10
Survivors
The Ferry Landing
First, Even was told that the ferry was cancelled. There had been an explosion in Oslo. Then he was told that it would be coming after all. The volunteers, youngsters wearing red wristbands, said that a policeman had arrived. He was heading over to the island, so MS Thorbjørn was coming to pick him up. The young ones on the stone pier lit up, as they had been wondering how they would get across. There was a disco that evening and the prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, was coming on Saturday morning.
Even Kleppen walked a short distance away. He was the eighth member of the Hadeland branch of Norwegian People's Aid, a lorry driver, and he had been on the road all night. After a few hours’ sleep, he had packed equipment and goods in his car and driven off to Utvika. His colleagues and a weekend on the island were waiting on the other side of the water. Even peered over at the ferry landing on Utøya, a strip of concrete below the sharp profile of the white main building, and saw the MS Thorbjørn moving away from land and slowly reversing out. The yellow glare from the lamp post on the pier shone brightly in the dark afternoon light. Next to the ferry, he glimpsed two gleaming white objects at the water's edge, which had to be the Norwegian People's Aid boat and the old ferry Reiulf.
The news on the car radio was turned up at high volume, and the youngsters gathered round. Had al-Qaeda struck in Oslo? Who could be interested in attacking the Norwegian government? A man stepped out of a silver-grey van that was parked in the small car park. As the man approached him in his black uniform, Even recognized him as a policeman. Everything he was wearing was dark: some kind of vest, a side arm, his ID card on a lanyard round his neck, white reflective bands around his legs and on his back. The policeman dragged a large black plastic case and a weapon out of the back of the van. Even did not say hello to him. If the policeman had something to say, Even would surely hear it on the island.
The camp manager, Monica Bøsei, known as ‘Mother Utøya’, walked ashore from the ferry's metal ramp to greet the policeman. On the way across the water, Even stood on his own, dark-haired and unassuming. The green deck was slippery with rainwater. The young ones stood in a huddle while Monica and the policeman spoke with each other. It was a quarter past five. In the white wheelhouse were the ferry captain – Monica's partner – and his first mate, a young AUF member. The short trip lasted a few minutes. The rumbling of the old engine and the rushing of the wind drowned out all other sounds. On grey days like this it was as if the fjord stretched out and its shores drew back. The steely grey water blended in with the mist and the woodland, dissolving all distances.
‘I'll take the equipment to the camp,’ Even told Monica as he stepped ashore on Utøya. ‘Then we'll take it from there.’
He had still not introduced himself to the policeman. Even did not stick his nose into other people's business and reckoned that he would find out what he needed to know about the explosion in Oslo soon enough anyway. Even walked slowly up the steps to the main building, where his colleague Wenche was standing with the security officer on Utøya, a plain-clothes policeman. They said hello and exchanged a few words. The young ones walked past the main building, up the hill and towards the centre of the island. At the pier, the skipper helped the policeman with his case, which was obviously heavy.
Together with Wenche, Even sloped up across the volleyball court to the left of the main building and, without looking back, walked on along the gravel track leading to the Schoolhouse. As soon as he arrived at the camp, he put down his bag in one of the visitor tents. When he went out to the others, who were pottering about among the tents in their uniforms, he heard a crackling sound. It was coming from somewhere further towards the centre of the island. Even came to a halt. It sounded like a strip of firecrackers going off.
Ida Spjelkavik
The people Ida could see out in the yard were not running away from firecrackers or fireworks. ‘Calm down!’ somebody called from the Main Hall. ‘We're just jittery because of what's going on in Oslo.’
Normally Ida would have been one of those urging people to stay calm, but this time she realized that it was serious. The eyes of the young people who were fleeing ignited with fear. No more questions or deliberations, no whys or hows or maybes. Time stood still. Some impressions were etched in permanently, while others vanished off into the darkness, perhaps disappearing forever or maybe becoming the stuff of nightmare and visions.
Her reflexes took over. Together with many of the other youngsters in the café, Ida ran towards the corridor in the centre at the back of the room, away from the yard where the people were fleeing. Away. Ida was already standing by the coffee machine and was one of the first out of the café. The crowd of people squeezed through the narrow passageway from the café, down the corridor to the right and into the Little Hall, which was the place furthest from the noises and the running, at the opposite end of the building.
