The Room

by Jonas Karlsson

  There was a full-length mirror in the room. I caught sight of myself in it and fancied, to my surprise, that I looked really good. My grey suit fitted better than I thought, and there was something about the way the fabric hung that made me think that the body beneath it was – how can I put it? – virile.

  I stood there for a long while, resting my weight on one leg, with my elbow on the filing cabinet. It was a good stance. It looked incredibly relaxed. Simultaneously confident and aware.

  I had never thought of myself as ‘attractive’. Most of the time I used mirrors to check that my clothes and accessories were in the right place. Not to check how ‘attractive’ I was. The idea had never occurred to me. I never actually thought about men as being either more or less attractive. But I realised it was time to start doing so.

  Because the best thing was the look in the eyes.

  The man reflected in the mirror had a remarkable look of concentration in his eyes. He fixed me squarely with his pupils and followed me wherever I went. I realised at once that this was a new asset, a pair of eyes that could demand anything. And get it.

  8

  Inhibited people don’t see the world the way it really is. They only see what they themselves want to see. They don’t see the nuances. The little differences.

  A lot of people – more than you’d imagine – think everything’s fine. They’re happy with things the way they are. They don’t see the faults because they’re too lazy to allow themselves to have their everyday routines disturbed. They think that as long as they do their best, everything will work out okay.

  You have to remind them. You have to show people like that what their shortcomings are.

  Fresh documents kept arriving from the investigators. The numbers on the title-page indicated the level of priority given to their conclusions, on a declining scale where number one was the most important. On the fourth floor we worked exclusively with three- and four-figure documents. The framework decisions from one to ten were almost never changed now, and those in double-figures were dealt with by considerably more senior administrators on the floors above. No one in my department had ever worked with a single- or double-digit decision. Not even Karl. As soon as anyone started working on a file near two or three hundred, rumours of promotion would start to circulate about the person in question.

  Fortunately for everyone on my floor, there were departments lower down that worked with all the five-figure material.

  9

  The fourth time I went into the room I took my colleague Håkan with me. We had some questions about internal organisation to go through, and I thought it best to discuss them inside the room.

  Håkan sat on the other side of my desk. We worked opposite one another. At any moment we might happen to look up and meet each other’s gaze. I tried never to look straight ahead whenever I looked up from my work. Håkan carried out his duties with the same lightness of touch as everyone else in the department. He used the phone more or less as he liked, took breaks whenever he felt like it. He would spend ages gazing off into the distance without it apparently having anything to do with work. Now and then he would try to talk to me as well. I would rebuff him gently but firmly. Usually with a simple gesture of the hand. Arm out, palm raised towards him. It worked.

  We didn’t actually share a desk. We each had one of our own. But the desks were positioned back to back and Håkan had an irritating habit of shoving his papers across his desk every time he started something new, which meant that they eventually ended up on my side.

  One day I caught him in the process of doing precisely that. In the middle of one of my fifty-five-minute periods.

  It certainly wasn’t my intention to sit and stare at him as he worked, but his movements were so expansive that it was hard not to. He took out a couple of weighty new files from the investigators and put them in front of him on the desk, but instead of gathering up and tidying away what was already there, he merely pushed it away from him. Towards me.

  I realised at once what was going to happen.

  Not now, maybe not even today, but eventually Håkan’s desktop would overflow with files and papers and documents, and they would begin to eat away at my side.

  I had seen the same pattern before, in other workplaces, and knew it would be a source of irritation between us. I spent a little while wondering how best to tackle the situation on this occasion.

  For the time being there was nothing I could say. He could manage or mismanage his desk however he liked as long as he kept to his side. There were still a few centimetres left as yet. Almost a decimetre. What could I say?

  I looked at the time. There were still about twenty-five minutes left of my fifty-five-minute period, but my rhythm had been disturbed. I would just have to regard the rest of the period as lost.

  At the same time, I realised that now that the thought of what was going to happen with Håkan’s and my desks had arisen, it was going to be very hard to let go of. It would be there as a point of friction, and was bound to unsettle me. Maybe it would be just as well to deal with the confrontation at once, seeing as I now, in a manner of speaking, had some time to spare? At some point Håkan would have to learn to put things away before he started on something new. Not just push it away and assume that it would disappear by itself. Maybe it made sense to make him aware of that without delay?

  I got up quickly. Walked behind my chair and stood there with my arms leaning on it. Took three deep breaths. Håkan looked at me and smiled a quick, false smile that was probably meant to look polite. I spun the chair gently, back and forth, as I looked at his papers.

  I was very conscious of the fact that this was properly a matter for management. Efficiency savings of this sort and solutions to potential collegial conflicts ought to be dealt with by an alert and engaged boss.

  An attentive and empathetic leader would naturally have noticed the fissure that was on its way to breaking out within the ranks, and would have done something about it. Rather than waste time picking on the more alert members of staff about shoe-covers.

