There was absolute silence in Karl’s office. Everyone was standing completely still. The only thing disturbing the silence was the rustling from my blue shoe-covers as I turned to inspect the stunned workforce.
‘Try to see this as a learning experience,’ I went on in a somewhat gentler tone. ‘If we all go back to our respective duties and never mention this incident again, embarrassing as it is for everyone – if everyone can promise to be open and honest from now on, and never try to play similar tricks on me to unsettle me, then I am prepared to draw a line under the whole business. Simply because I am all too aware that intelligence and talent always upset people of more average abilities. For that reason alone, I am prepared to forgive you. Little people can’t always be held accountable for the fact that they sometimes feel drawn to ruin and undermine their betters.’
There was total silence for something like twenty seconds. It was as if no one in the room had properly understood what had happened. I looked at Karl, who just stared back. This time he had met his match. After a while I realised that I was going to have to take charge.
‘You can go now,’ I said.
One by one they went back to their desks. A breathless procession of subdued employees dispersed around the department.
26
Karl ran his hand over his thinning hair. He had tiny beads of sweat on his brow. Almost imperceptible. He craned his neck and loosened his tie slightly. I sat down on the comfy armchair opposite him, although it was a little lower than the office-chair he was sitting on. Karl slumped down in his chair. He sat there in silence for a long time, massaging his temples with two fingers on each side. Eventually he sighed.
‘How are you feeling, Björn?’
‘Fine thanks,’ I said.
He rolled his chair closer to his desk, leaned his elbows on it and rested his chin on his clasped hands.
‘You appreciate that you simply can’t behave like this?’
‘How so?’
‘This sort of performance. It’s unacceptable.’
And then once more, as if he thought I hadn’t heard him, or simply needed to repeat it to himself. ‘Unacceptable.’
‘The way I see it,’ I said, crossing one leg over the other, ‘they simply need a strong hand. This sort of collective bullying only arises when people feel lost and—’
‘Björn, Björn.’
Karl raised one hand in the air. He leaned towards me.
‘I’m in charge here. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
I nodded.
‘Don’t worry about personnel matters, Björn. I can deal with those.’
He leaned back in his chair again. Rubbed his chin with his hand and looked at me.
‘Björn,’ he said, ‘you pulled down the Christmas decorations and damaged both the wall and ceiling.’
I nodded.
‘That was careless of me.’
‘And the fairy-lights themselves … well, they’re evidently broken now.’
‘I shall make good the damage,’ I said. ‘How much?’
‘Well, the wall and ceiling will be all right. It’s probably time for them to be redecorated anyway. But the Christmas lights were Jörgen’s personal property.’
We sat and looked at each other for a long while without speaking. Finally he leaned forward.
‘This … room,’ he began.
‘I’m glad you raised that,’ I said.
He looked out at the open-plan office.
‘Where do you say …?’
‘Right next to the lift, to the left of the recycling bin, next to the toilets.’
‘In the corridor?’
‘Correct.’
He sat in silence for a long time, and after a while I began to wonder if he had started to think about something else. In the end he spoke again.
‘What sort of room is it?’
‘As far I can tell, it’s not being used, and hasn’t been for some time. I haven’t made a mess or touched anything. If anything shady is going on in there, I don’t know anything about it. I’ve just gone there when …’
I paused for a moment, trying to find the right words, the correct way to describe what I did there. ‘To recuperate’ sounded feeble somehow, and besides, it was more like I was ‘recharging my batteries’. I tried a different tack.
‘The strange thing is that I’ve made some calculations. I’ve measured the surrounding area, and I can’t quite make it fit …’
I wondered how much of this I ought to reveal to him. It was beyond question that I was the subject of a comprehensive and well-thought-out prank, and I didn’t want to appear stupid. I tried laughing about it.
‘Ha, this trick with the walls … I really can’t work out how they’ve done it. In purely architectural terms. Well, it’s certainly been very cleverly done … Very cleverly done.’
He looked at me, a whole series of lines on his forehead.
‘What do you do there?’ Karl asked.
‘In the room?’ I said.
He nodded.
‘After first carrying out a visual check, I usually just … spend time there.’
‘But,’ Karl said, ‘what exactly do you do?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But I can appreciate if it upsets—’
Karl interrupted me again.
‘Never mind about the others now, Björn. Why do you want to spend time there?’
‘I. Well – how can I put it? – I take energy from it.’
He sat in silence for a while, just looking at me.
‘Okay,’ he suddenly said, leaning forward. ‘Are you finding it difficult, working here for us?’
I looked at his perspiring temples and wondered who was finding it more difficult. Then I leaned back and said: ‘Not particularly.’
‘Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?’
