“That’s incorrect.”
“Is it also incorrect that you’re going to play ‘bad cop’ at the meeting when we discuss the course revision? Is it also incorrect that Frank is going to play ‘good cop’?”
“Listen—”
“I think you’re the one who should be listening to me now.”
She leaned over her desk, took off her glasses, and looked me right in the eyes.
“How are things going on the home front?”
“Good, I—”
“You went to see the doctor about your dizzy spell?”
“Yes, I—”
“I’ve heard you’re trying to sell your house. Is it not selling?”
“No, but—”
“We couldn’t sell ours when we tried, either, the one on Lysegata. It was on the market for six months. I thought I was going to lose my mind. We lost an unbelievable amount of money on that, but we got back on our feet again.”
“It’s really hard,” I admitted. “And I—”
“My point, Ingrid, is that you can’t take out hostility you’re feeling—at the housing market or real estate agents or nonexistent home buyers—on your coworkers here. Documents like this”—she waved Peter’s piece of paper around—“aren’t constructive. The course revision is being imposed on us by the college. It’s not my place or your place or the place of any of the others in the department to agitate.”
I tried to get a word in edgewise, but she just brushed me aside.
“Cooperation, Ingrid, is the key. Not activities that undermine this institution.”
“No,” I said tiredly. “No, I do understand that.”
“And Ingvill as ‘hard-liner’? What were you thinking? She can’t stay focused for five minutes! And Peter as ‘leader’? Honestly.”
She laughed heartily and slowly ripped the piece of paper into little pieces.
“I think we’ll just forget this whole business,” she continued, “put it behind us. I won’t bring it up with the dean. You’re selling your house, you’re tired. It’s understandable. But this is unacceptable.”
“I’ll—”
“You’ll take over the local coordination work for the revision.”
“Me? But that’s the faculty coordinator’s job.”
“The faculty coordinator has enough to do. Anna has three kids and a husband who works in the private sector. We can’t saddle her with this. I’ll make sure you get the notes she’s taken so far. This is a time-consuming process with a ton of meetings and possibly some overtime. But not paid overtime. You should be prepared for that. Teamwork, Ingrid. Maybe it’s time you learn a little about that.”
“But I have three kids, too. And a husband who works around the clock. In the private sector. It’s not feasible for me to put in overtime. Especially now that we’re in the middle of selling the house. The house we bought cost—”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before, Ms. Bad Cop. And then maybe you should have . . . um, what was that again . . . ?”
She started flipping through her notebook.
“Maybe you should have ‘mindfucked’ your students a little less.”
“What?”
“There have been complaints. The students claim that you’re messing around with their heads, confusing them, not imparting the reading-list material in an intelligible manner, and spending all your time on movies and pop culture.”
“I was teaching Lacan. And Henry James. It’s complicated material. We were using The Matrix as an example.”
“No need to get into the details. Just stick to the syllabus. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I wanted to say something more, but didn’t really know what, so I pushed the chair back, got up, left the room, and started the trek back to my own office while trying to pin down the crux of what had just happened.
My cell phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Tjenare,” a monotone voice greeted me in Swedish. “I’m calling for Anne Undheim.”
“Who?”
“She gave me a phone number that doesn’t seem to be correct. I met her at your home address. This is about the property at 32 Pine Lane. We had agreed that she was going to buy an alarm system, but I haven’t been able to reach her.”
My heart was pounding hard in my chest, and I realized I had to lie. Again.
“Oh, Anne Undheim, yes,” I said. “She doesn’t live there. She was only there to clean.”
“Are you the home owner?”
“Yes, but we don’t want an alarm system. The house actually sold. We’re moving tomorrow.”
“Do you know what happens when someone breaks into a home—”
“I’m just heading into a tunnel,” I interrupted. “So I can’t quite hear—”
I hung up. Two seconds later he called back, but I rejected the call and then turned off my phone.
A little butterfly-like sense of mastery fluttered in my chest for a second before I spotted Peter’s back disappearing around a corner farther down the hallway.
“Peter!” I yelled. “Peter, wait!”
Any idiot could see that he sped up, but it didn’t matter, because I soon caught up with him.
“Peter,” I said, taking him by the arm. “I know you heard me, you Judas. You need to tell the chair that I wasn’t the one who wrote up the good cop/bad cop plan.”
“Why?”
“Because she thinks I’m planning a coup, that’s why!”
“Ah,” Peter exclaimed, beaming, “that’s perfect!”
“No, that is not perfect! Because now I have to take over coordinating the course revision, and that means a ton of extra work and meetings and stuff I don’t have time for! Plus, I’m already in trouble because of the awful job I did as faculty coordinator. Not to mention mindfucking my students.”
“I don’t know anything about the mindfucking, but I thought you were great as the faculty coordinator.”
“You’re the only one, then.”
