The spaces between the ambulances and police cars outside the Sundvolden Hotel are filled with half-naked, wet youngsters wrapped in blankets. The youngsters embrace each other, search for their boyfriends or girlfriends, and tell their dramatic stories amid cries that their best friends have been killed. One group of people is conspicuous by its absence: it is the group of youths who’re no longer alive or who’ve been sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. Parents who come in cars from Oslo or elsewhere in the country have no idea what condition their children are in.
Johanne Butenschøn Lindheim has been offered food and drink but is so physically ill that she can’t bear the thought of solid food. She sits in the rain on a wet chair in socks, with a duvet around her and a bottle of mineral water in her hand, staring fixedly at the blue emergency lights. She spoke with a priest a couple of times but got the impression that he didn’t think she was worth spending time on. As if she hadn’t been through enough already. As if she hadn’t as big a need for some reassuring words as those who swam from Utøya. As if it’s not enough having seen him liquidate a boy and a girl. As if it’s commonplace to look a killer in the eye. Johanne has feelings of guilt as she sits in the rain outside the hotel. In her hand she has a stone that she plucked from the cliff wall by Bolsjevika Bay on Utøya.
Ministers come to Sundvollen to comfort the survivors. The state secretaries arrive to look for their children. A meeting with psychologists and crisis managers is being held. The police conduct brief interrogations. The young people are offered food, drink, clothing, and lodging. A group of youngsters flocks around the TV to watch the news. Some prefer the cartoon movie showing on the television in another room. Johanne has come in from the rain and settled down in front of the TV to watch the news while she waits to be picked up by her parents, who have driven from the cabin on Hvaler. Channels NRK and TV2 talk mostly about the explosion in Oslo. The images are confusing. Haven’t they figured out what has happened here? When news commentators first talk about the shooting on Utøya, they state a ridiculously low death toll—ten killed. Johanne shakes her head. She and the other youngsters know that the actual figure is far, far higher.
At 10:30 p.m., Jens Stoltenberg holds a televised press conference in the government representation complex in Oslo, in front of two Norwegian flags. “Today Norway has been hit by two shocking, violent, and cowardly attacks. We don’t know who has attacked us. There’s much that remains uncertain. But we do know that many have died and many are injured,” says a visibly shaken prime minister, and he adds, “I have a message for those who attacked us. And for those who are behind them. It’s a message from the whole of Norway. You will not destroy us. You will not destroy our democracy or our commitment to bringing about a better world. We are a small nation, but we are a proud nation. No one is going to bomb us into silence. No one is going to shoot us into silence. No one is ever going to frighten us away from being Norway.” At the same press conference Justice Minister Knut Storberget confirms that the perpetrator is Norwegian and that youths on Utøya have been killed, wounded, and are missing, but no death toll is given.
Tore Sinding Bekkedal tries to make himself useful. He gets hotel staff to open up rooms for youngsters so that they can make calls in private. He shows parents where they can find their children. He goes to the Esso gas station to buy mobile phone chargers. Once outside he is overwhelmed by reporters from the tabloid press. Tore attempts to answer the questions precisely, but one journalist’s gum chewing is distracting. So is a photographer’s animated “long-time-no-see” background chat. Besides the photographer is using a Nikon camera, which is a sacrilege.
The atmosphere at the Sundvolden Hotel is both chaotic and organized. There are lists for registration, but many don’t bother to stand in line to register. Tore embraces someone whom he believes is a friend and then has to embarrassingly apologize to the man’s identical twin brother. The KappAhl clothing store in Hønefoss sends a truckload of clothing to the hotel, but no one comes with shoes. A nicotine-craving youngster borrows footwear from Tore to trudge down to the gas station. Tore doesn’t see his boots again. However, he has a welcome reunion with his parents, who have come to fetch him. His father has just moved back to Norway from the United States. He landed on July 19. Tore didn’t manage to see him before he went to Utøya. So it’s this evening at Sundvollen that father and son finally see each other for the first time in ten years. They embrace each other and are lost for words.
Stine Renate Håheim wanders around barefoot in her summer dress, happy to have found so many survivors. She hugs them and says, “Oh, you’re alive,” but doesn’t dare to ask about the ones who aren’t there. Her best friend is still missing. She’s offered food but just wants coffee. She asks a Red Cross worker whether she can get an alcohol swab to clean the wounds on the soles of her feet. She was thinking of doing it herself, but he is insistent. “You need stitches,” he says. He says that she has to go to the emergency ward. Stine Renate thinks the suggestion so absurd that she’s disproportionately argumentative. “People have been shot, and you say I must go to the hospital because I have some abrasions on my leg? Ridiculous. Don’t you have any tape?” she asks. As if the twenty-seven-year-old hasn’t gone far enough, she then decides to put him on the spot: “Can you force me to go?” “No,” replies the man from the Red Cross. “Exactly.”
