One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  His family all sat round him, saying goodbye. They had been asked to make some difficult decisions. It was left up to them to decide on the moment of his death.

  That afternoon, his life-support machine was turned off.

  But just before that, his heart was removed and would be transplanted into someone else’s body.

  The three said a prayer.

  Their grief was vast and black. But they were grateful that they had been able to say their farewells to Gunnar while he was still warm.

  And that his heart would still beat.

  * * *

  In another wing, Viljar lay in a coma.

  His mother had spent the whole night ringing round to hospitals all over Norway. She had rung places as far north as Trondheim. But nobody could give her the assurance she sought, that her son was with them and alive.

  At Sundvollen, the others from the cliff had told them what they knew. They had seen Viljar shot in the head, straight in the eye, seen blood pour out and splinters of skull go flying. We’ve lost Viljar, his parents thought, but they didn’t say it out loud. They had Torje to think of.

  At about two in the morning, Christin got through to one of the emergency numbers, and described Viljar’s injuries.

  ‘Your son is still on the island,’ said the man at the other end.

  ‘On the island?’

  ‘Yes, they haven’t brought the dead back over yet. I’m very sorry for your loss.’

  Christin kept this to herself. It wasn’t true until she had seen him herself. Some hours later, around seven, her phone rang. A voice asked a question.

  ‘Has your son any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘A scar. On his neck. A burn. From when he was little.’

  ‘In that case he has been identified at Ullevål.’

  ‘Identified?’

  ‘That’s all I can say.’

  ‘Please tell me what you mean!’

  ‘He’s here. He’s alive at the moment.’

  They were asked to come right away. ‘We can’t say what the situation will be by the time you get here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t say any more. We want you here when we tell you more.’

  They raced to the car. Torje was exhausted, and fell asleep on the back seat. His parents focused on the road. There’s a sign here. There’s a bend here. There’s a junction here. They wound the windows up and down. Up and down. Up. And down. In an attempt to make themselves breathe.

  They pulled up at the entrance to Ullevål hospital and ran in. They were taken to see Viljar in intensive care.

  It was unreal. That was their child lying there. Their firstborn. The big brother. He lay deep within a white wrapping, with wires and tubes running into it. The information the hospital gave them was unambiguous: he is alive now, but you must be ready for anything.

  The hours went by. In the afternoon the family was updated on the seventeen-year-old’s condition.

  ‘In all likelihood, he will survive the day.’

  But the doctors could not say if Viljar would ever wake up.

  And if he did, what sort of Viljar would he be?

  * * *

  On Utøya, the forensics teams had started their work. Recording and securing evidence. Everything was noted down on a pink form entitled post mortem.

  One of the forensic technicians was Danijela Andersen, Håvard Gåsbakk’s partner. She had not kept the news turned on because of their two little children at home, so knew nothing until Håvard called her that evening. She had never heard him sound so upset. ‘It’s insane! Sick. There are lots of them dead. They’re children!’

  Now she was taking over. Three teams divided the dead between them, working in pairs. Danijela and her colleague were to start with the ten who had been taken by boat to the mainland the evening before and were now laid out in the civil defence force’s tent. Kripos had issued the teams with a hundred boxes of labels, number tags, plastic strips, tape, blood-sampling kits, black tarpaulins and body bags. The white body bags had zip fasteners and two carrying handles.

  The weather had improved. It had brightened up and also turned warmer. They had to work quickly.

  ‘Have you seen a dead body before?’ the experienced Kripos colleague asked her before they started.

  She nodded.

  They removed the first white wool blanket.

  A young boy. They photographed him and recorded his details on the pink form. Where the bullets had gone in and out, what injuries they had caused, abrasions, wounds. They laid him in body bag number 1.

  Then a couple of boys in their underpants, who were given the numbers 2 and 3. Others were in sturdy wellingtons, waterproof jackets, woollen jerseys.

  As she worked, Danijela always took care to remember that this was a human being who had been alive. She did up the girls’ blouses if they had come open, pulled down a top if it had ridden up. From the moment she pulled aside the wool blanket to the moment she put them in the body bag, they were in her care. When she had finished, she stroked each one gently on the cheek. Finally, if necessary, she closed their eyes.

  Halfway along the row she came to a boy with a lot of clothes on. Jeans, trainers, a windproof jacket, a jersey and a red and blue striped T-shirt. Or rather, no, it was white and blue striped, but now so soaked in blood that all the white parts had turned red.

  Danijela rubbed a little of the dried blood off his face. He must have been a good-looking boy, she thought.

  As he lay there on his back, his hands stuck up in the air. They were rather bent, and the same was true of his legs. He had stiffened in that position, draped over the rock.

  She recorded everything. Filled in the form for the deceased. She patted his cheek. Closed his eyes. And took one last look at his handsome face before she pulled the zipper shut.

  * * *

  The interrogation room was on the sixth floor of the police headquarters. There was an experienced female interviewer waiting, while a team of detectives sat behind a glass wall. From there they could see and hear everything that went on in the room, while those in the interview room could only see themselves in the mirror glass.

