Authors: Anne Holt
‘Wow,’ said Karen. ‘What a beautiful child! How old is she? Nine? Ten?’
‘Nearly fourteen,’ said Johanne. ‘It’s just that she’s not quite like other children.’
It was surprisingly easy to say.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Who knows?’ said Johanne. ‘Kristiane was born with a heart defect, and had to undergo three major operations before she was one year old. Nobody has really managed to find out whether the damage was done then, or whether it’s an impairment she was born with.’
Karen smiled again and examined the photograph more closely. Looking at her old college friend reminded Johanne of how many years had passed. Karen had always been slim and fit, but now her face was thinner, more strained, and her black hair was streaked with grey. She had started wearing glasses. Johanne thought this must be recent, because she kept taking them off and putting them back on all the
time, and she didn’t really know what to do with them when she wasn’t using them.
It was almost eighteen years since they last met, but they had recognized one another straight away. Johanne had been given the longest hug she could remember when Karen got out of the taxi outside Restaurant Victor on Sandaker, and as they walked inside she felt happy.
Almost exhilarated.
The waiter placed a glass of champagne in front of each of them.
‘Would you like me to go through the menu with you right away?’ he said with a smile.
‘I think we’d prefer to wait a little while,’ Johanne said quickly.
‘Of course. I’ll come back.’
Karen raised her glass.
‘Here’s to you,’ she said, smiling. ‘To think we’ve managed to meet up again. Fantastic.’
They sipped their champagne.
‘Mmm. Wonderful. Tell me more about Kris … Kristi …’
‘Kristiane. For a long time the experts insisted that it could be some form of autism. Asperger’s perhaps. But it doesn’t really fit. Admittedly, she does need fixed routines, and for long periods she can be highly dependent on order and clear systems. Sometimes she’s almost reminiscent of a savant, someone who is autistic but has certain highly developed skills. But then, all of a sudden, without any clue as to what has brought about the change, she’s just like an ordinary child with mild learning difficulties. And although she finds it difficult to make real friends, she shows great flexibility when it comes to relationships with other people. She’s …’
Johanne picked up her glass again, surprised at how good it felt to talk about her older daughter with someone who had never met her.
‘… tremendously loving towards her family.’
‘She really is absolutely adorable,’ said Karen, handing back the photograph. ‘You are so, so lucky to have her.’
Karen’s comment made Johanne feel warm, almost embarrassed. Isak loved his daughter more than anything on earth, and Adam was the most loving stepfather in the world. Both sets of grandparents worshipped Kristiane, and she was as well integrated into the social
environment surrounding the Vik and Stubo families as it was possible for a child like her to be. Occasionally someone would remark that Kristiane was lucky to have such a good family. Live Smith had given Johanne the feeling that she was happy to have Kristiane in her school.
But no one had ever said that Johanne was lucky to have a daughter like Kristiane.
‘It’s true,’ said Johanne. ‘I’m … we’re really lucky to have her.’
She quickly blinked back the tears. Karen reached across the table and placed her hand on Johanne’s cheek. The gesture felt oddly welcome, in spite of all the years that lay between them.
‘Children are God’s greatest gift,’ said Karen. ‘They are always, always a blessing, wherever they come from, whoever they come to, and whatever they are like. They should be treated, loved and respected accordingly.’
A single tear escaped and trickled down Johanne’s cheek.
Americans and their big words, she thought. Americans and their pompous, high-flown, beautiful choice of words. She smiled quickly and wiped the tear away with the back of her hand.
‘Are you ready to order?’
The waiter reappeared, looking from one to the other.
‘Yes,’ said Johanne. ‘It would be very helpful if you could go through the menu in English so that I don’t have to translate for my friend.’
This was no problem for the waiter. He spent almost ten minutes explaining and describing each dish and answering all of Karen’s interested questions. When they had finally agreed on food and wine, Johanne realized that Karen was far more worldly than she was. Even the waiter seemed impressed.
They began with oysters.
