The Exception (12 page)

Anne-Lise remains silent.

Malene apparently takes no notice. She addresses the other two. ‘We know that Anne-Lise doesn’t work closely with anyone else. Not the way we do.’

Iben and Camilla join in, their voices confident and confiding.

‘She can’t chat the way we do when we’re sitting at our desks.’

‘But that’s not our fault, surely.’

‘Come on, nobody has said that it’s anybody’s fault.’

‘Anne-Lise, you know you can always come and join us. It isn’t as if our office is shut off, is it?’

‘But somehow it sounded as if we’d done something wrong.’

‘Oh no. No.’

‘Anne-Lise, what do you really mean?’

‘Do you think we don’t want to talk to you? It sounded a bit like that.’

‘You don’t think that, do you? You know you can always come to see us, don’t you?’

All three of them are looking at her. Anne-Lise summons all her courage to speak. She almost spits out the words, enunciating each one crisply: ‘You three are such good friends. Clearly that is why you speak to each other in a different way from the way you speak to me.’ She stares at the plate in her hand, then at the lunch table. The smell of the food is getting to her.

Malene smiles. ‘That’s true. Iben and I are old friends and that’s – you know – different from being friendly with people you work with.’

Again, their words pour out almost in unison.

‘Naturally.’

‘People who work together should treat each other well – that goes without saying. But that’s quite different from being close friends.’

‘I’ve come to the library loads of times to ask if you wanted something, like when I was going to the baker’s or the supermarket.’

‘And when we take a break we always tell you.’

Iben leans forward and her face has an earnest expression. ‘We don’t always remember to go to the library and tell Anne-Lise if we’re having an interesting discussion. We probably could do better, couldn’t we?’

Anne-Lise’s throat tightens. The conversation isn’t over yet.

Malene looks at her and raises her voice just enough to be heard above the other two. ‘Now, you must admit it’s understandable if anyone talks more with a close friend than with a colleague?’

Camilla won’t let go either. ‘There’s no way we can work out how much it means to you if you don’t tell us. Many people really do prefer to keep to themselves.’

Malene nods pleasantly at Camilla. ‘I’d like to hear what Anne-Lise has to say.’

Anne-Lise realises that she needs a pee. Her voice is faint. ‘Yes …’

Malene is staring straight at her with genuine interest. Anne-Lise finally tries to say something, more to herself: ‘Yes, of course I understand.’

She knows when she tells Henrik about this he will be irritated with her for backing down.

The others continue to protest their innocence to each other.

After a while Anne-Lise tries to add something else. ‘Maybe I’d rather not be so …’ She thinks of Henrik and tries to finish her sentence with conviction. ‘… Well, it matters to me that I’m supposed to keep my door shut.’

Camilla suddenly stands. With both hands on the table, she leans towards Anne-Lise. ‘What’s this? We’ve been through it before, Anne-Lise.’ Camilla takes a deep breath and looks at Malene and Iben for support. ‘We agreed! And I don’t want to go over it again!’

Iben makes a small gesture for Camilla to sit down, but Camilla hasn’t finished. ‘I won’t put my health on the line just so the door can be left open. I simply won’t!’

Iben gently replies. ‘But Anne-Lise didn’t say that the door has to be open. She’s only saying it makes a difference to her that it’s shut.’

Anger is bringing out red spots on Camilla’s neck. ‘I’ve read all about it. It’s the draughts you don’t notice that are the most dangerous. Draughts can make you an invalid! – force you into early retirement!’

They all pause, waiting for Anne-Lise to speak. It’s too much. Outside the sun breaks through the clouds, suddenly brightening the room.

She opens her mouth, but the words don’t come. Suddenly, she’s aware of pressure behind her eyes. She manages to keep the tears back, but her hands and arms begin to tremble. This will
not do. She can’t just sit here, speechless and shaking.

The others are exchanging looks.

Oh, they’ll be able to use this against her all right. From now on they’ll say she is mentally unstable. She has never trembled like this before, as if she were an alcoholic or a drug addict.

