Inhuman Resources

by Pierre Lemaitre

  I am beside myself.

  I grab the wall unit beside me and yank it so violently that it comes away completely. Plates, mugs—everything comes tumbling down with a terrible crash.

  Nicole cries out and then starts sobbing into her hands. But I don’t have the strength to console her. I can’t. Deep down that’s the worst thing about it. We’ve been fighting together for four years just to keep our heads above water, and one fine day we realize it’s over. Without knowing it, each of us has folded. Because even with the best couples, each one has a different way of seeing reality. That’s what I’m trying to say to her. But I’m so furious that I get it wrong.

  “You’re able to have scruples and morals because you have a job. For me, it’s the opposite.”

  It’s not the best way of putting things, but in the circumstances I can’t do any better. I think Nicole has gotten the general gist, but I don’t have time to make sure. I pull the door shut as I leave.

  At the bottom of our building, I realize I’ve forgotten to put on a coat.

  It’s raining and cold, so I turn up my shirt collar.

  Like a tramp.

  6

  It’s May 8, a public holiday. We are celebrating Mother’s Day at our place because next Sunday Gregory wants to be with his own mother. Nicole has told Mathilde twenty thousand times that she doesn’t give a damn about Mother’s Day, but to no avail. Mathilde, however, sticks to it. I suppose it’s because later on she doesn’t want her children to overlook it. She’s in training.

  The girls are supposed to be arriving at midday, but at 9:00 a.m., Nicole is still in bed, facing the wall. Since her horrified reaction to the selection test that I intend to pass, we’ve barely exchanged three words. For Nicole, it’s simply unacceptable.

  I think she was crying this morning. I didn’t have the courage to touch her. I got up and went to the kitchen. Last night she didn’t pick up the broken dishes, just pushed them into a pile in the corner of the room. It’s very large—I must have broken most of our dishes. I can’t clean it up now, it would make a dreadful racket.

  I turn around, not knowing what to do, so I go and switch on my computer to see if I have any messages.

  I gauge my usefulness to society by the number of e-mails I receive. Back in the day, my ex-colleagues from Bercaud would send me a few lines that I’d reply to right away. Just chatting. And then I realized that the only ones who still wrote to me were the ones who had been fired, too. Fellow reduced-to-clear friends. I stopped replying, and they stopped writing. In fact, everything around us got scarcer. We had two old friends: a school pal of Nicole’s who lived in Toulouse, and a guy I knew from military service who I had dinner with from time to time. The others were friends from work or holidays, or the parents of the girls’ friends from when they lived at home. Maybe people got a bit tired of us. And we of them. When you don’t share the same concerns, you don’t share the same pleasures. Nowadays Nicole and I are rather lonely. Only Lucie still sends me e-mails, at least one a week. These messages are practically devoid of content, just a way for her to let me know she’s thinking of me. Mathilde phones her mother—that’s another way.

  My inbox consists of newsletters from various job centers and recruitment agencies and a few reminders from management or HR publications that I haven’t subscribed to for three years.

  When I open my browser, Google gives me some headlines from around the world: Good news: only 548,000 job losses in the United States this month . . . Everyone was expecting far worse. It doesn’t take much to celebrate these days. Financial crime reaches all-time high. Business leaders explain it is natural phenomenon . . . I click onto the next page, not in the least disturbed: I have every confidence in business leaders and their ability to explain away the natural effects of economics.

  I hear a noise in the bedroom and move toward it. Nicole appears at last.

  Without uttering a word she pours herself some coffee into a Duralex glass. The mugs are in pieces over by the door, with the broom resting on top.

  Her attitude infuriates me. Rather than supporting me, she’s being all sanctimonious.

  “Scruples don’t pay the bills.”

  Nicole doesn’t answer. Her face is sullen and she looks exhausted. What have we become . . .

