The Exception (55 page)

Malene tries to concentrate on reading an article about the expulsion of 3.5 million inhabitants from the German regions of Czechoslovakia. The plan is to publish an edited volume of the delegates’ papers about the fates of the 15 million ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe in time for the conference. When the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia they behaved with more restraint than anywhere else, except Denmark, but many of the regional Germans supported the occupation. So, during the war, the future Czech president said he would demand ‘a radical and definitive solution’ to the German problem – he envisaged a ‘one hundred per cent effective extermination of Germans’. During the first post-war year, some 270,000 Germans were killed and more than 3 million expelled.

The phone rings. Camilla’s strange response to the call distracts Malene. Usually so friendly, she seems hesitant and at a loss for words. ‘If I can see it’s from you … yes. I suppose it’s all right if your name is on the back.’

She catches Malene’s eye and makes a face. ‘I see. Then it’s not … If I mustn’t even mention it to Paul, then … yes, but … All right, I’ll do that. Yes, I promise I’ll destroy it. I understand. I’ll get rid of it. Bye for now.’

Baffled, Malene and Iben stare at Camilla. Anne-Lise turns up at the library door.

‘It was Ole,’ Camilla tells them.

‘Really?’

All three of them are astonished.

‘Yes. You see, Ole wrote a letter to Paul, but now he says it’s vital that Paul does not get it. I’m to take the letter from Paul’s in-tray and shred it. I’m not supposed to read it or tell Paul.’

‘It’s the sack!’ Iben blurts out. ‘Ole got the support of the rest of the board for getting rid of Paul and yesterday he wrote the letter of dismissal. But why change his mind today?’

They all agree that it probably means the boot for Paul. Malene tries to figure out the consequences for herself, but has trouble. Possible scenarios tumble around in her mind. She is too tired and weak to think straight. If the tension between herself and Iben reaches some sort of crisis and one of them has to go, Paul will keep Iben. But if Paul has to leave first and Frederik is still deputy chairman of the board, then the chances are he will have Iben kicked out. But if Frederik is no longer on the DCGI board by then and Gunnar has taken his place? Who would Gunnar prefer?

Malene realises that before she arrived, they must also have been discussing the awkward situation of Paul versus Frederik. Anne-Lise says that her husband has a great amount of experience in this because he’s sat on so many corporate boards. In Henrik’s view, Paul’s attempt to eliminate Frederik was such an outrageous manoeuvre that the board have no option other than to get rid of him.

They discuss who should take over as temporary leader of DCGI – Anne-Lise thinks Iben is the one who should be Paul’s long-term replacement. They talk about what Paul would do next and if his departure would increase the likelihood of a merger with Human Rights. And, of course, they have to wonder why Paul seems so calm about everything, and where he has been these last few days.

Malene has many questions but she can’t make herself talk to Iben or Anne-Lise. She can’t bear even to meet Anne-Lise’s eyes
ever since Rasmus died. Instead she turns to Camilla. Does she detect something? Something small. Tiny. As if Camilla is trying to avoid Malene’s glance.

This will get worse, Malene thinks. Less than an hour ago, I comforted her when Iben had upset her. But in front of Iben, Camilla knows who is the strongest and has chosen sides accordingly.

Malene hates Iben for this too.

Malene catches a picture of herself in some suburban street back in Kolding, trotting around talking ineptly to groups of acquaintances, just like her mother used to do when Malene still lived at home. Malene is the ghost at the party, unemployed, dressed in some dull old sack of a dress and complaining, as her mother did. ‘It was as if my old colleagues wanted me dead and out of the way. How can people be like that?’

It seems that nothing she has done, or achieved, has helped her to escape from her mother’s shadow – moving to Copenhagen or getting a university degree. And it’s Iben’s fault.

They must get back to work. Malene is determined not to mention Gunnar.

No more than a quarter of an hour later, Malene smiles at Iben and speaks in the old confiding way, as if she has no idea that there’s been a change in their friendship. ‘Iben, Gunnar spent the night with me.’

‘Oh, he did?’ Iben manages to look friendly and curious, as if the previous week hadn’t happened, as if Malene were talking about any man.

