Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Her mother watched Camilla as she sat in silence. ‘We are pleased that you care about Dragan. I’m sure he’s good to you. I didn’t mean … It’s very bad of me.’

‘Yes.’

Again her mother tried to reach out to Camilla. ‘It’s just that … well, there have been times when we talked on the phone and when you came to see us here over the last few months and you didn’t seem … Are you happy?’

Camilla met her mother’s eyes. ‘Yes, Mum. I am.’

‘Does he make you happy?’

‘Yes, he does.’

‘And you really care about him?’

‘Yes. I really do!’

‘But then all’s well! I’m happy too. When you’re happy and if you really care for him … then everything is fine.’

That evening Dragan went off on his own to see some of his friends. After he had left, Camilla phoned her friend Anja to say that she’d like to drop by. Anja was a nurse. She and Camilla had once lived in the same building, but later Anja had moved to a bungalow with her husband.

Seated in Anja and Finn’s bright, tidy sitting room Camilla told Anja about the awful lunch at her parents’ place. She wanted Anja to understand how unbearable her mother was. Anja agreed, but the expression on her face seemed less sure.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I’m just thinking about what your mother is like.’

‘No, there’s something else.’

‘No, that’s all.’

It seemed that everybody could spot something in her relationship with Dragan that Camilla couldn’t see.

‘Anja, you’re my best friend. If anything is bothering you about Dragan and me, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

‘I just think it’s great that you’ve met a nice guy. And that you’re crazy about him and he’s crazy about you.’

It didn’t matter. Camilla knew that if she hadn’t approved of Finn, she’d never have let on to Anja. While they chatted, Camilla wondered if she had made a big mistake thinking that Dragan was the right man for her. She felt that he had helped her to become braver. Why couldn’t other people see this? Or could it be, she thought, that this is exactly what they don’t like? Maybe the people around me would prefer me to remain withdrawn and insecure?

Finn came to join them, dressed in torn jeans and a purple sweatshirt. He was a slightly built man, already balding. They smiled at each other. Finn was always kind to Anja’s friends. He sat down on the sofa next to Anja with one foot curled up under him.

Camilla watched them. He was the sort of man her mother would like to see her marry. Anja and Finn were so close that they seemed like two sides of the same person. Talking to them, Camilla wondered if they had a good sex life. They could have had Sunday lunch with her parents week in and week out.

Anja was telling her about the camper van they were saving up for and Camilla kept thinking, Would I be happy with a man like Finn? My life might well be easier. Still, the sex would never be as great. You could never be sure, of course.

When Goran’s friends got together to watch videos in his flat, he always disconnected the aerial from the television. No one wanted to risk catching a glimpse of the news, not even during the brief moment before the video began. The news programmes were full of reports from Yugoslavia, and they upset everyone far too much. They would rage against the journalists’ lies and become aggressive, Dragan in particular.

Dragan watched a lot of television at home and showed more sympathy for the Serbs and their cause than he did when he was with his Muslim friends. Sitting in front of Camilla’s set, he watched the news on TV1 and TV2, as well as the news and current-affairs programmes on the BBC and CNN. He listened to the radio too, even though it often made his blood boil. He’d run around the flat roaring, hitting out, or kicking things.

At times his arguments were very convincing. Camilla believed that he had knowledge and experience well beyond what the journalists could draw on.

‘Journalists know nothing about history! Idiots! They think this is a new war! But we’ve been at war for five hundred fucking years! They’ve got no perspective!’

Camilla learned that she wasn’t meant to answer when he was in this mood. She stayed in the bedroom or went out. If she hid in the toilet, he would stand outside the door and carry on shouting.

‘In your history books about the Second World War, do they write about the Croats forcing us into our churches and setting them on fire? Do they? Why not talk about that on TV? Do we burn them alive? Camilla? Camilla, answer me! Do we burn them alive? No! We’re moving them to protect ourselves! We’re allowed to try to survive, aren’t we?’

Camilla stayed very still, hoping that he wouldn’t break the door down.

He would turn the volume up so the television reports could be heard all over the small flat.

‘But NATO attacks us all the same, Camilla! They’re bombing my country! They’re bombing my home town! What do they want us to do? — commit mass suicide? Do they want us to kill ourselves? Or just let Croats and Muslims kill us instead? Would that please NATO?’

At other times, his frustration at his own impotence would overwhelm him. His emotions seemed to be beyond words and he could only express himself in a mixture of Serbian curses and raw howling.

Apart from in bed, he only ever hit her after having watched the news.

Camilla had twice taken the agonising decision to end it between them. But each time she thought about what he must have been through, experiences beyond her grasp, and felt she understood that it would take a long time for him to become a normal human being again. When he wasn’t reminded of the dreadful situation in his country and of how he had suffered, he was everything she had ever wanted. The war must surely end some time and then the tensions would disappear from their relationship.

Before meeting Dragan, Camilla had been determined that she would never again live with a violent man, but they loved each other so much. She and Dragan agreed that he should only watch or listen to the news and read the papers while Camilla was at work or, at least, not at home. Two hours before she was due he would switch everything off and put away the papers.

It almost solved the problem.

Dragan had been living in her flat for about four months, when he and Camilla spent an evening in a bar with some of their friends. A large group of Yugoslavs from another refugee camp also turned up. She started talking to one of the newcomers while she waited at the bar for her order. The place was crowded and it took some time to be served.

The man didn’t seem drunk, yet he spoke English with an odd drawl and looked at her with his eyes half-closed. Everything about him was somehow very foreign.

He nodded towards her table. ‘Look who’s sitting over there. There’s one who’ll never be forgiven.’

‘What did you say?’

The man didn’t answer her directly, just continued his line of thought without any hint of irony. ‘That man deserves every torment the world can throw at him.’

‘Who? Why are you saying that?’

‘That one, with the square jaw.’ He stared straight at Dragan.

At once Camilla had a sinking feeling.

‘Back home in Banja Luka, he was the leader of a small group of men. They came into my street and raped three sisters. Then they killed them.’

‘Please, you’re wrong. He didn’t. It was his sisters who …’ Camilla stopped and said nothing more. Her eyes were fixed on the man’s face and things began to click into place — little things, from their everyday chatter; little things, for which she had no words.