In American movies customers ask to speak with a manager when they want to complain about service. Stine Renate does the same. She asks to see a health worker who has a sense of proportion. The Valdres girl has a rich arsenal of psychological weapons to use, and she can effortlessly shift from campaign to administrative mode and bring up rhetorical arguments that she learned at a defiant age. After another man from the Red Cross has told her that she should go to the emergency ward, she fires a salvo that she believes is an unassailable argument: “What’s the worst that can happen? What’s the absolute worst that can happen?” She’s told that the wounds may heal incorrectly. There may be inflammation. The feet may eventually have to be cut open and operated on. Stine Renate leans back, raises her hands in the air, and says, “Fine,” before she’s led away to the ambulance that’ll take her to the emergency ward in Oslo.
On the deck of the MS Thorbjørn Eskil Pedersen was afraid that Norway was under attack and that some people in the police and military were involved. The perpetrator was in uniform and said that there’d be more people coming from Oslo. Some on board feared that the AUF leader was the main target on Utøya. Hence the captain didn’t go directly over to the mainland but up north to a safer place called the Bråtan farm, where the youngsters stopped two private cars that took them to the Hønefoss police station. Eskil stood by the window and saw some men dressed in black suits that were bulletproof from head to toe and carrying powerful weapons. They were sent there to protect the police station. Can one feel safe in a police station when it has to be guarded by commandos?
The AUF leader isn’t allowed to go to the Sundvolden Hotel until after midnight because the police aren’t sure that it’s safe enough. Eskil trusts the guards nearest to him, even though he runs up from the cellar when he meets a uniformed man in the toilet. Still it doesn’t mean that the locale is safe. He has just survived a massacre that wasn’t detected by the police and security services. There may be several perpetrators on the island or allies elsewhere in Norway. The hotel has a thousand hallways and rooms. There’s a dark forest right behind the hotel. People come and go. So when he receives a text message that says, “Call the hospital—it’s not over. God bless the King,” the final residue of his sense of security evaporates.
Eskil knows that there are racists in Norway and that there are quite a few of them. There are also many who hate the Labor Party and the AUF. It’s often the same people who hate Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, immigrants, and people with dark skin, where everything is blended together into a stale, brown stew. When he writes in the press about why we must increase taxes to finance the welfare state, the comments from readers comprise mostly Muslim hate and personal attacks. Before, the twenty-seven-year-old just shook his head and went on with his life—to a central committee meeting, the fitness studio, or a Lady Gaga concert. We can’t continue this way. Extremist views must be opposed immediately, determinedly, and emphatically. For the AUF leader, “Now it’s personal.”
In addition to the assembly point at the Sundvolden Hotel another place has been created to receive survivors at the Thon Hotel in Sandvika. Morten Djupdal has been to the police station and given his statement about Utøya. There he was offered food, drink, and dry clothes. The twenty-year-old asked for a cup of coffee, which he didn’t touch, and was eventually persuaded to take off his wet beige shorts. In return he got a protective suit with a hood, which he tied around his waist. Now with this attire he traipses around the Sandvika shopping mall, shoeless and with muddied legs. The AUF T-shirt is quite dirty. His wallet is in his hand. The affluent shoppers from Sandvika have seen homeless persons before, but they don’t usually meet them on a Friday evening at the mall.
Morten goes into the Lefdal electronics store and asks for a mobile phone charger. “You have to excuse my attire, but I just came straight from Utøya,” says Morten in a quiet, subdued voice. “A normal phone charger and a car battery charger.” He goes to the checkout counter and pays. Then he goes into a clothing store. “Hi. I need a cheap pair of pants, waist 36 and length 32.” The lady behind the counter looks at him oddly but finds a pair on offer for 100 Norwegian kroner. “That’s nice. I also need socks,” he says, pointing to his dirty feet. From her facial expression he judges that it’s time to apologize and tell her about the gunman on Utøya. Morten takes the pants and socks and goes into the changing room. He asks for a bag for the white protective suit.