  Anders Behring Breivik had been locked in a cell at police headquarters at 04.49 that morning. Just before, he was asked whether he wanted a specific defence lawyer to act for him.

  Breivik wanted Geir Lippestad. He was the lawyer from whom he had rented an office when he was running his firm, E-Commerce Group, with Kristian. They had shared a fridge and lunch room with the lawyer, who at that time was defending the neo-Nazi accused of murdering fifteen-year-old Benjamin Hermansen. Little had been heard of the lawyer since then.

  Lippestad was still asleep when they rang.

  ‘We have arrested an individual by the name of Anders Behring Breivik for the acts of terrorism. He wants you as his defence counsel.’

  The name meant nothing to Lippestad. He was urged to think quickly about it, as the perpetrator had said there were three more terrorist cells and several more bombs in the city. The police wanted to interrogate the accused as soon as possible, but he refused to be interviewed without a defence lawyer.

  By half past eight Lippestad was at the police headquarters. He shook hands with Breivik, and after a short conversation they entered the interrogation room together.

  ‘So you’re the one with the unfortunate task and honour of interviewing the biggest monster in Norwegian history since Quisling?’ was Breivik’s opening remark to his female interviewer.

  The charge was read out to him. He was asked for his reaction to it. He said it was deficient, and he found it remarkable that it said nothing about his production of biological weapons and his intentions for their use.

  He was informed that eight had been officially recorded dead in the government quarter and more than eighty on Utøya.

  ‘Lots of them must have swum for it, then,’ he said. And smiled.

  In the time since the interview on Utøya he had finalised his
list of demands. ‘We are willing to grant an amnesty to all category A and B traitors if they dissolve Parliament and transfer authority to a conservative board of guardians, with me or other national leaders at its head,’ he said. Once the demands on his first list were met, he would identify the remaining cells and thus save three hundred lives.

  On his more limited list of demands he wanted the right to wear his Knights Templar uniform at his trial, which must be open and freely accessible to the media. He also had some demands regarding the conditions in which he would serve his sentence. ‘You can’t put Crusaders and Muslims together.’ In the United States, prisoners were segregated to avoid conflicts, he said.

  He was informed that a computer was on order for him. His demand to wear uniform for the committal proceedings and his trial was under consideration. They were also working on the matter of a printer; it was possible he would be able to connect to a machine elsewhere in the building.

  ‘I hope that what I type isn’t going to be deleted at the end of every day,’ he said, and added that he also wanted access to Photoshop.

  ‘That has been noted,’ said the interviewer. ‘The practical matters to do with the PC will be settled in due course.’

  ‘No, I want this cleared up before I go on with the interrogation.’

  ‘This cannot be a negotiating session,’ said the interviewer. ‘Your requests have been passed on.’

  ‘In principle, all exchange of information is negotiation,’ replied Breivik. ‘And by the way, it would have been more appropriate for me to talk to someone with the authority to meet my demands. They are relatively modest, after all, but they are absolute!’

  Twenty-four hours had passed since the bomb exploded. The government quarter was cordoned off. The armed forces had placed heavily armed soldiers at the Parliament, the Royal Palace and other sensitive buildings. Oslo was in a state of high alert. Now there were helicopters in the air. The police’s top priority was to clarify whether there was any risk of further attacks.

  ‘Are there any explosives around that have not yet been detonated?’

  ‘In view of the fact that you are unwilling to open negotiations, you should save that question for later,’ replied Breivik. ‘It’s not that I’m unwilling to explain, but I have to get something in return. If these modest demands are not met, I will do all I can to create complications, I will sabotage the trial, refuse legal representation and go sick.’

  He showed them his plastered finger, which he feared would turn septic if it was not attended to soon.

  The interviewer tried again.

  ‘Is anyone else aware of your plans?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t … This comes under the basic rules of the negotiation.’

  The leader of the public prosecution came into the room to say that all the demands on the second list had been met. The police would arrange to collect his uniform, which he said was hanging in the wardrobe in his room.

  Breivik turned to Lippestad and asked if he thought the police would keep their word.

  ‘They have said it, so one can rely on that,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Well in that case we can go on,’ said Breivik, turning to the interviewer. ‘You can draw up a list of your questions and give it to me. Then you have to limit yourselves to the questions on the list.’

  ‘That’s not how we work here; you can’t have my questions in advance,’ said the interviewer. ‘Now, I hope you are going to play fair.’

  He gave in, and started to explain. About the planning. About the Knights Templar. The bomb. Utøya. ‘It would have saved time if you had read my manifesto. It’s all in there.’

  He asked for cigarettes. Marlboro Gold. ‘I’ll be more cooperative if you get me those.’

  They gave him the cigarettes.

  He asked if it was long until lunch. He said he would like pizza and cola.

  These were brought. He ate with a good appetite.

  After the meal break, the interviewer got straight to the point.

  ‘I want to know what happened and why.’

  ‘Are there Labour Party people observing this interview?’ Breivik pointed to the mirror glass.

  ‘The only people here are those directly involved in this interview,’ he was told.