Her words come too quickly: ‘And then there’s the whole thing about the library users, the fact that I’m not allowed to talk to them. If I could, it would make a difference. In other libraries, researchers contact the librarian. I thought I’d be the Centre’s librarian and people would come to me. I didn’t think I’d just be doing archival work. That’s what they told me when I was interviewed …’

Malene interrupts. Her voice sounds truly caring, warm and reassuring. ‘Anne-Lise, if you feel like an outsider here, it’s good that you’ve told us. We can do something about it now. I must say that I don’t believe it’s the only reason why you feel so unhappy, but even if this place isn’t as bad as you think, we still need to work something out. You mustn’t feel so bad. You can be absolutely certain that we all want to help you.’

Anne-Lise raises her head and sees Malene look quickly at the other two, who are nodding nervously.

‘I think you’ve made such a good start by telling us about how you’ve been feeling. Maybe the next thing to do is to arrange a meeting with Paul and decide on some changes together. How do you think that sounds?’

‘It sounds like a good idea.’

‘Great! We’ll do everything we can to turn this office into a good place to work.’

‘OK.’ Anne-Lise can’t hold on any longer. She is crying quietly now. The sudden kindness has overwhelmed her.

Malene has more to say. ‘But the changes mustn’t be at the expense of the people who use the Centre.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘It’s what you said about having contact with the users that’s so problematic. There must be plenty of other things that we
could do to make you happier. The users like having one person who handles all their needs, you know, from appointments to events and research projects. And that includes book requests.’

Anne-Lise hears her own voice. High-pitched, almost a shriek. ‘But they don’t always like it! They often want me to help them.’

‘No, Anne-Lise. That’s not right. If someone said they preferred to speak to you, they would be passed on to you at once. No question about it.’

‘But you told Camilla off because she transferred Stephan Colwitz’s call from Geneva to my phone.’

‘No, I did not.’

‘When you were ill, I spoke to him. I dealt with his question and then after you came back, he phoned again and asked Camilla to put him through to me. It was about some books he was interested in. And then I heard you reprimand Camilla. You said she mustn’t do that again.’

‘Anne-Lise, maybe you should go home. You’re not well. It’s like some kind of breakdown. What you’re saying simply isn’t true.’

Anne-Lise’s skin feels damp all over. She turns to Camilla. ‘Camilla, didn’t Malene tell you off for putting Stephan Colwitz through to me?’

Camilla has been on the edge of her chair all this time. Now she leaps up and lashes out at Anne-Lise. ‘You can’t turn this place upside down just to suit you. It isn’t your office. You have to consider the rest of us as well.’

‘But Malene has told you that you mustn’t transfer people to me when they ask for the librarian, hasn’t she?’

Camilla looks at Malene. ‘I can’t take any more of this. I’ve had enough.’

Malene almost throws herself off her chair and walks away. In the doorway, she stops, turns to Anne-Lise and sneers: ‘I could reel off hundreds of examples when we’ve paid particular attention to what you wanted. You couldn’t have found a place where your colleagues treated you better; it simply doesn’t exist! When
I think of all the time I spent explaining your tasks to you and the research problems and—’

‘But they weren’t part of my training! Why do you always give me jobs that you know I haven’t been trained for? It took me four years to become a qualified librarian. Can’t you just let me get on and do what I’m supposed to do?’

Iben cuts in: ‘Many people are only too pleased to have a variety of tasks at work.’

‘But … I’m knowledgeable about books. Here, all I’m doing is filing, as if I were a secretary.’

Malene makes a point of glancing apologetically at Camilla before turning to Anne-Lise. ‘That wasn’t a very clever thing to say.’

Iben backs her up. ‘Secretaries are important too.’

‘I know. Why do you keep telling me?’

‘Because you said …’

‘But … you knew what I meant …’

Suddenly Camilla runs off. She has heard the phone ring.

The others follow her more slowly. Halfway out of the room they pause, as if to add something. But they don’t.

Anne-Lise sits still, breathing heavily, her arms resting on the table. She looks at her arms and blinks several times. This lunch break will come back to haunt her. Everything. Her shaking – they will use that against her as well.

