The Exception (18 page)

After lunch Paul turns up. He checks his mail in his office and then drifts back into the Winter Garden. They see at once his phoney nonchalance and know it means trouble.

‘Look, Malene, we’ve got something to discuss, you and I. Why don’t you drop in as soon as it suits you?’

Malene gets up. ‘Now, if you like.’

Camilla is at her desk. Malene makes sure to close Paul’s door.

‘Have a seat, Malene.’ One of Paul’s hands moves towards his chin. ‘Look, we made a deal yesterday.’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘It’s now Anne-Lise’s responsibility to work directly with users on anything to do with the library.’

‘That’s right.’

Paul always speaks carefully when he has to be managerial.
‘Have you decided … not to keep your promise?’

‘Not at all. Only, Frederik and I have been working together a lot. I just wanted to help him.’

‘Only Frederik. Then you have referred everyone else to Anne-Lise?’

‘Not yet. We only agreed on this yesterday, but I will do it.’

Paul says nothing, just looks at her.

Malene studies the backs of the photo-frames on Paul’s desk. They cast pale, angular shadows across the piles of paper. Then she looks up. ‘You must have spoken with Anne-Lise?’

‘No. I asked Frederik how the new system was working.’

Malene thinks this sounds unlikely.

Then, in a different tone of voice, Paul says, ‘What you achieved by contacting the Austrian foundations was really impressive.’

‘Thanks. The embassy made a lot of good suggestions.’

Then, without warning, Paul suddenly changes the subject again. ‘I was under the impression that the door to the library was meant to be kept open. Right?’

‘It will be, but we can’t open it until Camilla’s desk has been moved. And that can’t be done until Bjarne fixes the network links and all the plugs.’

Paul inhales, a brisk little reverse puff.

Malene speaks quickly. ‘I’m not the one dealing with it.’

‘I didn’t think so, Malene. But have you told Camilla that the sockets and the rest of it must be done as soon as possible?’

‘Actually, yes, I have. I didn’t quite put it like that, but I did tell her. And I reminded her it should be soon. She says that it’s cheaper if we let Bjarne pick a day when he’s not too busy. Presumably he’s had a lot on this week.’

Paul starts sifting through some papers. ‘OK. I’ll speak to Camilla about this.’

After the meeting in Paul’s office, Malene goes to the kitchen to make fresh coffee. Iben turns up, but so does Frederik: he wants to get hold of more court documents from Poland.

The DCGI archive holds one of the world’s largest collections of documents relating to the ethnic cleansing of Germans from the Polish regions. It is the result of Paul’s sometimes rather unconventional methods of developing the Centre’s assets. Some two years ago he persuaded an academic friend of his to offer a year’s research fellowship to a Polish sociologist whom Paul had promised to help. In return, the sociologist was charged with driving around the Polish provinces and photocopying all the relevant papers he could get hold of, mostly from town halls, courts and churches.

Malene has met the Pole, a thin, opinionated man, whose views put him well to the right of any Danish sociologist she has ever come across. He must have been photocopying for a year non-stop – or made somebody else do it. His collection of material, never before archived in the same place, arrived inside 278 cardboard boxes, filling three containers. Some of the documents looked remarkably like originals.

The Pole obtained a temporary work permit through inscrutable channels and before it expired he found himself a Danish wife and went to live with her in Odense. When Frederik announces that he needs additional documentation, Iben and Malene exchange a quick glance.

Iben nods towards Malene, inviting her to tell him what has been decided. Malene explains quietly and precisely – very properly – that, from now on, all requests for books and documents must be presented to Anne-Lise.

Frederik clearly finds the new order strange and says something to that effect.

Malene looks from him to Iben and back again, before she speaks up, not minding if her tone is sarcastic. ‘Well, that’s what teamwork is all about: adjusting to what the other person needs or wants.’ She raises her mug in a kind of toast. The movement is so energetic that some of the coffee slops over. ‘So, that’s how it’s going to be.’

Frederik leans against the kitchen counter and gives her a quizzical look. ‘It sounds oddly formal to me.’

Malene wipes the dribbles off the mug with her finger. ‘We aren’t that formal, are we, Iben?’

‘Guess not.’

