Inhuman Resources

by Pierre Lemaitre

  She returns to the school in silence, her shoulders limp.

  I have to be back at 5:00 p.m. to accompany her to the bank. In the meantime, I call Philippe Mestach, the detective.

  “You’ll get your advance tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. at your office? Go ahead and assemble your team.”

  Châtelet.

  It’s sort of a brasserie, but with leather armchairs. The chic end of shabby-chic. The kind of place I would have loved when I had a salary.

  When I see him, the first thing that comes back to me is his voice. It seemed borrowed, as if speaking irritated him. He barely stirs, or if he does it’s very subtle, like slow-motion. He’s thin. I find him very strange looking. Like an iguana.

  “Albert Kaminski.”

  He hasn’t stood up, just leaned forward a little, holding out his hand indifferently. First impression: minus ten. It’s a poor start, a major handicap, and I don’t have much time to lose. I have objectives.

  I sit straight-backed at the edge of the armchair, no intention of staying for long.

  He’s the same age as me. We sit in silence as the waiter takes our order. I try to figure out what is bothering me about him, then it hits me. He’s a junkie. Drugs are a tricky area for me, because, as astonishing as it might sound, I’ve never touched them. For a man of my generation, that’s nothing short of miraculous. So when it comes to drugs, I’m not exactly a natural, but I think I’ve put my finger on it. Kaminski is all over the place. He’s in free fall. We could be cousins. Our fall might not be the same, but our desperation is. I back away. I need strong people: skillful, operational.

  “I used to be a commandant in the police,” he begins.

  His face is creased, but his eyes are dry. Nothing like Charles. Alcohol ravages you in a different way. What’s he on? I don’t have a clue, but it’s clear that this inspector has lost none of his self-esteem.

  Latest score: minus eight.

  “I spent most of my career doing special operations at RAID. That’s why I answered your ad.”

  “Why aren’t you there anymore?”

  He smiles and looks down.

  “I don’t mean to pry, but how old are you?” he says.

  “More than fifty, less than sixty.”

  “Roughly the same as me, then.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “By the time you get to our age, you can spot certain types right away: gays, racists, fascists, hypocrites, alcoholics. Drug addicts. And you, Monsieur . . . ?”

  “Delambre. Alain Delambre.”

  “. . . I can tell you see me for what I am, Monsieur Delambre. So that’s my answer to your question.”

  We smile at each other. Minus four.

  “I used to be a negotiator. I was let go from the police eight years ago. Professional misconduct.”

  “Anything serious?”

  “There was a fatality. A woman, a desperate case. I was a little high. Ecstasy. She threw herself out the window.”

  Anyone who can cancel out a ten-point deficit in just a few minutes is someone capable of faking compassion, proximity, similarity. In short, a good cheat. In the Bertrand Lacoste mold. Either that or they’re extremely sincere.

  “And you think I can trust someone like you?”

  He thinks for a moment.

  “That depends on what you’re looking for.”

  He must be taller than me. Standing up, I figure five foot nine. He’s broad shouldered, but everything tapers in the farther down you get, like someone from the nineteenth century with consumption.

  “If you really are a novelist and you’re looking for information about hostage taking scenarios, then I meet your needs.”

  The subtext is clear: he’s no fool.

  “What does RAID stand for?”

  He frowns in total despair.

  “No, seriously . . .”

  “Research, assistance, intervention, dissuasion. I was in charge of the dissuasion part. At least I was until I was given the heave-ho.”

  He’s not bad. Even if the two of us do make for a right old pair of sad cases. How does he make his living? He’s poorly dressed. Seems an opportunist type, in poor health: can’t imagine he turns much down work-wise. Sooner or later, this guy will end up in the slammer or in a dealer’s garbage can. In terms of rates, that gives me some bargaining power. The thought of money overwhelms me with sadness. Mathilde’s face enters my mind, followed by Nicole, my wife who doesn’t want to sleep by my side. I am tired.

  Albert Kaminski looks at me with concern and offers me the carafe of water. I’m struggling to catch my breath. I’m taking this too far, it’s all going too far.

  “Are you all right?”

  I down a glass of water and shake myself.

  “How much do you charge?”

  From: David Fontana

  To the attention of: Bertrand Lacoste

  Date: May 12

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

  The preparation of the location is underway. We will be employing two main zones.

  First, the larger room (Sector A on the diagram) will be where the hostages are held. It is separated from the corridor by a partition with a glass window that the commando can cover should you wish to carry out any isolated interrogations.

  Second, there are the offices.

  D marks a rest area and debriefing room. B denotes the interrogation chamber. As outlined in the scenario, the executives will be interrogated in turn, with the interview based on their individual areas of expertise.

  The interrogation will be viewed by the assessors, who will be monitoring events on screens located in Sector C.

  In the current configuration, the candidates for the HR position (marked in gray on the diagram) will be sitting in front of their screens.

  We have carried out some tests: the soundproofing between the rooms is satisfactory.

  Two sets of cameras will relay the footage live to the assessors. The first camera will be in the hostage “waiting room”; the second will be in the interrogation chamber. As soon as these rooms are fitted out, we will begin full trial runs.

