Jonas Karlsson - The Room

Obviously each and every individual has different ways of reaching a decision. Some people find it hard, or think it feels strange. I discovered that I find it very easy to make decisions. It seemed to come naturally. I’m happy to decide things, and every time it felt perfectly fine formulating the way that things should be.

Jens came up to me one day fishing for advice.

‘How come you can suddenly …?’ Jens said. ‘I mean … we had no idea …’

‘Hard work,’ I said. ‘Hard work is the father of success.’

‘But how do you go about it, exactly?’

I smiled.

‘I’m sure you can understand that I can’t reveal my reasoning. That would be both undesirable and impossible. The best thing for the department and for you personally would be for you to work out your own way of reasoning on your own.’

To start with I only dealt with four-figure cases. But as news of my success began to spread, the occasional three-figure case would land on my desk. Suddenly Karl came up to me, all excited, and asked how I would feel about taking on number 97. It was a direct request from the DG, he said. I said I’d be happy to. Framework decision number 97 was my first double-digit case.

Karl came with me up to the investigators to pick up the material. We could have done with a trolley. As he walked beside me along the corridors of the upper floors with the heavy burden in his arms, it almost felt like he was my assistant. In some ways he had started to rely on me. I remember thinking: This is your future, Karl. Stick close to me.

Jörgen was losing his temper more and more often. Every now and then one of his outbursts would be aimed at Karl, usually for no obvious reason. But Karl shouted back, which I thought reasonable. Angry dogs need to be kept on a short lead.

My days were spent writing up and editing, but seeing as that didn’t fill the whole working day I soon abandoned my fifty-five-minute method and had a lot of time left over for networking in the office.

I spent long periods by the coffee-machine in the little kitchen, and noticed how people’s attitudes towards me gradually changed. I was given the space to spread out in social conversation. I would declare my opinion on various subjects and could immediately identify those who agreed with me, and those who said they did but were lying.

One day when we were standing there, Hannah with the ponytail suddenly said: ‘It’s great that you changed the bulb in here, Jens. It was high time that got done.’

She was grinning broadly and Jens tried to look nonchalant.

‘Oh, it’s no big deal,’ he said.

I put my cup down.

‘I thought about doing that a few weeks ago,’ I said.

And suddenly I realised the difference between me and my colleagues. I was ahead of them the whole time. By about two weeks. It took them numerous attempts to understand what I could see at the first go. Was it the same thing with the room? Would they stand there one day and discover what I had tried to show them such a long time before? Maybe they were just too immature to see what seemed utterly obvious to me? Was this how Copernicus felt?

As the days passed I began to feel a degree of irritation spread out and take hold of me.

Karl always helped me with heavy piles of documents. Sometimes he would be wholly responsible for their transportation from the investigators down to our department, if I had a lot to do, for instance. But when the work actually had to be done, I had to shift the heaps of material into the room without anyone seeing. It started to get rather wearing after a while.

Eventually I began to feel irritated at having to keep quiet about my real workplace. Besides, I was finding it both uncomfortable and tiring to have to wait until all the others had left each day before I could get any real work done.

Everyone else in the department carried on as usual. Took their breaks, chatted. Which annoyed me as well.

I realised fairly early on that there was a difference between my time and other people’s. I don’t just do one thing at a time. I can be on my way somewhere, but I’ll spend the time thinking about other things, things that may not have anything to do with what I’m doing just then. That way I maximise the use of my time.

For instance, I don’t just stand on the bus staring out of the window at things I’ve seen hundreds of times. I think about other things instead, calculating and thinking things through. Making decisions.

You have to apply the same principle in dealing with other people. Otherwise certain conversations can become incredibly time-consuming. I listen until I realise where the conversation is going, which in many cases can be deduced fairly early, then I switch off and concentrate on other things. There’s no reason to hear the same thing twice. Or three or four times. Ordinary people listen to a huge amount of nonsense that they would be better off without.

Ordinary people can do one thing at a time. I can deal with plenty. Surely I ought to be rewarded for that?

‘If it’s possible, I’d like to go through a few practical issues,’ I said to Karl in his office a couple of days later.

‘Shut the door, Björn,’ Karl said, parking his little trolley in the corner behind the desk.

I had asked for a private meeting to go through a list of things I couldn’t help thinking about. Maybe I could put a bit of pressure on him now that I had established myself and become more or less indispensible.

Karl was sweating a lot, and I couldn’t help wondering deep down about the state of his health.

‘I noticed that I didn’t get an email about the staff-development days,’ I said.

‘Didn’t you get the email?’ he said with the look of surprise between breaths.

‘Well, that depends on your definition.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well,’ I said, leaning back in the chair, ‘it wasn’t addressed to me.’

‘But you got the email?’

‘I was copied into it, yes. I’d appreciate it if my name could be included in the list of recipients. As it is, I just got it as a copy.’

Karl pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and mopped his brow.

‘But you did get the email?’

‘Only as a copy.’

‘Do you want to attend the staff-development days? If you do, I can just—’

I shook my head.

‘I’d never consider that,’ I said.

We both sat there in silence as he folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket.

‘Obviously, I’m not making any demands,’ I said. ‘I just wanted you to know that you’d be making it easier for me to choose all of you here, if there was ever any chance of my considering anything else.’

‘Considering anything else, Björn?’

‘You never know.’

‘Are you thinking of leaving us?’

‘I can’t go into that.’

Karl rubbed his head with one hand. I thought I could see a stiff smile on his lips.

‘Well, go ahead. What would you like to see?’

I took out the pad on which I’d written a few reminders.

‘Jörgen has to go.’

Karl looked at me, wide-eyed.

‘Sorry?’

‘I want Jörgen to leave. Be removed from the department. He can stay in the building, just out of my sight and hearing.’

‘Björn, that sort of demand—’