The Exception Page 32

  As numerous studies demonstrate, this hope, combined with the barely conscious human need for meaning and for coherence in the information we receive, makes us twist reality until it fits into our vision of order.

  It is not only those who carry out terrible acts who are deluded by their distorted thought patterns, memories and sensory input into believing that their world is still just and meaningful. Those who witness the tragedies and, indeed, the victims themselves also collaborate in this fiction.

  People struck down by a serious illness, as well as those close to the patient, are often determined to find the cause. They feel a strong need to establish exactly what they have done wrong to deserve the affliction. Again, it is common for victims of violence to wonder about the root cause. ‘Maybe I asked for it; maybe I shouldn’t have walked down that lane so late at night; maybe I shouldn’t have worn that dress.’ Such anxieties become the focus of their thoughts, regardless of the fact that they have the right to walk down any lane and wear any knd of clothes.

  Sometimes it seems that victims actively prefer to carry the burden of blame rather than recognise that mere chance can intervene to ruin a life. A wealth of experimental data supports this in every detail.

  In one such experiment, Melvin Lerner and Carolyn Simmons asked seventy-two students to watch the punishment, in the form of severe electrical shocks, given every time a victim gave a wrong answer to a question. The victim was an actress, mimicking the pain.

  Some of the observers were told that they would be allowed to stop the shocks later in the process. Asked to describe how they felt about the victim, those who believed she would continue to be in pain viewed her more negatively than those who thought that they would be able to control the shocks.

  This way of construing the position of the victim is sharpened when we ourselves are inflicting the suffering. Cognitive dissonance makes us like those whom we have helped and dislike those we have hurt.

  In the context of his experiment on obedience to authority, Stanley Milgram noted that many of the subjects later said things like: ‘He [the “pupil”] was so stupid he really deserved to be shocked.’ Another, similar argument was that, since the pupil had agreed to join the experiment, he was asking for trouble. This was despite the fact that those who expressed such a view had also joined the experiment and it had apparently been the luck of the draw that decided who was ‘teacher’ and who was ‘pupil’.

  It seems that powerful psychological impulses drive perpetrators to think and feel that their victims deserve what’s happening to them. The more appallingly brutal the acts a perpetrator commits, the more strongly he comes to believe that they are only right and proper.

  We all have a tendency to construe reality in the same way as the German civilian who commented, when forced by British soldiers to walk through a newly liberated concentration camp: ‘What awful crimes these people must have committed to be condemned to this kind of punishment.’

  32

  It is late and Iben trudges heavily to her flat on the sixth floor. She has spent the evening in Malene’s place, discussing Anne-Lise. She feels worn out and the only thing on her mind is sleep.

  At the last turn of the stair she senses someone on the landing outside her door. She looks up. The man is tall, with a mass of tightly curled black hair, greying at the temples. She takes in his black-leather jacket and the dead look in his eyes. In an instant she knows that he has been waiting for her, and why.

  She flies down the stairs. He goes after her with long strides and soon catches up. He grabs her throat before she has time to scream – or, at least, that is how Anne-Lise usually imagines it. Then he grips her around her waist. Iben’s legs, much shorter than his, kick out wildly. She knows what will happen next. So does Anne-Lise.

  The reel runs and reruns inside Anne-Lise’s head, showing every detail as Iben’s face changes. The bleak lamplight picks out the shadows under her eyes. Anne-Lise watches as Iben’s expression becomes remorseful. At last she has insight into what she has done, how she lied to herself and convinced herself that she was good – oh, so goody – at the same time as doing all she could to ruin another human being.

  In Anne-Lise’s imagination the knife is large, with broad teeth cut deep into the steel. Iben will die now. Soon, reflex spasms will make her body twitch. She will weaken fast as life drains from her.

  Anne-Lise’s tired mind steers in and around the fantasies that coalesce and then fade in her mind, while she tries to concentrate on other things. The familiar images, the rapist in the red track-suit murdering Malene, the man lying in wait for Iben, can start up even when she is in the Winter Garden, talking with one of the other women.