  She puts her glass in the sink, takes out some large garbage bags, and fills up four because each one gets so heavy. The jagged porcelain is sharp and cuts through the plastic here and there. You’d normally expect to see plate-smashing antics for the audience’s amusement in some vaudeville farce. Here it seems so prosaic.

  “I couldn’t give a damn about being poor. I don’t want to be immoral.”

  I don’t have an answer for that. I take the garbage bags downstairs while Nicole takes a shower. Two trips. When we’re back in the room together, we don’t manage a conversation and the minutes pass by. The children are going to arrive and nothing is ready. And we need to go and buy some dishes. Short on time, but more important, what with this leaden atmosphere, short on strength.

  Nicole is sitting down, bolt upright, looking outside as though there were something to see.

  “It’s the company that’s immoral,” I say. “Not the unemployed.”

  When the girls ring the bell, each of us waits for the other to act. I give in first. I provide a few lame excuses that demand no further explanation, and we take everyone to a restaurant. The girls are surprised and find it odd that, given the occasion, their mother doesn’t really seem to be at the party. And what makes it worse is that Nicole is pretending to be happy. I can tell that it’s upsetting them. No, not upset . . . They feel that whatever’s wrong with us might overwhelm them, too, and it scares them. Mathilde gives her a mother a cardigan. A cardigan, for fuck’s sake. I can’t remember when it started, but for months now they have been giving us useful presents. If they find out that I’ve broken all the dishes, I can expect six soup bowls for my birthday.

  During dessert, Mathilde announces that they have signed a purchase agreement for their apartment. There are still a few question marks with the bank, but Gregory breaks into a smug smile: he’s got it all under control. Their lawyer is putting together the paperwork and it will be theirs by the holidays. Inside, I hope they manage to pay for it.

  When I go to settle the bill, I realize that Lucie has beaten me to it without anyone noticing. Both of us pretend not to make a big deal out of it.

  “I can help you with anything, Alain,” Nicole says before bedtime, “but this . . . this hostage taking doesn’t fit with who I am. I don’t want to hear any more of it. Don’t make me live with that.”

  She turns toward the wall immediately. I can’t expect to persuade her, and it makes me sad.

  But I don’t leave it there. I start thinking about this final test. Because if I pass, even if it involves methods she finds objectionable, our differences of opinion will be nothing but a distant memory.

  That’s the way to look at it.

  From: David Fontana

  To the attention of: Bertrand Lacoste

  Subject: “Hostage taking” role play—Client: Exxyal

  As discussed, this is where the operation currently stands.

  For the commando unit, I have recruited two colleagues with whom I have worked on several occasions in the past and for whom I can vouch entirely.

  As regards the role of Exxyal’s clients, I have short-listed two men: a young Arab and a fifty-year-old Belgian actor.

  In terms of weaponry, I have opted for the following:

  — 3 Uzi submachine guns (under 3 kilograms in weight, rate of fire of 950 rounds/min., 9×19 cartridges)

  — 2 Glock 17 pistols (635 grams, same caliber, 31-cartridge magazines)

  — 2 Smith & Wesson pistols

  All weapons will of course be loaded with blank rounds.

  The space I am proposing is in a prestigious location, as Exxyal is “inviting important clients” there. It has a meeting room and four offices, with toilets, etc.
The site is situated in the outskirts of Paris, with large glass windows overlooking the Seine (see photos and map—Appendix 3).

  The premises offer a very favorable layout for what you have planned. We will need to carry out several run-throughs, and so we must finalize a scenario as soon as possible. You will find my proposal in Appendix 4.

  Overview: Your client’s executives will be summoned to a highly important but confidential meeting, which will explain why it is taking place on a public holiday and why they have been informed at such short notice.

  The pretext is that they will be meeting important overseas clients.

  The commando unit will intervene at the start of the meeting.

  The head of Exxyal Europe, Monsieur Dorfmann, will be evacuated immediately, thereby creating an intensely stressful atmosphere conducive to the aims of your test. It will also give him the opportunity to observe the ensuing sequence of events from elsewhere.

