The Exception Read Free

brawl.
    The papers loved quoting the other hostages when they described Iben as ‘the strongest member of the group’. A tabloid phoned one of them and didn’t leave him alone until he admitted that ‘without Iben the outcome might well have been less fortunate’. The media chased the story for a week and then totally lost interest. The group’s captivity had lasted just four days, which meant that Iben didn’t rank among seriously famous hostages. By now, the journalists have forgotten her.
    Iben realises that Malene is trying to sneak a look at her face to find out if ‘something’s the matter’.
    ‘Malene, I’m fine. Why don’t you go and change?’
    ‘Are you positive?’
    ‘Yes. Sure.’
    The furnishings in the flat are in a state of flux. The backs of a couple of basic IKEA folding chairs are still covered by Indian rugs from a Fair Trade shop. The rugs, like the cheap Polynesian figurines, are reminders of the time when Malene studied international development at university. Three years have passed since Malene received her degree. Soon afterwards her student job at the Danish Centre for Genocide Information was turned into a proper, well-paid post. Rasmus, who has a dead-end university degree in Film Studies, makes a good living, too, as a computer-hardware salesman. Now their furniture includes pieces by top designers, such as their Italian sofa and a couple of armchairs.
    The telephone rings. Iben answers and recognises the deep male voice with the Jutland accent. She has listened to Gunnar Hartvig Nielsen so many times on the current-affairs programme Orientation .
    Iben calls Malene, who is presently sporting jeans and a fashionable, colourful silk shirt. It looks like her last bid in the dressing-up stakes, because she has put on some make-up.
    Iben hears Malene turn down Gunnar’s suggestion that they should meet for dinner and invite him to join them at Sophie’s instead.
    When Malene hangs up, Iben wonders aloud: ‘Could he really be bothered to come to Sophie’s?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘But what’s he going to do there?’
    ‘Meet people, talk to me. Have a good time. Like we are.’
    ‘Yeah … of course.’
    Iben switches off the television. Malene wants to finish her make-up.
    Iben had heard Gunnar Nielsen’s name for the first time when she was still a student. Everyone in her dorm shared a daily copy of Information , which published Gunnar’s stream of articles on international politics. They scrutinised every word and particularly admired his reports from Africa.
    Like Malene, Gunnar had grown up in rural Denmark. At nineteen, he went to Tanzania to work on a development project rather than going to university. He taught himself Swahili and stayed on in Africa, travelling around for nearly four years. His first book about Africa was called The Rhythms of Survival . It became not only required reading for young backpackers, but also was taken seriously by people concerned with international issues.
    By the time he was twenty-five Gunnar had been a well-established journalist. He had gone back to Africa several times. At one point, he had tried to combine university studies with his Information assignments to cover summit meetings and conferences, but the dull world of university life couldn’t compete with the excitement of being at the centre of things, so he had dropped out of the course after little more than a year.
    Iben and Malene were still at university when Gunnar’s newspaper pieces suddenly stopped. His fame as a star left-wing writer quickly faded.
    Four years ago when she was a student trainee at the DCGI, Malene had found out what had happened. She had managed to get hold of him for an interview about the horrific, but at the time unrecognised, genocide in the Sudan. Gunnar had taken a job as the editor of Development , a magazine published by Danida, the Danish state organisation for international development. He had told her that, after his divorce, he needed a