At the end of the Little Hall was the exit, a door with large windows leading out to a concrete step and the gravel track down to the campsite. Ida could see a policeman down there, a dark, robot-like figure with white reflective bands around his lower legs. Robust. He was holding a large weapon in both hands, and it seemed as if he were moving towards the tents, away from the Café Building. People came rushing into the hall behind her, and Ida ran on into one of the group meeting rooms, the middle one of the three rooms at the back of the Little Hall.
This was where she had just been speaking with the global group. The window looked out towards the outdoor stage, the campsite and the wash house, while the woods were to the right. Shots could still be heard. Ida went to the window and looked towards the left, where she spotted the policeman again. A boy in a grey hoodie peeped out around the corner of the building. The policeman lifted his weapon and fired. Ida saw the boy being hit in the chest and collapsing right by the corner of the building. The policeman was the threat. They had to get away from him.
It looked as if the policeman was moving on towards the tents, so Ida thought about going back into the Little Hall. There were some boys with her in the meeting room. Through the window in the wall between the room and the hall outside, Ida suddenly saw people start to scream. They shouted, fell down and crowded together around the door out to the corridor leading to the café and the toilets. Shots. Panic. They wanted to get away. More firing.
Ida realized that the policeman was on his way up the concrete steps, that he was heading into the building. He shot his way in. Glass, thin plasterboard and an open door were all that stood between her and the Little Hall. She backed away. The boys had already opened the window behind her. One by one, they dropped down or jumped out. Ida climbed up onto the window ledge and leapt out.
It was about 5 metres from the window ledge down to the ground. A bluish belt of rough gravel ran around the building between the black walls and the green grass. Ida landed on the stones with her weight on her right foot. She heard a shattering sound. Her right ankle snapped, and the left was slightly fractured. Ida got up and ran off down the steep slope and in between the trees and bushes. She got out her mobile phone and called the emergency number 112, but could not get through. The twigs scratched her and she saw glimpses of other young people fleeing through the thickets. Under a spruce tree a short distance above the path, barely a hundred metres from the Café Building, she crept in among the branches. There were already several AUF members there.
Where you ran and where you hid were not choices or conscious actions. Ida felt as if she were acting on impulses, reflexes and reactions. Something could be right one moment but wrong the next. Chance, and where the sounds seemed to be coming from, determined whether it was time to flee or to stay put. She could still hear the continuous sound of shots. Ida drew her breath and tried to calm down. She was wearing dark clothes and black boots, but one of the boys under the spruce tree, one of the security guards, was wearing a reflective vest. ‘Take it off,’ said Ida.
The boy took off the vest and covered it with leaves and twigs. Other young people took off other coloured items of clothing. ‘What's going on?’ they asked each other, asked Ida or just asked thin air.
Many people were hiding in the piece of woodland behind the Café Building. Below them, the so-called Kjærlighetsstien [Love Path] wound from north to south along the steep western side of the island, with pine woods on one side and cliffs and stony beaches on the other. People wandered about between the trees, moving back and forth on the lookout for hiding places. Some people were chatting. More people came. The sound of constant shots kept coming. Ida felt that there were too many people. It did not feel safe any more.
‘I'm going,’ she said to the others, letting them decide for themselves whether they wanted to leave or stay.
Ida carried on downwards, away from the Café Building and towards the Love Path. Instead of following the more straightforward route to the right and down to the pump house, she took the path to the left and walked in the direction of the island's western tip, the area where the slope of cliffs down towards the Tyrifjord is at its wildest. On her way out towards the tip of the island, the bangs grew louder, as if they were coming closer.
Ida leapt once again and plunged down between the pine trees. She half-clambered and half-slid down the wet rocks along the side of the steep, 15-metre-high precipice. For a moment she clung on to a rotten tree trunk hanging down at an angle along the crag. Finally she tumbled down onto the stony beach. There was a clear view up towards the trees and the path. Not safe. The water was high and reached right up to the cliff face in many spots. Ida scrambled over the rock and through the water to the left until she found a large block of stone that had toppled half-way out into the water. Ida crept in under the overhang. There were many people around her. Some of them squeezed into the rock wall, while others hid below rocks or overhangs.
