The Knowledge Stone

by Jack McGinnigle

  “ALL DOCUMENT PACKS MUST BE INDEPENDENTLY CHECKED.”

  Suddenly, Julian had a solution. ‘Margarite is always telling me how good that girl Jana is – I’ll get her to check it.’

  Jana was surprised and pleased to be asked to check HDC’s pack. ‘Of course, Sir, I’ll do it right away. I’ll have it done within two hours.’

  The girl made a start right away. She did not expect to find any errors – after all, he was HDC, wasn’t he? However, her face was soon wreathed in concern as she spotted error after error. The Schedule was wrong. The dates were wrong. The cross-checking was wrong and some of the documents referred to other contracts. Jana was at a loss. What should she do? In the end, she felt she could not embarrass HDC by pointing out all these errors to him, so she decided to rectify them herself. It took her some time but, just before the two-hour deadline, she had printed a new corrected Schedule and re-assembled the pack meticulously.

  A gentle knock at HDC’s door. Jana entering shyly and presenting the pack to Julian: ‘Here you are, Sir, everything is ready for your final check.’

  ‘Thank you, Jana.’ Julian was feeling expansive, ‘are you sure everything is correct?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, but it still needs your final check.’

  ‘Leave it there on the desk, Jana, I’ll get around to it later. I’m busy with something else now. Could you ask someone to bring me a coffee?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I’ll do it right away.’ Shortly after, Jana appeared again with a steaming cup of coffee which she put down carefully on the desk. Julian, absorbed in some work pretence at his computer terminal, ignored her.

  After the girl had left the room, Julian returned to his desk and newspaper and stretched luxuriously in his revolving chair, spinning it around until one arm struck the edge of his desk.

  ‘Damn!’ he said as some coffee was spilled from the cup. Most of the spillage went into the saucer but some large drops splashed on to the open document pack. Julian sprang to his feet and tried to mop the liquid from the paper before it stained it – a vain attempt, of course. The all-important Schedule was now marked with several ugly brown stains.

  ‘Damn,’ he said again, wondering what to do. Then, a solution: ‘I know – I can print out another Schedule from my computer file.’ The Schedule – Julian’s first error-filled attempt – was duly printed out, signed by Julian as checked (of course it wasn’t) and incorporated into the pack. Jana’s corrected Schedule was crumpled and tossed into the waste paper bin. The document pack was sent off to the Senior Legal Team.

  The next morning, Margarite was sufficiently recovered to come to work. The morning was routine and the General Office was filled with the usual buzz of activity. After lunch, everyone was taken aback when a white-faced Julian appeared. He marched into Margarite’s office and slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Whatever is wrong, Julian?’

  ‘Yesterday, I had to raise a Document Pack for the Senior Legal Team,’ Julian grated, ‘you weren’t here so I had to use your wonderful girl Jana to check my pack. I’ve just heard from the Team. Everything went wrong. The Schedule was rubbish and they couldn’t complete the deal. They’re thinking of raising a Formal Complaint against the Department.’

  ‘Oh, Julian, I’m so sorry everything went wrong. Let me talk to the girl and try to find out what happened; I’ll report to you as soon as I can.’ Julian left without a word and stalked out of the General Office.

  ‘Jana,’ Margarite called, ‘can you come in please?’ The woman and the girl were closeted together for some time. The question was asked and the story was told. Margarite was not surprised to hear that there had been many errors in the pack that Julian had assembled.

  Jana was extremely upset to hear that errors in the pack had been the cause of the failure of an important negotiation. ‘I’m sure everything was right when I gave it to him,’ she wailed, deeply distressed, ‘I was really careful. I checked it all again and again. You know how careful I am.’

  ‘Jana, did you change the Schedule?’

  ‘Yes I did. I had to raise a new one. There were so many mistakes …’ The girl’s voice tailed off.

  ‘Do you have a copy of the schedule you produced?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jana sobbed, ‘just a minute … I’ll go and get it. It’s in a folder on my desk.’

