The Room (3 page)

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 Piano Concerto No. 21, 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 windowsill 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 lampposts. 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.

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.

HÃ¥kan 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 behavior just like that, after being ordered to do so. Possibly because he didn't want his colleagues to connect his sudden organized behavior with our meeting the other day, but possibly also to demonstrate a degree of independence toward 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 Hannah had already gone.

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 realized 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 organizers. 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 realized 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-colored punch that matched my blue shoe covers in a most irritating way. I realized 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. 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.

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.

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 into 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 invites me to theirs as well.”

“That's not fair,” I said, but she just laughed.

She took the napkin and started rubbing the bottom of her dress with it.

“Have you spilled something?” I asked.

“Well, I didn't,” she said. “The punch splashed a bit, but I don't know. It's hopeless trying to get rid of stains like that. Especially if they've been there a while.”

We sat in silence for a time as she rubbed her dress. Eventually she looked up at me.

“My name's Margareta, by the way.”

“Oh,” I said, then thought that I ought to say something more.

She looked as if she were expecting a reply, but what could I say? What could I possibly have to say about her name? Her name was Margareta. Okay. Good. Nice name.

I looked round the room. People were laughing and it was getting a bit loud. Every so often someone would shout something. The armchair was much less comfortable to sit in than I had imagined. I shifted my buttocks slightly to find a better position. On a small table between me and Margareta there was a large bowl of sweets. I looked at them, trying to work out if I wanted one.

“Don't think much of the fairy lights,” I said after a while, pointing at the wall.

“No,” Margareta laughed. “I think it was Jörgen who put them up.”

“Oh,” I said. “You seem to know a lot.”

She laughed again. There was something about her laugh that, besides indicating a certain interest in me, also managed to put me in a good mood. It was clear that she was slightly intoxicated, which made her seem—how can I put it?—more physical. It made me think of Marilyn Monroe. But I didn't think that mattered much at the time.

She raised one of the glasses and sipped the wine.

“Would you like a glass?” she asked, passing me the other.

I shook my head and reached for the large bowl of Christmas sweets instead. I fished out a toffee, which I toyed with for a while.

I recalled a man from Denmark who took me on a pub crawl once, and insisted on us drinking spirits all evening. I felt sick for two whole days afterward.

“Come with me instead,” I said, putting the toffee in my pocket and pulling her gently but firmly with me toward the little room beyond the toilets. Somehow it felt like she appreciated the initiative, maybe even the energy behind the decision and its implementation, by which I mean the firm way of making a decision.

We slid round the corner behind the wall holding Jörgen's fairy lights. I flicked the light switch outside and she giggled like a little girl who was being allowed to follow the naughty boy into his secret den.

We entered the room just after half past ten in the evening, and I'd guess it was half past eleven by the time we emerged. What happened in between is in many ways still unclear.

Not that I was drunk. I still know what happened, but I'm not entirely sure how to interpret it.

We stood for a long time in front of the mirror. She touched me. I touched her back, but it was like she pulled my arms and hands to her, showing me round. Like a dance. I didn't have to move a muscle. She did it for me. Naturally, it was erotic, but never sordid the way it can so easily be when a man and woman meet. She smiled at me, but I can't remember us saying anything.

She had big, beautiful eyes and shiny hair. It was lovely. I was enchanted.

When we kissed it was as if she was me. I was me, but she was me too.

When we came out again she stood there looking at me for a long time. Charged. Changed. As if I'd shown her something entirely new. Something big. Something she hadn't quite been prepared for and didn't know how to handle. She turned on her heel and walked away. As far as I was aware, she went straight home.

As for me, I stayed for a while sucking the sweet.

Someone had made a snowman in the courtyard below my window, but it wasn't very good at all. The two bottom balls were roughly the same size, and the top one was only marginally smaller, which meant that it didn't have anything like the traditional snowman shape that a snowman ought to have. And it didn't have a nose. Whoever had made the snowman hadn't bothered to find a carrot or anything else that would have functioned as a nose, and had just left it as it was. Maybe they had lost interest halfway through? Such is life, I thought.

That night I lay in bed and went through the evening, moment by moment. Over and over again. From the frosty greeting and Hannah's strange comments, to the encounter with Margareta from reception, to my strong sense of having been master of the situation. In some ways it was a novel experience. A feeling of power.

Stupid people don't always know that they're stupid. They might be aware that something is wrong, they might notice that things don't usually turn out the way they imagined, but very few of them think it's because of them. That they're the root of their own problems, so to speak. And that sort of thing can be very difficult to explain.

I got an e-mail from Karl the other day. It was a group e-mail to the whole department. The introduction alone made me suspect trouble: “We will be putting staffing issues under a microscope.”

Anyone with even a basic understanding of the language knows that you put things under “the” microscope, with the definite article. (Sadly this sort of sloppiness is becoming more and more common as text messages and e-mail are taking over.) I let it pass this time but knew that I would have to act if it happened again. I wondered what suitable comment about the proper use of language I could drop into the conversation next time I spoke to Karl.

The morning after the party I got to work early.

A lot of the signs were still there. There was a sour smell, and plastic glasses and napkins on the floor. I wondered what preparations they had made for the clearing up.