“Well, to be honest, it’s good she thinks you’re the one behind it, because then I can proceed undisturbed. That’s why we leaked your name.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was Ingvill’s idea. She can be quite brilliant.”
“Ingvill,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Do you realize what you’ve done? This was surely Ingvill’s plan all along. Now I’m the fall guy. You see? Just like I said!”
“Oh, you’re exaggerating. After all, you were the faculty coordinator until just recently. You know the administration, and they know you. You’re safe. If anyone from here is going to be exiled to the preschool-education program, it’s not you.”
“But they thought I was a bad faculty coordinator,” I hissed.
He smiled and patted my shoulder. I sighed heavily.
“Fine, I won’t say anything. But could you please knock it off with the hard-liner plans? I’ll do my best to secure our interests. And I’ll try to make sure no one gets sent to the preschool program, no one other than Ingvill. What do you say?”
“We’ll see,” Peter responded evasively. “We’ll see.”
“Promise me!” I called after him, but he just raised his hand as a kind of good-bye.
On my way out of the office, I saw that the chair had called. But I had no intention of calling her back.
16
Unfortunately there was already another course revision meeting the following day. The administration was meeting with the chair, a representative from the applied pedagogy program, and the ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance officer. Frank immediately sidled up to the latter and tried to talk his way into getting an adjustable-height desk.
“That’s not why we’re here, Frank,” the chair said.
“As the ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance officer, I’m always on duty,” the officer objected, thoughtfully twisting his mustache.
“Exactly,�
�� said Frank, lowering one shoulder and stretching his back so they could tell how much he was suffering from not being able to raise the height of his desk. “The university needs to take care of its employees’ needs when they arise.”
“I want one of those adjustable-height desks, too,” Ingvill demanded.
She was wearing her hair up with a bunch of flower-covered hair clips and looked even crazier than usual, sort of a hybrid between a six-year-old and a sixty-year-old, like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? or like tropical-fruit salad in human form.
“What are you talking about?” the chair protested. “You already have one, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You got one of those desks when you started going to physiotherapy two years ago. I remember quite clearly, because we set it up the day before I left on my maternity leave.”
Ingvill looked confused, and I wondered if this might be one of her hard-liner tactics, dragging the process out no matter what, even if it made her seem crazy.
The ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance guy was rummaging around in a stack of paperwork, and I took that opportunity to make eye contact with Peter. I raised my eyebrows to check if we were still following the game plan or if we were abandoning it, but he just gestured that he had no idea what my eyebrows were trying to say.
“Well, at any rate that’s not the subject of today’s meeting,” the chair said. “So . . .”
The ergonomics guy cleared his throat and raised two fingers to indicate he wanted to say something.
“You’re right,” he confirmed. “Ingvill already has an adjustable-height desk.”
Then Frank exploded.
“I can’t believe she got an adjustable-height desk when I have a very obvious back injury as a result of—”
“Fine,” the chair said. “Fine, fine, fine. We’ll send you to occupational health and then we’ll take it from there. Good?”
Frank raised his hands to show that in a pinch this course of action could be considered “passable,” but that there was no way it could be characterized as “good.”
“Good,” the chair said. “Then let’s get down to business. The reason we’re here is to discuss the course revision, and perhaps Ingrid could tell us a little about how the work is coming.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I didn’t have much of a chance to prepare, but I have reviewed all our course offerings and at a minimum I can say that we’re going to have to cut out two undergraduate courses. So, I suggest we get rid of Lexicology with Didactics. That class has been unpopular with students for a long time, and the material could easily be integrated elsewhere. As for the second class, I suggest World Lit. It’s popular, but we can’t get rid of any of the other literature classes. This is the only class we have that’s not introductory.”
I looked around the table for nods of approval or smiles. As far as I could tell, this solution was a little stroke of genius, since it didn’t result in any redundancies or across-the-board modifications.
But the meeting table was surrounded by poker faces.
The chair was poking intently at her iPad and hardly seemed to have heard what I said. The only one who nodded was the ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance officer, but since he was staring straight at the wall, it seemed more like he was having some kind of attack.
I was opening my mouth to add a comment about how great my suggestion was and at the same time introduce the plans for the graduate level, when a note was plunked down hard in front of me. It said, “BAD COP!!!” I glanced up and found Ingvill, Frank, and Peter all glaring at me. Peter even started nodding his head demonstratively toward the administration.
I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered. “No!”
All three nodded vigorously, and Ingvill made some motion with her hand that clearly depicted decapitation. Was she threatening my life?
“Was there anything else, Ingrid?” wondered the chair.
“No, I . . .”
I had thought out what I was going to say. I was going to present my whole solution and explain how it ensured full workloads for everyone in the department while at the same time benefiting the students, but I couldn’t stop looking at Ingvill, who had proceeded to plunge an imaginary knife into her stomach while pointing at me.