Ida saw a girl she knew right next to her. The two of them squeezed up close to each other beneath the rock, pulling the girl's dark green jacket over them. Ida took off her red leader's lanyard with her counsellor's card, which the organization's representatives wore on the island. It was quiet. Wet clothes, cold. The waves lapped against the stones. Ida stayed still for a long time. Shots could still be heard in the distance. She thought she heard the noise change. Different weapons. Was there more than one gunman? Ida texted her parents and her boyfriend. Why had nobody answered her emergency call? What did that mean? Did anybody know what was happening on the island? Were the police on their way? ‘It's alright,’ Ida whispered. ‘We'll be fine.’
She was speaking to the girl next to her but just as much to herself. Her right ankle ached. Across from them was a boy speaking on his mobile phone – loudly, with his mother. Ida scraped up some pieces of green moss, rolled over onto her side and threw the moss at the boy. She pointed at his phone. The boy nodded and put the phone back in his pocket. Messages came through to Ida's mobile and were logged in the inbox. She read a text from her father.
Many shots rang out from not far away. Fifteen to twenty AUF members suddenly came running along the water's edge from the right, from the direction of the pump house. Some were swimming in the water, while others scrambled between the rocks.
‘He'll shoot us in the water too,’ someone shouted. ‘He'll shoot down at us!’
They were exposed on the sides, leaving Ida visible. It was not safe. She crawled out from under the rock. Together with the other girl, Ida ran on towards the left, partly wading through the water, towards the tip of the island. Some of the AUF members started swimming straight out from the island. The shore on the other side of the fjord was 5 kilometres away and the water was cold. Ida was a swimming instructor but kept to the rocks along the shore. There was no way out through the water. Those who swam risked drowning.
At the tip of the island, the cliffs went straight into the water. Ida swam towards the promontory, heading south towards what was known as Nakenodden [Naked Point]. The cliffs rose into the air about 20 metres above her. It looked as if they stretched right up into the clouds. Some dark branches stuck out from the edge in certain spots, showing how close the path was above her on the island. A boy was drifting in the water. An AUF member from western Norway, a friend of Ida's, tried to bring him back to life, but he had no pulse. It was pointless. The shots came closer again. In the end they had to run away from the body. On the other side of the promontory, Ida ran into a girl from Swaziland, one of the members of her global group. The girl could not swim, so Ida pulled her along with her to one of the caves in the cliff face. It was half-filled with water, but about ten AUF members managed to squeeze in there, with Ida furthest out. There they were sheltered from shots coming from above, but Ida realized that at the same time they were even more exposed if they were attacked from the water.
Ida stood there with the water up to her waist. She kept on moving, trying to make sure that air came in for those behind her. Some of them wanted to go, but Ida said: ‘We're staying here.’
Out in the water she could see AUF members swimming, who would surely drown. She heard the sound of a helicopter. Since the shots were still being fired and the helicopter showed no sign of saving the AUF members in the water, it had to be on the side of the attackers. She had seen people lowering themselves down from helicopters to save lives many times on television, as well as shooting people on the ground, but this helicopter was not saving those who were drowning, nor was it stopping the shooting. It just circled around the island, making it difficult to hear where the shots were coming from.
If the attackers had a helicopter, Ida thought, then they were certain to have a boat. Did they stand a chance if the attackers came around the island with a boat? Not from were they were standing now. ‘It'll soon be over,’ Ida said.
A stone came tumbling down, falling into the water outside the cave. Was somebody abseiling down the cliff? Then a boat appeared in the water. It came towards the island, with a man and a woman on board. Shots could be heard again. They came from close by, from just above Ida. There were two or three shots, then the boat made a sharp turn and disappeared.
