the letter

open office — 17:15

most of the bureau has gone home. the light has that thin, used quality of a scandinavian afternoon that gave up hours ago. line is at her desk. she has been drafting the letter to tvp holdings for ninety minutes. there are four crumpled drafts in her recycling bin and a fifth on screen that she keeps highlighting and un-highlighting.

tobias is still here because tobias is always still here. he sits three desks away, reading something on his phone with the focus of a man who has mistaken a wikipedia article about kierkegaard for a personality.

line makes a sound. not a word. a sound. the sound of someone who has written “dear sir or madam” for the fifth time and wants to die.

tobias: just say what you mean.

line: i’m trying. gorm said standard language.

tobias: gorm says a lot of things. most of them are sun tzu filtered through a man who peaked during a nato simulation exercise in 1994.

line: i want it to be clear. there’s a smell. it might be a health issue. they need to address it.

tobias: read me what you have.

line: clears throat “dear property owner, it has come to the attention of the bureau of citizen concerns that the premises formerly known as synscenter tiny valley, located adjacent to our offices, may be the source of an odor consistent with organic decomposition. we respectfully request that you arrange an inspection of the property at your earliest convenience.”

pause.

tobias: that’s fine.

line: it doesn’t say anything.

tobias: exactly. it’s perfect bureau correspondence. you’ve communicated the existence of a problem, implied responsibility, requested action, and committed to nothing. that’s the whole art form.

line: but what if they ignore it?

tobias: they will ignore it.

line: then why are we sending it?

tobias: because in six weeks, when the smell has gotten worse and someone from the municipality calls us, gorm will open a drawer, produce this letter, and say “we raised the flag.” the letter isn’t a solution, line. it’s a receipt.

line stares at her screen.

line: i looked up tvp holdings.

tobias: puts his phone down why.

line: because i was writing to them. i wanted to know who i was writing to. that seems like a minimum.

tobias: nobody does the minimum here. you’ve overperformed already.

line: it’s a shell. tvp holdings is registered to a p.o. box in fredericia. one director listed. no website. no phone number. they own three properties in tiny valley — the optician, a laundromat on havnegade that’s been “temporarily closed” since 2021, and a vacant lot near the school.

tobias is now sitting up.

tobias: you found this in ninety minutes.

line: twenty. the other seventy were the letter.

tobias: who’s the director?

line: someone called per vang. i couldn’t find anything else about him. no linkedin, no facebook. just the cvr registration.

tobias: per vang. t-v-p. tiny valley properties. or per vang turned backwards. creative.

line: do you think it matters?

tobias: probably not. people use shells for tax reasons, inheritance reasons, boring reasons. but a company with no public presence that owns three dead properties in a small town is at least interesting.

line: should i tell gorm?

tobias: tell gorm what? that you did research he didn’t ask for and found something that might mean nothing? gorm doesn’t want information. gorm wants the letter on his desk and the problem at arm’s length.

line highlights “dear property owner” again. unhighlights it.

line: should i put per vang’s name on it? instead of “property owner”?

tobias: no. “property owner” gives us plausible distance. if you name him, it becomes personal. the bureau doesn’t do personal. the bureau does procedural.

line: that seems like a waste of knowing his name.

tobias: welcome to public administration.

he gets up. puts on his jacket. stops at her desk on the way out.

tobias: keep the name. write it down somewhere. not in the official file.

line: why?

tobias: because you found it in twenty minutes and nobody else has bothered in three years. that’s either nothing or it’s something, and either way it’s yours.

he leaves. line sits with the cursor blinking on “dear property owner.”

she opens her notebook. the one with the protocol 7 notes and the sun tzu quotes. in the back, on a blank page, she writes: “per vang. tvp holdings. fredericia. three properties. no face.”

she sends the letter as-is. closes her laptop. the office is empty now except for the hum of anders’ servers in the next room, running on a framework that no longer exists, holding up a building that should probably be condemned, processing the complaints of people who will never be satisfied.

the smell from next door is not getting better.