THE MEDIA POWERHOUSE, STOCKHOLM, FRIDAY 20 DECEMBER 2019

Monsieur le baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh passa auprès du paravant, et, voyant cette cause à effet, chassa Candide du château à grands coups de pied dans le derrière ; et tout fut consterné dans le plus beau et le plus agréable des châteaux possibles.

Voltaire, Candide (1759)

Erik Engström looked in disbelief at the single Whatsapp line with its brutal message: Need yu NOW at my office.

It was supposed to be a Friday afternoon for lethargic souls at the posh market communications agency, with only four days to go to Christmas Eve. The eighty-per­son staff - including those working in Gothenburg, Copen­hagen, and Hamburg -  had enjoyed a splendid and boozy Xmas party eight days earlier. It had coincided with the Sankta Lucia celebration, one of the most revered in this nasty period of utterly inclement weather. Everyone was cheered up by the many candle lights displayed on this occasion. The financial year most certainly would indicate an all-time high for The Media Powerhouse. It felt like one could easily let Epiphany pass before any actual corporate workload was expected.

Therefore, many arched eyebrows were seen on the second floor when the special projects manager rose abruptly from his desk. All employees present perceived his low-tuned swearing. Erik Engström´s 185 centime­ters made their way awkwardly to the staircase lead­ing to the Outlook tower of the mid-19th century mansion at Ludvigsbergsgatan. Björn Gustavsson, the overweight but energetic CEO of The Media Powerhouse, ruled over those upper domains. Björn could also be designated the symbolic supremo of this truly historic part of the Söder borough. It kept picturesque red-painted timber houses from the 18th century still clinging tena­ciously to the rocky hillsides. Long after factories and sweatshops had vanished, affluent people had acquired the most prominent of these wooden relics. Overlooking the Swedish capital´ s inner waters, they were much sought after as a status residence. They were indeed a tribute to sustainable Scandinavian capitalism, so ef­fective and aware of its roots at the same time. Long live the Kingdom of Sweden! It was easy to fall in love with Stockholm, an international capital of bookstores, always brimming with good literature. Though the espionage and dark mystery genre had found an exquisite audience among the Swedish intelligentsia, Erik considered it mainly to be a disappointment. He, who was longing for a more select French audience in his secret literary ambitions! This trend made him especially sad because, in his opinion, books of high quality had never been more needed. He, therefore, joined the efforts to restore  the great French library at the Palais de l’Île-de-France, a significant chance for exceptional literature.

Meanwhile, he had other fish to fry. Alas, manager or not, to be summoned late on Friday afternoon without notice, so close to Christmas and worse, to the Outlook Tower, that meant trouble. Both Erik and the second-floor staff knew intuitively that nothing healthy could transpire from such an offbeat encounter. It was so conspicuous, and no presenti­ment needed really.

They were right, of course. “Hmm…this is not the Spanish Inquisition, you know. Please be seated,” said Björn Gus­tavsson as an opening, though the face, dazzling but grim, told the opposite. His red complexion was not due to one week under the Canary Islands ´ constant sun, nor to anger. Too many expensive business meals washed down with high-end Burgundy, the CEO ´ s favorite wine, reflected Erik. He secretly wished that Björn would cancel the meeting due to sudden coronary indisposition. Erik was 37 and solidly built but felt at that moment like a ten-year-old taken in the act of some boyish prank.

No sofa, no cozy small talk. In front of the sizeable mahoga­ny desk, there was just a single chair where Erik positioned himself. The weather outside joined in the perceived op­pression. A premature night obscured the habitually magnificent view, and snowflakes were whirling around in a fog thick as pea soup.

The big boss had Marie Berentz, the PR agency´´ s administrative chief, on his right side behind the desk. She remained impassive.

Fiftyish, the hair of opaque color in a bun, she was wear­ing, as always, a strict tailleur. The Number Two in the hi­erarchy, but unofficially she had been appointed The Media Powerhouse´´ s guardian of political correctness. Björn Gus­tavsson was mostly okay but Erik had never liked Berentz. Not relevant; worse was that he didn´t trust her. This par­ticular Friday afternoon, if the CEO had already chosen the role of the ruthless Judge and Prosecutor, Berentz appeared to Erik as the devoted Executioner.

