Excerpt from The Room by Jonas Karlsson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Calm down," I told him when he turned up with yet another folder, trying to get my attention. "Can you just calm down a bit?"

He calmed down at once and became considerably more reserved. Presumably sulking because I had made my feelings plain from the outset. It probably didn't sit well with the accepted image of a newcomer, but it fit with the reputation for ambition and tough tactics that I was happy to help spread about myself.

• • •

Slowly but surely I built up profiles of my closest neighbors, their character and place in the hierarchy. Beyond Håkan sat Ann. A woman somewhere round fifty. She seemed knowledgeable and ambitious, but also the sort of person who thought she knew everything and liked being proven right. It soon became clear that everyone turned to her when they didn't dare approach the boss. She had a framed child's drawing near her computer. It showed a sun sinking into the sea. But the drawing was wrong, because on the horizon there were landmasses sticking up on both sides of the sun, which of course is impossible. Presumably it had some sort of sentimental value to her, even if it wasn't particularly pleasant for the rest of us to have to look at.

Opposite Ann sat Jörgen. Big and strong, but doubtless not possessed of an intellect to match. Pinned up on his desk and stuck all round his computer were loads of jokey notes and postcards which obviously had nothing to do with work, and suggested a tendency toward the banal. At regular intervals he would whisper things to Ann and I would hear her squeak, "Oh, Jörgen," as if he'd told her a rude joke. There was something of an age gap between them. I estimated it to be at least ten years.

Beyond them sat John, a taciturn gentleman of about sixty, who worked on the financing of inspection visits, and next to him sat someone called Lisbeth, I think. I don't know. I wasn't about to ask. She hadn't introduced herself.

There were twenty-three of us in total and almost all had a screen or little wall of some sort around their desks. Only Håkan and I were stuck in the middle of the floor. Håkan said we would soon be getting screens as well, but I said it didn't matter.

"I've got nothing to hide," I said.




There were two ways to get to the toilets. One, round the corner past the green potted palm, was slightly shorter than the other, but because I felt like a change that day, I decided to take the longer route past the lift. That was when I stepped inside the room for the first time.

I realized my mistake and carried on past the large bin for recycled paper, to the door alongside, the first of the row of three toilets.

I got back to my desk just in time for the next fifty-five- minute period, and by the end of the day I had almost forgotten ever having looked through the door leading to that extra space.

4.

The second time I went into the room I was looking for photocopy paper. I was determined to manage on my own. Despite all the exhortations to ask about things, I was unwilling to expose myself to humiliation and derision by displaying gaps in my knowledge of the setup. I had come to recognize the little stress wrinkles they all got whenever I did actually ask. Obviously they weren't to know that I was aiming to get to the top of the Authority. To become someone who commanded respect. And I didn't want to give Håkan any excuse to indulge his work-avoidance.

Excerpted from The Room by Jonas Karlsson. Copyright © 2015 by Jonas Karlsson. Excerpted by permission of Hogarth Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.