by Christian Jungersen

  Henrik shouts: ‘Anne-Lise, don’t! Don’t.’

  I must hit my face as hard as I can. I deserve to be punished because I’m a horrible wife. I’m a bad, bad mother.

  The rapist’s spotty face is grinning at me. I can see his small pointy teeth.

  Henrik is holding my hand in his. I can hit myself with the other hand. He tries to grab it too, loses his balance and falls over me. His belly on my head. His elbow between my legs.

  He shouts: ‘Anne-Lise, stop it! Stop!’

  He holds me around the chest. He has clamped my arms so I can’t move them. He presses his cheek to mine. His mouth is close to my ear.

  ‘Hit Malene! She’s the one you should hit, not yourself. And Iben! Not yourself. Them!’

  Iben

  34

  Something glitters on the wall at the other end of the hut when it catches the feeble light of the oil lamp. It is the shell of a dead beetle. At first, Iben thought the creature was alive, but time has passed since then.

  For thirty-five hours or thereabouts she has been looking at the shiny black shell of the beetle. She has touched it and then tried to scrape it free from the wall’s cement-like mixture of mud and cow shit.

  Iben is the only one of the prisoners who hasn’t thrown up. She is only suffering from the diarrhoea and the fever. Under normal circumstances they would never have touched the water in the hut, which is kept in calabashes and old plastic bottles.

  One of the hostage-takers is called Omoro. He has come along to crouch by her several times, asked her if she is very ill, and prayed for her to get better soon.

  Through the fever-haze she has heard him argue again and again that it was essential to capture them. His tribe must chase the SEC out of the slums of Kibera.

  No one contradicts him but still he repeats himself. ‘Look, we are not criminals. That is not what we are!’ He sounds unhappy.

  Iben can’t make out his features in the darkness.

  Omoro is the man with the machine gun who sat next to the driver in the SEC’s large, white car. Now that he is walking about she notes that he is tall and well built. The lower part of one of his ears is missing.

  The fever makes it hard for Iben to think of a reply to his insistent questioning.

  ‘Please, can you not see that we are right to do this?’

  She watches the lamplight flicker across the blade of the knife that rests across his thighs. An awful stench fills the enclosed darkness of the hut. The hostage-takers won’t let their prisoners out except when they ‘have to go’ in the muddy trench just outside the door and, with the sickness, all four hostages are having to go several times an hour. Roberto doesn’t always get there in time. Once he didn’t even get up off the mud floor – he was too weak – but tried to clean up after himself with a handful of straw. There are more flies and insects crawling about in his corner than anywhere else.

  They all shiver, because the night is cold and they are wearing only their T-shirts and shorts. Soon the sun will rise and its furious heat will make the air in the hut even denser.

  Iben is lying on her side. She is very still, but now and then she stretches out her index finger and pushes at the beetle, as if it were a button and pressing it could stop something from happening. She knows that the others are awake too, but none of them speaks.

  She has never felt fear like this. It is not like a sudden shock, a passing state. The hostages could be taken out and shot in five minutes, or in ten, or in fifteen. Half a night has passed, but the shots might still be fired at any time. Nothing changes. There is no let-up in the awareness of danger, only increasing fear.

  The fever makes Iben limp and exhausted, but even so, she only manages to sleep for short breaks. The others have had a worse time of it, though. Yesterday she had to clear away what Roberto had thrown up when he was groggy with fever. It seems that the Luos regard her as stronger than the rest and now they turn to her when they need to address the captives.

  What does this mean for her chances of survival?

  Four other aid workers from another section of SEC had been taken not that long ago. The negotiations to free them had ground to a halt and the hostage-takers decided to shoot one of their prisoners, and then one more, before they agreed to let the other two go.

  Who from their group would the Luos pick first? Would it be the prisoner whom they regarded as the strongest?

  But she couldn’t have left Roberto to lie there in his own vomit. Something had to be done. They all have to keep drinking because they are losing fluid fast, but it has meant that their only alternative to thirst is to continually boost their gut infections.

  She washed the vomit off his face and helped him out of the hut when he had to go out to the trench. Cathy and Mark, who are partners back home in Illinois, held each other close all through the first evening, whispering how much they loved each other. Now they lie apart without moving, staring into the air or at the wall. Iben isn’t sure how ill they really are. Their stillness could be a strategy they’ve worked out to keep the guards from getting angry with them. On the other hand, it could be instinctive. Shock and fear might have paralysed them, not illness.

  Iben must have slept after all, because the next time she looks at the doorway, light glimmers around the edges of the cloth covering. The windowless hut is always filled with darkness. Only the spaces around the cloth allow air in. The shafts of sunlight hurt their eyes whenever someone pushes the cloth aside to get to the latrine.

  They hear men walking past the hut. Many men.

  Their movements seem calm and nobody is shouting, so presumably the huddle of dwellings is not under attack.

  None of the prisoners has said out loud: ‘When will they kill us?’ or: ‘Who will be killed first?’

  From the beginning, Iben has thought that they will hold back from killing the hostages they like best, which means it’s important to build a personal relationship with as many of them as quickly as possible. The trouble is, it is hard to seem congenial to a gang of hostage-takers when you are weakened by diarrhoea, fear and lack of sleep.