It dawned on Ida that someone was trying to save them. They were not all on the side of the policeman with his gun. Since the boat had been shot at, however, there was little chance that it would come back. That was it. No way out. Ida was bruised and bleeding from having fallen. Her right ankle was broken, but she had run and climbed with it. Her left ankle was fractured and her neck hurt. She had no boots or jumper and was up to her waist in cold water, in a sleeveless dress with her tights torn and full of holes. ‘It's alright,’ she said. ‘It'll soon be over now.’
But a boat was coming after all, from the north. It was picking up people in the water further out. Then the boat steered with its bow heading straight towards the cave. It was already packed with many AUF members. Ida recognized several of the faces in the boat. She was standing furthest out of the cave. When necessary, your body does what it has to: Ida waded one step out, grabbed onto the black gunwale and pulled herself up into the boat. She noticed that the boat immediately started drifting back out into the water. ‘Get the others!’ she screamed. ‘There's a girl from Swaziland; she can't speak Norwegian!’
A woman with short dark hair answered calmly: ‘He's been caught. It's safe now.’ She explained that the boat could not take any more, but that others were coming. ‘I promise we'll go straight back to the cave to get the rest,’ she said, ‘as soon as we've dropped you off at the jetty.’ Her tone made Ida feel calmer.
Ida crawled slowly aft and slid down into the boat. She was in shock. No sound, and she could not open her mouth. Ida could not hear, she could not speak and she could not see. As soon as the boat driver's confident voice took over control, she collapsed and passed out cold.
Arshad Mubarak Ali
‘Idiots,’ thought Arshad. Fireworks? It had to be a bad joke. The sounds came from near the main door to the Café Building, and a crowd of people squeezed down through the corridor towards the Little Hall and the exit towards the campsite. Arshad followed the stream of people. He was in his stocking feet. He was dragged along almost against his will towards the Little Hall, as one of the last in the crowd. He stopped by the door and peered inside. Prableen vanished into one of the rooms at the back of the Little Hall. It was already full of people in there, packed.
Then the people suddenly began to rush back, away from the glass door and the exit. A man went past on the path outside, heading towards the outdoor stage. Blond hair and a police uniform. His face and torso were turned back. He shot at the Café Building with a pistol. Arshad froze. He was standing at the right-hand side of the door leading in from the corridor to the Little Hall. A dark-haired boy stood on the other side of the door. They were like sentries on each side. Arshad saw the policeman staring towards the Main Hall. Then he shot again.
Arshad took a step back. He was about to turn and run further up the corridor. In the split-second he was facing the dark-haired boy, Arshad saw him being hit. The boy fell down to the floor and shouted out. He must have been shot through the wall. Unlike Arshad, he could not see the policeman. Instead of escaping up through the corridor, Arshad vanished through the door to the left, which led into the washroom and the toilet area. The cubicles were already full, so Arshad squeezed in behind the wall together with another AUF member. He was not visible from the corridor, but if anybody stuck their head in, Arshad would be the first they would see. The sound of gunfire kept coming, shot after shot.
The boy who had been hit was in the corridor 1 metre away, on the other side of the plasterboard wall. He was calling for help, moaning. Arshad heard calm footsteps coming to a halt.
‘I can't breathe,’ the boy said. ‘Please help me!’
Then there were three or four shots. The sound was so fierce that Arshad instinctively put his hands over his ears. The corridor fell silent, and the boy was not speaking any more. Arshad prayed. He knew that he was going to die. His life was over. Parents, friends … What an idiotic choice: the toilets were the most dangerous place of all. But then the calm footsteps continued, became fainter and disappeared. Where was he going? His awareness of imminent death vanished and was replaced by uncertainty. Shots could still be heard, but further away. A boy from Arshad's delegation opened a cubicle door. ‘He's gone; we can run away,’ he said.
Arshad gestured that he should go back inside. The boy came out anyway.
‘No,’ said Arshad. ‘We've got to stay here.’
The boy disappeared into the corridor. Arshad called after him a few times, but the boy did not come back. Arshad and the AUF member next to him went into the cubicle instead. When Arshad went to close the door, he saw the body in the corridor. The dark-haired boy was sixteen years old.
‘This can't be happening,’ said Arshad.