Morten leaves the clothing store and sees a shoe store. He sees some white shoes on offer at the entrance to the store. He brings them over to the counter, pays 100 Norwegian kroner, dumps them on the floor, and sticks his feet with the new socks in. “There, I have what I need,” thinks the twenty-year-old. On the way out he goes past Burger King. It’s been many hours since dinner on Utøya. It’s important to eat so as not to get distracted or dizzy or even pass out. Morten orders a cheeseburger. While he waits, he calls his father and asks him to send money. The chargers, beige pants, white shoes, black socks, and cheeseburger don’t cost much, but his bank account is almost empty. Morten no longer looks like a homeless person, but someone seeing the jumble of colors of his clothes would probably think that there was vast room for improvement on the fashion front.
Back at the Thon Hotel Morten sets himself up in a corner. He plugs in the phone to charge and starts up the PC. On an Excel sheet the county secretary enters the names of everyone from Oppland County on Utøya and puts a check mark next to those he knows are alive. Then he calls around and fills in the blanks as he gets new information. In the end there are two names without check marks. In the meantime he checks online newspapers, Facebook, and other sites. While browsing, he comes across a manifesto supposedly written by the man who killed his friends on Utøya. Morten clicks “download” but doesn’t take the time to read it. A youngster comes over to Morten and says that they’re going to Sundvollen. He can catch a ride if he wants. Morten doesn’t think they are allowed to go, but he packs his stuff in a backpack and leaves with them.
Hanne Hestø Ness is imprisoned in a cage in the basement. She hears gunshots and shouts that the people have to get away. Meanwhile the nineteen-year-old is confused. Hanne knows that she’s lying in a bed. If you’re in a hospital, no one’s going to do you any harm, right? So why have they placed her in a cage? In the basement? Who’s shooting? And why don’t people understand the seriousness of the situation? Nurses and doctors must flee and get out of the building. There’s no doubt in Hanne’s mind that she has shouted “Get out!” from a cage in the hospital basement. That’s the way she sees it, and her experience is no less real than those of the nurses and doctors, who believe that the grids are curtains and that the gunshots are the sound of a heavy hospital door slamming repeatedly. They also believe that she’s on a respirator at Ullevaal Hospital and can’t actually speak. It doesn’t really matter. Hanne is shouting anyway.
Stine Renate Håheim’s parents were on the way from their cabin to Sundvollen. They were in the village of Nes i Ådal when Stine Renate called from a borrowed phone and told them that she has had to go to the emergency ward. She thought it would be difficult for them to drive into the capital. Besides, she said, she needed to be with her friends from Utøya. “It’s better if you come to Oslo on Monday.” It was a deliberate decision, the consequence of which was that the twenty-seven-year-old has ended up alone in the emergency ward in Oslo. She’s been stitched up and bandaged but has nowhere to go. Her mobile phone is in Lake Tyri. Her money and keys are in her bag in the room below the cafeteria building on Utøya. So is the Mac. She has no shoes, just a red and white checkered dress. A nurse comes over and asks her whether she needs to talk to someone from the SV. Stine Renate has been through a lot lately, so she’s only mildly startled that people from the Socialist Left Party (SV being the acronym of the party) are in the emergency ward and want to get in touch with her. “Is the SV here? I am a member of the Labor Party, but if the SV is here, I can always talk to them.” The misunderstanding is then cleared up. The nurse didn’t mean the Socialist Left Party but the social crisis service, which has the same acronym, SV. “Oh, no, I can’t bear to talk to them. I just want to go home.” The member of parliament could well have a chat with political colleagues about a future coalition. But she doesn’t have the energy to talk to psychologists.
Stine Renate just wants to change clothes and curl up on a warm couch, drink tea, and talk with good friends. She borrows a phone but doesn’t know her friends‛ numbers by heart. She can get the numbers from directory information. Stine Renate thinks she needs to get several numbers at a time because people are not necessarily up so late at night. But how will she note down the numbers? And on what? It doesn’t occur to her that she could ask the operator to put her through. It doesn’t occur to her that the Oslo emergency ward has both pen and paper. Stine Renate is on the verge of a breakdown. With her last ounce of energy she takes a hairpin out of her hair and stares at her medical journal. The mind is able to imagine the most implausible fantasies, but no one in human history has ever envisaged that an elected Norwegian member of parliament in a wet summer dress would be standing alone with bandaged feet in the Oslo emergency ward on a Friday night in July, engraving the phone numbers of her friends into a medical journal with a hairpin just a couple of hours after she has survived a massacre at the AUF summer camp on the island of Utøya.