  Margarite cast an expert eye over the schedule. Everything looked to be in order: ‘I don’t see any problem with this,’ she said, ‘leave this with me. Dry your eyes. I have to go and see HDC.’

  Julian and Margarite were together in his office. The offending document pack was on the desk. One glance at the top sheet told Margarite that the pack schedule was different from the one in her hand. Furthermore, the pack version was clearly wrong. ‘Julian, this is the schedule she gave you. It’s correct.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘What happened?’

  The man’s face went pale: ‘I don’t know,’ he stammered, ‘I really don’t know …’ Then he brightened: ‘She must have given me the wrong one. That’s it! She must have done a new one and then given me the old one. She’s to blame for this. I’ll tell the Senior Legal Team we have had a full investigation and a member of the staff has been reprimanded. Then, hopefully, they won’t raise a complaint against me … er … I mean, the Department.’

  Margarite looked at him coldly: ‘Julian, it wasn’t her fault, it was yours …’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he cried, ‘she is to blame and she will be reprimanded.’

  The reprimand was duly delivered to a shocked and tearful Jana. Margarite was sure she knew what had really happened but her love and loyalty meant that she had to take Julian’s side. Even so, she tried to soften the blow for Jana.

  ‘Jana, I know you did your very best and that the work you did was good. Sometimes, life in big firms like ours gets very complicated and people get wrongly blamed. But you saved the Department from an Official Compliant.’

  However, Jana was inconsolable: ‘Margarite, I didn’t do it. I didn’t make a mistake and I didn’t deserve to be reprimanded.’

  Margarite took the girl in her arms: ‘Hush, now. I know you’re a good and reliable worker and I’ll always trust you.’

  Now it was months later, early afternoon. A grim-faced Julian stood in the centre of the General Office. Margarite stood behind him. All the staff were there, sitting at their desks. The room was completely quiet, no coughing, no shuffling. Everyone had been transfixed by his words: ‘There has been a catastrophe. The Senior Partner’s Document Pack was incomplete. There was no Formal Contract in the pack. Because of this, the Firm is in default and the mistake will cost a considerable amount of money. Tens of thousands of euro.’

  After a long pause, he continued: ‘Someone in DC has caused this error.’ There was another pause while Julian looked directly into each face in the room. Finally, he said: ‘I have already searched my room thoroughly and the Formal Contract sheet is not there. Now, we, all of us, will search this room – starting NOW!’ The last word was a whiplash of sound.

  It took ten minutes to find it, standing vertically in thick dust behind a filing cabinet – the filing cabinet nearest to Jana’s desk. It was discovered when one of the young men (Alex) strained at the heavy cabinet and was able to slide it a little way from the wall. Now Julian stood silently, holding the stiff sheet of paper with one finger and thumb while once again looking at each of his staff in turn. Finally, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, growling: ‘Margarite, come with me, please.’

  Two armless upright chairs were set in front of Julian’s desk, about a metre apart. He indicated that Jana should sit on one of them. He then reopened the office door and set the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign before returning to sit on the other chair, turning it so that it was at right angles to hers. (Julian had been impressed by an article he had read about staff contact techniq
ues; an important recommendation was: “Do not speak to your staff across a desk. This is negative and suggests aggressive confrontation.”) Nevertheless, his face was grave and unfriendly as he looked at the trembling girl: ‘I take it you know why you are here?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ A tiny whisper.

  ‘You were the Base Coordinator yesterday, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Can you explain to me how the Formal Contract Document came to be behind the filing cabinet nearest your desk?’

  ‘No, Sir.’ The girl’s voice was filled with hopelessness. A lengthening pause. Then: ‘Sir, I am sure the Contract was in the Pack when I delivered it to you. It was just below the Schedule and I can remember seeing the margins of the paper.’ At last, a slightly more spirited voice.

  He sighed deeply, then he spoke in a harsh voice, his eyes boring into hers: ‘Listen, Young Lady, if the Formal Contract sheet had been there it would have gone with the Pack to the Senior Partner and the Firm would have signed the contract with the client. And we would not be in this mess. You see that, don’t you?’