My phone also started vibrating on the table in front of me right then, and when I glanced at the display, I saw that it was the Swedish serial killer.
I gulped and glanced down at the sheet of paper where I had meticulously written out all the details about how we could do this efficiently and without costs. Then I took a deep breath.
“I want one of those adjustable-height desks, too,” I said.
“What?”
“Yeah, if everyone else is getting one, I want one, too, one of those adjustable-height desks. I’ve been having some back pain, you see. Quite a bit of back pain, actually.”
The chair of the department pushed her chair back, regarding me with a look that was at least as stony as the ones I’d received from the rest of my colleagues a few seconds earlier.
“So you want a special desk,” she repeated slowly.
“Yup.”
“How about a special chair, then? Would you like one of those?”
I cleared my throat inaudibly.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Maybe so.”
“One of those chairs with no back support?”
Her eyes were narrow and confrontational. Out of the corner of my eye, I could just barely see Ingvill smiling triumphantly in the background.
“Dunno,” I said quietly and then gulped.
“I want a chair,” Peter interjected. “One of those special chairs.”
“Me, too,” Frank chimed in.
“Me, three,” Ingvill said before adding, “well, another one.”
A complete silence fell over the room. The chair jotted something down on a piece of paper before raising her head and giving me a look. It was a look that said I was about five minutes away from being reassigned to the preschool-teacher education program and the only thing that could save me now was a complete course reversal.
Teamwork, I thought to myself, teamwork.
I don’t remember much of what happened after that, but I’m quite sure I was the one who started pounding my fist on the table. Up and down my fists moved, first softly and then harder and harder. Eventually I started chanting, first quietly and then louder and louder.
“Desk, desk, desk, desk, desk, DESK, DESK, DESK.”
Everyone joined in. Louder and louder we repeated our demand until the word desk lost its meaning and was transformed into an absurd demand that surged through the room in protest and anger.
“DESK, DESK, DESK, DESK!”
“FINE!”
The chair stood up and leaned over the table, assessing us with a dragon-like expression that was actually quite scary.
“Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re up to. But I can play that game, too. This meeting is adjourned. I’ll call another one, and next time the dean will be here, too. Maybe even the university president.”
“The university president?” Ingvill said meekly.
“That’s right. And you know how he feels about this department and the subjects you all teach. He’s no fan. Let’s just put it that way.”
“Is including him really necessary?” Peter asked hoarsely.
“It is,” the chair said. “It is.”
We all got up, but the chair didn’t move. She stood there, leaning over the table.
“Ingrid, stick around for a minute,” she instructed without looking at me.
I desperately tried to catch Peter’s eye, but as usual all I saw was his back as he hightailed it out of the room.
Meanwhile, the chair indicated that I should take a seat closer to her, then sat down and studied my face.
“I am particularly disappointed in you, Ingrid,” she finally said. “And I think now
would be a good time for you to stop and reflect, really stop and reflect. Thoroughly. Give a little thought to how you want to spend the next twenty years and what you want to be doing. Research? Or teaching ‘Old MacDonald’ on the guitar? It’s your call. Luckily there’s a place where you can take some time to reflect.”
“There is?”
She nodded slowly.
“Uh, where?”
“Russia.”
“Russia?”
“We’re trying to reach a cooperative agreement with Saint Petersburg State University. I’m sure you’ve been following that.”
“I—”
“As I’m sure you know, the university’s motto is innovation. But we also support internationalization, and especially with an eye to the east. So we’re sending a delegation to spend a week at the state university.”
“But the delegation has already been selected, right? I thought Frank—”
“That’s right: Frank, Ingvill, and Peter. Three people. The Russians prefer three-person delegations. They don’t like two. And certainly not four.”
“But there are already three people going, right?”
“But it’s two men and one woman. That’s no good.”
“The Russians don’t like men?”
“They like men, but we don’t. Two men and one woman doesn’t look good. It sends mixed signals about where we stand on gender-equality issues. That’s why I’ve decided Frank will stay home. You’re taking his place.”
“But I’m going to a conference in a month, and—”
“And next week you’re going to Russia.”
She looked at me over her reading glasses.
“In Russia they don’t look lightly on things like ‘mindfucking’ or this whole ‘bad-cop’ mentality. Nor do they have adjustable-height desks or special chairs. So, I want you to go there and do a little reflecting, give a little thought to what I want. And what I want right now is good feedback about networking progress, synergistic internationalization, and bilateral cooperation. You got it?”
“Got it. But I—”
“Good. That will be all.”
In my head I tried to figure out if there was any way at all to get out of this, but it was like I was having an out-of-body experience. As if the desk demand had created a chasm inside me that couldn’t be crossed, by myself or anyone else. So I stood up and took a few steps toward the door.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) Page 9