  But perhaps I recognised that Karl really did not possess those qualities? Perhaps I recognised even then that he wasn’t management material, and that one day I instead would be taking control of this department? Perhaps this was the first step? Perhaps this was exactly the right opportunity for a rebuke?

  ‘Håkan,’ I said in a friendly but firm voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, looking up at me as if I were interrupting him in the middle of something important.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’

  He nodded.

  I stretched, sucked in a deep breath through my nose and let it out of my mouth in small puffs as I contemplated what tactics to employ.

  ‘Look around you,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘What do you see?’

  He said nothing for a short while as he looked around.

  ‘No, I don’t know …’

  He went back to looking at his screen.

  ‘I’d prefer us to deal with this at once,’ I said.

  ‘With what? What do you mean?’ he said, suddenly irritated.

  I fixed my gaze on him and said in a calm and friendly voice: ‘Before this gets out of hand, I’d like you to listen to me. I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.’

  He looked at me with the tired, ignorant, slightly stupid expression that is so common in people who aren’t used to seeing the broader picture in small things.

  ‘Let’s take a walk,’ I said, leading him round the lift and into the little room. I thought it best to deal with this in private, so that we could talk without being interrupted.

  Inside the room the air was fresh and cool. I closed the door behind us and stood in front of the mirror with my arm on the filing cabinet. The light in the room definitely made Håkan look worse, while I glanced in the mirror and confirmed that I had retained the same crispness as last time. The man in the mirror was able to smile. He looked relaxed an
d spoke with a calm, deep voice.

  ‘There’s something I’ve noticed,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ Håkan said, looking round as if he’d never seen this room before. Perhaps he hadn’t. He didn’t seem to be particularly observant. Poor fellow, in just a couple of weeks my local knowledge had already surpassed his.

  I decided to get straight to the point and if possible get back in time for the next fifty-five-minute period.

  ‘You don’t put your old files back when you take out new ones,’ I said.

  ‘What did you say?’ Håkan said.

  ‘I said I’ve noticed that you’re letting your papers spread out across your desk. Soon they’ll be on my side, and then you’ll be encroaching on my space. I am, as I’m sure you can appreciate, keen to have full access to the whole of my desk. I am already inconvenienced by the disproportionately large computer that takes up about a third of the space, it really ought to be possible to procure a system with more modern, smaller terminals, but never mind that, that isn’t your responsibility. I would just like you to adopt new habits that don’t risk disturbing my work. Do you understand?’

  Håkan looked at me in surprise, as if he had been expecting something completely different. Perhaps he thought I had something private to say? Maybe he thought we had come in here to discuss personal matters? I felt a momentary satisfaction at having so quickly and concisely clarified the problem to him, presenting my demands without a lot of introductory small talk. Now the ball was in his court and he had little option but to accept my terms. After all, my wishes were in no way unreasonable. Sure enough, he made a slight nod.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Well, I suggest we get back to our duties, and if everything goes smoothly we need never mention this again.’

  I smiled at him, opened the door and stepped out. Håkan followed me and we both went and sat down. He had a dried, white stain on his shirt, high up on one side of his chest. I noted that he sat and looked at me for a long while after we had returned to our places. Without doing anything about his papers. I let him. Things need time to settle, I thought. Eventually the message would get through to him and hopefully lead to a more proactive way of dealing with his things. Presumably he wasn’t used to being reprimanded in such a clear and effective way. You might as well get used to it, I thought. I might very well end up as your boss one day.

  I leaned across the desk and whispered: ‘Don’t think of it as a reprimand. More as an observation.’

  ‘What?’ he said, and I realised that he was playing along in our tacit understanding to let this stay between us. I nodded, leaned back, and mimed zipping my mouth shut, then locking it and throwing away the key.

  10

  That night I went through my reprimand sentence by sentence, word for word, and it got better each time.

  I put on a CD of Mozart’s twenty-first piano concerto, but soon swapped it for one of Sting’s albums, only to switch to Dire Straits and then John Cougar Mellencamp. I didn’t really feel like listening to any of them, but liked the idea of associating with the very best.

  I went over to the window sill in the living room and looked down at the courtyard. It was getting more and more like winter out there. The ground was already white and even more snowflakes were dancing in the light of the lamp-posts. I rolled my head a little to massage my neck, and counted the windows in the building opposite.

  As I was about to go to bed I noticed my briefcase leaning against the wall. On the outside was a Post-it note. The glue had probably already left a mark on the leather.

  11

  The fifth time I went into the room there was no reason at all. I had successfully completed my fifty-five-minute period of concentrated and undisturbed work, and felt no need of coffee or a trip to the toilet. I just went to the room because I liked it, and found a certain satisfaction in being in there.