There were no oysters on the menu, and the waiter didn’t mention them at all during his comprehensive account of what the restaurant had to offer. Karen shook her head when he had finished, smiled her dazzling white smile and suggested that every self-respecting master chef always has a few oysters tucked away.
Always, she insisted.
It was true.
The problem was that Johanne had never eaten oysters.
She was an academic with a PhD. Well-travelled and financially
secure. She liked food. She had eaten dog in China and deep-fried spiders from a shack in Angkor Wat. But she had never dared to try oysters.
She looked at the plate. The half-shells lay there on a bed of ice, smelling faintly of the shoreline. Nobody could claim that the slimy, dirty white blobs looked appetizing. She glanced at Karen, who trickled a mixture of white wine and vinegar over each oyster from a small bowl, before picking up the first shell and sliding the contents into her mouth. She closed her eyes and rolled the oyster around in her mouth, then swallowed and exclaimed: ‘Perfect!’
Johanne followed suit.
The oyster was the best thing she had ever tasted.
‘Johanne,’ said Karen when the dish was empty. ‘Tell me more. Tell me everything. Absolutely everything!’
They talked their way through two more courses. They talked about their time at college and mutual friends from those days. About families and parents, about their joys and frustrations. About their children. They talked over each other, laughed and interrupted each other. The acoustics in the small restaurant were hopeless; Karen’s loud laugh bounced off the bare walls, disturbing the other guests. However, the waiter remained friendly, discreetly topping up their glasses as soon as they were almost empty.
‘Karen, I have to ask you about something.’
Johanne looked at the fourth course as it was placed in front of her: quail on a bed of artichoke purée. The little bird was surrounded by a circle of fine strips of Parma ham interspersed with pickled cherry tomatoes.
‘Tell me about the APLC,’ she said.
‘How do you know I work there?’ Karen carefully wiped her mouth with the thick fabric serviette before picking up her knife and fork again.
‘I googled you,’ said Johanne. ‘At the moment I’m working on a project that—’
Karen laughed, making the glasses clink.
‘We’ve been sitting here for over two hours, and we still haven’t got round to telling each other what we do! You first – start talking!’
And Johanne talked. She talked about her job at the Institute of
Criminology, about the doctoral thesis she completed in 2000, about how she loved research but found the teaching obligations which went with her current position something of a trial, and about the joys and frustrations of having to combine her career with two demanding children. Gradually, she got around to talking about the project on which she was currently working. By the time she had finished, the quail were tiny skeletons on otherwise empty plates.
‘You must come over and see us,’ Karen said firmly. ‘What we do is highly relevant to your research.’
‘And now it’s your turn,’ said Johanne. ‘Off you go.’
She asked the waiter if they could have a short pause before the next course. She could feel that she had had a little bit too much to drink, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t remember when she had last eaten out, and she definitely couldn’t remember when she had felt this good. So when the waiter refilled her glass, she smiled appreciatively at him.
‘We started in 1971, and we’re located in Montgomery, Alabama,’ Karen began, holding her glass of red wine up to the light to assess the colour. ‘The two founders – who are white by the way – were part of the civil rights movement. They founded the company mainly to work against racism. It doesn’t make any money, of course.’
She paused, as if trying to work out how to tell a long story in the shortest possible time.
‘From the start you could say we acted as an organization providing free legal aid. Not that I was there at the time!’
Once more her laughter echoed around the room, and an elderly couple two tables away glared in their direction.
‘In those days I hadn’t even finished elementary school. In 1981 the company set up an information department, simply to make it easier to reach our only real goal: an America that works in agreement with its once revolutionary constitution. For the first few years the struggle was mainly focused on white supremacy groups.’
‘Ku Klux Klan,’ Johanne said quietly.
‘Among others. We’ve won a series of cases against members of the Klan. A couple of times we’ve even managed to close down their training camps and busted pretty big active cells. Of course the problem is …’
She gave a little sigh and took a sip of her wine.
‘KKK aren’t the only ones in that particular arena. We’ve got the Imperial Klans of America, the Aryan Nations, the Church of the Creator … You name it. Over the years our information service has become pretty comprehensive, and today I think we have an overview of 926 different hate groups distributed across the whole of the US. And they’re extremely active.’
