Part 39 (2/2)

Malene repeats, more loudly and clearly: Have we, Iben?

A quarter of a second pa.s.ses.

It is like a test. An evaluation of a human beings most important qualities.

Half a second.

It strikes Iben that her situation only confirms what she wrote in her first article about the psychology of evil. Christopher Brownings study showed that what drove ordinary Germans to kill Jews was not the threat of punishment, but peer pressure. The men felt they must not let down the comrades with whom they had endured such dreadful hards.h.i.+ps.

Three quarters of a second.

The pressure on Iben has other similarities to the forces that drive people to kill, and kill again. One brief moment can have incalculable consequences and determine which side a person takes for the rest of the war.

One full second.

No more time to think.

Malene is having such a difficult time these days. Nothing should be allowed to add to her distress. If I humiliate her in front of the others, Iben thinks, our friends.h.i.+p may not survive. Sh.e.l.l lose every last ounce of trust in me. She might tell Gunnar. That too could change my life. If only Malene and I could have talked about this alone.

Im taking far too long. Theyre all staring at me. How strange it is. I believe that no group has the right to destroy one individual. Its an article of faith for us here at the DCIG. And now I must choose: either my ideology or my best friend. An inner voice tells me to agree with Malene. My human instinct, like the instincts of millions of Germans, Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, demands that other people should be eliminated.

So much would be sacrificed if I were to break with Malene. And how can I be certain that Anne-Lise deserves that kind of sacrifice from me?

I dont want to turn my life upside down.

The Winter Garden is quiet apart from the slight humming of the computers. Iben looks directly at Anne-Lise. She cant remember when she last did that.

We were talking about you, Anne-Lise. Iben blinks. The light is so bright. She starts again. You werent imagining it. Not at all.

Malene slaps the palms of her hands on the desktop. WHAT?

Iben repeats it and now her voice is firmer. We were talking about you, Anne-Lise. What you heard was exactly what we said.

Iben can see Malene losing her confidence.

Iben, you dont mean what youre saying. Did you really hear what we were talking about? What are you Youre not saying that ?

Ibens eyes fill with tears. Its hard to see Malene. Instead she turns to Anne-Lise, whom she cant see properly either.

Anne-Lise, listen. Youre not psychotic! Youre right! Everything you heard was said. We talked about you. Weve talked about you before now too.

Iben can hear that Anne-Lise has also begun to cry.

Are you siding with her?! Malene is screaming.

No! No! Im not on anybodys side. Im just telling her the truth. We talked about Anne-Lise. We did.

Youre her friend now!

No. Im only saying Malene sounds as if shes hardly able to breathe. I cant bear it Youre just Anne-Lise is still standing at Ibens side when Malene runs out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

chapter 40.

iben rushes out the door after Malene, as fast as she can manage on her sore foot.

Malene is not on the stairs and not on the pavement outside. Iben calls her cell phone. No response. Apart from the endless rows of parked cars, the road is completely empty. The morning air is cold, and Iben hugs herself as she leans against the red-brick wall and tries to collect her thoughts.

Then she phones the Center. Anne-Lise takes the call and sounds quite different. Iben realizes that Anne-Lise is dying to talk about whats just happened, but Iben avoids the issue. All she says is that she has a headache and is going home. She will be away for the rest of the day.

She takes a taxi and calls Malenes home number. After about ten attempts Malene finally answers.

Iben, so youre backing her up now?

No. Malene, Im your friend, always! But youre not yourself.

Malene interrupts with denials, but Iben continues. Look, Malene, its obvious why, with everything thats happened. But Im worried about you.

Malene is shouting. I hate to think what youre like when you really f.u.c.king care! She slams the receiver down and doesnt answer the phone again.

When Iben wakes up, her bedroom is dark. The clock radio shows that its nine oclock at night. Nine hours have pa.s.sed since she lay down on top of the bed.

She limps along to the kitchen and makes herself her usual portion of oats, raisins, and skim milk, and thinks about Malene. Everything has gone wrong. Ibens foot is painful and she feels emotionally drained. She sits down at her desk, placing her bad foot gingerly on one of the old chairs. The laptop is turned on and Anne-Lises CD is still in the drive. She checks through more files while she eats.

There are collections of photos from summer days in the garden and from a family holiday two years ago in Rhodes. The children are splas.h.i.+ng in the sea, and Henrik, whose body looks exceptionally pale and thin, is grinning at the photographer.

Iben knows what shes after and why, but doesnt care. Dozens of experiments in social psychology have proven that, after making a complex choice, people often set out to look for reasons to confirm that they were right. The deciding factors may have been marginal, or even random, but in the experiments, subjects would construct arguments and find information to support their eventual decision. By then they would have shut off other considerations and convinced themselves that their choices were significantly different. Put simply: justification after the fact makes life easier.

Iben has eaten her cereal by the time she gets to older photos of the family, who are visibly happy. Iben feels proud of the stand she took today her refusal to help destroy this smiling woman. She is well aware that the choices people had to make during the Holocaust were utterly unlike her own. Even so, she thinks that perhaps she might have been part of the small, select group of heroes who refused to obey. In her mind she pictures the survivors in their rooms. She sees a woman at a desk looking at photos of a victim she has saved, her bad right foot resting on a chair.

Iben scrolls through other entries about the daily misery Anne-Lise endured at the Center. In bed later that night, Iben thinks about what she has read. How can it be, she asks herself, that I couldnt see the consequences of what we were doing until I saw them in writing? Somehow, I must have known all along. Malene must have known too.

She thinks about how, in reality, she and Malene were able to hold three utterly contradictory beliefs simultaneously. First, they felt their actions were okay because they werent hurting Anne-Lise she was too thick-skinned to notice. Second, their actions were okay because Anne-Lise deserved to suffer for destroying the good working environment at the DCIG. Third, they knew that their treatment of Anne-Lise was fundamentally wrong, although they never dared put it into words or even acknowledge the thoughts. Somehow they sensed that they shouldnt tell anyone outside the office what they were doing.

When Iben comes into work the next morning, Paul is standing at Malenes desk. They are gossiping about some of their German colleagues. Paul looks relaxed and Iben thinks that he has no idea what happened yesterday.

As usual, Iben greets everyone in the Winter Garden. Then, for the first time, she walks into the library to greet Anne-Lise.

Hi.

Hi, Iben.

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