“We want to resolve this unpleasant incident smartly,” continued the CEO. Berentz nodded in assent. Erik still had not the faintest clue to what had provoked the contentious hearing. He sensed that he was supposed to react but re­mained stubbornly mute. You can´t protest while still ignoring the charges, damn! But deep inside, he began to doubt his innocence. What had happened at the Xmas party? He had drunk beyond reason, so much was for sure. Not the way a manager was supposed to behave, not at all. Maybe he de­served a reprimand.

“Well…,” said Björn hesitating, “You are not making this easy for us. Things would have been so much easier if you had left her alone for a start. Let´s see here…” He consulted some documents spread over the table with an embarrassing air. Marie Berentz came to his imme­diate rescue, reciting low-tuned but sharply from memory: “Twenty-three years old.” The CEO looked up from his pa­pers, with a cold smile. “Precisely. A trainee, for Christ´s sake, what kind of irresponsible behavior is that? Even be­fore #MeToo, we couldn´t have shut our eyes...”

Erik Engström remembered at last, slowly. Since Septem­ber, Lovisa Helin also worked on the second floor of Villa Ludvigsberg, but not in his immediate vicinity. They had chatted frequently during fika, the typical Swedish paus­es in front of the coffee machine. Both were smokers and therefore had together confronted the Siberian winds in the paved courtyard on several occasions. A delightful appear­ance she was with her long rye blond hair and slightly blur­ry gray eyes due to myopia. You could indeed call her a cool girl, quick to replicate and funny too. Despite the age dif­ference, he would not have hesitated to engage further than into a playful flirting with Lovisa if they had met randomly at Kvarnen, a traditional watering hole, and a favorite. His girlfriend, Lena, lovely but intricate Lena, had dumped him after a stupid quarrel while camping in Norway six months earlier. In its wake, his sentimental life was put on the back burner.

At this stage, Erik was aware that both Björn and the ad­ministrative chief were expecting him to react. But still, he had´ nt got it. React to what? He had done nothing wrong. For God´s sake, he had not even tried to date the cute train­ee! And then, like a painful flash, he began suddenly to re­call more details from the wet Xmas party. Not only had he drunk in excess, something had happened related to Lovisa. As he now hastily was trying to reconstitute the events in his disrupted mind, his reminiscence bribes could eas­ily have been labeled hot. He had not initiated it, though, certainly not. At some moment of the evening party, Lovi­sa had looked him up, taken his hand, and invited him to dance. Perfect. But while the music turned romantic, she became the seducer, pressing her body against his, begin­ning to explore it with one hand. It did not go unnoticed, he imagined. Meanwhile, he had sobered up, realizing the inconvenient situation and put an end to it smoothly. Or so he hoped.

Björn Gustavsson and Marie Berentz were still fixing big serious eyes on him.

“Had you come to us spontaneously,” said the CEO with impatience popping in his articulate voice at last, “maybe we could have arranged a better conclusion. But present circumstances call for… Let´s not go round the mulberry bush. Remission! Yes, remission it must be.”

Gustavsson did not detail. Had they already decided to fire him over some very minor slide in behavior? That was impossible in Sweden. Erik was dumbfounded. What the heck was going on? “Hey, this is so weird,” he managed to pronounce at last after a long, low sigh that must have sounded desperate.

“You´ re damn right,” exclaimed Björn Gustavsson, now with genuine anger in his voice, the complexion more reddish than ever.

“Lovisa wants to bring formal charges of sexual abuse against you,” completed Marie Berentz matter-of-factly. A malicious twinkle materialized in her eyes though, Erik was convinced of that.

“Look, thi…this is crazy,” stuttered Erik. “I plead guilty to not have conducted myself to the highest standards at the  

Xmas party. Everyone present drunk a lot, right? There was no scandal, though. She started this… intimacy, really, and nothing inconvenient happened. Not during the party and not after it.”

“The party?” repeated Björn. “Yeah, that was piquant. But it was not what I meant. What we are talking about is Tues­day. This Tuesday.”

Once again, Erik Engström lost the thread. Three days ago. What had happened Tuesday? He had pulled an all-nighter at the job, for sure!

“Let me remind you. You stayed at the office at least until 10.30 pm.”

That was correct. Erik had been working late, a client in­sisting on a report.

“And were you alone?”

