When he finishes pouring his champagne, his eyes meet Malene’s. ‘And if the board is to work together as a team, Ole couldn’t have the chance to say the wrong things to me or to send me a letter he’d only regret later. Everything had to be put on hold.’
Iben has more questions. ‘Paul, when you said you hadn’t anticipated it, do you mean …? You know, when Gunnar was here and Ole turned up “by chance” …? Did you plan it all along?’
Paul raises his glass to her and beams. ‘Strictly off the record.’
Camilla stays silent. Her attention is slipping. The office atmosphere is suddenly so excitable and she realises now what a relief it is to have read Iben’s jottings, with not a mention of Camilla or Dragan anywhere. She sighs and takes a hearty sip from her glass.
Iben has insisted, day in and day out, that Camilla is lying. But now it seems certain that Iben knows no more about Camilla’s past than what she has already announced.
Camilla goes to sit in her own chair. She feels very tired now. It would be a dream if this new, jovial Paul told them to take the day off, but of course he won’t. He pours everyone more champagne and splashes some on his black jacket. It doesn’t seem to worry him. He’s on a high.
‘I should’ve bought another bottle!’
Malene’s glass is still full, but Iben and Anne-Lise want more.
How can he miss the way everything has changed while he was away?
He raises his glass in another toast. The third one, at least. ‘Malene, this celebration is for you too! None of you needs to worry any more. Our Centre has a future. We are stronger than ever. This is a good day for genocide studies!’
Iben
48
It all starts without a sign of anything out of the ordinary.
A woman professor from Missouri is speaking to Iben on the phone.
‘In my view we overcomplicate the process leading to genocide. Fundamentally, it’s straightforward. Once a population group sees advantages in killing off another group, it triggers a sequence of psychological mechanisms. Gradually, suitable adjustments are made in the group’s ideology. History is revised accordingly. Highly charged public debates will emerge spontaneously and, step-by-step, they’ll develop the intellectual rationale for extermination.
‘In the end, the stark truth is that members of one group murder members of another. The only possibility of stopping them is if the world community demonstrates that it is keeping an eye on the situation and isn’t going to condone any criminal activity.’
Iben objects, but only to keep the discussion going. Actually, she’s so fed up with her own arguments, which sound naïve and kind of Danish, that she almost looks forward to being contradicted. The professor obliges.
‘You know, with hindsight everyone notices the falsification of history in the lead up to genocide, the ideology and so on, and decides that this must have been what did it. But just examine the genocides you’re more familiar with and you’ll see that, when all’s said and done, the perpetrators are driven by egoism every time. Never mind the cover stories they use to persuade themselves or the world at large. Or their victims.’
Later that day Iben feels nauseous and shaky. She’s definitely not well and takes two aspirins, even though she can’t identify any aches or pains.
The Genocide News issue on Turkey has been badly delayed by the upsets of the last few days. She must try to concentrate. Even so, an hour before the end of the working day she can’t stand sitting there any longer. She must get home.
This anxiety is no stranger to her — she recognises it from when she was nineteen and suffered a breakdown: her body seizing up, as if she has caught a dreadful illness, but nothing hurts.
She is terrified of being referred to a psychiatric clinic and put back on medication again. Many of her former fellow patients are probably only able to exist with the help of mind-bending drugs. Ten years ago, Iben had to fight for her return to stability and real work and she isn’t certain she can do it again.
Before leaving the office she looks out to make sure that there’s no dark-haired, square-jawed man waiting down there in the street. It’s pointless, though. You can’t see properly from up here. Perhaps Dragan Jelisic is there. Perhaps he isn’t.
Iben announces that she needs to go home because she has a headache. She quickly checks the on-screen camera image. The landing is empty. The elevator is empty too. Nobody is waiting for her in the street.
She cycles away. For a February day it’s not that cold. Then she realises that her balance is too poor to continue cycling. She locks up the bike just a few hundred metres from DCGI.
Men, broad smiles on their faces, hold severed human heads in their hands. Archive images drift in front of her mind’s eye.
We distort our memories when it serves our purposes. Our thoughts, too. Even our senses cannot be trusted; we reshape the messages they send to suit our needs.
How much of what I’m thinking is nothing but the egoistic, post-hoc rationalisation that the professor was talking about?
When I stood up for Anne-Lise, I believed I was good. Was I lying to myself? Was my choice to risk my job and my friendship with Malene based on nothing more than a notion of what would be to my own best advantage?
Three million corpses scattered over the paddy-fields of Cambodia. All slaughtered by their own countrymen, believing they were right — but also because they felt that there might be something in it for them.
Five skulls, sticking up from a water-filled ditch. Plants, winding their way up, around and between them.
Sure, I might gain from losing my friend. I’d be free to date Gunnar. Also, I’d be free of the duty to help Malene, whose arthritis will only get worse with time.
How could I believe that I was making a sacrifice in order to resist the bullying? But I did believe it. I truly thought it was hard to make the choice I made. I felt heroic. Truly good.
‘Hey! Watch where you’re going!’
Iben walks with her head down, without looking where she is going. Now she has almost fallen over a small, white bulldog. Whining, it leaps sideways against a wall, obviously thinking that it’s about to be stepped on.
Its owner tells her off, while he pulls at the dog’s long, red leash. ‘You’re not the only one on the pavement, you know!’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!’ She sighs.
Meanwhile a thought has struck her. That’s it! Though I’ve seen myself as idealistic, I’ve lied to myself. That’s the evil act that has been gnawing at the back of my mind all day long. I couldn’t figure it out. But now that I know, my nausea will fade and disappear.
The sense of unease and queasiness does not leave her, however. She straightens up and looks around. She hasn’t gone very far. No one resembles Jelisic. She scans the streets in both directions. Pedestrians are few and far between, but he could be in any one of the cars. The traffic seems unending.
She cannot possibly defend herself against a man in a car.
She cannot possibly go home now.
Jelisic could find her there, no trouble at all — there is no steel-lined door, no CCTV camera. If she did go home, she wouldn’t be able to relax.
Crowded streets are her best hiding place. She walks quickly now, taking long, decisive strides. It helps against her tremor, which grows fainter the faster she walks.