I wondered if I ought to raise the subject of correct linguistic usage, but somehow this didn’t feel like the right moment. I decided to give a more sweeping answer that would be bound to arouse his curiosity and throw a spanner in the works.
‘There’s plenty to talk about with this department.’
‘I see,’ Karl said. ‘Such as what?’
‘Well, I don’t want to mention anyone by name. But I can say that more than one person here at the Authority is a drug-user.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Oh, you didn’t know?’
He sat for a moment just looking at me.
‘Does that have anything to do with this room?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ I said.
‘Mmm,’ Karl muttered, then sighed again.
He stood up and went over to the glass, and stood there with his back to me for a while. Drumming his fingers lightly on the glass. He turned round, sat back down and looked me in the eye. It was as if he was building himself up.
‘There is no room, Björn.’
‘Yes there is,’ I said. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Yes, just behind—’
‘Listen to me carefully now, Björn. There is no room next to the lift. There has never been a room there. It’s possible that you’ve convinced yourself that there is. Maybe it’s there for you, I don’t know how that sort of thing works.’
I raised a finger in the air and got him to shut up temporarily.
‘If you’re going to start—’ I began, but he interrupted me immediately.
‘That’s enough!’
He stood up and came over to where I was sitting.
‘Listen to me now, Björn,’ he said, in a surprisingly stern voice. ‘Whether or not there is a room there, I must ask you to stop going to it.’
He waited for a second or two, just looking at me. I realised that for the moment it would be best to keep quiet, but I could feel my whole body wanting to move. The situation was reminiscent of when you’ve spent a long time sitting in a seat on a plane and just want to stretch your legs. He carried on in a considerably calmer voice
.
‘You have to appreciate that it upsets the rest of the group when they see you standing like that, in your own little world. It’s perfectly all right if you want to do it at home. But not at work. You’re scaring the staff. Don’t you think you should try socialising with your colleagues a bit more? They say you hardly ever take a break.’
‘I have my own rota,’ I said.
‘But it can be good to take a break every now and then.’
‘That’s when I go into the room.’
‘But you can’t go into the room any more. Okay?’
I looked out through the window, with its surprisingly dull view of a deserted inner courtyard. It was the same snowstorm that had been going on for I don’t know how long. The sun hadn’t shown its face for several weeks. I met his tired gaze.
‘What you’re telling me now …’ I began, but suddenly felt my voice fail me.
I lost my flow and could hear that I sounded as if I were about to start crying. I cleared my throat and once again shifted position in the chair.
‘You have to understand,’ I said. ‘The fact that you’re saying there is no room is just as strange to me as if I were to say that that chair isn’t there.’
I pointed at his office-chair.
‘This chair is here,’ he said.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘At least we agree about that.’
He laughed lightly and put his hand on my shoulder.
‘Since the time we agreed to have you working here, things have evidently changed dramatically. I still thought you might be able to cope with the relatively simple tasks you were given. Sorting, archiving, et cetera. We knew you were a complex character, but no one mentioned anything about you being delusional.’
He fell silent for a moment and looked out at the courtyard as well. Just like me.
‘You’ll just have to stop going to that “room”. Otherwise we’ll have to come up with a different solution for you. Do you understand me?’
He pointed at my feet.
‘And can’t you get hold of a pair of indoor shoes? With those silly plastic things it’s like you’re just asking to be bullied.’
I nodded slowly and looked through the glass at the people working out there. None of them seemed interested in our conversation. Not a glance from any of them. But they must all be aware of what was going on in here. Had they done all their talking about this – about me – already? What else had they agreed on? Karl sighed and went on.
‘And I must also ask you to agree to see a psychiatrist.’
27
The clinic had turquoise curtains, and all the weekly magazines were aimed at a female clientele. I pointed this out to a nurse who just giggled and hurried on.
The little sofas in the waiting room were full of people with colds, and even though there was a space right on the end I chose to stand slightly off to one side. I rested my eyes on a pleasant picture of flowers and grasses by Lena Linderholm.
Twenty minutes after the allotted time a different nurse came out and called my name. She went with me down the corridor, knocked on a half-open door, showed me in and then disappeared.
I stepped into a sort of treatment room containing a brown vinyl padded couch with a big roll of paper at one end. In the middle of the floor was a little trolley with a stethoscope and instruments for measuring blood-pressure. There was a muddle of probes and test-tubes.
I couldn’t see a chaise longue anywhere.
Sitting behind a computer was a fairly young man with one of those goatee beards that were popular for a while. He was wearing a pale-blue short-sleeved tunic with a name badge. Dr Jan Hansson, it said. He tapped on the keyboard and read something without taking any notice of me.
