Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Cathy lies very still. She is silent.

Then, a long time later, Cathy whispers half to herself: ‘I could try to do the same thing. Usually I’m better at it than this.’

‘Are you still feeling ill?’

‘Yes. No. The diarrhoea seems to have stopped, but I’m … Oh, maybe it’s just because I’m so scared.’

Roberto and Mark must be listening.

‘What about the other two? How are you?’

Nobody responds, except Cathy. ‘Mark is having a very hard time. Mark?’

A deep sigh tells them that Mark has heard them. Cathy turns to put her hand on his forehead. He whispers ‘No’ and she takes it away.

Iben lifts the small oil lamp and holds it close to Roberto’s face. ‘Roberto, how are you?’

He looks bad. She asks again, but he says nothing.

She feels a cold sweat breaking over her skin. She strokes his cheek. No reaction. She becomes aware of her heart thumping as she bends over him and gently pulls back one of his eyelids. His eye has rolled up in its socket so that only the white part is visible.

‘Roberto!’

Cathy’s voice is hoarse. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know. He’s gone limp. He seems to be unconscious. Oh, God. He’s fucking unconscious. What should we do?’

Iben moves to the doorway. She pulls the cloth back and speaks as authoritatively as she can manage. ‘We need a doctor!’

The guard outside the door is new to Iben. She keeps repeating her request. ‘We need a doctor! Quickly!’

After a while the guard calls another man. He calls out again and soon several men are milling about outside the hut.

The older man who conducted the service turns up. He goes inside to examine Roberto. When he comes out he looks worried and speaks at length in Dhuluo. Dalmas Phillip has joined the group now. The two older men discuss the situation.

Odhiambo explains to Iben: ‘Ochieng will help your friend.’

So Ochieng is the name of the other old man.

‘But Roberto needs a proper medical doctor!’

More discussion. It is quite clear that Dalmas Phillip is the man who makes the decisions. As he pronounces his judgement in Dhuluo, he watches Iben with calculated indifference.

Odhiambo interprets. ‘He says that your friend will not be seen by a white doctor. It is not possible. But Ochieng will help him.’

Iben easily picks up that Odhiambo doesn’t think much of Ochieng’s skills.

Iben turns to Phillip. His smell fills her nose. ‘It is very important that the sick man is seen by someone who can give him penicillin. And some medicine for cholera.’

She tries to catch Omoro’s eyes, but can’t see him in the group. Then she spots him. He has hurried away from the others and is walking swiftly towards a group of trees outside the perimeter of the site.

She has lost her chance. She is no longer the favourite prisoner. Now she is the one who has stuck her neck out farther than anyone else.

She meets Phillip’s eyes.

He speaks English now. ‘It will be as I say.’ He falls silent.

There’s something about him, about his eyes, scarred skin and short, grey hair. A fast sequence of the things he has done to Nubian women is running through Iben’s head. There is nothing more she can say.

She discovers that she doesn’t dare meet his eyes again or even look in his direction. Instead, she sinks down on her haunches and waits. She doesn’t move until one of the men says something, which she assumes must mean that she is to go back inside the hut. She obeys, unable to fight for Roberto any longer.

Mark and Cathy have heard everything, but they don’t say a word. Iben can’t be sure if there’s not a small part of them that’s happy she’s the one taking risks.

On her way to sit down she touches Roberto; he seems lifeless. Cathy has rolled him over on his side in the recovery position.

A little later Ochieng comes in. He makes Roberto inhale the vapour from a steaming brew of herbs, but seems to know perfectly well that he can’t cure him and that the treatment he is offering is only for show.

The night is cold and Iben shivers in her flimsy clothes. It’s so pointless for Roberto to die this way, only a few metres away from where she is trying to find enough peace to sleep. I must try to do something to help Roberto. I must try. But she knows that she will not.

Cathy and Mark just lie there, quietly.

Should I move alongside Roberto to warm him with my body? She thinks of how she avoided sharing her warmth with him while he was still conscious. She felt awkward about sleeping with her arms around her sick boss. But now everything has changed — it is not feeling awkward that gives her pause, but the thought of waking up during the night embracing a corpse.

After a little while she moves over to Roberto and makes the others come too, so that all four of them can keep each other warm. She dreams that she’s back in the office. Malene, Camilla and Anne-Lise are hysterical because there is a trail of blood across the floor where someone has dragged a dead body. Somehow Iben knows that the blood is Ojiji’s. Other things happen that she can’t recall afterwards.

The night feels so long that only remembering the dream proves to Iben that she has slept at all. When the gaps around the curtain become lighter, Roberto is still alive.

They are relieved, but Mark has become quite strange, almost aggressive. He moves clumsily back to his own space, bumps into the others and pushes them hard enough for it to hurt. Iben doubts that he is ill but doesn’t dare question him about it.

She can hear the men getting together for their morning service. Should she sing with them again? Should she go outside? If she goes outside, showing anger wouldn’t make it harder for them to kill her. The choice is between staying in the hut to demonstrate how unforgivable she finds their treatment of Roberto, or joining them, which goes against every natural instinct.

She thinks to herself: If I do go out there it might persuade them to let a doctor see Roberto.

Iben sings along with the hymns and again adds her own solo verses. Then, for the first time in over twenty-four hours, she hears Mark’s voice. He speaks quietly. ‘Shut up, why don’t you.’

‘Mark!’ Cathy sounds upset.

Mark continues: ‘Iben, you won’t gain a thing by sucking up to them. Not these guys.’

Iben carries on singing regardless. This morning they haven’t sent a guard to bring her outside. She gets up and, keeping an eye on Mark, tries to get out through the door. The guard says something incomprehensible, shoves her back inside and pulls the cloth back in place.

Iben has no tears left. All three lie still and listen.

Then Cathy speaks. ‘Iben. You’re a survivor.’

This time there are fewer voices in the choir. Some of the men must have left, setting out early in the morning. Iben manages to pick out seven voices.

No one comes in with a morning meal. Iben is dozing when she is alerted by the sound of running feet. Four shots ring out. Men are shouting in Swahili.

Then nothing.

All is quiet again.

Iben peeps through the doorway. Militiamen are walking from hut to hut, investigating each one. Their uniforms are different from anything Iben has seen before, neither police nor army. Someone must have dispatched a special unit to free the hostages. There are about twenty of them. She can’t work out who is the leader until the soldiers haul two Luos from a hut and push them down on the ground in front of a man with glasses. He addresses the Luos and then turns away to give the soldiers new orders.

The guard in front of their hut has disappeared. Iben stands in the doorway and peeps round the cloth, but she doesn’t go out. At the far end of the encampment eight unarmed Luos are standing in a line.