  The remaining executives, having been relieved of their personal effects and cell phones, will be held in the office and interrogated in turn. The scenario can if necessary accommodate the option of isolating the hostages for several minutes in order to gauge their capacity for organizing themselves, or indeed for offering resistance, as per your request. The commando head will conduct the individual interrogations as per the assessors’ instructions.

  The role play will be monitored via cameras and screens.

  It is my belief that this fulfills the terms of the brief you assigned me. Thank you for your confidence and for the valuable assistance offered by Madame Olenka Zbikowski.

  Respectfully yours,

  David Fontana

  7

  Now that I’ve stopped working at Logistics, you would think the 4:00 a.m. wake-up would start to wear, but not a bit of it. In fact, I feel so charged up that I barely sleep, and getting out of bed almost comes as a relief. Most nights, Nicole clings to me in her sleep, something to do with holding on to me—it’s a game between us. We hold each other, pretend to let go, then grab each other again. We’ve done this for twenty years and not once spoken about it.

  This morning, I know full well that she’s awake and that she’s just bluffing. But we both remain in our bubbles. A tacit agreement not to touch one another.

  As planned, I get to Logistics a little ahead of time. I know the guys from the other teams, and since I have no desire for their questions or their pity, I find a corner where I can survey the entrance without being seen, keeping an eye out for the big, gangling frame of Romain. But it’s the unsteady figure of Charles that appears at the end of the street. I have no idea how he does it—the guy must drink in his sleep—but it’s not even 5:00 a.m. and already his breath smells like a brewery. But I know my boy Charles . . . tanked up or not, he’s always hale and hearty. Although, that said, he does seem to be struggling to place me this morning.

  “Well, I never . . . ,” he says, looking as if he’s seen a ghost.

  He slowly lifts his left hand. It’s a gesture born of shyness that he makes quite often. It makes his enormous watch slide down to his elbow.

  “How are you doing, Charles?”

  “The golden days are behind us,” Charles replies, as enigmatic as ever.

  “I’m waiting for Romain.”

  Charles’s face brightens. He is visibly happy that he can be of service.

  “Ah, Romain’s switched teams!”

  Over the past four years, I have become hypersensitive to screw-ups. Just one word and I can feel them looming—it’s become a reflex.

  “Meaning?”

  “He’s on full nights. Thing is he’s supervisor now.”

  It is very hard to know what someone like Charles is thinking. The trancelike state he’s permanently in lends him a certain unfathomability. You can’t tell if a great deal of comprehension is going on, whether the blank delivery of this harmless news is belying a sort of creeping reflection, or whether booze has addled every last brain cell.

  “What do you mean, Charles?”

  There’s no doubt he registers my concern. He becomes all philosophical, shrugging his scrawny shoulders.

  “He’s been promoted, Romain. Been made supervisor and we . . .”

  “When exactly?”

  Charles purses his lips, as if things are about to come to a head.

  “Monday after you left.”

  I ought to be congratulating myself for my intuition, but this is too much of a screw-up. Charles pats me on the shoulder like a Good Samaritan, as if he were offering me his condolences. Maybe his mind does work faster than I’ve given him credit for, because he says:

  “If you need me I was there, too, and I saw everything.”

  That I did not see coming. For further encouragement, Charles raises a solemn finger:

  “When the woodcutter enters the forest with his ax on his shoulder, the trees say the handle is one of ours.”

  The bit about the ax bamboozles me, but however he chooses to phrase his offer of help, you only need to look at Charles to see how much he means it.

  “That’s kind, Charles, but I’m not about to make you lose what little work you have.”

  A sudden look of weariness and regret descends on Charles.

  “You don’t think I make much of a witness, not presentable enough, is that it? Well, hear you me, that’s absolutely right. If you show up in court with a bum like me as your only witness, that risks being quite . . . quite . . .”

