Free Life and Limb by Elsebeth Egholm

atmosphere with that of a religious ceremony – not that he had any kind of personal faith; he had rejected religion in favour of science long ago. But still he welcomed the notion of the ritual, of holding something sacred, and in his world this was the Holy Grail: fresh, healthy organs which could save the lives of six people.
    As always, the number of people present in the operating theatre seemed extreme, but the fifteen masked figures knew how to move around one another with purpose.
    Right now, however, they were waiting. They were waiting for him. The kidney surgeon always started, and he was also the one to close up when everyone else had taken what they came for.
    Kempinski received the go-ahead from the theatre nurse and went to work with the utmost care. He exposed all the organs. Then he clamped the aorta and the man’s heart stopped. It was not until then that the respirator was switched off. He made way for the thoracic surgeon, Dr Ture Hansson, who had travelled from Oslo to collect the heart. Hansson worked fast and efficiently. The term ‘hands of a surgeon’ were truly apt here: long and elegant and possessing remarkable precision, they removed the man’s heart – albeit with a modicum of swearing and cursing. With an irascible temperament, Hansson lived up to the stereotype of thoracic surgeons.
    The time constraints, however, were daunting – within four hours this heart would hopefully be beating in another man’s chest.
    From then on it was like a military operation in which everyone knew his or her roles. The lungs were removed, followed by the liver. One by one the surgeons disappeared with their pickings. In the end only Kempinski and his colleague, Torben Smidt, remained together with the two nurses who had attended from Skejby Hospital.
    Few words were spoken and they were often monosyllables. This was not the place for banter or bad jokes. Words such as ‘clamps’ and ‘suture’ and ‘scalpel’ received the most hits. ‘Thanks’ was also heard frequently.
    When he finally held a kidney in his hand Kempinski rinsed off the blood and placed it in a small box in which a constant temperature of five degrees Celsius ensured that the organ would stay fresh for up to thirty-six hours before it was inserted into another human being.
    Kempinski looked at Smidt, who had removed the second kidney. They nodded to each other and then Smidt left, with both organs boxed up, for Skejby Hospital.
    Kempinski closed the man’s chest, assisted by the theatre nurse. Unlike his appearance at the start of the operation a few hours earlier, the man on the operating table no longer looked alive.
    When Kempinski left the operating theatre shortly afterwards it was with a feeling of satisfaction. Everything had gone without a hitch. The organ donor’s blood would now be crossmatched with that of the recipient. If all went well, he would be able to use one of the kidneys tomorrow.
    This job was his life. This place was where he felt alive. He got a buzz from the adrenaline pumping around his body.
    In the car on his way to Skejby Hospital he happened – quite unfairly – to compare the highlights of his work with that morning’s sexual exploits.The woman who was currently granted access to his bed was named Annelise, and he decided then and there that they had been together for the last time. It wasn’t her fault; it was his. His capacity for passion appeared to be exhausted by surgery and he had long since abandoned hopes of a great romantic encounter with ‘the one’. He had his work and, at regular intervals, he would take a mistress who didn’t demand too much of him. Surely he could be content with that?
    He walked down the corridor to his office and pushed open the door, unprepared for resistance. The woman was standing right behind it. She was holding a stack of files in her arms and when he collided with her the files