The other AUF member shut the door but did not lock it. From now on, their world was made up of four tight walls, a hard floor, a toilet bowl and the sounds from outside. Arshad sank down to the floor, holding on tight to the hand of the other AUF survivor. They sat packed like sardines. The sound of creaking and whispering could be heard from the other cubicles, where other people were hidden. A sudden noise startled them. Who was outside? What was happening?
‘I love you ma,’ Arshad texted in English. ‘There is a gun attack here. Some people are shot. I don't know what's happening.’ It was not cold in the cubicle any more but clammy. Was he alive or was he dead? He was caught like Schrödinger's cat in a box. Neither living nor dead. What if the policeman set fire to the building? It would have been better to be down by the water. There were so many things he would miss out on, so many things he wanted to do in life. Arshad concentrated on keeping a cool head. Someone came running along the corridor. The footsteps came closer. They came into the toilets. Someone touched the door, which was not locked. Arshad prepared to die.
The other AUF member opened the door cautiously, and a girl squeezed in. She had been hiding by the tents. When the policeman went there, she had run towards the Café Building. He had shot at her, she said, but had not hit her. It fell silent. What if he followed her into the building? Would he find them this time? Time passed slowly, very slowly. While the other two whispered, Arshad stared at the floor. There was nothing to say, nothing to talk about. If they survived, they could talk afterwards. The three of them held one another's hands and checked the time on their mobile phones. Arshad texted his VG journalist friend. They had exchanged roles. Now it was the journalist who was worried. The dead boy's mobile phone kept on ringing. What was it like to lose someone? The people calling him would find out. Perhaps Arshad's own parents would too. Elsewhere in the building, he heard the shouts and moans of the wounded. Arshad had reconciled himself to death.
Thoughts raged through his mind in pieces, incomplete and fragmented. One year ago, he had sat by an aunt's deathbed reading the Koran to her as she died. That was in Sri Lanka. Now it was his turn, but there was nobody to read to him. He kept hearing shots, but they were still some distance away. Shrieks of pain could be heard in the Café Building. Not everybody had died yet. You cannot choose where you will meet your death: death could find you in your bed, at the cinema, or in a toilet cubicle. There were footsteps in the corridor.
‘Police!’ somebody shouted.
The perpetrator was a policeman, in uniform. The three of them stayed still and kept the door shut, but they heard other doors opening outside. People cautiously came out of the cubicles. Eventually, Arshad and the other two also went out.
Arshad immediately saw the glowing red eyes of laser sights in the corridor. The red dots drifted over them and carried on searching through the room with its five cubicles and sinks on the opposite side.
‘Stop! Put your hands on your head!’ a voice shouted in Stavanger dialect. ‘Come slowly towards us. Who are you?’
Arshad was searched. He was allowed to sit down but had to keep his hands on his head. There were others sitting on the floor, and the police asked those who knew first aid to help the wounded.
Arshad managed to call home and tell them that he was unharmed. He phoned his brother. The wounded were eventually stretchered out of the Main Hall and the Little Hall. The bodies of the dead were just left there. There were large pools of blood outside the toilets, a chaos of muddy shoes at the top of the corridor in front of the door. What about Prableen? He had last seen her in one of the rooms at the end of the Little Hall. There were many dead there. Somebody checked Facebook on their mobile phone and called out the names of AUF members who were safe. Prableen's name was mentioned.
The police ordered everyone to get up and marched the survivors in single file down to the ferry to be evacuated. Arshad had no shoes on. He felt the gravel under his feet and soon got wet. His last impressions from Utøya were a body on the ground and several more dead bodies by the pier. As they got onto the ferry, they were told that they could take their hands off their heads. Arshad dropped his arms. The ferry backed out from the pier and turned its prow to the north, towards the mainland.
Stine Renate Håheim
Stine Renate Håheim stood among the crowd in the Little Hall, trying to calm down one of the unnerved youngsters. The girl had come running in from the yard outside. Her eyes were like black holes, and she was trying to say something. She was hyperventilating and repeated the same sentence: ‘Bullet holes in the wall, bullet holes in the wall!’
‘Calm down,’ said Stine. ‘Breathe calmly, take deep breaths.’
