The Room (11 page)

I sat at my desk, moving the mouse up and down over the mouse pad. All the while I could see above my screen the heated debate taking place inside Karl's office. It looked quite funny, all those big people in such a little room. It was like they were part of some work of art. They were gesticulating and talking. I heard fragments of sentences, “a monster” and “ought to get help,” but also “remember that Björn is working on two-figure cases these days.”

Eventually things quieted down and I stretched to get a better view of what they were up to.

After a good while they all emerged.

John came straight over to me. The others followed him, stumbling rather aimlessly, like the flock of sheep that they actually were. No one really seemed to know where to go. No one seemed capable of going back to work.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Karl's on his way up to the DG,” John said.

“Oh, what for?”

“He's going to ask him.”

“About what?”

“About the room. That's what we agreed. That this is a matter for the DG.”

I smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

“That's probably right,” I said.

Ann came up to us, and behind her trailed the rest of them. They ended up in a circle around HÃ¥kan's and my desks. As if they didn't really know where to go. As if I were going to read them a story.

“What exactly is it that you want?” Ann asked me.

She looked distraught. Unhappy. I wondered if she was about to burst into tears. I tried to answer in a gentle, friendly tone of voice.

“I just want to do my job,” I said.

There was muttering in the congregation.

“And what do you think we're doing, Björn?”

That was HÃ¥kan's voice. He was having trouble getting to his place with everyone crowding round my desk. I looked up. First at him. Then at all the other anxious pairs of eyes around me.

“Obviously I don't know with one hundred percent certainty,” I said. “I can only speak for myself. Seeing as I have noticed the room over there and find a certain joy in working there, I have no option but to accept its existence, as I'm sure you can understand. I could work on the assumption that I myself am wrong and the rest of you right, but that doesn't make much sense in my head. I simply have to assume that one of us is lying. Because I know that I am telling the truth, I draw the conclusion that the rest of you are telling untruths. That's simply the logical conclusion.”

I saw several of them lower their gaze. Ann looked nervous. Jörgen was sweating.

“What I can't help wondering is whether you've done this before? As well as which of you are involved, and how you managed the practicalities? When did you decide? At what level has this been authorized? For instance, I don't imagine that the DG has been informed about this, which is odd, seeing as you must surely all recognize that if something like this got out, it would mean the end for the whole department?”

HÃ¥kan looked at me with horror in his eyes and I had time to think: Now you get it!

“In some ways it's such a grandiose and detailed project,” I went on, “and so ingeniously malicious that I can't help being rather fascinated.”

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk.

“It's going to be very exciting to hear what the DG has to say when Karl comes back down. Taking the DG's decision as my starting point, I am going to have to resolve how we proceed with all this. Who among you will be staying, and who will have to leave.”

I saw from the clock that it had gone half past eleven and I could feel my stomach starting to rumble gently.

“The very least I can ask is that you agree to nominate one person who can take the time to go through exactly how it all worked with me: what important decisions were taken, who was the driving force behind it, who was in favor or opposed to it, and so on. That person must also be prepared to accept severe punishment and leave the organization immediately. I suggest that you discuss this among yourselves and come back to me once you've decided upon a suitable candidate.”

I gathered my things together on the desk. I put on my coat and went off to lunch early.

On the way out I went straight to the door in the corridor, opened it, and stepped inside. I stood there for a good while, thinking:

Soon you'll be mine.

As soon as I returned from lunch Margareta in reception informed me that a meeting was about to start. I had treated myself to some sushi from the little restaurant just across the street from the big, redbrick building. I had sat there eating my raw fish and looking out across the square with its incomprehensible sculptures. I took my time, and was well aware that I was slightly late as I climbed up the flight of gray steps leading to the Authority.

“They're waiting in Karl's office,” Margareta said.

As usual, I thought, and took the lift up. I went into the glass cubicle and tried to get a glimpse of Karl. The whole department had been summoned and everyone had dutifully trotted into his office, but Karl wasn't there yet. This was starting to feel like a habit. HÃ¥kan in his blue jacket.