She then hurries out into the corridor, towards the toilet. Malene sighs. She relaxes and smiles at Camilla, who looks questioningly at her. Maybe later Malene will feel bad, but maybe not.

Iben returns. She looks paler than usual. A tiny muscle is twitching beneath the blue skin under her right eye. She sits down. They both carry on reading their articles.

After a few minutes Iben speaks. ‘I can’t concentrate with you staring at me like that.’

‘I’m not staring at you.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I’m not!’

Iben gets up again. ‘I have a lot to do.’

‘I know that very well.’

‘So far I’ve spent the whole day on Dragan Jelisic. I need to finish the Turkey issue.’

‘I know.’

‘And you’re staring at me.’

‘No, Iben, I’m not.’

‘Look, I’m not trying to punish you or whatever it is you imagine. It’s just that I can’t get anything done when you just sit there and watch me. I assume that you can’t concentrate with me here?’

Iben is right, but Malene doesn’t reply.

‘We’ll both do better if I work somewhere else. I’m going to move to one of the readers’ desks in the library.’

Malene stiffens and almost shouts, ‘You’re going to sit with Anne-Lise?’

‘That’s exactly how I didn’t want you to take it. I’m not … “going to sit with Anne-Lise”. I’m going to sit somewhere you can’t keep staring at me like you’re doing now.’ Iben starts gathering up her papers.

Everything is happening so quickly. Soon the picture of office life will look utterly different.

Malene watches Iben as she marches off with her bundles of paper. She’s no longer prepared to fight to keep their old friendship.

Near the end of the day Malene goes to the toilet.

When she comes back, Camilla has disappeared. Malene stops in the doorway, calling into the empty air: ‘Camilla? … Camilla?’

No one answers.

In the silence Malene’s thoughts move unhindered. Is Camilla in the library? Is she joining the other two in there? Is the idea to exclude Malene?

Malene listens. She hears a murmur of voices coming out of the library but can’t tell whether it’s two or three.

She goes to the middle of the Winter Garden and then stops. The light from the fluorescent tubes reflects off the large shiny leaves of the plants on the window sills. She has looked after these plants for ages. She turns, but no one is standing behind her.

Again, she calls out: ‘Camilla? Where are you? Camilla?’

Once Camilla eavesdropped on two women sitting behind her in the bus. In the middle of their gossip one of them said, ‘You know, she’s one of these women who always picks men who’re bad for her.’ Camilla has forgotten whatever else they were talking about, but that phrase stayed with her.

She met Dragan almost ten years ago, at a party given by Lena, who’s in the choir. Camilla had turned up in the afternoon to help Lena and Simo, her husband, to arrange the furniture, make the salads and set the food out. By seven o’clock, Camilla was eager to start getting ready for the party. She put on a freshly ironed, dark-blue, loose-fitting shirt and an ankle-length skirt in a shade of light brown that matched her hair – clothes that flattered her figure. Lena had noticed that she was getting flustered and told her not to worry. Simo’s friends always came bumbling along at any old time. Simo was an electrician from Yugoslavia, but had moved to Denmark long before the civil war started in his homeland.

Lena was right. Most of the Yugoslavs turned up really late and their behaviour at the party was something of a shock to Camilla. The drinking was much heavier for a start, the dancing was wilder, and the music louder. And all of them seemed to feel that parties were not only for chatting about this and that, but also an outlet for their emotions.

At one point during the evening, a dark-haired man with a square jaw stood outside on the balcony and shouted incomprehensibly at people in the street. In the flat everybody laughed, as if the man’s behaviour were a normal part of their Saturday-night fun. Some of his friends made him come back inside and sit on the sofa. Camilla started talking to him. His English was
very good. He said that his name was Dragan and he had been a schoolteacher in Bosnia. He had come to Denmark a month ago and lived near Lyngby, in a refugee camp for Yugoslav asylum-seekers. He looked to be in his late twenties, roughly the same age as her, but he didn’t mention anything about a wife or children.

They got up to dance, but it went badly. The music was unlike anything Camilla had ever heard before, a surreal mixture of gypsy melody and punk rock. Dragan was dancing about wildly, with big leaps and flailing arms, but even in all the noise and under the low lights, Camilla couldn’t let herself go.

Later that night she went to the kitchen to rest her legs. Two friends from the choir were there too. While they were talking, a spat broke out in another room. There was a terrific crash.