  Finally, I feel I must reiterate that it is not always possible to predict how participants will react in a role-play scenario.

  Regardless of the outcome, the parties commissioning the operation will be held responsible.

  Please find attached in Appendix 2 the disclaimers to be signed by you or your client.

  Yours sincerely,

  David Fontana

  [[

  Top heading: “Hostage-taking” role play—Master plan

  Ascenseurs: Elevators

  Évaluateurs: Assessors

  caméra: camera

  Interrogatoire: Interrogation chamber

  WC: WC

  Salle de retenue des otages: Hostage waiting room

  M. Dorfmann: Monsieur Dorfmann

  Issue de secours: Emergency exit

  ]]

  12

  At 5:00 p.m., the first thing Mathilde sees as she leaves the lycée is her father. Me. There I am, standing stock-still as the youths flood out from every angle, shouting, running, barging. She doesn’t say a word to me—doesn’t even break her stride—tight lipped as though heading to the slaughter.

  Iphigenia.

  I think she’s overdoing it a bit.

  We enter the bank and up pops her “customer adviser.” A dead ringer for my son-in-law: same suit, same hairstyle, same bearing, same voice. Heaven knows how many clones have come off the same production line. But it’s best I avoid thinking about Gregory, because he might yet be the precursor to some colossal problems.

  Mathilde sees the bank manager by herself for a moment and then comes back. It’s crazy how simple it is. My daughter hands me a fat envelope.

  I go to hug her but she mechanically offers me her cheek. She regrets her coldness, but it’s too late now. She thinks I’m cross: I look for something to say, but it doesn’t come. Mathilde
squeezes my forearm. Now that she has relinquished half of what she owns to me, she seems calmer. She simply says:

  “You promised, remember . . .”

  Then she smiles, as if ashamed of repeating herself, of showing me so little trust. Or so much fear.

  We go our separate ways outside the métro.

  “I’m going to walk for a bit.”

  I wait for her to leave, then go down into the station myself. I didn’t have the courage to prolong the contact. I put my phone on vibrate mode and slide it into my trouser pocket. By my count, Mathilde will be home in less than half an hour. One station follows another, I change and walk through the corridors, my phone slapping against my thigh. At the interchange, instead of boarding the train, I take a seat and scoop up a crumpled copy of Le Monde. I browse the article: Employees currently represent ‘main threat’ to businesses’ financial security.

  I look at my watch nervously as I continue to leaf through. Page 8: Auction record: Emir Shahid Al-Abbasi’s yacht to sell for 174 million dollars.

  My feet are on hot coals and I can barely concentrate.

  I don’t have to wait long. I fumble for my phone and look at the screen. It’s Mathilde. I swallow hard and let it ring through. No message.

  I try hard to focus on something else. Page 15: After four months of strike action at factory, Desforges employees lift blockade after accepting 300 euro payout.

  But two minutes later she calls again. A glance at my watch and I do a quick calculation. Nicole won’t be home yet, but she will get back before me and I do not want Mathilde leaving a message on our machine. The third time I pick up.

  “Papa!”

  Her words catch. So do mine.

  “How could you . . .”

  But that’s all she can manage. She’s back home. She has just discovered her husband’s face all smashed up and heard that I had gone to her because I’d failed with him.

  Mathilde must have confessed to her husband that she’d given their apartment money to her father.

  They are livid, I understand that.

  “Listen, angel, let me explain . . .”

  “STOP!”

  She yells this with all her strength.

  “Give me back my money, Papa! Give it back RIGHT NOW!”

  I reply before I lose my courage.

  “I don’t have it anymore, angel. I just put it toward the job.”

  Silence.

  I’m not sure if she believes me, because all that I used to represent in her eyes has now melted away to form a new image of me, one that is unimaginable and unbearable.

  It’s not only that she has to revise everything she thought she knew about her father. It’s worse: she has to live with it.

  Right, I must reassure her. Tell her she has nothing to worry about.

  “Listen, my angel, you have my word!”

  Her voice is serious, measured. This time, the words come easily. She is able to distill all her thoughts into a few simple syllables.

  “You are a bastard.”

  This is not an opinion, it’s a fact. As I leave the station, I hold the envelope tight against me. My ticket for the top spot in the pantheon of bastard fathers.

  13

  Mathilde did not call back. She was so furious that she came in person. The finger she pressed on the buzzer seethed with such rage it felt as though it were still ringing when she was upstairs and hurling abuse at me in front of her mother. She demanded I give back the money she lent me, yelling at me like I was a crook. I didn’t want to dwell on the fact that the envelope containing her money was in the top drawer of my desk, and that it would have taken me a second to put her mind to rest, to restore order. I focused, drawing on all my reserves of courage, like when you’re at the dentist and he’s wrestling with a tricky tooth.

  Everything went terribly. It was to be expected, of course, but it was painful all the same.