  She would like to make an appointment to see Yngve and be reassured by him. On the other hand, she knows he will insist that she confronts Iben and Malene. Anne-Lise would also like to tell Nicola what the last few weeks have been like, yet can’t bring herself to answer when her phone indicates that Nicola is on the line. She will keep insisting that Anne-Lise should hand in her notice.

  Instead Anne-Lise tries to suppress her fantasies and think about something peaceful. Driving along the motorway in the morning, she speculates about the merger. She is still thinking about it when she turns left onto the Jagt Road slipway and when she parks her car and when she rides up in the groaning old lift with the three pornographic cartoons scratched in the corner. Everything will change when DCGI becomes part of DIHR. New colleagues and a new boss.

  Anne-Lise thinks about the takeover while she fills her mug with coffee until it spills over the sides. She is still thinking about it later on, when she sends off an email to the wrong address.

  Her first task is to assign keywords to classified reports on the genocide carried out by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. She compares scans from three different books to look for patterns and possible connections.

  She reads about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 and the attempts to change the ethnic composition of Afghan tribes. The army chiefs were especially keen to reduce the number of Pathans in the northern Afghan provinces, because it would facilitate their incorporation into the Soviet Union. Reliable figures are scarce, but the UN estimates that between 1978 and 1992,1.5 to 2 million Afghans were killed. They were subjected to bombs and chemical weapons, but also air drops of children’s toys filled with deadly toxins, massacres and destruction of crops and wells.

  Approximately 6 million inhabitants fled. To prevent them from ever returning, the occupying army destroyed the irrigation systems on which Afghan agriculture depended, turning the refugees’ homeland into a desert.

  The space bar on Anne-Lise’s keyboard isn’t working properly; sometimes it adds two or three spaces, sometimes none. Unless she proofreads everything with particular care the users won’t find what they are looking for. She is checking the phrase ‘Torture and murder of foreign journalists, doctors and aid workers’, when Paul steps into the Winter Garden to make an announcement.

  ‘Gunnar is going to drop in some time this afternoon. I have promised him a tour of the Centre and a talk about the funding of our operations. He insists he wants an idea about these things before he will agree to join the board.’

  Anne-Lise listens through the open door. She can’t see the others, but senses that the atmosphere has changed. The keyboards have fallen silent and now drawers are being opened and there is the sound of paper being shuffled.

  When Iben speaks to Malene, does her voice somehow have an edge?

  Anne-Lise’s desk is awash with papers, but they’re in order. In case the many Post-it notes make it look as if she’s behind with a lot of jobs, she puts some of them away. She also decides to get rid of three large sacks of waste paper piled up close to her desk. The sacks, which are stuffed with wrappings of foreign books and magazine packages, actually demonstrate how efficient she is. All the same, they look too messy. She knows the spots the cleaners miss, especially with all the electrical equipment and the leads and
sockets, so she does a quick spring-clean.

  She is almost ready when she hears the others calling out to each other.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

  ‘Don’t know. But what about this then?’

  Anne-Lise can’t hear the reply, but they start laughing. Then Iben comes running into the library, holding an empty bottle of rum. Anne-Lise has no idea where the bottle has come from, but assumes that Iben has brought it with her to drop it in the glass-recycling bin. It’s the kind of thing she would do.

  Iben is still laughing. ‘You’ve got plenty of room for this kind of thing!’ She puts the bottle in one of Anne-Lise’s cupboards and turns the key.

  Anne-Lise can’t see the point but notices Malene watching in the doorway.

  Exasperated, Anne-Lise slaps her hand on the desktop. ‘Why do you …’ She has no idea how to follow up and mumbles the first thing that comes to mind. ‘I don’t have a drinking problem.’

  Iben is on her way out. She replies with her back to Anne-Lise: ‘No. Sure.’