  Breivik smiled. He smiled again when he was asked why he was smiling.

  ‘It’s a self-defence mechanism. People react differently, don’t they?’

  * * *

  While the interview was in progress on the sixth floor of police headquarters, the police were searching the flat in Hoffsveien and Vålstua farm. The interrogator wanted to know if police lives were at risk in doing this.

  Breivik shook his head. The only dangerous thing at Vålstua was a container of 99.5 per cent pure nicotine, he cautioned. Two drops could kill a person. They would have to wear thick gloves if they were opening it, and preferably a gas mask. It should be in a plastic bag on a shelf unit of chemicals, down at the bottom among a load of junk. The plan had been to inject nicotine into the bullets, he said, so every shot would be lethal. But then he realised that would be against the Geneva Convention and abandoned the idea.

  He drew a sketch map of the farm and marked where things were. That would make it easier for the police to find their way around.

  ‘It sucks to take human life,’ Breivik said suddenly. ‘But it sucks even more not to act. Now that the Labour Party has betrayed its country and its people so categorically over many years, there’s a price to pay for that kind of treachery, and they paid that price yesterday. We know that before every election the Progress Party gets torpedoed. The media dehumanises the conservatives. They’ve been doing that ever since the Second World War: continuous abuse of the cultural conservatives.’

  The Knights Templar consisted of extremely gifted individuals, highly intelligent and highly potent, he explained. Those who had ordained themselves single-cell commanders were extremely powerful. The only problem with a single-cell structure was its limitation to the working capacity of one individual. ‘I mean, if one person has to process five tonnes of fertiliser, you have no idea how much hard work that is.’

  Then he asked for a break to go to the toilet.

  The interview veered all day between Breivik’s actual actions, his political universe and his wishes and whims. He could be complaining about the logistical problems that meant he did not have time to blow up the government quarter in the morning as planned, and thus also missed executing Gro Harlem Brundtland, only to say, ‘I feel really good. I’ve never been mentally stronger than now. I had prepared myself for torture and so on, and I’m positively surprised that I haven’t had to suffer it. I have no negative thoughts now, only positive ones.’ In his cell, he had already planned how he could work out using simple objects such as a chair or a book, he said.

  He was still a little high on chemical substances. The effect of the steroids on his body would not wear off for a couple of weeks. ‘I’m biologically weak,’ he explained. ‘But I’ve compensated for that by working out.’

  The interviewer produced a picture of Breivik in his full-length white protection suit with a hood, the one he had bought from the British professor of mathematics.

  ‘Oh, have you seen the other photos too?’ smiled Breivik.

  ‘This is the photograph we want you to tell us about.’

  ‘But the others are much more cooler! Well okay, it’s Knights Templar Chemical Warfare and the photo shows the injection of biological weapons into the cartridge.’

  ‘I’m not even wearing gloves! I should have been!’ Breivik suddenly exclaimed. ‘Have you seen my film yet?’

  The interviewer had not.

  ‘You ought to see it!’

  He touched on his mother. ‘Her life is over,’ he said. ‘Because if the media call me a monster her neighbours will too, and that means she can’t go on living. But this task is much more important than me, much more important than her.’

  It was late evening by now. He tu
rned to Lippestad. ‘You needn’t sit and listen if you don’t want to. If you, like, want to go home.’

  ‘I shall stay until the end of the interrogation,’ said the lawyer.

  The question why was still to be answered.

  ‘If you have that sort of pain in your heart, you know you have to inflict pain to stop the pain. But it felt absolutely awful. The first shot was the worst, directed at the biggest threat on the island … the one who was starting to get suspicious. If I’d had a choice, I would have skipped Utøya, it’s too dirty, because even though it’s extremely productive, as history is bound to show … it’s still a hideous thing. It must be absolutely awful being a parent who’s lost a child. But on the other hand, it was their responsibility to make sure their child didn’t turn into an extreme Marxist working for multiculturalism. It’s…’

  He looked at the interrogator. ‘It’s a nightmare that I don’t think you can understand until you’ve carried it out. And I hope you won’t have to experience it because it was sheer hell. Taking another person’s life. They were so scared and screaming in terror. It’s possible they were begging for their lives. I don’t remember. They may have said, “Please. Don’t shoot.” They just sat there and didn’t do anything. They were paralysed, and then I executed them. One after another.’

  Then he yawned. ‘But listen, you people, I’m exhausted now. I hope this interview won’t go on for much longer.’

  But Never Naivety

  Why on earth had they lain down just here?

  The thought ran through Danijela’s head.

  It was early on Sunday morning; around eight o’clock. The island was quiet. No one was shouting orders, no one was screaming. The people there knew what they had to do and were focused on their work.

  Danijela was on Lover’s Path. There were ten blankets lying on the ground.

  Under them were ten people. As a forensic technician Danijela was used to thinking like a detective. For what reason had the body ended up just here? Why was it lying like that? Had it been moved? How had death occurred?

  They usually spent several hours examining a dead body; here they could allow themselves no more than half an hour. The dead were lying out in the open. The weather had turned warmer.