Erik considered he had been the only one slaving this last week before Xmas, everyone else out shopping for gifts and delicatessen after office hours. Or decorating their homes, or baking, it seemed. People left already at six. But wait… There hadn't been only him. How could he have forgotten?

“Did you ask Lovisa to stay and help out?” asked Marie Berentz calmly.

“No, eh… not at all. She was the one offering to attach some statistical material, case references, that kind of stuff. Otherwise, I could have been stuck at the job until mid­night. I found that thoughtful, showing camaraderie. Paid her Uber home when I come to think about it.”

“You could even have paid her fare, but the rest differs to­tally

from her version,” said Björn Gustavsson, the steady voice not hiding a strong irritation. “You will gain nothing from distorting facts, don't t you realize that?”

“You were harassing her sexually, caressing her breasts, feverishly,” denounced Berentz, lips twisted in dismay.

This was bad. But Erik would not accept these hollow ac­cusations. “I have difficulties in grasping why Lovisa Helin would lie so blatantly about this,” he admitted. “Because that´ s what she has done. Perhaps she has problems. Psy­chological problems.”

Marie Berentz rejected the suggestion with horror paint­ed on her face. “The typical macho speech, trying to incrim­inate the weaker and most exposed. That will not save you.”

The CEO touched his forehead and assented: “There are so many digital traces nowadays. I thought you would be smarter than sending an email to her on Wednesday eve­ning. A very private one, quite obsessive it is. And the day after you write from your Instagram account a private mes­sage to Lovisa describing, I quote ´my burgeoning passion for you waiting to be consumed after you entered my life as a divine spark on Sankta Lucia celebration.’ How kitsch is not that? But you are no Candide, blue-eyed as was Vol­taire´s naïve hero. The real question is: did the chick agree to the affair? ”

“Which may also render you two years in prison,” re­marked Marie Berentz icily. The bitch! She and Björn made the perfect corporate radar couple, Erik registered with a strange awareness.

He perceived that he had begun hyperventilating. His mouth felt starch as sandpaper. This was a miserable situa­tion, having lost the battle without even putting up a fight. “Err, I can't explain all this; it´s confusing. I just didn't do it,” he protested feebly, as in a trance.

“I tell you what we are going to do,” said Björn Gustavs­son. “First, convince Lovisa not to make this official.”

“I´ll arrange another job for her in town, a real one,” added the administrative chief.

“You must also quit, obviously,” continued the CEO soothingly.

“Today,” specified Marie Berentz. “The Media Powerhouse will give you a six-month salary compensation upon your signing a non-disclosure agreement that I have prepared. I think that´s too generous, considering that you have not given your full to the agency and its clients for the last twelve months. However, Björn insists on a fair settlement, a fresh start for everyone concerned. Had it not been the current horrid events, I would have asked to see you anyway for a career conversation beginning of January, with an unpleasant outcome for you.”

Erik Engström was too shocked and humiliated to put up any resistance. Nothing was logical in the described cir­cumstances. Berentz had a point, though: he had become less and less motivated by the assignments handed to him at The Media Powerhouse. He was no PR agency man, after all. Erik still felt like the newspaper reporter he had been. When he had joined The Media Powerhouse five years ear­lier, his task was to manage advertorial newspaper supple­ments, which required real facts and journalistic skills. For the last two years, though, his job focused on supervising corporate news material, created by robots and mostly pro­pagandistic.

Afterward, Erik Engström was not sure that he had lived the scene in the Outlook Tower. How could he make sure he had heard correctly? I am still in there, he thinks, ashamed of myself, with no other reason than the absurd accusations just made. As I reach the door, after a long silence, I lift my hand to open it, incapable of standing my ground. When I was a child, like all the rest of the children of the village, I be­lieved everything the teacher told me. And presently, an adult of thirty-seven, not knowing how profound it is, I decide by omission not to seek out the hidden story and try to prove my boss wrong. When someone asks for help, he should get it; or he accepts his punishment. That flashes suddenly as a truism worthy of Dostoyevsky. Or does it happen that the hopeless world of a drug addict is just the result of l´esprit de l´escalier?

At 6.15 pm, Erik left the Outlook Tower, a broken man in soul. Staff had already cleared out from the agency, and the weather outside was worse than ever. He had signed the NDA. It was still four days to Christmas Eve.

Tomorrow was going to be the first morning of the rest of his life.

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