  Numb, she did not reply. ‘Don’t you?’ His voice loud and sharp. The girl jumped in fright.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ The man sighed again. Now he spoke in clipped tones. ‘You give me no choice. I will refer you to HR for immediate dismissal.’

  The girl was frozen in horror and then she started to weep bitterly: ‘Please don’t,’ she sobbed, ‘please give me another chance.’ Then, after a pause: ‘Please, Sir, could you not discipline me yourself?’

  The man smiled sardonically: ‘You mean I should smack your wrist and say you’re a naughty girl? I’m sorry but I don’t think I can do that. It’s not so long ago that I had to reprimand you for another mistake, is it? You were warned then about the next time.’ The man sat back in his seat, indicating that the situation was hopeless and that the interview was drawing to a close.

  The girl sat completely still, a small fragile creature, large eyes locked to his but now unseeing. Behind those eyes, her thoughts were a raging torrent, conceiving and rejecting a myriad of hopeless courses of action. Suddenly, her memory of lovingly-read Bible stories provided a joyful solution. She would offer herself as a sacrifice. She would accept the penance and he would then grant her mercy!

  Within that same magical microsecond, her actions were planned. In a fleeting whisper of movement, she would propel her slim, thinly-clad body across his lap, unmistakably offering him a sacrifice of utter submission. Then she would speak: ‘I accept my penance … Afterwards, forgive me … Please …’

  These words of total capitulation would cut through his astonishment and fright and set the process of atonement in motion.

  The woman in HR was very experienced and looked at Jana kindly: ‘Could you just sign this, Dear,’ she said, sliding paper and pen across the desk.

  ‘What is it?’ Jana asked calmly.

  ‘It’s the beginning of the dismissal procedure,’ the woman replied gently. Jana’s calm was replaced with alarm: ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said urgently, ‘I’m not being dismissed. He, HDC, said he’d changed his mind, that he’d forgiven me. He definitely said it.’

  The woman looked at the papers in the folder: ‘There’s nothing in here about a change,’ she stated flatly.

  ‘Please, she said … Can you check? Can you ring him up?’

  The woman was reluctant. ‘I don’t know if I have the authority to do that …’

  Jana pleaded. She even fell to her knees in front of the woman and held up her clasped hands in a classical pose of supplication: ‘Please … he said he had forgiven me, he did, he really did …’

  ‘Get up, Dear, don’t be so distressed. I might get into trouble but I’ll do it, just for you.’

  The woman picked up her phone and consulted an internal telephone directory: ‘Hello? Is this HDC? Good morning, Sir, this is Marta at HR. I am very sorry to disturb you but I have your girl Jana with me. That’s right, you referred her for dismissal. She insists that you’ve changed your mind. I thought I’d better check. I know it’s not normal procedure but I thought …’ Silence while the woman listened, then: ‘Yes, Sir, I understand completely. No, it’s absolutely no problem for HR. I am so sorry I had to disturb you. Thank you for speaking to me. Goodbye, Sir.’

  For a moment, the woman looked down at the papers on her desk and then she lifted her head to look sadly at Jana: ‘Sorry, Dear. You must have misunderstood. Could you sign the paper …’

  The day was unpleasant, dank and drizzly. The small disconsolate figure of Jana slipped almost guiltily through the large glass entrance doors of the Firm for the last time, agonisingly divested of her coveted ID card. Head down, document case in hand, she began to trudge slowly towards the bus station. On reaching it she did not board a bus but sat down on one of the many benches near the ticket offices. Buses came and went but Jana continued to sit motionless on her bench, unaware of the bustle and activity around her. After half an hour or so, she rose to her feet, left the bus station by its main entrance and began to walk purposefully along the busy road which led away from the town centre. After just a few hundred metres she stopped and leaned pensively against a stout, well-constructed wooden gate. Here, she raised her eyes and gazed into the distance, seeing nothing, totally preoccupied with two sentences that continued to spin endlessly, round and round in her brain: ‘Here is your Dismissal Pack, Dear. I’m sorry we cannot offer you a reference – we have a responsibility to the business community, you know.’