  He searches for the word.

  “Counterproductive?” I suggest.

  “That’s the one!” Charles bursts out. “Counterproductive!”

  He is over the moon. Finding the mot juste classes as a major victory. So much so that he forgets the need for any commiseration on my part. He bobs his head, in a state of marvel at this word. It’s my turn to pat him on the shoulder. But with me, the condolences are sincere.

  I get ready to leave and Charles grabs me by the arm:

  “Come and have a drink at my place one evening, if you’d like . . . I mean . . .”

  As I attempt to imagine the meaning of “at my place” and the significance of the invitation, Charles is already walking off with his long, lolloping gait.

  I mull it over on the way home.

  On the métro, I check that I still have Romain’s cell phone number. Logistics seem to be taking this whole matter very seriously. They are iron-cladding their case. They won’t stop at the shirt—I’m going to end up buck naked.

  A quick calculation tells me that if he’s on nights, Romain might not even be asleep yet.

  I call.

  He picks up right away.

  “Hi, Romain!”

  “Oh, hi!”

  He recognizes me at once. Makes me wonder if he was expecting me. His voice is chirpy but faint. I detect a little irritation. Nicole says that unemployment has made me paranoid, and she may well be right. Romain confirms his sudden promotion.

  “What about you, old man?” he asks.

  The more of this “old man” I get, the less I can handle it. Nicole says that unemployment has made me touchy, too.

  I tell him about Logistics and the letter from the lawyer. I allude to the threat of a trial.

  “No way!” Romain says, flabbergasted.

  No point going any further. He’s pretending to be surprised by a piece of news that everyone knows already. No doubt it’s been a hot topic of discussion for the last three days. If he’s trying to pull the wool over my eyes, he’s flunked it.

  “If I find myself in court, your witness statement will help me out a lot.”

  “Well, of course, old man!”

  No doubt about it this time. If he said it would be tricky to testify in my favor, I might still have had a chance. But no, Romain’s mind is made up. He won’t be answering my calls two days before he takes the stand.

  “Thanks, Romain. Really, thanks a lot, too kind!”

  Touché. He got the irony. That millisecond of silence before his respons
e confirms my every fear.

  “Don’t mention it, old man!”

  I hang up, feeling pretty downbeat. For a moment, I entertain the thought of going back to Charles. If I ask him, he’ll lose his job, but he’ll come all the same. I don’t think he will have an ounce of credibility and it would all be for nothing. That said, if it’s all I have, I will do it. No choice.

  The sword of Damocles is hanging over me, and the higher it gets, the greater the destruction when it’s finally released. I feel wild thoughts running through me.

  Why do they want to do this to me?

  Why do they feel this need to hold my head underwater?

  Romain, I understand. I don’t hold it against him. In his position, if I had to choose between helping a friend and keeping my job, I’d have no hesitation either. But the company?

  I run through the various options available to me. Given the circumstances, I choose the remorseful approach. I’m going to write a letter of apology. If they want, they can pin it up around the workplace or send it to the employees with their next pay stub . . . I couldn’t give a shit. Losing this job is hard to take, but it’s nothing compared to a trial that might see me stripped of everything.

  Back home, I run up to my office. A courier must have arrived first thing since Nicole was still in to accept delivery of a thick envelope with the BLC Consulting logo. My heart is pounding. They didn’t hang around.

  Normally, when we leave something for each other at home, Nicole and I will pop a little note alongside, make a joke if we’re in good spirits, or something frisky if we’re in the mood. Or something loving if none of that applies. This morning, Nicole just left the envelope on my desk. No comment.

  Before opening it, I grab the letter from Logistics’ lawyer that I have hidden in my study and call the number. A girl picks up and puts me through to a guy who explains that the lawyer can’t speak to me. It takes ten minutes of negotiating to arrange a telephone meeting with the lawyer’s assistant. I have to call back this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. and she’ll give me five minutes of her time.