  The men out there are singing hymns.

  The prisoners’ eyes were covered when they were driven to this place, but on her trips to the trench Iben has calculated that their hut is part of a group housing about twenty people. All of them seem to be men. There are definitely no children.

  Iben recognises many of the hymns from her father’s two LPs, sung by an English church choir. He played them every Christmas.

  They sing harmonies in their deep voices, sounding surprisingly organised, as if a conductor were leading them. Iben decides to join in their singing. At the end of each hymn, she repeats one of the verses loudly. She wants to make sure that the men outside can hear her.

  It works. She had felt certain religion would be their soft spot.

  Now Odhiambo, one of the guards who wasn’t present at the hostage-taking in Nairobi, comes in to fetch her. They don’t want to prevent a believer in Jesus from taking part in their service.

  Iben hasn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours, but she doesn’t feel hungry. Her fever is going down a little. She is strong enough to walk straight, even though her legs still feel shaky, and if she squints her eyes she can stand the piercing sunlight.

  She is outside. A warm wind flutters in her filthy clothes. The smells are not like the stench of the hut. Here is light to see by. Here are colours and trees.

  The men have formed a loose circle. These fifteen or so men should care a little more for her once this service is at an end. They start singing again.

  Cross of Jesus, cross of sorrow,

  Where the blood of Christ was shed,

  Perfect Man on Thee did suffer,

  Perfect God on Thee has bled!

  O mysterious condescending!

  O abandonment sublime!

  Very God himself is bearing

  All the sufferings of time!

  Iben can smell the bush around them. It smells of
dry, crumbling wood.

  She steals a quick glance at the Luo men’s weaponry. They all seem to have machine guns as well as knives and all within reach. They must fear an attack from outside the village, because they surely don’t think any of their prisoners has the strength to fight off the guards and run away into the wilderness?

  An older man leads both the singing and the reading of lessons. He wears black-nylon trousers and a chain round his neck with an amulet knot.

  Perhaps illness has weakened Iben, because the sound of these grave, worshipful voices touches a raw nerve and the singing moves her deeply.

  Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,

  In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail.

  Or is it because she has been forced to stay in the dark for so long? She manages to blink the tears away from her eyes. Something has gripped her, perhaps a combination of the singing, the words and being able to look far into the distance.

  Maybe these baobab trees are the last natural thing I will ever see, she thinks.

  O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free

  Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;

  From depths of hell Thy people save,

  And give them victory over the grave.

  Rejoice! Rejoice!

  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

  The prayers between the hymns are more difficult to follow, but Iben mumbles her own words in Danish. Here, outside in the light, she can see how depressed the men are. No one knows how this will end. After all, two of their friends have already died.

  The moment the service is finished, Iben begins to speak warmly about the injustices done to the Luo tribe. Thinking ahead, she had reasoned that this would be her best chance of being allowed to remain outside for a while. And, maybe, to get to talk to someone.

  Five of the men gather around her. They all agree and work themselves up into quite a state. Having to take hostages to make their point troubles them. Iben asks Omoro directly if he was a friend of the driver who died yesterday.

  Yes. She asks about the friendship.

  The others are still listening. Iben tries to be genuinely amicable towards all of them. She feels pale, light-headed, but hopefully they won’t notice. If the men know what’s good for them they should pack her off to the hut again. Letting her get this far shows how inexperienced they are.

  Iben remembers that the first time the Hamburg reservists were ordered to kill the inhabitants in a small Jewish town, each man in the battalion had to escort one Jew to the place of execution in the forest. Once there, he had to shoot the prisoner and then return to get another Jew. These minutes alone with the victim, walking along the forest path, maybe exchanging a few words, were enough to make it much harder to kill and many had given up. Others were plagued by terrible nightmares afterwards.

  The battalion officers quickly learned to plan the killings differently. At later massacres, the soldiers never had a moment alone with the Jews. The rule was to make the victims seem like one large, anonymous horde. The German concentration camps were run on the same principle. Shaved, starved and filthy, the prisoners were bound to be less unsettling to the German camp staff because the inmates seemed not-quite-human, and this made it that much easier for the camp guards to get on with their work.

  Iben knows full well that the brief interlude outside the hut has made it that much harder for these men to kill her. For the moment she feels satisfied with herself.

  A short, grey-haired man with scars across his cheeks comes up to her. He says something in Dhuluo that might well mean that she must go back into the hut. Odhiambo says something in reply. What he says includes the name ‘Phillip’ and at the mention of this name, the scarred man glances quickly at Iben to check if she has noticed.

  Iben knows the importance of keeping her expression blank. Phillip is an unusual name for a Luo, which makes it easy to work out that they are discussing Dalmas Phillip. Although a fairly minor Luo chief, he is much talked about as one the most active fighters against the Nubians. He is also said to have raped many Nubian women, in spite of being over sixty years old.