  Still leaning on the gate, Jana felt her inner resolve strengthening. After all, she had always been a completely level-headed person, hadn’t she? Good at making decisions. Always able to cope with whatever life threw at her.

  Now she put her thoughts into unspoken words: ‘I’m bound to feel like this right now. It’s really awful to feel such a failure. And I thought I was doing so well. I never thought I could make such a dreadful mistake.’ After a few seconds, a fleeting smile lit up her young face. Then, for the first time since she left the Firm, she spoke out loud, stirring words of encouragement and decision addressed solely to herself: ‘Come on, decision made, time to get going; time to start solving these problems!’

  With these words, the girl opened the gate resolutely and walked steadily forward for about three metres before turning at right angles and standing quite still to look straight into the shocked eyes of the train driver, as his white-knuckled hand strained to pull the handle of the Emergency Train Brake Lever beyond its maximum.

  Train brakes, even Emergency Train Brakes, are not known for their speed of action; this is because they are attempting to overcome the momentum of hundreds of tonnes of rapidly moving metal.

  The Coroner had received six folders in the afternoon of the previous day and, in accordance with his usual practice, was working through them in order.

  ‘Case Number 3. Ah, yes, the girl on the railway line.’ He located the Police Report and read it carefully. Then he removed the stack of photographs from a large envelope and flipped through them. There were several photographs of the girl; large, starkly focussed images of a disturbingly life-sized, impossibly twisted rag-doll lying beside bleak rail tracks. Then two photographs of her only possessions, found later under the train; a crushed document case containing a small leather bag of feminine essentials, a splintered mobile phone and a large torn envelope, spilling papers; everything heavily stained by the remnants of dismembered tomato sandwiches.

  The man turned next to the Autopsy Report. Death was instantaneous and caused by “multiple external and internal injuries to the head and body (listed).” There was an envelope of photographs but the Coroner set them aside; he had seen so many mangled bodies stretched pathetically naked on the pitiless stainless steel of autopsy tables. The Toxicology Report showed no alcohol or drugs in the body. Stomac
h contents were normal. There was no evidence of sexual activity. The Coroner was about to close the folder and pass on to the next case when a final item caught his eye. It read: ‘Unrelated injuries: There was extensive bruising to the buttocks. This injury had been sustained 12 to 24 hours previous to death – see photographs, Envelope D.’ The Coroner located Envelope D and held it in his hands. Then he laid it aside without opening it.

  ‘No one ever knows what goes on behind closed doors,’ he said quietly, shaking his head sadly.

  In practiced official tones, the policeman and the pathologist confirmed the evidence in their reports and stood down. The train driver was called and took the Witness Stand, still white with shock: ‘She just appeared from nowhere, Sir, looked straight at me – I’ll never forget those eyes. Of course I applied the Emergency Train Brake as soon as I saw her but we were doing 100 kilometres per hour – that’s the designated speed on that stretch of line. The train took 437 metres to stop. I got out of the cab and ran back, meeting my Guard along the way. We found her beside the track, hopelessly smashed, broken, dead.’ Tears welled into the man’s eyes.

  ‘I heard the impact, you know. You wouldn’t think you would – hundreds of tonnes of steel against a little light girl like that – but I heard it and I felt it too. I still do …’

  Now the man was weeping openly.

  Julian, tight-lipped, shifty and uncomfortable – unequivocally instructed to attend by the Senior Partner – confirmed that the girl had been dismissed from the Firm on the morning of that day. Why? There had been a serious problem. He did not know all the details. Such things are handled by the Human Resources Department of the Firm. Could he add that the Senior Partner of the Firm had asked him to extend his deepest condolences to the girl’s family? He looked towards her parents sitting in the court, two shrunken traumatised figures, frozen in absolute disbelief.