“Things don't just clear themselves up, do they?” I said to Hannah with the ponytail when she arrived, still looking sleepy, a couple of minutes later. She glanced at me with annoyance, and I know she was impressed that I was there first, even though I wasn't part of any cleaning team. I sat down on the sofa by the kitchen and looked at a few newspapers, so that she would realize I had chosen to come on my own initiative rather than because I was told to.

After a while I noticed that she had chosen to start clearing up in a different part of the office, rendering my presence pointless. I folded the newspaper and went over to the lift.

I went down to reception and caught sight of Margareta hanging up her outdoor clothing in the little cloakroom behind the desk. I stopped beside the plastic Christmas tree and waited. From the other side of the counter I could see her standing in the little cloakroom adjusting her hair and clothes in a small mirror. Her skirt was nice, but she was wearing a dull-colored blouse that wasn't at all attractive. I'd have to remember to tell her not to wear it when she was with me if the two of us were going to get together, I thought. She must have felt she was being watched, because suddenly she started and turned toward me.

“Goodness, you startled me,” she said.

“Did I?” I said. “I didn't mean to.”

She gathered her things and came over to the counter.

“Early,” she said, meaning me.

“Yes,” I said, thinking that she seemed a little odd. She was being snappy in a way that I didn't appreciate at all.

I wondered whether I should say anything about the events in the room the previous day, but decided that it would be best to maintain a certain distance at first, and simply ride the wave of the impressions I had been given yesterday. I tried to remember what we had said to each other. What kind of agreement we had reached, so to speak. Eventually I said: “You too.”

We stood there in silence for a while. She was arranging some papers on her side of the counter. Opening a large diary. Pulling a page off the calendar. People started to stream in. Margareta greeted almost all of them in an equally warm and friendly way, which put me in an even worse mood seeing as she really ought to realize that she was devaluing the impact of her smile if she used it on everyone. Didn't she know that she should hold back a bit?

I tried to look as though I had business down there. I started to leaf through a trade magazine that was on the counter, and after a while I went over to the coffee machine and pressed the button to get a cup. I stood there for a long while waiting for the coffee to start trickling down into the cup. I pressed the button a few extra times, and had managed to get fairly annoyed by the time I realized that I hadn't put any money in.

I couldn't help noting how much better the organization worked down here, where you had to pay for coffee, compared to the lax coffee-drinking that pertained up in my department where anyone, at any time, could scuttle off and get coffee without any restrictions at all.

When I was putting the coins in I realized that I was a couple of kronor short. I went back to Margareta and asked if she could lend me two one-krona coins. She was standing talking to a woman in a suit and didn't answer me at first, so I asked again. Slightly louder. Then she turned toward me with irritation and said that she could. She went into the little cloakroom and got her handbag, took out her purse, and passed me the coins. I thought it impractical to keep her handbag containing her purse so far from the counter, but said nothing. Partly because I didn't think her behavior deserved to be rewarded with my advice, and partly because I didn't want to appear too superior to her at such an early stage of our relationship. Instead, I merely smiled and decided to counter her irritation with a forgiving, worldly attitude.

“After all, two kronor isn't the end of the world,” I said, glancing toward the woman in the suit, but there was no conspiratorial smile.

They resumed their conversation and I went back to the coffee machine, put my money in, got my coffee, then went and stood beside the plastic Christmas tree again. By now most people had arrived and the reception area resumed its usual deserted appearance. I was left alone again with Margareta on the other side of the counter.

“Well,” I said after a while, sipping the hot coffee and wondering what I ought to say.

She looked up at me from her papers, but I saw none of the respect you might expect from a receptionist of her level. It made me slightly annoyed. Maybe she was one of those people who thought it was acceptable to set aside all politeness and manners once you've been introduced and become acquainted.

“Yes?” Margareta said.

I decided to sit her out. Let her catch up and realize the situation she was in. Any moment now everything ought to click into place, I thought, but she just went on looking at me with that indirectly arrogant expression, rather like a mother looking at her teenage son.

When she didn't say anything, I felt obliged to speak: “Well, I thought it was nice, anyway.”

She took a paper clip and fastened several documents together, then put them on a new pile.

“I have to ask you something personal,” she said after a while, as she pushed the papers away. “Is that okay?” I nodded and she looked round. I could see she was gathering herself.

“Are you on drugs?”

At first I thought she was joking. I laughed, but then I saw that she was serious. I took a couple of steps back and noticed that I'd spilled some coffee on the sleeve of my jacket. What did she mean? Why would she ask that? Was she on drugs? Did she want me to join her on some sort of junkie adventure?

I must have looked angry because suddenly she got that scared look in her eye that I recognized from the night before. I wasn't used to people looking at me that way. It unsettled me, and made me even more angry.

“What do you mean?” I tried to say in my usual voice, but I heard it come out much more strained than I had intended.

It annoyed me that she had so suddenly managed to throw me off balance. I wasn't remotely enjoying the confusion she was spreading, and felt the need to create more distance. I backed away another couple of steps.

“I just mean…” Margareta began uncertainly. “Well, what are you doing down here now, for instance? In work time?”

I looked at the large clock on the wall behind the desk and saw to my surprise that it was already twenty-five to ten. How could it be so late? So quickly?