Jonas Karlsson - The Room

Håkan was wearing his rather worn, dark-blue corduroy jacket that day, and I could feel that it was having a negative effect on me. Blue really wasn’t his colour, and the corduroy was soft and threadbare. No substance to it at all. It made me think of poorly stuffed cushions in waiting rooms. It was making me uneasy and unfocused. And even more angry.

It was as if he wasn’t properly concentrating on work.

There was something about him that had long made me suspect that he had a hidden agenda beyond the watchful eye of the Authority. His hair, his sideburns, and that scruffy jacket; it all suggested a set of values different to the ones that we in the department set most store by.

‘Shall we go home now, Björn?’ he said.

‘Not before we’re done here,’ I said.

As Håkan reluctantly explained, for the second time, what he could see in front of him, and stubbornly denied the existence of the room, I realised that I was going to have to be more obvious. I reached out my arm and pointed, so the tip of my forefinger was touching the door.

‘Door,’ I said.

He looked at me again with that foolish smile and glazed expression.

‘Wall,’ he said.

‘Door,’ I said.

‘Wall,’ he said.

The following day I decided to pay careful attention to everyone going down the corridor, and I was forced to admire the elegant artistry of whoever had constructed the secret space. What had the architect done to conceal a room so effectively, when it was right in front of the noses of everyone working here? And who had managed to get them to act so credibly as if it didn’t exist? Who had drilled this crazy exercise into them? And what was that room, really? Maybe it was dangerous, or did it possibly contain classified information? It seemed so unassuming, but perhaps that was the whole point? Maybe it was supposed to look innocent.

Just before lunch I went over to Jörgen. I stood there waiting until he looked up from his papers.

‘Did you want something?’ he asked.

I beckoned him towards me with my forefinger but he didn’t move from his chair. His jaw was hanging like a boxer’s.

‘Have you got a minute?’ I asked when he didn’t obey my signal, which couldn’t possibly have been unclear.

Finally he got the message and slowly followed me round the corner into the corridor. I stopped outside the door to the room, just as I had done with Håkan the day before. I made an effort to adopt a confidential tone of voice.

‘Jörgen,’ I said, ‘I want you to be completely honest now. I want you to tell me what this room is for.’

‘What room?’

‘This one,’ I said, touching the door with my finger.

‘There’s the lift,’ Jörgen said. ‘And there are the toilets.’

‘Mmm, but what about in between them?’

‘In between? Well, there’s a recycling bin, if that’s what you mean …’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ I said. ‘What’s this room for?’

I slapped my hand on the door, fairly hard. Actually harder than I had expected. I realised that this nonsense was wearing my patience. I had to try to keep a cool head.

‘Well …’ Jörgen said, looking at me.

I could see that he was extremely uncertain. He was evidently disconcerted at having to talk to me.

‘… it’s a wall.’

I glared at him.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

‘Yes, what do you want me to say? You’re fucking weird, you know that? Why are you so interested in this wall? Don’t drag me into this.’

I realised that Jörgen wasn’t the right place to start. He was only a poor subordinate. Loyal, but entirely without influence. Whoever was responsible for this deception was on a different level of the hierarchy. I patted him on the shoulder and said he could go back and sit down again.

That afternoon I went round and led my other colleagues to the same spot and carried out the same procedure as with Jörgen and Håkan. They were all reluctant, and they all stuck to the same story: there was no door there, let alone a room, and anyway, what was I doing when I stood there without moving?

A certain anxiety spread through the department. People stood and whispered to each other. Håkan tried to put his arm round my shoulders and a number of people pointed at me. In the end I lost patience and gathered all the staff together. Apart from Karl, who was off at some meeting all day.

I went from desk to desk and summoned everyone in friendly but firm terms to a short meeting. Some of them muttered, wondering what this was all about, wanting to know in advance. Some of them literally required a helping hand to get moving. But most of them came along without any fuss, and I told them all it would be best, as well as easiest, if everyone was given the information at the same time. Jörgen and Håkan laughed rather nervously at first and tried to make a joke of it, but when they realised that no one else thought they were very funny they quietened down noticeably. I herded them like a sheepdog out to the corridor, past the toilets, towards the room.

When I stepped inside the room for the eighth time, I had the whole department with me, apart from Karl. Each and every one of them stepped through the door, and once I had them all in there I explained to them that I had seen through their little joke. I said I didn’t know who was the brains behind it, but that I’d worked it out well enough to let them know.

That night I lay in bed, still feeling the congenial inner calm that only arises when you’ve discovered, grappled with and successfully resolved a problem. I read four pages in the last but one issue of Research and Progress , and listened to Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ on the radio before I turned out the bedside lamp and fell asleep.

The next day the whole department was called to Karl’s office. It was quite a squeeze, but Karl said it would work if we squashed up a bit. Håkan was wearing a black jacket and I felt at once that I was much happier with it. It had a decent, classic cut and looked relatively new. It made him fit in better with the rest of us, and made me feel calm.

Everyone was talking at the same time. Once the whole team had gathered Karl knocked on his desk.

‘Okay, everyone. Right, Ann, there was something you wanted to discuss?’

‘Yes,’ Ann said, blushing. ‘Not just me. I think I can speak for the whole department …’

She fell silent, as if she were waiting for some show of agreement from the others.

‘Well?’ Karl said, looking around at the others. It was clear that he found this situation uncomfortable. Never previously had we all had cause to gather inside his office. Something was obviously going on. He turned towards Ann again.

‘Maybe you’d like to start, then?’

Ann cleared her throat, and it looked like she was standing on tiptoe as she talked. It made her look a bit like a schoolgirl. Even though she was over fifty.

‘I … We think this business is all getting a bit unpleasant, Björn,’ she said, looking at me.

Everyone turned towards me.

‘What’s unpleasant?’ I said.

‘Shall we let Ann finish without interrupting?’ Karl said, completely unnecessarily, because obviously I was going to let her finish. But all of a sudden it was as if his supposition that I had interrupted her were true. I could feel everyone’s attention focus on me even more intently.

‘Yes,’ Ann went on. ‘We’re all getting worried. About you.’

‘Why would you be getting worried?’