  Iben finds it impossible to completely hide her reaction. The man registers the instant shift in her face. It ruins everything. They can’t let her live if she knows the identity of the leader of the whole hostage operation. Iben is suddenly aware of how tired and weak she is. She slips back into the darkness of the hut and, curling up in her place, she cries.

  Cathy mumbles words of comfort, but Iben senses a new reserve among her three fellow prisoners. Of course they too can see that the risk of being first in line for execution increases for them the better Iben gets along with the men outside. But then, what can they say? Iben could easily argue that a good relationship with the guards could very well save all of them.

  Cathy keeps repeating that they will make it, they will survive. It is the same mantra that Iben has been repeating to herself endlessly over the last two days.

  Meanwhile Iben has worked out a twist to the scenario. If the Luos simply wanted to drive the SEC out of Kibera, shooting in the general direction of aid workers would have been quite enough. Considerations of employee security would be sufficient reason to make them close their local office. The Luos’ risky decision to kidnap four SEC workers might mean that they want much more. The leaders of the operation may well be angling for a large ransom payment, for instance. And Omoro, Odhiambo and the others would almost certainly know nothing about it. In any case, the SEC would never give in because the result would only lead to more kidnappings and, in the long term, cost more lives.

  Iben hasn’t told the others of her suspicions, but now she cannot resist telling them that the guards know that she recognised the name of Dalmas Phillip.

  This silences Cathy.

  Iben tries to rest on her patch of uneven, hardened mud. She scratches at the beetle’s back and tries to make herself dream about Denmark. A muscle in her stomach cramps. It isn’t painful, but her entire abdomen twitches.

  Only three years earlier she was an ordinary student. At this time of day she’d have been sitting at home reading. A smell comes back to her, the scent of printer’s ink and coffee that filled the rooms of her female friends when they met to discuss books.

  Cathy’s voice pulls her out of her dream. ‘Look, SEC will have to get in touch with our embassies. And if the diplomats threaten to stop development aid, then all of a sudden Arap Moi and the police will be on our side. And then they’ll find us.’ The oil lamp is close enough to Cathy to illuminate the imprint on her cheek of the rough floor. ‘And when the police come to free us and attack everyone out there, it won’t matter if you know about Dalmas Phillip.’

  It’s sweet of her to try to be reassuring. They both feel that to attack the Luos here in the bush is nearly impossible, but neither of them says so.

  It has been a long time since they heard anything from Roberto. Iben asks how he is doing.

  His voice is almost gone. ‘Not too good.’

  Iben goes to sit next to him. The darkness and the heat do strange things to time. It must be the waiting that makes time move so terribly slowly. Eventually they fall asleep. Their dreams are chaotic.

  Iben is in her own corner again when Omoro comes in with a kettle full of the dreadful tea that is available everywhere in Kenya. It is always served mixed with milk and lots of sugar. Most Kenyans love their tea and it is a thoughtful gesture on Omoro’s part. Iben and Cathy thank him profusely and drink, even though the oversweetened concoction somehow swells in the mouth after more than twenty-four hours of hunger.

  A little later Omoro brings a dish of dry mush made from ground cornmeal. They eat with their fingers from the dish, doing their best to forget about those trips to the trench. It is a pity that Roberto has no appetite, but it’s a relief that his soiled fingers aren’t dipping into the food.

  Omoro sits next to Iben and whispers in her ear: ‘If that old man with the scars wants to take you outside, you must try to get ou
t of it.’

  Iben would like to ask Omoro what he has heard about Dalmas Phillip, but she stops herself. Instead, she tries to imitate the sound made by the Luos when they understand and accept something.

  A fly insists on trying to land in her eye. Every time she waves it away it comes back. Mostly, the native people don’t seem to notice the flies and Iben doesn’t want to disturb the intimacy with Omoro by waving her arms about.

  Omoro is silent for quite a while. Finally he speaks. ‘You saw Ojiji too.’

  ‘Yes.’ Iben knows that Omoro’s friend, the dead driver, was called Ojiji.

  Omoro sits quietly for a little longer, before saying the same thing again. ‘You saw him too.’

  ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘You saw him in the car with me.’

  ‘Yes.’ She tries to come across as gentle and friendly. The fly investigates her ear. ‘Omoro, it was dreadful.’

  Once more he seems not to know what to say.

  Iben mumbles to show her sympathy. Even though she can glimpse his face in the darkness, she cannot distinguish the expression on it. She feels rather than sees that he is crying soundlessly. His breathing is irregular.

  Then Omoro tells her about a choir that many of the men here belong to. With the support of a Christian aid organisation, they went on tour around Kenya. In addition to the choir, Omoro and Ojiji also sang in a quartet together. Once, all four of them had travelled to Mombasa to sing at an event in the town council building. The Mayor of Mombasa was in the audience. They saw the sea. At night they slept in a park, even though it was forbidden.

  She has already heard many stories about Ojiji after the service this morning. All the men seem to feel that his death was the most important event of the last twenty-four hours. They mourn Ojiji in a different way from the other dead man, with more sorrow.

  Omoro speaks again: ‘We should never have made him drive the car.’

  ‘Omoro, you believed that it was more dangerous to sit next to the driver, holding a machine gun. No one could have known that it was the driver they …’