Stine had been caught up in the panic as people ran from the café to the Little Hall. She realized that the girl had seen something, but she was still most concerned with calming people down. Stine took hold of her, clutching her by the shoulders.
Then there was suddenly a bang right outside the door from the concrete steps a few metres away, and the room filled with screams and scrambling arms and legs. It was a shot. There was no doubt about it. Stine flung herself back through the door and into the corridor together with the others. She followed the surge of people past the toilets, up the corridor and into the narrow passageway leading from the main corridor to the dining hall. The AUF members in there were packed like sardines in a tin. Stine came to a halt. People pushed her.
‘Somebody's shooting,’ a boy shouted. ‘Keep your heads down. Stay away from the windows; get down on the floor!’
He locked the door at the end of the corridor to stop anybody getting in that way. People lay down, some obeying the voice that had just been shouting, while others scrambled over each other in panic. Stine was carried along by the stream of people squeezing out of the dark corridor towards the light of the café, and she ended up back in the dining hall. Some people jumped out of the windows, but Stine had bad knees that were easily dislocated. The drop down outside the windows was too far on the western and northern sides. She needed her knees intact. There was a long queue to get through the door out to the yard. Stine thought about throwing a chair through one of the side windows so that she could climb out where it was not so far to the ground, but she dismissed the idea. It was a bit too drastic, in spite of everything. Instead she stood in the queue and waited her turn.
As soon as she was out of the door, Stine saw a crowd of young people running down into the woods to the side of the white tent at the northern end of the yard. Stine followed as quickly as she could. She did not want to be alone. The ground between the trees was wet, slippery and steep. While Stine jumped over roots and rocks, slipping and falling on her way down towards the shore, her mobile phone rang. She stared at the number. It was her father. ‘I'm so glad that you're on Utøya,’ he said. ‘Have you heard about what's happening in Oslo?’
‘Dad, it's come here,’ Stine answered breathlessly. ‘There's somebody shooting here!’
‘OK,’ her father said. ‘But have you heard what's happening in Oslo?’ It eventually dawned on her father that she was serious. He promised to call the police. ‘You've got to hide, Stine!’ he said.
‘Good idea, Dad,’ Stine grunted. ‘Great advice.’
She laughed. Together with a number of other AUF members, Stine ended up on some cliffs by the shore between the pump house and the small cove named Bolsjevika [Bolshevik Cove]. What had really happened? What had people seen? Nobody really knew. To begin with, Stine thought that somebody could have come out to the island to take revenge for what had happened in Oslo. Then she thought that it could be a madman who had been triggered by the bombing in Oslo and started firing wild shots up by the Café Building. Something random, frenzied and sudden. It would probably soon be over, whatever it was that was really happening.
Out on the water they saw the MS Thorbjørn vanish towards the north and towards land. Was it over? Had he left? Silence fell for a while. Was it finished? Then there was more shooting, this time nearby, from the trees behind the cove at Bolsjevika. A boy from Lebanon, a member of Ida Spjelkavik's global group, gesticulated towards them and said they had to get away. Stine thought that if anybody could give real advice today, it had to be him. He was from the Middle East. They ran south, stumbling in panic on the steep rocks by the water's edge. They eventually reached a stony beach 30 or 40 metres below the pump house. There were many people there, down on the beach, by the pump house and further on along the rocks.
Some of them sitting there had swum out but turned back to the island. They were cold and exhausted. Stine gave her jumper to one of them and tried to warm up another by holding and rubbing her. Stine did not sit still; she did not try to find her bearings in terms of where she was or where the shooting was, focusing instead on those around her. Stine tried to comfort them, talking and talking … Eventually she sat down on a rock and started texting for dear life. She wanted to tell the world what was happening: ‘There's shooting here,’ she wrote. Gunfire. Somebody shouted up by the pump house.
‘The police are here! We're safe.’
Stine put her arms round one of the boys there. Finally. For a couple of seconds she thought it was over. Then came more shots.