I waited politely for a good while, wondering if he was older or younger than me. I cleared my throat a couple of times, and was on the point of turning and walking out when he finally looked up.
‘Well,’ he said. Nothing more.
He clicked his mouse, got up from the chair and came over to me. We shook hands. His hand was wet and smelled of surgical spirit.
‘Jan,’ he said.
‘Thanks, I noticed,’ I said, pointing at the name badge.
He gestured towards a chair next to a sink. On either side of the basin were two pressure pumps with containers attached. ‘Please, have a seat,’ he said, sitting down on his own ergonomic office-chair.
‘Thanks, I’m happy to stand,’ I said.
He looked at me.
‘Mmm, I’d prefer it if you sat down.’
I sighed and put my coat over the back of the chair. I sat down reluctantly, perching on the edge of the considerably more basic chair.
‘Okay … er …’
He rolled over to the computer and looked at the screen.
‘Björn,’ he said. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘I thought I was going to see a psychiatrist,’ I said.
‘We’ll start with me,’ he said. ‘Well?’
‘I’d rather not say anything. I’d like you to make your own evaluation without any preconceptions.’
He glanced at a large clock on the wall.
‘It’s going to be very hard for me to help you if you don’t say anything, Björn.’
‘I’d like you to make your own evaluation.’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘But you are a doctor?’ He nodded.
I thought for a moment, and then described objectively and in detail recent events in the office. About the room, and Karl, and the other staff. About ignorance, invisibility and the withholding of information. The doctor listened, but I noticed one of his legs starting to twitch after a couple of minutes. He interrupted me in the middle of a sentence.
‘I don’t understand what sort of medical—’
‘If you’ll let me finish, it might be clearer then,’ I said.
He looked at me as if he were weighing up an opponent. And it amused me that for the first time since I entered the room he seemed a little dispirited. He was presumably used to harmless patients with no will of their own who just wanted medication, but here was something different for him. Someone made of sterner stuff. He leaned back, folded his arms and listened with a forced smile on his lips.
When I had finished he sat for a fair while just looking at me. On the wall behind him was an ugly picture of an apple, and another of a pear that was almost as bad.
‘This room,’ he said. ‘What sort of room is it?’
‘A normal room,’ I said.
‘What does it look like?’
‘It’s an office.’
‘Where is it?’
‘At work.’
‘I mean, where at work?’
I thought for a while about whether it would be okay to tell him about the ingenious architectural solution, because he must have some sort of duty of confidentiality, but I decided not to trust the goatee beard entirely and instead chose a middle way.
‘It’s between the toilets and the lift,’ I said.
‘And you go in there?’ he said.
‘Yes, but they say I mustn’t.’
‘Mmm,’ he said, feeling for a pen in his top pocket.
‘What do you do there?’ he said.
‘I rest.’
‘You rest?’
‘Yes.’
He got the pen out and clicked it, making the point pop in and out. Back and forth.
‘And you want to go on sick leave?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. So what do you want?’
‘I don’t want anything. The company sent me here.’
‘Don’t you work for an Authority?’
‘I prefer to see it as a company. It makes my abilities sharper.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at the computer and I wondered if he was really looking at anything or just trying to buy himself some time. I decided to try to answer his questions quickly, in order to throw the ball back into his court as soon as p
ossible, so to speak. Clearly he was clutching at straws. Presumably he lacked the skill demanded for matters of this sort.
‘Have you mentioned this to your colleagues?’
‘My boss was the one who made me come here.’
‘Why?’
‘He said I had to see you.’
‘Me?’
‘Someone. He said I had to come here.’
He nodded and spoke slowly, as if he were trying to slow the tempo. But I wasn’t about to let myself be sunk.
‘So that you could go on sick leave?’
‘I don’t want to go on sick leave.’
‘Because you went into that room?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Why?’
‘He says it doesn’t exist.’
‘What?’
‘The room.’
‘Your boss says the room doesn’t exist?’
I was very pleased that I managed to say ‘Yes’ before he’d even finished his sentence, which I felt reinforced the impression that I was one step ahead of him. He nodded slowly.
‘So does it?’ he said after a pause.
‘It does to me.’
‘Does it for anyone else?’
‘They pretend it doesn’t.’
‘Has anyone else been inside the room?’
‘I don’t know. They don’t seem keen to go in.’
‘Why don’t they want to go in?’
‘I don’t know. They say it doesn’t exist.’
‘But you know that it exists.’
‘It exists.’
‘And it’s an office?’
‘Yes.’
‘A perfectly ordinary office?’
‘Yes.’
He fell silent for a while, clicking his pen.
‘Is there anything else in there?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. Are there things in there?’
‘Of course there are things.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Do you want me to …?’
‘Yes, please.’
The Room Page 5