Christian Jungersen - The Exception

The silence is everywhere — over the desks and between the shelving units. It makes wandering round in the Centre feel strange. Bleak strip lighting, stillness. Despite the stacks of paper, the computer screens and all the usual office clutter, Iben feels as if she’s walking in the mist over a dank meadow.

It could be that her mind is somehow more porous because she woke up so early, after yet another wakeful night. Everything about the office and herself seems unreal and dreamlike.

Just in case Anne-Lise also turns up at work abnormally early and catches Iben on the library computer, Iben has an excuse ready. Her story is that she wants to add a few new keywords on the articles about Sudan that she is working on. The access codes to the database are kept in Anne-Lise’s computer. Iben has never used the program before, but that doesn’t matter much.

She sits down on Anne-Lise’s chair and can’t avoid looking at the photograph of Anne-Lise’s husband and children. It is placed right next to a digital clock; it blinks 07:18.

The computer is in stand-by mode. When Iben presses a key a dialogue box pops up. It denies access and asks for a password. She tries pressing Enter, which usually does the trick for most of the office computers, but Anne-Lise has actually installed proper password protection. Iben tries ‘Anne-Lise’, but still the system won’t let her log on.

Complete silence.

Iben and Malene need something tangible to show Paul if they are to defend the Centre and themselves against Anne-Lise. Without some proof that Anne-Lise sent the emails, he will not force her to take sick leave and she will keep wandering about among the bookcases, growing weirder all the time, until her bottled-up rage finally explodes.

Iben doesn’t dare try any more passwords, because the computer might block any further attempts to log on and Anne-Lise mustn’t find out that someone has been tampering with it. Iben puts the light out, closes the door and settles back at her own desk, where she tries to concentrate on what a group of Dutch experts have written about Muslims in the southern Russian states.

The others arrive. She gives Malene a whispered account of what has happened and later, in mid-morning, she goes to the library.

‘Anne-Lise, tell me something: if I come across some new keywords that I think should be added to the library database, what should I do?’

‘You just tell me. I’ll key them in. That’s no problem at all.’

‘Yes, sure. But what if I thought I might as well do it myself? How do I go about it?’

‘Iben, it’s far easier if you give them to me. I’ll see to it.’

‘Thanks. But I’d like to be able to do it myself.’

‘Well now … I usually manage the database. I’ve the necessary overview. Why not just leave it to me?’

‘But what if I want to learn?’

Iben is aware that it doesn’t sound all that plausible, but she doesn’t care. How could Anne-Lise object? They repeat themselves a couple more times, but in the end Anne-Lise shows Iben how new keywords are entered for a title of a book or an article. Then Iben gets to the point.

‘If I’m in and you’re not here, can I just start your computer and get on with this?’

‘How do you mean — “If you’re not here”? Why shouldn’t I be here?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. If you were ill or had left early, or something.’

It is obvious that Anne-Lise doesn’t like the way this is going, but she doesn’t attempt to find out what Iben is really after. ‘You simply start my computer.’

Iben smiles and tries to keep her expression innocent. ‘Right. You don’t have a personal password or anything?’

‘No.’

Anne-Lise looks as if she’s telling the truth. She is good at that and doesn’t let on that there’s any more to this than a chat about entering new keywords. It’s only to be expected. She has proved quite capable of coming in every day for months without giving away how deeply she hates them all.

Iben probes a little further. ‘What if your computer is on stand-by?’

‘That makes no difference.’

‘Still no password protection?’

‘Not at all. It shouldn’t be necessary, surely? Do the rest of you use passwords?’

Iben looks at her. ‘No, we don’t. It’s useful to be able to access everybody else’s computer if you want to look something up.’

‘There you are. I agree.’

They smile at each other. Irritated, Iben returns to the Winter Garden.

Today was the last chance of being alone in the office before nine o’clock. Tomorrow Bjarne will install the new computer-controlled lock and the CCTV camera on the landing. It means Camilla will be back at work and she always comes in much earlier than everybody else, because Paul has allowed her the same working hours as her husband.

It doesn’t take Bjarne long to install the camera, but then there’s the cable through the Winter Garden to the server and the new piece of software to be installed on everyone’s computer. Camilla loads it on first and Iben and Malene line up to test it. Malene goes out on to the landing.

‘Hey, can you save my picture?’

Iben fiddles with the new menu options and keyboard commands.

‘Yes, I think so … There, I’ve saved you.’

Malene hurries along to Camilla’s screen. ‘Oh no! I look awful!’

Iben has to laugh, because it’s true. Malene’s face is an enormous, bloated mask. Her greasy-looking skin is spotted with white blotches.

‘You must be standing too close! Wait.’

Iben runs outside. ‘Now save me too!’

Back at Camilla’s computer they burst out laughing. ‘I look just like you!’

‘I suppose if you stood farther away …’

‘Except, then it’s hard to see who it is.’

What kind of surveillance camera is this? It makes everyone look the same.

Malene wants Iben to take another picture of her and runs out again. She shouts from the landing: ‘Imagine the Wanted Persons descriptions! “Two females, both looking like blobby white frogs, wanted for …”’

Malene must be having a good day or she wouldn’t be able to run around like this. They can’t stop laughing.

Bjarne joins in the merriment. He turns towards the library door. ‘Hello in there! Anne-Lise, won’t you come and have your picture taken too?’

Anne-Lise says that she is busy.

Malene looks quickly at Iben before calling out. ‘Oh, Anne-Lise! Why not do something for the fun of it? Just this once!’

It seems that Anne-Lise doesn’t hear her, though the door is open, of course.

But the break ends. Phones ring. There are emails to be sent.

Bjarne is still there at lunchtime and helps divert the tension. He chews happily on a ham-and-beetroot-salad sandwich from his voluminous lunch box and laughs a lot, enjoying the attention the women pay him. Meanwhile Iben wonders about Anne-Lise’s behaviour. She has been odd since day one, but this is different. Isn’t she being strange in a new way?

Anne-Lise eats a fish-paste sandwich. The way she looks down all the time, you see more of her eyebrows than her eyes. Knowing the kind of thing she’s capable of is enough to make you nervous about being alone with her in the office.

Bjarne is talking about his girlfriend, a landscape architect, and how hard it is for her to get commissions. He tells them about some of her recent job applications.

Iben looks at Anne-Lise’s mouth, tightly shut when she chews, and her cheeks, bulging as the lump of food is shifted about behind her closed lips. How little sets her apart from other withdrawn people, Iben thinks. If I didn’t know what I know about her, would I see what kind of person she is?

That evening Iben cycles home from work in the pouring rain through the dark streets lit only by reflections of car headlights on the wet pavement. Luckily she’s dressed for the weather. Inside the downstairs hallway she pulls off her waterproofs. Underneath them she is damp with sweat.