A man came out of the trees along the path with his weapon raised, walking down towards the pump house. He shot the young people in front of him quite coolly and calmly. It dawned on Stine that this was not a hasty act of revenge or the sudden whim of a madman. This man dressed in black was walking round the island systematically in order to kill. What they saw was hate coming towards them. He wanted to take them all, to kill them all. There were some young people sitting completely still by the pump house. Perhaps they were in shock, or resigned. The policeman went over and shot them down, calmly and systematically.
Stine jumped, turned and raced back over the rocks towards the cove at Bolsjevika. The others were in front of her and around her. The shore was made up of rocks, cliffs and overhangs. It was impossible to get through, but Stine made her way through anyway. She fell and slid but scrambled her way along. Hard rocks, sharp edges, slippery and black with rain. Stine fell in the water and had no energy left. She was breathless. ‘I should've done more exercise,’ she thought. She had no more strength left but was on open ground, visible from the dark woodland. After a couple of seconds, she carried on, pulling her way forward across the rocks in the water, swimming, crawling and wading in turn. Eventually Stine was at the cliffs at the end of Bolsjevika.
Most of the group she had met by the shore to start with after having escaped the café were still there. They could see the boats coming out on the fjord. After a brief deliberation, they decided to swim straight out and away from the island. Stine was just wearing a summer dress and swam out quickly. The cold water calmed her. After a while, she turned round and trod water. There was no sign of the perpetrator in the woods. Some of the AUF members around her were wearing clothes and shoes. ‘Take them off,’ Stine ordered them. ‘Get off your shoes and boots. They're slowing you down.’
The group stayed together as they headed out, swimming as hard as they could. The boy from Lebanon had already been picked up by a boat. He shouted at Stine, who immediately splashed off towards the boat, swimming for all she was worth. She reached the boat, took hold of the side, and that was it. All her strength left her. Stine clung on to the boat, suddenly indifferent, like an extinguished bonfire. It took a long time to manoeuvre her in over the rail. Her feet were just a mass of cuts, with deep wounds under the soles. She apologized profusely for all the blood in the boat and thanked the boat driver politely for the lift as she limped ashore at the pier by the camping ground at Utvika.
She realized that there was a system in place at the campsite. The kind strangers were all working together, making one big effort. Some people gave her a jacket and some words of comfort, others organized onward transport to the hospital for the injured and to Sundvolden Hotel for the rest. Some people lent their mobile phones while others went back out onto the fjord in boats. A great and deep sense of emotion emerged as Stine was escorted through the efficient campsite and up towards a waiting car.
Anzor Djoukaev
Disco or no disco, keeping neat on Utøya was still important and yet a real challenge too. Mud, rain and long queues for the shower: Utøya was an eternal struggle against body odour, dirty trousers and wet shoes. Anzor was on the way to his tent to change his socks. There was a loud bang behind him. When you are in a daze of sleeplessness, things happen in glimpses and fragments. Sounds are like echoes. Another bang. Anzor was standing in the yard. He turned round and looked down towards the main building. More loud noises rang out. People ran on the gravel track and fell. Perhaps three or four youngsters fell to the ground. Shots? Anzor caught sight of a dark figure. The man had his weapon raised and was aiming at Anzor.
Anzor ran – away from the gravel, across the grass and in among the trees. He heard shots fly by, ricocheting off the branches and trunks above him, and rustling among the leaves and twigs. Bullets struck the trees. He ran on, turned round, and went to the right through the trees, past the tents and all the way to the western end of the island. On the edge of the cliff he thought about everybody who had called their families to ask if they were alright after the bomb. Now their families would have to call them back … He thought of the sins he had committed, and that now he would meet God. Anzor was not afraid of pain or of dying, but he was thinking about the moment after he had been shot dead – being held to account for his actions. He regretted things that had happened and pictured them in his mind: never again. Why could he never learn? Ever since he was little, he had been taking beatings. Still he had not learnt anything. Was it the same for other people, or just for him? Disgrace. Perhaps this was just what it was like being human. Struggling to learn, struggling to understand, struggling with language.