Malene touches Frederik’s arm to steer him towards the door. ‘Frederik, you go back to your reading. I’ll go and tell Anne-Lise what you want and then she’ll bring it to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Not at all. From now on you’ll be working together with Anne-Lise. Just as we all try to do.’

Later that afternoon Malene and Frederik get together in the meeting room to discuss the English version of the invitation to the conference. They sit side by side at the large table, scribbling changes on Malene’s printout. Malene’s green marker pen dominates the top of the sheet, while Frederik’s additions in blue biro snake around the lines in the last paragraph.

Anne-Lise knocks and enters the room. ‘Hello there. Am I disturbing you?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Oh, good.’

Anne-Lise pauses briefly and looks at Frederik. ‘Frederik, we have the documents you want from the courts in Gryfice, Lobez and Nowograd, but not from Koszalin.’

Anne-Lise walks towards the table. She looks self-assured enough, but somehow her usually earnest expression seems about to disintegrate.

‘Places down there have several names, of course, so when I recorded the items in our Polish collection I took special care to enter automatic links into the database. The cross-referencing should ensure that everything is easy to locate, regardless of whether you search the German or the Polish name. Even so, I did take the precaution of starting a new search using the German name for Koszalin, which is Köslin, with a German “ö” and there are no documents under that name either.’

Anne-Lise must have prepared this little talk, her first customer since Paul’s directive. Malene notices that her eye-liner has been freshened up, probably just before she came in.

With an obvious effort, she turns to Malene. ‘So, I went on to phone a string of offices in Koszalin. I was told that all the papers in the town had been taken to the German Bundesarchiv’s “Ostdok” division in Bayreuth. I phoned Bayreuth and got them to give me the details of where the Koszalin documents are stored. Look, I’ve written down the phone number and I have an email address for you as well.’

Malene’s arms are stretched across the table top. One elbow obscures some of the text that she and Frederik have been working on.

She hesitates, then glances at Frederik. ‘I could’ve sworn the documents were here. How strange.’

Anne-Lise sounds more certain now. ‘But they’re not. I’ve checked everything carefully. I’m quite sure.’

‘Right, of course. If you say so.’

Anne-Lise puts a sheet of paper on the table. On it she’s written a few names, a phone number and an email address.

‘She’ll get your documents. I just wanted to keep you informed. I’ll phone these people myself.’

Frederik has also placed an elbow on the conference printout. He looks up at Anne-Lise and sounds a little confused.

‘Did you say “all the papers in the town” a moment ago? You do know, don’t you, that I wasn’t looking for papers from the town of Kozsalin?’

Anne-Lise blinks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Koszalin is the name of a province as well as a town. It’s the documents from the small county courts in the province that I need.’

‘In the province …?’

Malene picks up the piece of paper with the address written on it. ‘Oh, Frederik, look! It’s Ilona’s address!’

Fredrik casts an eye on the paper. ‘Is it? I can’t remember.’

‘Yes, of course it is!’

Before Frederik has time to reply, Anne-Lise speaks up: ‘Malene! Didn’t you tell me to look for the Koszalin court?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Malene looks at her blandly. ‘I never said that. I know very well that we haven’t a single document from a town of that size. What I said was “the documents from Koszalin and from the courts in Grufice, Lobez and Nowograd”.’

One of Anne-Lise’s heels taps audibly against the linoleum-covered floor. ‘Maybe you said—’

‘I did say “the documents from Koszalin”.’

Anne-Lise purses her mouth. Her lips tighten. She seems on the verge of saying something aggressive, but thinks better of it.

The room is filled for a moment by the dull rumble of a bus passing in the street.

Malene breaks the silence. ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure of what I said, you know.’

Anne-Lise doesn’t answer.

Malene tries a smile. ‘Anne-Lise, I can understand perfectly well how irritating it must be to have picked up the wrong end of the stick. Maybe I should’ve expressed myself more clearly, but it seemed much more complicated to say it all. We have documents from five courts in the province of Koszalin. Their names are Bielograd, Darlowo, Swidwin, Zlocieniek and Kolobrzeg.

In the street outside another large diesel engine follows the bus.

Then Malene continues: ‘But you’re the one who’s spent weeks and weeks typing all the information into the database. It simply didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know.’ Malene breaks off at that point.

Frederik tries to be just as sympathetic. ‘Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.’

