The Room Read Online Free PDF Page B

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?

17.
    I left at once. Without a word I hurried across the granite floor and went up in the lift. I got off at the fourth floor and made an effort not to run to my desk. I slipped onto my chair and leafed quickly through my diary to check that I hadn’t missed a meeting, but there was nothing written down. I glanced over at the glass doors where Karl sat, but couldn’t see him. I took a deep breath and suddenly realized how tired I was. I tried to remember when I had last slept.
    I should have seen through her earlier. Obviously she was a junkie. All that smiling. That optimistic outlook. It was a chemically produced friendliness. I’d walked straight into the trap. Being taken in by the surface appearance of a drug user was one of the dangers of being an open, honest person. Never suspecting anything.
    I realized that I would have to stay away from her in the future.
    —
    I raised my head and tried to look straight ahead, but it was hard to get my gaze to settle on anything. I have to find somewhere I can pull myself together, I thought. I got up and felt my whole body aching with tiredness.
    Without knowing how it had happened, I felt something warm and wet on my legs. I looked down and saw the remains of the coffee on my jacket and trousers, the empty plastic cup upside down in my hand. Slowly but surely I made my way toward the corridor with the toilets, then in to wipe the coffee off. I pulled out a bundle of paper towels and pressed them against my jacket and trousers.
    The room, I thought. I’ll go into the room for an hour. I crept out into the corridor, past the big recycling bin, switched on the light, and opened the door for the seventh time.

18.
    I could feel the clean white wall against my back. The gentle texture against the palm of my hand as I placed it on the wallpaper. The cool steel against my cheek as I leaned my head on the filing cabinet. The soft motion of the drawers as they slid in and out on their metal runners. Order.
    I counted the lengths of wallpaper on the long wall. Five, I made it.
    —
    After a short while I felt brighter. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that I was my old self again. I looked better than I deserved to. I adjusted my tie and went back out into the office.

19.
    I sat down in my place and looked at the time. I had about fifteen minutes left until a new fifty-five-minute period started, so I leaned back and stretched my arms up in the air. Then let them fall and folded them behind my head. I glanced over at Karl’s glassed-in office. I didn’t mind if he did see me now. See me