Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Malene leans on the copier. ‘I’ll ask her too.’

Iben’s voice is still very quiet. ‘Do that. But somehow I don’t think it will get you anywhere.’

Malene takes the phone calls that afternoon, as agreed. When Finn rings to ask how Camilla is doing, Malene goes to the library to find out and wakes her up. Camilla follows Malene back to the Winter Garden, but stops in the doorway.

‘Oh, look! Is that how it’s going to be from now on?’

Malene glances at Iben before replying. ‘Yes, well, no; it’s up to you to decide. We just moved your desk because Bjarne wanted it closer to the new connections. So that he could check if it all worked.’

Iben chimes in. ‘It’s just temporary, Camilla. We’ll help you if you want to move the desk somewhere else.’

Camilla sits at Malene’s place to take Finn’s call, since her phone is not connected. When the call has ended, she comes over to consider the new position of her desk.

‘I suppose it’s all right like that.’

Malene has been searching the shelves for a particular copy of La Lettre de la Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme . She smiles.

‘We think so too.’

Iben looks up from her screen, concerned. ‘Try it out for a couple of days. You need to get used to the new set-up before you make up your mind.’

‘The network connection at my old place is gone, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Anyway, Bjarne said there was something wrong with it. He’s in the server room now.’

Anne-Lise comes in through the open door and Camilla stares at her a fraction longer than normal, as if she might not be fully awake yet.

Bjarne eats lunch with them and today Paul joins them as well. All six have a discussion about the extent to which continued economic growth in the West is an essential condition for African development. And, conversely, the way certain economic mechanisms lead to conflicts of interest between the industrialised states and the Third World.

After lunch they settle down to work, but are very aware of the open library door. Iben speaks up, distinctly and quite loudly. ‘How’s it going in there?’

Anne-Lise’s desk is placed so that she cannot see into the Winter Garden. So her reply comes from just behind the door frame. ‘I’m fine.’

Iben and Camilla converse politely as if they were strangers attending a reception. Malene tries to think up ideas for a lecture she has agreed to write for Paul. She stares silently at her screen. If this is what it’s going to be like from now on, she thinks, I’ll have to leave.

She wonders what Iben makes of their new circumstances. There have been times when Iben seems to have found Anne-Lise worthwhile. Could it be that this new, formal tone between her and Malene suits Iben better?

The minute twitching of muscles in Iben’s cheeks is enough to drive more drops of sweat from her scalp. She can feel them running down her skin under the white T-shirt she has draped over the top of her head and the back of her neck as protection from the sun. Sweat trickles down behind her large sunglasses, along her nose and the rest of her face, sliding over the thick layer of sun lotion that covers her skin. However hard she squints her eyes she cannot escape the colour, the red glare of the sun as the light pierces her dark glasses and her eyelids.

Their truck stands on the dirt track snaking between the mud huts of the slum. They are almost surrounded by a crowd that is growing all the time. People seem frightened and excited, but no one dares to approach closer than fifteen metres or so, for fear of the armed men who are guarding the four hostages. There is shouting and talking from the back of the crowd. When Iben opens her eyes wide again, she sees an ocean of heads, a rippling surface formed by the women’s colourful headdresses and the men’s shorn black curls.

There was an attack earlier in the day, when the people almost reached the driver’s cabin before two of them were shot and the crowd withdrew again. By now the bodies must have been carried away along the open sewers that also serve as paths between the myriad huts. Above the noise of radio stations broadcasting in Arabic and Swahili, Iben can hear crying and shouting from somewhere in there.

Since the shooting, some of the Nubian men have formed a line to stop the teeming mass of people from drifting closer. These men are as coordinated as militiamen in civvies. They all wear similar clothes, trousers and garish shirts, possibly European leftovers from the 1970s. They stand as if nailed to the spot, but they are alert. One of them carries a heavy machine gun of the same type as the hostage-takers; the rest are armed only with clubs and long, sharp pangas. They wait.

The boy stands right in front of Iben, clutching his machine gun and intoning long prayers and quotes from the Bible while he scans the sea of people. The crowd is growing larger all the time and more heavily armed. Like the other hostage-takers, the boy belongs to the Luo tribe. Iben observes him as he slowly goes to pieces.

It’s impossible to predict what he will do. Iben shifts her thigh a little along the sheet of metal, part of the car’s framework that serves as their seat. It is burning hot and she pulls her leg back again.

On the horizon, beyond the tin roofs of the shacks, the skyscrapers in the centre of Nairobi rise against the backdrop of pale-blue sky. If one of the Nubians surrounding the car has called the police, they should have been here already. The police force is notorious for being corrupt and violent, but what other hope is there?

The line of men in front of the car moves forward a few steps. There are two men with machine guns now, and both are pointed at the driver’s cab. In a while, they’ll probably have ten.

One of the two Luos in the driver’s cabin cries out in fear. The boy shifts to stand right in front of Iben. His mouth is twisting as he takes aim with his gun.

The crowd in front of the truck moves a little closer, then backs away. The front line of Nubians has gone through this pattern of advance and retreat before. Cathy, who works with Iben, shakes her head every time. Now she whispers, ‘What does it mean? Why are they doing that?’

No one answers, because there seems to be no point to the movement. Maybe the crowd is reacting to something going on inside the cab.

The two Nubians who were shot did not have an easy death. In films, killings happen quickly, almost cleanly. This was different. The two men in their dated nylon shirts had lain on the baked, cracked mud in front of the truck, thrashing about in spasms, piss stains spreading on their trousers.

Cathy is fidgeting. She seems to want more sunscreen for her sandalled feet, but doesn’t dare ask permission to look for the tube in her rucksack. Next to her, Roberto must fear that the kidnappers will kill the leader first. Slightly built and with the kind of Italianate looks that can seem a touch effeminate, he doesn’t look like any kind of leader.

The other Luo on the tailgate catches Iben’s eye. He has lost a couple of teeth, is taller than the others, and smells more strongly of the slum.

She looks down at once, but not quickly enough.

‘You. Yes, you!’

He puts his panga under her chin. It is so wide that she can see its far edge as the sharp blade touches her throat. This is the moment when I should think of my loved ones back home, a voice inside her says. No one comes to mind.

She tries, pushes herself. Everyone I love, everyone who loves me.

Still nobody. Only the thought that I’ve wasted my life, I’m going to die and no man will weep for the love and the loss of me. I have no children and no father. My mother will weep, and so will the two women who are my best friends. But that’s not enough, not nearly enough.