Anne-Lise is no longer looking at either of them. She straightens up and appears determined.

‘I’ll find what you want at once. Now that I know exactly what to look for, it’ll take no time at all.’

Malene clutches one of her hands in the other. ‘Great. You’ll manage just fine.’

On Wednesday evening one of Rasmus’s old friends turns up to talk. Malene fidgets about elsewhere, in the bedroom, the kitchen, the hallway.

She can’t help thinking about the office. I did say ‘the documents from Koszalin’, she tells herself bad-temperedly. Then, suddenly, the evening is over. By the time Rasmus’s friend leaves, she has already taken a tablet for her headache.

Both Malene and Rasmus are tired. They sit leaning against the sofa cushions, one in each corner with their feet in each other’s lap. Malene does her finger exercises.

She asks Rasmus what Jonas wanted. It seems Jonas has problems at work.

The sound of the clock radio. Toes on the tiled bathroom floor. Toothpaste. Wafts of damp air from the shower. The smell of Rasmus’s deodorant. Cotton wool. Low-fat yoghurt. Coffee.

When Malene turns up at the Centre on Thursday morning, the others are all in the Winter Garden, standing round Camilla’s chair. Malene glances quickly at Camilla, and sees that she must have been crying.

Even before Malene puts her bag down, Paul explains: ‘Camilla has received one of the emails too.’

He hands Malene a printout.

ANYBODY WHO HOSTS OR GIVES HELP TO OUR ENEMIES IS
OUR ENEMY. YOU, CAMILLA BATZ, WILL DISCOVER THAT
COLLABORATORS WHO THINK THEMSELVES INNOCENT
OFTEN DIE TOO.

The email was sent yesterday evening, at 9.57 p.m. The
sender, as before, is
[email protected]
.

Malene is outraged. She looks up from the printout and stares at Anne-Lise, who avoids her eyes.

Anne-Lise is leaning against Camilla’s filing cabinet and resting one of her hands on top of it, next to the postage machine. She doesn’t seem as tense as you would expect. How accomplished a liar is she? A good one, to be sure. Just think of how she managed to hide the fact that she hates her colleagues for months. Besides, she might have blanked out writing the emails, like the cases of split personality Grith told them about. Maybe she’s dimly aware of having done it, as if it were a dream. Malene cannot bear even to look at Anne-Lise, and turns her back to engage with what the rest of the group is saying.

Camilla points at the bottle of whisky in front of her. ‘I’ve had two shots already.’

The bottle was a gift to Paul after a lecture. He has brought it over, together with a few small tumblers. Camilla gives a nervous laugh. It’s impossible to tell what she is feeling.

Malene wants to tell Camilla how very fond of her she is, but cannot think of a way to put it. ‘Have you called Finn?’

Camilla trembles. ‘I have. He wanted to come over straight away, but I told him there was no need.’

Once Finn was married to Camilla’s best friend. The friend’s advanced uterine cancer was diagnosed within days of her giving birth to a baby daughter. During the first two months after the diagnosis, Camilla took a lot of time off work. Later she moved in to help Finn look after both his wife and the new baby.

During the eighteen months that followed, Camilla’s friend steadily weakened and finally she died. At first Camilla went back to live in her own place, but now she has a son with Finn and has moved into his home on Amager Island. Finn works as a plumber, mostly on Amager. Camilla brings him to the summer and Christmas office parties. He’s a small, bald man, but friendly and always ready to share a joke.

Malene goes over to Camilla and puts her arms round her. It’s
an impulse; they have never hugged before. Camilla’s body is warm and Malene realises to her surprise that she is close to tears as well. But she doesn’t start to cry. Instead she shouts, in an odd voice that seems to rise from somewhere deep inside her: ‘Camilla, we won’t let them get away with it!’

She hears Iben speak behind her. ‘Malene? You didn’t react like this when we were emailed.’

Malene steps away from Camilla. It’s true. She is furious with whoever has done this, but can’t think why she’s reacting so strongly.

‘I know. But it’s so …’

Iben watches her.

‘They shouldn’t be sending this stuff to Camilla!’ She stops and turns to Camilla. ‘You haven’t done anything. We’re the ones who wrote the articles. It isn’t fair to pick on you!’