Håkan was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He was leaning against the desk where Karl usually stood, and he looked at me wearily. I started to get an idea of what this was about, and tried to work out who among the staff had been telling tales and thus indirectly brought about this improvised meeting. Without Karl. From past experience it seemed most likely to have been Ann. She went and stood beside Håkan when I walked in, ready—responsible, somehow. With a look on her face that wasn't entirely dissatisfied.

Don't they ever get fed up? I thought, and let out a small sigh.

“Ann, you had something to say to us?” HÃ¥kan began, like a sort of stand-in boss.

“Yes,” she said, tilting her chin.

“Aren't we going to wait for Karl?” I said.

HÃ¥kan shook his head firmly.

“No need,” he said. “Well, what did you want to say, Ann?”

Ann stretched and took a deep breath.

“Björn was standing there again.”

A murmur went round the room. One of those “oohs” you sometimes hear in American sitcoms when the audience reacts obediently to something cute said by a child. But there was nothing cute about this. This was an expression of “What did we say?” and “Knew it! He's done it again!”

“And this time I've got witnesses,” Ann said.

The loaded atmosphere in there, their infernal obstinacy and united front made my cup run over. I could hear that I was speaking louder than necessary when I was no longer able to hold back the torrent of frustration growing inside me.

“That's absolutely true, my friends,” I said. “I have made use of the room for all manner of activities. I have gone there on a daily basis in recent weeks. I have done most of my—and forgive me for putting it like this—singularly successful work in there, during the evenings and at night. And yes, I intend to carry on doing so.”

I went round the desk that HÃ¥kan and Ann were leaning against and sat down on Karl's very comfortable office chair. The others looked at me.

“That's enough now. More than enough. You have just obliged me to meet force with force. I have no other option but to put myself up against you all.”

There was total silence in the room. You could have heard a pin drop.

“There are a couple of you that I could imagine reaching an accommodation with. You, John, have shown a degree of loyalty. And that will obviously be rewarded. The rest of you can start packing your things, because from now on the following applies: I will only stay on the condition that you go.”

I leaned back calmly in the chair.

“Now, I suggest that we wait for the DG's decision.”

Five, six, maybe seven minutes of intense silence passed inside Karl's office without anyone so much as moving a finger. No one could think of anything to say or do. It was like everyone was holding their breath. Finally Karl came rushing in, in a very undignified manner, breathless and with beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Hello, everyone. I've come straight from the DG. We spent a long time talking. I informed him about everything…well, everything that has happened, and our various different opinions about…and I can tell you that…”

He paused and looked at me, slightly uncertain. Maybe in an attempt to gauge my reaction in advance, maybe to be sure he still had me with him. He went on slowly and clearly:

“…the DG and I have had a…conversation…about the room. By which I mean, its existence or otherwise, and so on.”

The entire room was utterly silent. Karl cleared his throat. I saw Håkan swallow, and Jörgen loosened his tie slightly.

“The DG has shown me the plans. He was in no doubt. Very—how shall I put it?—persuasive in his argument.”

He blinked and cleared his throat again as he turned toward the others.

“The DG says that on this, the fourth floor, between the lift and the three toilets…there is absolutely no other space.”

I remained seated in Karl's chair for a while as all the others filed out and drifted back to their workstations. Slowly but surely the office resumed its usual atmosphere. As if nothing had happened.

I was trying to work out if the DG could possibly be involved in this conspiracy, or if Karl was simply lying. How could I check? I got up carefully, wondering if I ought to pay a visit of my own to the Director General.

When I came out of the office I saw that plastic tape had been set up between the walls by the lift and at the other end of the corridor. Karl came after me.

“To make things easier for all of us, Björn, we've decided that you're not to go inside this tape. Okay?”

I looked up at his shiny face.

“But how am I supposed to go to the toilet?”

“You'll just have to use the ones on the floor below. The same thing applies to the lift. You'll have to take the stairs to the next floor.”

He patted me on the back and went on:

“This will be best for all of us. It's simpler this way.”