Malene remembers the times when she was little and came running home after playing with one of her friends. She would rush straight into the sitting room where her mother, Jytte, would be seated. Her mother’s friend, Susan, would be there too, always in the same place on their plush brown-velvet sofa. Her mum would tell Malene to go off and play somewhere else, upstairs or in the garden. Malene remembers glimpsing her mother’s wet cheeks as she would stare past her friend.

When Malene mentioned this years later, her mother explained that to protect her daughter she would normally cry about her work in the bathroom or in the bedroom. She only wept in the sitting room when Susan was there.

Malene’s mother was a secretary in a large accounting firm and her father was an insurance man. Both of them worked in Kolding. Malene was the only one in the family to go to university.

Her mother had been with the firm for about ten years when the office came under a new administrative head. Malene’s mother had been responsible for staff schedules, but he took that away from her. He allocated lower-grade secretarial work to her, and managed to find fault with everything she did.

After a few weeks the boss started to tell jokes at her expense, even when she was present. He also made it clear that people who didn’t laugh along irritated him, hinting that soon one of them would become the butt of his jokes.

Gradually people became anxious when she was around. They began to avoid eye contact with her, and her very presence in the office seemed to create tension and make the whole atmosphere
unpleasant. Not long after that, several people took her to task, regardless of whether the boss was there or not.

Then came the news that the boss had been promoted. He had moved to another branch office. Once more, Malene’s mother wept, but this time with joy. There were celebrations at home and Malene’s father opened a bottle of port that had been in a cupboard since the previous Christmas.

Jytte’s life, however, did not change. Everyone still felt awkward the moment she came through the door. They all hoped that she would leave quietly and find another job. It soon became clear to her, and to others as well, that she had lost her old easy manner.

Her doctor referred her to a psychologist, but she never worked again. Young Malene felt dreadfully ashamed when her mother spoke self-pityingly about it in public, even in front of people she barely knew.

‘At my old job, they used to behave as if they wanted me dead. How can people behave like that?’

Camilla is sitting at her desk. Iben and Malene are standing close together so that they can’t be overheard in the library. The lunch break is over. None of them had expected to be attacked by Anne-Lise in the middle of such a stressful situation.

Malene plays with Camilla’s stapler, snapping out flattened, useless staples. ‘It’s fair, isn’t it, that I show more affection towards my best friend than towards a colleague? Isn’t that the point of having a close friend? What does she expect?’

Iben strokes Malene’s arm comfortingly.

‘Instead of offering us something we can base a friendship on, she simply demands favours. It’s so immature, like a spoilt child.’

Malene keeps glancing back and forth between Iben and Camilla. Both appear as worn out as she feels. She can hear how tired her voice sounds. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who’s so incapable of giving a little of herself.’

‘It’s typical of her attitude. It’s like this thing she has about not working in the library. I mean, is she a trained librarian, or isn’t
she? What did she think she was supposed to be doing here? Doesn’t she want to work with books and have her desk where the books are?’

Malene sighs. She sweeps up the flattened staples and throws them into Camilla’s wastepaper basket. ‘Anne-Lise simply has no idea what it’s like when your colleagues are really out to get you. That much is obvious.’

Malene tells Camilla a little of what happened to her mother. ‘You see, that’s why I find Anne-Lise so especially hard to take. She has accidentally hit on something that really hurts me.’

Iben interrupts her. ‘But, Malene, it’s not because you’re more vulnerable than most. Anyone would be upset to have to listen to that kind of thing.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘And it’s even more infuriating, when it comes from someone we’ve all struggled to keep happy.’

The door to the corridor opens. Anne-Lise announces that she is going home. She has a headache. Malene is so annoyed with her that she can’t even make herself look up. No one speaks.

Then Malene decides to say something. ‘Get better soon.’

From the landing they hear the faint whining noise as the lift goes down. Iben begins to pick her words slowly.

‘Now we know … why she always comes across as devious. And why all of us have found it difficult to get along with her. It’s because, in her warped view, we’re nothing but a band of bloody bullies who want to bring her down.’