  ‘We never said anything of the sort.’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Malene pops her head around the door to deliver an exit line. ‘You shouldn’t be so uptight. Unless we’ve hit a sore spot.’

  Camilla puts a call through to Anne-Lise from one of the library-users who is looking for books on aspects of Nazi collaboration in occupied France. As she talks, Anne-Lise thinks about the empty bottle and how she must get rid of it quickly, before Gunnar’s visit. They mustn’t have a chance to come dashing in and open the cupboard door while Gunnar is here.

  When the phone call is over, she wraps the empty bottle in a blue plastic bag, sticks it inside a cardboard box and into another cupboard farther away from her desk. She makes sure that no one sees her hiding the bottle.

  That done, she hurriedly opens all her cupboards and drawers, just in case Iben and Malene have planted more false clues to suggest that she’s an alcoholic. Having examined every possible hiding place three times, she tries to settle down again, but feels at a loss. Finally she catches sight of Gunnar standing on the landing.

  She gets up quickly so she, too, can be in the Winter Garden when he walks in. He looks as she remembers him: large, tanned, but not conventionally handsome like that pretty boy Frederik.

  Her excuse for being there is the roll of labels in the cupboard next to Camilla’s desk. She makes a show of needing to count up a large number and separating them. She smiles at Gunnar and he smiles back pleasantly enough.

  ‘I’m here for a meeting with Paul Elkjaer.’

  Anne-Lise has never been unfaithful to Henrik and isn’t inclined to be. However, she feels hot and her hands are prickly.

  Gunnar’s shirt is open at the neck and looks very white against his tanned skin. On top, he wears a black jacket of very soft leather.

  He looks at Malene. Malene looks at him. They know each other – it’s unmistakable! Neither has spoken yet, but they are clearly more than acquaintances.

  Malene gets up. Imagine him knowing her. Liking her. How have they met? How can he bring himself to like her? True, Malene did say that she knew him, but Anne-Lise had thought that she meant through his writings, not personally.

  Have they been to bed together? Surely not? Maybe she has him all wrong; maybe he isn’t the man she thought.

  Anne-Lise also notes Iben’s reaction. Iben is using both hands to fiddle with a grey stapler. Gunnar smiles at her and seems to know her too. Or does he smile at every young woman? Maybe he doesn’t know Malene after all? Anne-Lise looks back at Malene. Yes, they know each other all right.

  Iben looks paler than usual. She gets up now, but her stance is different. She looks as if she wants to disappear.

  It can’t be more than a couple of seconds before Camilla addresses Gunnar. ‘Oh yes. He’s waiting for you.’

  She goes to knock on Paul’s door. Maybe ten seconds have passed since Gunnar came in. Maybe five.

  Paul opens the door. For a fraction of a moment he is surprised at the sight of his guest against the backdrop of four women, who seem to be dotted around the room like sculptures. He welcomes Gunnar and ushers him inside.

  Anne-Lise quickly goes back to the library. Is Gunnar, like so many other men, indifferent to ethical standards? She had thought he was different. Anne-Lise sits at her desk. She has no idea how to explain to anyone how bad this is. She will simply sound like a hysterical teenager if she says that her heart feels horribly empty just because of that quick glance between Malene and Gunnar.

  She had truly believed that there were people who wouldn’t be taken in by Iben’s and Malene’s superficial charms, by their youthful attractiveness. And that, beyond the walls of DCGI, there were other places that functioned on different principles.

  Obviously, she got it all wrong. The entire world operates according to Malene’s law. There is no place for vindication.

  The door to Paul’s office opens. With a degree of ceremony Paul escorts Gunnar from desk to desk, introducing the Centre’s staff to him. All four of them stay in their seats and pretend to be absorbed by their work.

  Anne-Lise hears Gunnar say that he already knows Iben and Malene. Indeed, Malene and he are ‘old friends’ and he has met Iben. He says it so casually, but they must be more than mere acquaintances to him. For one thing, Malene and Iben are less talkative and charming than they usually are in the company of a new, powerful man.