They hurried to find out what was going on. A group of angry Yugoslavs had gathered around Dragan. Someone explained that Dragan had got into an argument with a buddy who had locked himself into the toilet. After some shouting at each other through the door, Dragan had kicked it down. Some of the guests seemed very frightened.

Dragan himself was still very agitated about whatever the man in the toilet had said and wouldn’t stop yelling. Something made Camilla walk towards him. She heard Lena saying to her husband that she was going to throw Dragan out. Simo replied that he didn’t want her to.

When Camilla stopped in front of Dragan, he took her in his arms. They stood together for a while. Quite still. He stopped shouting. Then they went off to dance.

A few minutes later Lena came up to them. She said she wanted to thank Camilla for calming Dragan down. She asked if he had ruined the evening for Camilla and if she would like Lena to ask him to leave. Camilla told her no.

They kept on dancing and talking. Later on they made love on his large black coat, spread on the ground in the shrubbery behind a large, upmarket block of flats in Frederiksberg. He
walked her home afterwards and seemed so different from the way he had acted at the party. He recited long Serbian love poems, which he knew by heart, and spoke about the ideas and characters in books written by Russian authors a hundred years ago.

The next few weeks were special. Camilla had suddenly become a member of a circle of Yugoslavs that included both recent refugees and older immigrants who had come to live in Denmark before the war. She went to dozens of their wild parties, as well as to little get-togethers in asylum-camp rooms and down-at-heel flats with a decidedly Balkan décor. Since the refugees had plenty of spare time, there was a gathering almost every evening.

A flat belonging to Goran, a stage technician at the Betty Nansen Theatre, was a favourite meeting place. Evening after evening Goran’s hallway was full of his guests’ black jackets, frequently smelling damp because, even when it rained, his friends would walk everywhere to save money.

They got along well together, the Serbs and Muslims and Croats. Back in the old country, their brothers, fathers, colleagues and schoolmates were busy killing one another, but here they worked hard to form a community that would help them live with some dignity in what they hoped would be their new homeland.

Apart from Camilla and three Yugoslav women, everyone in the group was male – young men with strong features and, sometimes, muscular bodies shaped by military training. They hung around Goran’s flat, ate hearty soups in his sitting room, and teased each other. When they watched television, they would become very serious and discuss everything under the sun. And when they thought of something to celebrate, they would pour out shots of slivovitz, a plum brandy that Dragan explained was mostly a drink for old people in Yugoslavia.

Camilla noticed that the others had respect for Dragan. They regarded him as wise and well read. Only when he had too much to drink would his personality change. He would pick fights with
the others, shouting abuse and calling them names. Once he threw a television set through the window because of something that was said on the news.

All the same, everyone seemed genuinely fond of him. This was something Camilla realised was part of their culture: you stood by your friends no matter what. You gave each other space to be wrong and explode, unlike the Danes who would have run the other way. Such resolute loyalty was something Camilla would come back to again and again when she told her friend Anja about her new boyfriend and his world. Camilla heard of only one person who could never be forgiven. That man was Mirko Zigic. In those days she didn’t have a clue why Zigic was such a reviled figure. The others never said more than: ‘Zigic enjoys the war, while everyone else suffers.’ Dragan said he’d kill Zigic if they ever met again.

Dragan moved into Camilla’s little flat just two weeks after the party at Lena and Simo’s. Every morning she woke feeling happy and somehow cleansed. Sex with him was wonderful and washed away her past, because he came to her with the same passion that seemed to drive his rage.

He usually stayed in bed while she flew through her morning routines. Often – maybe a little too often – she arrived late at the City Post Office, where she was working as a junior secretary.

One day a friend told her that during his escape from Bosnia, Dragan had lived for a while in a rubbish skip. He had put a mattress in it and slept there at night, after bolting the lid from the inside so that no one could rob or kill him. Someone else told her what had happened when Dragan had taken a train from Banja Luka. A group of Serb militiamen had stopped the train, ordered the male Muslims to get out and pile into large, locked vans. They also took the young male Serbs, forced them to join the militia after a short period of military training, and informed them that any deserters would be shot. That’s why Dragan had been a member of the uniformed militia.