She emphasized the word
extremely
.
‘I presume they’re not all working against African-Americans?’
‘No indeed. For example, we have black separatist movements that want to get rid of the rest of us. The Jews also have enemies everywhere. In the US, too.’
Karen suddenly looked older. The lines around her eyes were not laughter lines, as Johanne had thought. Now that Karen was serious, they were much deeper.
‘The Institute for Historical Review, Noontide Press … way too many. On the other side, the Jews have the Jewish Defense League, which is most definitely a hate organization. So, there is enough hatred to go round in this world. We’ve got groups who are against South Americans, against Native Americans, for Native Americans, against all immigrants on more general and less prejudiced grounds …’
An ironic smile ended the sentence. She was speaking more quietly now, but the married couple who had been sitting over by the wall still glared reproachfully at them as they got up to leave. As they passed behind Johanne she heard something about a ruined evening and the fact that there ought to be a limit, even for Americans.
‘And then, of course, there are all those who hate gays,’ said Karen.
Dessert arrived at their table.
‘Strawberry carpaccio with a vanilla crust and a miniature champagne sorbet,’ said the waiter, placing the plates in front of them. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’
‘How big are these groups?’ asked Johanne when they were alone again.
Karen stuck her spoon into the slices of strawberry. She rested her elbows on the table and gazed at her food as she answered slowly.
‘That’s not an easy question to answer, actually. As far as the purely racist organizations are concerned, they’re bigger than you can imagine. Some of them are really old, and are run like military forces.
As for the others, particularly the anti-gay groups, it’s much more difficult to …’
She put the spoon in her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed. She searched for the right words.
‘How shall I put it? … More difficult to define.’
Johanne nodded. She was also trying to find the right words, and asked: ‘Because of strong links with church communities, which are actually legitimate?’
‘Yes,’ said Karen. ‘That’s one reason. Initially, we define a hate group as a more or less established organization that fosters hatred against groups, or promotes this hatred in some other way. They’re not classified as criminal until they overstep the mark with regard to the rules on freedom of speech to which most countries subscribe, incite others to carry out actions punishable by law, or carry out such actions themselves, where the individual focus of this criminal action is targeted because they belong to a large group of people with specific, recognizable characteristics.’
She let out a long breath.
‘That’s not the first time you’ve said that,’ smiled Johanne.
‘I might have gone through it a few times.’
She was eating more slowly now. Johanne was full to bursting, and pushed her plate away.
‘To give you one example,’ said Karen. ‘This happened in 2007. A young man, Satender Singh, was on holiday at Lake Natoma in California. He was from Fiji, and one day he was at a restaurant with some Indian friends. A group of people who spoke Russian decided that they could tell Satender was gay, and, to cut a long story short, they killed him.’
Johanne sat in silence.
‘It does happen that homosexuals are killed just because they’re homosexuals,’ Karen went on. ‘The particular thing about this case was that the murderers belonged to a very large group of Slavic religious immigrants in the Sacramento area. Their church communities are extreme in their condemnation of homosexuality. We’re talking about almost a hundred thousand people, divided among seventy fundamentalist congregations in an area which used to be heavily populated by gays. To say that the relationship between these groups
is now highly charged would be something of an understatement. The Christians are running an intensive anti-gay propaganda campaign, using both their own TV and radio stations and an enormous capacity to mobilize. At some protest meetings held by gay organizations, there are more anti-demonstrators than demonstrators.’
She took a deep breath and scraped up the remains of her sauce with her fork before going on.
‘But when do they take that extra step and become criminals? On the one hand, it’s clear they feel hatred. Their use of language and not least the disproportionate amount of attention they give to this whole issue makes it very clear that this is a question of pure, insane hatred. In addition, several of their spiritual leaders have refused to distance themselves from the murder of Satender, for example. On the other hand, freedom of speech is, and will remain, quite far-reaching, and many of those within such communities right across the US are very careful not to incite violence and murder directly.’