  Håkan hadn’t yet found a better solution for his papers, which were still threatening to slip onto my side, even though a couple of days had passed since our conversation inside the room. Yet I still felt somehow calm about the matter. He probably didn’t want to change his behaviour just like that, after being ordered to do so. Possibly because he didn’t want his colleagues to connect his sudden organised behaviour with our meeting the other day, but possibly also to demonstrate a degree of independence towards me. That would pass. I couldn’t deny him a degree of pride. If it turned out that he was consciously being obstructive and if things hadn’t improved within a week, I would have to raise the matter again.

  The open-plan office around me was full of protracted and completely unstructured discussion about the forthcoming Christmas party. It was about what games would be played. What sort of punch would be served, et cetera. Questions and ideas were tossed into the air and drifted around the office. The same individual subject was discussed in several places at once without there being any central focus, or even any contact with the actual party committee. I did my best to ignore the whole fractured debate, and naturally declined any involvement. When Hannah with the long ponytail, who seemed to have some sort of responsibility for the party, came over and asked if I wasn’t going to consider attending, I used Ann’s old trick of completely ignoring her and carrying on with my work. I actually thought about using her line ‘Do you want help with something?’, but when I turned round to deliver it she had already gone.

  12

  The sixth time I found myself in the room it was in the company of the woman from reception. Completely unplanned.

  Late in the day I had decided to attend the Christmas party after all, because I realised that a certain amount of information of the more informal variety tended to flourish on such occasions.

  ‘So you came in the end,’ Hannah with the ponytail said as I stepped out of the lift and saw that the entire office had been transformed.

  There were sheets and various fabrics hanging everywhere. The lighting was subdued. It was hard to see. At first I considered not replying at all. Hannah with the ponytail was one of those women who laugh readily and can talk nonsense for hours without a single sensible thing being said. In principle I try to ignore people like that as much as possible. I simply choose not to think about them. Make up my mind that they don’t exist. And I didn’t think hers was a particularly pleasant way to greet guests. Especially not if you were one of the organisers. In the end I decided to give a clipped response.

  ‘I did,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, you didn’t seem very keen,’ she said.

  She stood there looking at me for a while in silence. I looked back, calmly and neutrally, until she spoke again.

  ‘Well, we can probably find you a plate,’ she said, making it sound like a nuisance.

  I realised a long time ago that dismissive remarks like that could easily be sexually motivated. Women of her age have that inverted way of approaching men of the same age. Particularly if you show a certain disinterest. I imagine it’s to do with status and an unwillingness to show any sort of inferiority. A sort of liberation, maybe even feminism? My generation of women always have to show they’re as strong as men, before finding clumsy ways of showing their affection.

  I wasn’t going to let myself be moved.

  I got a glass of the tasteless, blue-coloured punch that matched my blue shoe-covers in a most irritating way. I realised once again that it was time to get a pair of those indoor shoes. But at the same time it didn’t look like the other guests were paying much attention to the shoe-code that evening. Some of them were definitely wearing the same shoes they had arrived in. I took a stroll past the glassed-off manager’s office, trying to catch a glimpse of Karl’s shoes in the crowd, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  He probably wasn’t there, because the office had been rearranged in a way that it would be difficult for a boss to allow. The sheets had been fastened with a staple-gun, which was bound to leave marks on the walls. Printers and phones and other electronic equipment had been covered in a way that was clearly a fire-hazard
. Who knows, maybe they had also blocked the fire-escapes?

  Here and there stood little clusters of candles, and someone had sprinkled some sort of glittery silver stars around them.

  Somewhere a stereo was playing Christmas songs, but I never managed to identify where the noise was coming from.

  People were standing in groups, noisily interrupting each other. It was obvious that they were all more relaxed than usual. Even John was participating in the small talk, which revolved around either the threat of cutbacks or the usual conversation about families and children and football.

  A string of fairy-lights had been hung from one wall to the other. It was supposed to be a Christmas decoration, but the whole thing had been done in a very amateurish way and didn’t feel quite proper.

  I walked around among people who made various excruciating attempts to engage me in conversation. As you might imagine, it was a pointless task.

  Outside the snow was still falling and after a while I sank onto one of the two leather armchairs over by the window, mainly to try out what it felt like. I’d just made up my mind to leave when the woman from reception came over and sat in the other chair. She looked very neat and clean. She had two glasses of wine in one hand and a napkin in the other. She smiled at me, the way she did every morning, and I asked why she was here, seeing as this wasn’t her department.

  ‘No, I know,’ she said, slightly embarrassed. ‘It’s usually like this. I get invited to all the parties. I suppose everyone thinks I don’t have a department of my own.’

  I did a quick calculation in my head.

  ‘Let’s see, there must be, what, eight departments?’

  ‘Nine, actually,’ she said with a laugh. ‘The maintenance department invite me to theirs as well.’