HÃ¥kan wasn't sitting in his place when I got back to our workstation. Just that awful blue jacket tossed over his desk. I sat down and looked round for something to do. I ran my fingers over the pile of files of framework decisions. I picked up the stapler to fasten together the case with reference number 02c11/1, but it wouldn't go through the whole pile and I had to dig the staple out with my fingers.

Even though the paper was designed for being archived, or possibly precisely because of that, it sucked up the moisture from my hands and in one fell swoop lost its smoothness, its purity. A bit of the title page came away with my fingers when I moved them too quickly. The reference number came loose from the framework decision.

I left the Authority just before eleven.

I took my coat, went down the stairs to the floor below, then took the lift from there to reception and rushed out into the sleety snow.

My suit felt sweaty and my shirt was sticking to my body in a very unpleasant way. On top of everything else I felt a sort of pressure across my chest, and I could feel it getting harder and harder to breathe.

When I got to the bottom of the broad flight of steps outside the entrance, I walked straight out into the parking lot and then across the tarmac to the little patch of grass with the sign showing directions to the various departments. I leaned forward and rested my hands on my thighs. I shut my eyes and tried to breathe. There was something that didn't make sense. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something. Something was terribly wrong. The look on Karl's face, the DG's swift action, his categorical denial—did he really have that level of oversight into every nook and cranny of the building? The makeshift cordon. The whole thing—it felt over the top, somehow. It reminded me of exaggerated, made-up stories designed to conceal something else.

I turned round and walked slowly back toward the building again. This was really just a classic ruling-class tactic, wasn't it? Making someone think they were mentally ill? What was I actually running from?

Down in reception it was as if I was seeing people for the first time. Even the ones I recognized. People I trusted. Now they appeared in an entirely different light. One had an earpiece in his ear. Another ran to catch up with a third. They exchanged a few intense words. The level of activity was stepping up. A black car pulled up and stopped right in front of the entrance. Two men in black coats got out and jogged up the steps and in through the glass doors. Margareta had her eyes on me the whole time, but now it was different. How can I put it? Settled, somehow. As if she understood that I had realized. Could she tell that I had seen through the whole thing? Did she understand that I was about to reveal everything?

The two men in black coats went straight up to Margareta at the desk. It could hardly be a coincidence that all this was happening at this particular moment. This stream of people with an anxious look in their eyes, the new way Margareta was looking at me, the men in the car. It was no accident that they just happened to show up on the day that Karl had been in to see the DG to ask about a room that no one wanted to admit existed.

I got into the lift and pressed the button for the third floor. I realized I still had a small advantage. For the time being they didn't know
who
they were after. The person who had dared to break the pattern and think along new lines. The person who had dared to think “outside the box.” But I knew it wouldn't be long before Margareta revealed my identity to them.

I got out on the third floor and went the rest of the way up the stairs. A couple of people stared at me when I entered the department. I slowed down, looked around, tried to seem calm and collected, but when I reached the photocopier I darted quickly round the corner and crept under the barrier toward the room.

Someone cried out. It might have been Ann or Karin. Behind me I could hear Håkan yelling at me to stop. I got the feeling that Jörgen and Karl were somewhere there in the background. When I got to the room I opened the door, then closed and locked it behind me as quickly as I could. For a brief while I could breathe again and think more or less clearly. I leaned against the wall and let my eyes roam round the familiar space. Everything looked much the same, yet somehow different. I could hear the others outside. They were there already, knocking on the door. Banging on the wood. They wouldn't be happy to stay on the outside this time. The blows were getting harder and harder. I realized it was only a matter of time before they forced the door open and got inside and started poking about. I looked round to find somewhere to hide but couldn't see anywhere particularly good. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and walked into the wall. The wall closed around me, like yogurt around a spoon.

In there it was dark and soft. Surprisingly clean and free from lines and edges. No angles or corners for dirt to get into and hide. No light. No sound. The smell in there made me think of the sea, and lilacs, and St. Paulsgatan by the junction with Bellmansgatan at five o'clock in the morning at the end of May.

I could hear them calling my name outside, and I thought:

You'll never find me here.