Christian Jungersen - The Exception

murderers among us who don’t acknowle

Gunnar some time in the future

Camilla dives into the bag again. Plastic ties and edges of cardboard poke into her armpit. But this time, when she backs out, she has a whole handful of torn pieces. Some of them seem to form a text, which she reassembles on the window sill.

logy of Evil X

was also what Primo Levi wrote about the

harsh

ween prisoners when he was in Auschwitz: ‘It is naïve,

absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal

system such as National Socialism sanctifies its victims;

on the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them

resemble itself.’

The style of these fragments suggests an academic article, but it doesn’t seem likely that Iben is writing it for Genocide News or the DCGI website. It’s so incoherent and repetitive.

We are slaves of

predicta

errible! We are nothing but rats! How could a human

break out of being

In the Winter Garden she hears the others calling out: ‘Hi, Paul!’

‘Paul, hello! There you are!’

Then Paul’s voice, loud and cheerful. ‘Party time!’

Camilla hurriedly hides her bits of paper under two boxes and runs out to meet him.

Everyone is there. Paul has stopped just inside the front door. He is grinning broadly and waving a bottle of champagne. ‘Volunteers, please! Who’ll get the glasses?’

But the women are so curious that none of them wants to leave.

‘Hey, Malene! Could you get five glasses from the kitchen?’

And then he starts telling them what has happened.

‘Frederik has left the board! That’s one obstacle to our survival out of the way!’

Iben has to ask: ‘He’s gone? But …’

Paul pats her shoulder and replies before she can finish her question. ‘That’s right, I’m in no position to vote him off. Nor is anyone else, not even Ole. The only way was for him to resign.’

Anne-Lise chips in. ‘He did? And we thought that it might be you who Ole—’

Laughing, Paul interrupts her. ‘Yes, but he can’t. If I’m not here as the leader, there’s no state funding for the Centre. Seems that Ole forgot that momentarily.’

Anne-Lise, who is standing behind Iben, moves up a little. ‘Paul, what do you …’

‘An old friend of mine is a spokesman for this sector in the party that holds the deciding vote. And DCGI receives its grant on his say-so. Or not.’

Iben catches on quickly and starts laughing too. ‘You have a friend who … I see! Of course you do!’

Anne-Lise is not satisfied. ‘Which party is that?’

Paul leans on Malene’s desk. ‘Anne-Lise, guess!’

‘Your old friend is an MP for the Danish People’s Party? That racist lot?’

Paul smiles proudly. ‘Yep. That’s right.’

Then he notices the look on her face. ‘Whatever we’re doing here, we’re doing it to serve our cause. That’s all that matters.’

‘I see. But what happens now?’

‘We carry on as usual. But now we have a new trophy to add to our collection. And the risk that we’ll be put under DIHR is a little less imminent.’

Malene returns with the glasses and tries to catch up. ‘And Frederik, what about him? Is he going to put up with Ole’s decision to let you stay?’

‘No. That he will not do.’

Malene looks around to catch someone’s eye. ‘Aren’t Frederik and Ole friends any more? Is he leaving the board?’

Paul begins to twist the champagne cork. ‘Malene, that’s exactly why we’re celebrating!’

The cork pops and shoots off to land high up on a shelf. Camilla glances at Iben. If she hadn’t seen her anger this morning, or heard the story about her past, or read the fragments from her article — well, she would’ve thought Iben was quite normal. Every time Paul says something meant to be funny, Iben laughs longer and louder than usual. She sounds as if she’s been at the bottle already. Camilla sips her champagne and curses the day she first allowed Dragan into her life. Three years have passed since she learned all the things that Iben has now found out about him. When she looks back at the men in her life, she is so grateful to Finn. After Dragan, marrying someone like Finn is the best choice she could ever have made.

Malene hasn’t touched her champagne and seems uneasy. ‘Paul, we’ve been so worried about you. And about the Centre too. About all of us. You vanished so suddenly and then we thought, maybe Ole would try and …’

Paul watches the bubbles in his glass, tilting it gently sideways to top it up. ‘I was thinking about all of you too, Malene. But the situation turned out to be more complicated than I’d thought because a group of politicians had just left on a fact-finding trip to Iraq. So I couldn’t meet with the people I needed to see — not until they returned. I hadn’t anticipated that.’

When he finishes pouring his champagne, his eyes meet Malene’s. ‘And if the board is to work together as a team, Ole couldn’t have the chance to say the wrong things to me or to send me a letter he’d only regret later. Everything had to be put on hold.’

Iben has more questions. ‘Paul, when you said you hadn’t anticipated it, do you mean …? You know, when Gunnar was here and Ole turned up “by chance” …? Did you plan it all along?’

Paul raises his glass to her and beams. ‘Strictly off the record.’

Camilla stays silent. Her attention is slipping. The office atmosphere is suddenly so excitable and she realises now what a relief it is to have read Iben’s jottings, with not a mention of Camilla or Dragan anywhere. She sighs and takes a hearty sip from her glass.

Iben has insisted, day in and day out, that Camilla is lying. But now it seems certain that Iben knows no more about Camilla’s past than what she has already announced.

Camilla goes to sit in her own chair. She feels very tired now. It would be a dream if this new, jovial Paul told them to take the day off, but of course he won’t. He pours everyone more champagne and splashes some on his black jacket. It doesn’t seem to worry him. He’s on a high.

‘I should’ve bought another bottle!’

Malene’s glass is still full, but Iben and Anne-Lise want more.

How can he miss the way everything has changed while he was away?

He raises his glass in another toast. The third one, at least. ‘Malene, this celebration is for you too! None of you needs to worry any more. Our Centre has a future. We are stronger than ever. This is a good day for genocide studies!’

It all starts without a sign of anything out of the ordinary.

A woman professor from Missouri is speaking to Iben on the phone.

‘In my view we overcomplicate the process leading to genocide. Fundamentally, it’s straightforward. Once a population group sees advantages in killing off another group, it triggers a sequence of psychological mechanisms. Gradually, suitable adjustments are made in the group’s ideology. History is revised accordingly. Highly charged public debates will emerge spontaneously and, step-by-step, they’ll develop the intellectual rationale for extermination.

‘In the end, the stark truth is that members of one group murder members of another. The only possibility of stopping them is if the world community demonstrates that it is keeping an eye on the situation and isn’t going to condone any criminal activity.’

Iben objects, but only to keep the discussion going. Actually, she’s so fed up with her own arguments, which sound naïve and kind of Danish, that she almost looks forward to being contradicted. The professor obliges.

‘You know, with hindsight everyone notices the falsification of history in the lead up to genocide, the ideology and so on, and decides that this must have been what did it. But just examine the genocides you’re more familiar with and you’ll see that, when all’s said and done, the perpetrators are driven by egoism every time. Never mind the cover stories they use to persuade themselves or the world at large. Or their victims.’