The Exception (41 page)

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 by 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.

Today, smiling broadly and with the folder stuck under his arm, Ole moves towards Paul and Gunnar as they come out of the library.

‘Hello, Gunnar. Good to know that we’ve got something here you can use for
Development.
’

Gunnar, who is a head taller than both the other men, looks radiant. The board membership is recognition he should have had long ago.

‘Hi, Ole. Of course there’s plenty here. But today I’m just looking the place over. Learning a bit more before accepting the offer.’ He turns to Paul and smiles. ‘I’m pretty likely to say yes, you know!’

Ole seems to be at a loss, so Gunnar continues: ‘Sorry, the offer to join your board … to replace Frederik Thorsteinsson.’

Finally Ole speaks. ‘I see. Well, that’s good news.’ He leaves it at that.

There is a short pause in the conversation, and suddenly everyone who knows Ole realises that he had no idea about Paul’s offer to Gunnar. Ole doesn’t confront Paul, allowing him to retain some dignity. Instead he says that he must hurry off.

Maybe Gunnar guesses the truth as well. The joy is wiped from his face, but Paul keeps his cool. ‘That was good. Now you’ve had a chance to say hello to our chairman as well. This office is always busy – lots of unpredictable traffic.’ He leads the way back to his office. ‘But you will find that out soon enough, once you’ve got to know us all.’

The men leave. Silence falls in the Winter Garden. Anne-Lise desperately wants to phone Henrik but the open door makes it impossible. Sometimes she wishes she could simply close the damned thing again, so that she could be herself for a few moments. No doubt they’d all complain if she did.

She can’t concentrate on the Afghanistan reports. Instead she opens newly arrived boxes from the International Criminal
Tribunal at The Hague and starts sorting the documents. She listens to the talk outside.

Iben is speaking: ‘Gunnar won’t have anything to do with the DCGI now. He won’t want to be mixed up in Paul’s games.’

Malene doesn’t seem to agree. ‘I think he’ll say yes to the board membership.’ After a brief pause, she adds an explanation: ‘I mean, they must be discussing it right now.’

‘He won’t do it!’

For once – maybe for the first time – Anne-Lise hears Iben becoming overwrought. She is becoming more and more shrill. Her voice has risen to a near-scream.

‘You can’t think that about him!’

Malene sounds different, controlled and rather patronising. ‘Iben, I don’t know how long he’s been waiting for a chance like this. You know he needs to get back in the running.’

‘But not at the expense of someone else, and in such an underhand way. He’s not like that!’

‘You have to take into account that Gunnar has lived in Africa, where corruption is the order of the day.’

‘So what? I’ve lived in Africa too.’

At this point they fall silent. This is their first open disagreement. It seems to have materialised out of nowhere. Maybe an outsider wouldn’t see how furious they are with each other, but for Anne-Lise their fight is a revelation. She’s gratified to see them finally direct their meanness at each other.

Somewhere in passing Malene manages to stick in a reference to her illness. Iben does not respond.

A little later, Malene’s enquiry is almost gentle. ‘You know so much about him? Must be magic. I mean, you only spoke to him once, right? At Sophie’s?’

Iben has regained control and now sounds self-assured. ‘We did have a very good talk that evening. Absolutely. Like Rasmus says, some of the best conversations are with people you meet only once.’

Malene deflates a little. ‘I see. Now you have to drag Rasmus into this.’

‘Why, shouldn’t I?’

After a few more minutes of this Iben decamps to the kitchen to cool down.

Anne-Lise stacks magazines on a shelf. She has a view of the Winter Garden from where she is standing.

Iben is back at her desk when at last the door to Paul’s office opens. Gunnar steps out, and he isn’t smiling. He walks quickly towards the front door and, as he opens it, turns round to face them all and politely says, ‘Goodbye.’

Had it not been for Anne-Lise’s feeling of exhaustion, his angry frown would have made her utterly delighted.

Soon after the front door slams behind Gunnar, Paul comes out of his office.

Iben asks him at once: ‘How did it go?’

‘Oh, not so good. Such fucking bad luck that Ole turned up just then.’ Paul looks irritated. ‘Well, anyway, let’s see how it pans out. Christ, all we’re trying to do is save this Centre. That’s all.’

He backs into his office and is about to close the door behind him. ‘I need to phone Ole.’