When he was a child, he had seen war. The towns in Chechnya were bombed, and many people died in Tsotsi-Yurt, the village where he grew up. Many of the young men went to war; few came back. Anzor's family survived, but the cemetery in his village looked like a pin cushion: the stakes marking the graves of the martyrs who had fallen in Gazavat, the holy war against Russia, were closely packed in the green grass. There was peace in Chechnya now. There were no longer any Russian soldiers in the village, and it was warm and peaceful when Anzor was in Tsotsi-Yurt on his summer holiday the week before he came to Utøya. The electricity had come back long ago, while the tanks and checkpoints had gone. But the stakes on the martyrs’ graves told a story to everyone who passed the cemetery on the edge of Tsotsi-Yurt.
Shots could be heard further away. Violence is a language all people understand. Anzor used it too if he needed it. If warnings did not work, then in the end you had to strike. Even if you could not speak the language, if you lashed out, people knew where you stood. They knew what you meant. Then they would not mess with you. Still, it was as if he was unable to stop making the wrong decisions, in spite of all the beatings he had been given. And now he would have to answer for it, now he was going to die …
Utøya is shaped like a heraldic shield, and its tip is like an eagle's nest above steep cliffs. One of Anzor's friends appeared next to him: a tall, blond boy of the same age. There was gunfire on the island, single shots and salvos. A body lay next to them. The light-haired boy wanted to get away; he could not stand the sight of the dead body. The two seventeen-year-olds crept back in between the trees, from the edge of the cliffs, through the pine woods to the broad-leaved trees at the edge of the campsite.
‘Over here,’ said Anzor, ‘come on!’ He had found a hiding place and bent down to crawl into the narrow crevice. They lay there in the darkness underneath the wash house, between the wooden floorboards and the moist earth. It was so tight that Anzor was only barely able to turn over onto his side, and there was no other way out than the crack through which they had crawled in. Outside, Anzor could just see grass, parts of tents and the legs of a girl lying completely still. She was dead. If anybody came after them, there was nowhere to go. The shooting subsided now and then. Was he looking for them? Anzor could not see the sky. Thunder could be heard in the distance, as well as the water dripping off the trees and the rain slowly draining off the woodwork. Now and then the wind whispered through the trees.
A long silence. Most of the others were probably dead. Were they the only ones left alive? The boys filmed with their mobile phones. They filmed and whispered, ‘We're the last survivors on Utøya.’
‘We can hear shots all over the place,’ his friend whispered. ‘I'm afraid of everything.’
Anzor took the mobile again. ‘Are you glad to be alive, man?’ he asked, gasping with laughter.
They had seen the police come, legs running past wearing uniform, and had not heard any shots for a while. They were hesitant because the man who had been shooting was a policeman. But eventually the boys crawled out. The police were there in an instant.
‘Hands up!’
They were searched and escorted to a room in the Café Building. Once inside they were allowed to lower their arms and sit down. What is the right reaction, the right answer, when you crawl out from your hiding place convinced that everybody is dead and afraid that the shooting might start again? Anzor was far away; it was as if the island had vanished into the distance. The policemen stared at Anzor. Eventually they handcuffed him.
He stayed sitting with the group of young people in the Café Building together with his friend from Hamar. On the floor between them lay a girl who had been shot in the back. She lay on her side and was stable but unable to breathe. Her face was blue. She said that she could not breathe and that she was dying. A policeman asked for a volunteer to carry her out into the car. Anzor's friend volunteered. While the policeman took hold of her upper body, the friend clutched her legs. When they lifted her up, she moaned one last time. She died on the way out to the vehicle.
While the other AUF members were evacuated to Sundvolden Hotel, Anzor was questioned on the island into the evening. The police asked him why he had socks in his pocket. ‘Are you nuts?’ Anzor asked. ‘Do you think I've got something to do with this?’
Norwegian police at their best, Anzor thought to himself. Late that evening, he arrived at Hønefoss Police Station. They took his things and gave him a painter's overalls. ‘That's all we've got,’ the hefty policewoman explained.
Anzor ended up in a small cell with half the floor covered by a yellow mattress. He lay down and went out like a light. A skinny young jail-bird. He was only released the following morning. The policemen had asked him who he was, but none of them called his mother to inform her that he was alive at any point during the seventeen hours he was in custody.