Jonas Karlsson - The Room

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.’

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.