  Why won’t they understand? It’s a mystery. Actually, it isn’t really. In the beginning, for Mathilde and for Nicole, unemployment was an abstraction, a concept: something written about in the papers or spoken about on television. Later, reality caught up with them: as unemployment spread, it became impossible to avoid contact with someone personally affected or someone with a close relation out of work. Yet the reality was still foggy, an undeniable presence, but one you could live with; you know it exists, but it only concerns others, like world hunger, homelessness, or AIDS. Or hemorrhoids. For those not directly involved, unemployment is background chatter. Then one day, when no one is expecting, it comes knocking on your front door. Just like Mathilde, it presses its fat finger on the buzzer, except the sound doesn’t carry on ringing in everyone’s ears for the same length of time. Those who go to work in the morning, for example, stop hearing it there and then, only to be reminded of it when they get home in the evening. If at all. That’s if they live with someone unemployed, or if it makes a brief appearance on the news. As for Mathilde, she only ever heard it mentioned on the odd evening or weekend when she came to visit. That’s the big difference: unemployment bored into my eardrums, and it’s never stopped. Try explaining that to them.

  As soon as Mathilde gave me the chance, I tried to reason that this was an unprecedented opportunity (a job I had a genuine hope of securing), but one word in she started yelling again. I wondered for a second whether she might re-smash all our new crockery. Nicole said nothing. Slumped in a corner of the room, she looked at me and wept in silence, as if I were the sorriest specimen she had ever witnessed.

  Eventually, I gave up explaining myself. I went back to my study, but that wasn’t good enough. Mathilde flung open the door with a fresh volley of insults—nothing would appease her. Even Nicole started trying to reason with her, to tell her that shouting and screaming wouldn’t change anything, that she had to take a more constructive approach, see what can be done in practical terms. Mathilde’s anger then turned on her mother.

  “What do you mean ‘what can be done’? Can you pay back what he took from me?”

  Then she turned to me:

  “Do you REALLY want to pay me back, Papa? Do you REALLY want to give back the money before we buy the apartment, because . . .”

  At that point she stopped dead.

  She had been so overwhelmed by fury that it hadn’t dawned on her until now: there was nothing she could do about it. If I don’t pay her back, the sale will fall through and she will lose most of her deposit. Nothing can be done. She choked. I said:

  “I gave you my word, angel. I will repay you, in full, before your deadline. Have I ever lied to you?”

  It was a low blow on my part, but what other option did I have?

  Once Mathilde had gone, a long, droning silence filled the apartment. I heard Nicole moving from one room to another, then finally she came to me. Her anger had given way to utter despondency. She had dried away her tears.

  “What was it for, this money?” she asked.

  “To load the dice in our favor.”

  She waved this aside with furious disbelief. For several nights now, ever since she’s been sleeping in the spare room, I’ve been wondering whether I’d be brave enough to say when she asked me that question. I’d devised plenty of theories. Of all the possible solutions, however, it was Nicole who unwittingly chose one.

  “You said to Mathilde that it was for . . . a bribe?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Who for?”

  “The recruitment firm.”

  Nicole’s face changed. I thought I detected a glimmer of hope in it. I went for it. I know I shouldn’t have gone this far, but I was in need of some comforting, too.

  “BLC Consulting is in charge of the recruiting. They’re the ones who will choose. That’s what I paid for. I bought the job.”

  Nicole sat down on my desk chair. The computer screen woke up and displayed the Exxyal website, with its oil wells, helicopters, refineries, and all the rest.

  “So . . . it’s certain?”

  I
would have given all my remaining years not to have to answer that, but none of the gods came to my rescue. I was left alone to consider Nicole’s burgeoning hope, her wide-open eyes. The words wouldn’t come. I smiled and spread my arms as a token of proof. Nicole smiled, too. She found it utterly marvelous. She started crying again and laughing at the same time. All the same, she carried on looking for the catch.

  “Maybe they asked the other candidates to do the same?”

  “That would be stupid. There’s only one job up for grabs! Why get the others to do it if it only means repaying them after?”

  “It’s so weird! I can’t believe they suggested this.”

  “It was my idea. There were three candidates whose profiles matched. We were neck and neck. I had to stand out from the others.”

  Nicole was stunned. I felt some small relief, but it had an extremely bitter taste to it: the more I presented this version of events as infallible, the more menacing the uncertainties of my plan seemed. I was jettisoning my last chances of ever being understood, even though victory wasn’t even guaranteed.

  “And how are you going to pay Mathilde back?”

  As anyone knows, the first lie spawns the second. In management, we learn to lie as seldom as possible, to stay as close as we can to the truth. That’s not always feasible. In this case, I had no choice but to escalate it a notch.

  “I negotiated 20,000 euros. But for 25, they’ll do what they can to convince their client to pay me an advance.”

  I wondered where I was going with this.

  “They’ll give you an advance while you’re still on probation?”

  In any negotiation, there is a tipping point. Make or break. I was there. I said:

  “Twenty-five thousand euros . . . it’s just three months’ salary.”

  A veil of skepticism continued to linger between us, but I felt that I was on the brink of persuading her. And I knew why. Because of hope—inescapable, rotten hope.

  “Why didn’t you tell Mathilde all this?”

  “Because Mathilde can’t see beyond her anger.”

  I went up to Nicole and took her in my arms.

  “So,” she said, “this hostage taking . . . what’s that all about?”