Christian Jungersen - The Exception

She listens as the others discuss the ways that an unknown war criminal living in Chicago could possibly have had access to Malene’s tablets, and whether it could have been him who rigged up the blood trap in the library. Their conversation is suitably polite because the library door is of course still open. They discuss the blood on Anne-Lise’s bookshelf, sounding as if they had had nothing to do with putting it there.

Anne-Lise notes the line they take when they go on to tell lies about Malene’s medicine. Obviously, the likeliest explanation by far is that Malene herself mixed up the pills by accident, but she’s making a great show of being persecuted. It reminds Anne-Lise of someone who has lost, say, a wallet and fusses endlessly about who could have stolen it and why — until it turns up in their jacket pocket. Camilla and Iben must notice this too, but no one argues with Malene.

In the weeks that follow the admission by the Serb soldier, Malene, Iben and Camilla change their attitude towards Anne-Lise.

Until now, their hostility has been confusing and Anne-Lise occasionally wondered if she and they hadn’t misjudged each other somehow. Maybe, she told herself, it’s all just an enormous misunderstanding. At times, one of them would suddenly be friendly to her, as if they had always wished her well, and the aggression was just a figment of her imagination.

Not now. They don’t need to be frightened of what Iben might have called ‘Anne-Lise’s dissociated murderous identity’ any more. They’re free to destroy her and the knives are clearly out. Their goal is to make her leave. Long-term sick leave would suit them. Too bad if it damages her and makes it impossible for her to work again.

One afternoon, weeks after Malene mixed up her pills, she is waiting in the corridor when Anne-Lise comes out from the bathroom. She starts to hum a few lines of a song louder than necessary, and at first it seems pointless.

But then it becomes obvious that it’s a signal.

Anne-Lise hears somebody in the library react. It’s easy to recognise Iben’s footsteps as she hurriedly leaves the library through the door into the Winter Garden. When Anne-Lise passes Malene in the corridor, Malene meets her eyes and smiles broadly, as if Anne-Lise would think their snooping was just good, clean fun. As if they were all simply playing a game together.

The moment Anne-Lise gets to her desk she spots what Iben has been up to. This morning Anne-Lise brought in a few cuttings from her garden and put the twigs in a tall glass of water to liven the place up. The vase is leaning now, because Iben has put a pad of Post-it notes and a biro underneath it. If Anne-Lise accidentally gives the desk even the tiniest shove, the container will topple.

She advances gingerly and repositions the vase. A pile of valuable papers has been saved.

There’s no point in complaining to Paul: she realises that she has already been to see him too often. Also, it’s clear to her that it would make things easier for him if she simply went away and didn’t come back. So far he has had enough integrity not to tell her this to her face, but he doesn’t openly support her in the way he used to.

All she can do is put up with the situation and keep quiet until the day comes when they merge with Human Rights. And then she can do what Yngve said — she must confront them.

Anne-Lise stands up, takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes a couple of times. She feels no tears. She has a sensation of her skin being very thick, heavy and armour-plated like a rhinoceros’s.

She steps through the doorway into the Winter Garden. Standing there, she looks down at the two women sitting at their desks. Iben glances at Malene. The look in her eyes says ‘We’ve got her now’, and she doesn’t give a damn if Anne-Lise notices.

Anne-Lise begins to say her piece, resigned, knowing that she has been here before. ‘Can’t we just behave like professionals? — you know: I don’t interfere with you and you don’t interfere with me. Then we could concentrate on our work without wasting our energy on … other things.’

Malene’s inviting smile doesn’t change. ‘Anne-Lise, that would make for such a cold atmosphere and we wouldn’t want that. We are colleagues, after all.’

‘Just stop doing these things. You know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t.’

Iben backs her up. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know well enough.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. You do. Don’t go into other people’s rooms just to cause trouble.’

‘Why should we …’

‘Anne-Lise, I don’t understand what you mean. Please explain.’

They manage to make her describe what she thought they had done, step by step. They listen, ready to reply in unison.

‘No. No, we’d never do that. Whatever makes you think we would?’

Their voices and body language bubble with laughter, giving their game away. They are enjoying this. They’d just as soon slit my throat if they thought they could get away with it, Anne-Lise thinks. It’s even better fun for them now that I’m on to them.

Every night this last week Anne-Lise has had the same nightmares. She is thrown into the crater of a volcano, or strapped down on a table and tortured with red-hot iron bars driven through her flesh, or impaled and hung up in a tree. All the time Iben’s and Malene’s huge mouths, twisted and grinning, open wider and wider in anticipation of Anne-Lise’s demise.

She has woken up and wandered about, trying to shake off the dreams. She has stroked the heads of her sleeping children. She has gone downstairs to the sitting room and stared at the trees outside the window. Gradually, the lingering sensations of the hot iron touching her, or her body sinking into the lava inside the volcano, evaporate.

Later, when she falls asleep from sheer exhaustion, the nightmares return and she awakes abruptly as she sees again the rows of teeth between their pulled-back lips.

‘Your Post-it pad must’ve slipped under the glass,’ Malene reasons, ‘and you were too busy to notice. How annoying! I mean, you could’ve slopped water over everything.’

Iben is shuffling her feet, searching for something like a lost shoe. Next she starts looking under the table, sending an unmistakable signal that the whole thing is beginning to bore her.

Malene becomes distracted too. She looks across the desk at Iben. ‘What’s under the table? What are you looking for?’

Anne-Lise glances at Camilla, who appears to be completely absorbed in her work.

Camilla behaves as if she weren’t there at all. Anne-Lise feels like crossing the floor and shouting in her ear: ‘Are you aware of what’s going on? Do you even care? Would you be pleased if I died too?’ But Anne-Lise doesn’t dare provoke her.

Maybe Camilla’s inertia is a survival strategy that she learned to save herself. Maybe Camilla would have a breakdown if someone were to force her to take notice of what is going on in the office, right under her very nose. Maybe her unstable mind would give way to lethal rage — awaken a personality capable of email death threats.

Camilla and the others look away from Anne-Lise, and she returns to the library.

Later that afternoon, the DCGI board member Tatiana Blumenfeld has arranged to come and pick up some reference material Anne-Lise has found for her. Tatiana knows everyone in human-rights research in Denmark. It matters if she takes you seriously regardless of which organisation you work for. She is also one of the few academics who makes use of Anne-Lise’s expertise.

Tatiana is a tiny woman in her sixties with jet-black hair. She arrives at the board meetings wearing tight black trousers and vivid, unique sweaters. She dashes along the corridors with remarkably long strides for such a small person. The machinegun clatter of her smart, extremely high-heeled shoes can be heard from afar. Although Anne-Lise has never seen Tatiana with a cigarette, her skin is that of a lifelong chain-smoker.