Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Afterwards a kind of pattern developed. For a few days every second month or so, Malene was incapable of doing things like using her computer keyboard or grasping the handlebars of her bicycle. Taking painkillers helped, but her hands were so weak that Iben had to help her carry shopping bags and so on.

The booklets from the hospital hadn’t mentioned a decrease in appetite, but Malene lost weight quickly. Over the following six months the pretty but rather plump Jutland girl with radical attitudes was transformed into a socialist Barbie.

While her friend’s pain came and went, Iben felt like Malene’s squire, always ready to help and support her. Only Iben was allowed to know when Malene wasn’t capable of twisting the lids off jars, of buttoning her shirts, or of unlocking doors by herself.

Just before lunchtime, Malene phones Frederik Thorsteinsson, the suave and sophisticated head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Centre for Democracy as well as the deputy chairman of the DCGI board. Today is his birthday.

Malene knows Frederik best and is on easier terms with him than Paul. She’s bantering with Frederik when Iben calls out, loudly enough for him to hear her: ‘Happy birthday, Frederik!’ She gestures for the others to come and sing ‘Happy Birthday!’ into the receiver. Camilla joins in at once, but then Malene waves them away and carries on talking.

After lunch, the afternoon is busy. Iben writes a review of a new book called Systematic Torture as a Method of Oppression: Chile 1973–76 , finds a translator for an article in Latvian about the classification in international law of six and a half million murdered Soviet kulaks (are they a social class or an ethnic group?), and goes on to test new software designed to help export texts to the DCGI website. She has also created the invitations to a talk, ‘The Significance of Gender During the Bosnian Genocide’. As the day wears on, Iben begins to feel a little moody and wants to be left alone.

Just before going home, however, Camilla discovers a new episode of the popular radio show Chris and the Chocolate Factory on the Internet and turns the volume up so that everyone can listen. Anne-Lise comes out of the library and they all gather around Camilla’s desk. Together they pick a few more skits, laughing as they hear Chris do his funny telephone voice. As usual, he is spinning out new reasons for skipping work.

‘Right, boss … but you see there’s this other thing that stops me from coming in today. It couldn’t be more unfortunate, almost … but, listen, what else could I do? Eh, boss? … The thing is, I’ve got stuck in my hammock. I can’t fight it. I’d like nothing better than to get out of it, but what can I do?’

Malene, who has always been brilliant at voices, joins in, improvising Chris’s words. From time to time she entertains everyone with parodies of the Centre’s clients, members of the board, or Paul at his most self-satisfied. It’s one of her best impersonations. Smiling, she knocks on Camilla’s computer with her knuckles and then announces: ‘You two learned to get on quickly. Am I right or am I right? It’s a match I’m really proud of.’ She snaps her fingers and shakes her head lightly. ‘It bodes well!’

It’s very amusing. Even Iben cracks up laughing.

By seven o’clock that evening Iben is the only one left in the office. At eight o’clock she drags two large supermarket bags into her flat. She has stocked up on her staples: rice, honey, toilet paper, three packets of organic crisp-bread that was on special offer, yoghurt and vegetables. For supper she chops a handful of greens, adds seasoning and olive oil, puts in today’s special — a frozen block of cod — and shoves the batch into the microwave.

So far, she hasn’t done much to her flat. The walls are still white, as they were when she first moved in. Her few pieces of furniture are either inherited or bought secondhand.

While the microwave hums she checks her answering machine. No messages. Once the oven has beeped, she opens her email. There’s only one new entry:

YOU, IBEN HØJGAARD, ARE FOR YOUR

ACTIONS RECOGNISED AS

‘SELF-RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE HUMANS’

IT IS THEREFORE MY PRIVILEGE AND MY JOY

TO BRING YOU TO DEATH

NOW.

What’s this? She leans forward, reads it all again. Without formulating the thought, she instinctively knows that she mustn’t touch anything.

This is a death threat. No question. Stay calm and think. There have been stories going around about journalists receiving threatening messages from neo-Nazi teenagers. Now it’s her turn. Maybe.

The sender’s address is ‘revenge_is_near@imhidden.com’. The English is reasonable and the spelling is correct, which exempts just about all the young local neo-Nazis. The expression ‘self-righteous among the humans’ is an attempt to play on the phrase ‘righteous among the nations’, part of the citation for the highest honour awarded to foreign nationals at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial. A foreigner who knows something about the history of genocide might have written that.

Her first reaction is pure sorrow, nothing more. She can feel her face dissolving and her whole body seems to crumple.

That terrible African heat bears down on her again. It could be one of Omoro’s friends, or family, she thinks. Or a Luo tribesman. She feels dizzy; it’s the heat and the smells. She sees the prison hut, the flies, the militia, the tall trees and his blood. The Luos have found out what happened. They know who she is and have come here from Nairobi. She’ll have to accept being killed if that is what they have decided.

She looks around. The bedroom door is open. She hasn’t been in there since she came home. And she closed the door this morning.

Standing motionless, she scans the room. Nothing unusual about the stack of books or the cupboard or the bookshelves. What about her desk? The pile of papers looks tidier than she left it. Someone has been through her papers.

No sounds, except her own breathing and faint noises from the television set in the flat below. Her nostrils feel dry, like when the hot dust blows in the wind. The air smells of the angry, sweating men, alert to danger.

She cannot tell why, but she is convinced that someone is hiding in her flat.

Don’t switch off the computer. Don’t run to grab a coat from the hall.

Instead she walks calmly to the kitchen. She tries to convey that she is relaxed, on her way to do something completely ordinary. Takes her supper out of the microwave oven, which is on top of the fridge, next to the door leading to the kitchen stairs.

Breathe slowly, deeply.

She picks up her mobile from the kitchen table, moves to the stair door and opens it gingerly. No one is waiting for her on the landing. She shifts gears and flies down the narrow stairs, her feet barely touching the steps. It’s important to outrun the man in her flat, but also to be quiet enough to delay him discovering that she’s gone.

She doesn’t close the door, doesn’t even give it a push.

She’s underdressed for the crisp October evening.

The door to the yard. She stops, just a few steps away.

It isn’t likely to be one of Omoro’s friends. Something made her jump to conclusions. She must be sensible, ask herself who else it could be. There are plenty of suspects to choose from, she knows that. Not that it helps. Iben has always tried to forget the obvious fact that all surviving war criminals, the very ones she keeps writing about for the DCGI website, can access the site too. They can Google their own names from anywhere in the world and, in seconds, her articles — in English as well as in Danish — will flash up on their screens. The writer sits in a modest Copenhagen office with no special security features while her contact details — home address, phone number, email address — are easily displayed.