  Paul leads the way to the back of the library collection. While the two men discuss the archive, Anne-Lise hears the voice of Ole, the chairman of the board, coming from the Winter Garden.

  Camilla sounds pleased. ‘Hi, Ole! Paul is in the library with Gunnar Hartvig Nielsen.’

  ‘No problem. I didn’t come for anything important – just the week’s cuttings. I wanted to take the folder home tonight.’

  Everyone in the Centre likes Ole. His short white beard reminds Anne-Lise of a couple of other older professors she has met. Like them, he is heavier and dresses more informally compared to the younger academics who come and go. Perhaps it’s a throwback to 1970s university fashion.

  Ole often comes by to chat to Paul about policy or matters arising at the next board meeting. Now and then he joins them for Christmas lunch or a summer dinner. Until about six months ago Anne-Lise didn’t give a thought to Ole’s private life. She knew that he was divorced and had two sons, but that was about it. Then her sister-in-law phoned one Sunday morning to tell her that Ole had been interviewed for the series ‘My Demons’ in the Sunday issue of Politiken.

  Anne-Lise shot off to the newsagent and bought a paper. Amazingly, like the other famous or almost famous men and women interviewed for the series, Ole had been remarkably frank and told Politiken’s star interviewer some deeply personal things.

  The interview got a double-page spread and was illustrated with a splendid photograph showing Ole in all his pot-bellied glory, looking very full of himself; he was standing upright in one of the small fishing boats that were used to smuggle Jews across the straits to Sweden during the Second World War.

  Ole had confided to the journalist that he suffered from unipolar affective disorder, or ‘depression’, as it used to be called. His bouts of illness had put intolerable stress on his family and often made him act irrationally. Ten years ago, several years after his sons had moved out, his wife left him because she felt unable to help. After the divorce, she went to live in Moscow with a new partner, a Danish diplomat eight years younger than herself. Ole moved into a small but elegant flat on one of the narrow streets behind the Royal Theatre, where he has lived ever since.

  He added a professional touch to the interview by mentioning DCGI.

  ‘In the course of the last century, 40 million human beings were killed in wars. But in the course of the same century approximately 60 million human beings were killed in genocidal purges organised by their own governments. So, how important is it to understand and prevent genocide? Well, if we go b
y the number of those killed, it is the most important problem of our time.’

  There seemed to be no limit to what the interviewer from Politiken could pry out of his subject. Ole spoke freely about the way modern psychopharmacology had completely changed his life and added that he couldn’t stop speculating about what his life might have been like if anti-depressants had been available a couple of decades earlier.

  He admitted the fact that the pills made him impotent, but thought it a minor drawback compared to relief from the black months of depression. Besides, after a period of getting used to it, he was proud to say that he had taken on the challenge and turned it into something positive. His sex life had become enriched by a number of new ‘approaches’ that, in his experience, pleased women enormously.

  Anne-Lise read the interview over and over again. Afterwards she discussed it with Henrik. She would never have thought of Ole as depressed. It struck her then how little she knew about her co-workers. Over the last few weeks, she has thought about it even more.

  On the Monday after the interview was published, Iben was off and running with a lecture about psychopharmaceuticals, stressing that tiny chemical shifts can cause emotional imbalances and that no amount of therapy would help. This was one of her classic arguments, like her ‘Human beings are like animals’ speech.

  Inevitably, everyone joked about the things Ole revealed.

  When Ole turned up in the office a few days later, he was the centre of attention, much more so than usual. Everyone praised him for being so open and honest. Iben spoke of one of her aunts, who had suffered badly from depression. Malene had a story about friends whose marriage had been destroyed by the illness. Ole in turn behaved as if he had expected their response. He took it for granted to such an extent that he glowed at their praise even before they offered it. His acknowledgement of any unspoken awkwardness put them at ease immediately.