Chapter 2

The next morning I lost three hundred and twelve dollars and was pleased with myself.

I closed the trade where I had said I would close it. There was no hesitation, no enlargement of the chart, no search for an opinion from somebody who had bought the same thing at a worse price. I entered the loss in my journal and went to work. Taken together with the previous afternoon, it seemed to me evidence of a well-regulated character.

Polina had not written again.

At the office the General asked me to bring the loan schedule to the conference room at eleven. The Frenchman was coming, and there were one or two figures they might need. I printed three copies, although there would be four of us if the General meant me to stay. I had learned to determine the probable length of a meeting by whether he included me in the number of coffees.

“Just the current balances,” he said. “We needn’t make a production of it.”

“The balances are on the schedule.”

“Yes, but you have a way of adding things.”

He meant the maturity dates. I had made them red when there were fewer than thirty days remaining. They were accurate dates in an unnecessarily accusatory color.

I changed them to black.

There was also a message from the supplier who had refused to wait until Monday. Our account had been placed on hold. I called, explained that we had a refrigeration unit due for installation that afternoon, and was transferred to a woman named Denise.

She had the invoice in front of her. So did I. We established this and then spent several minutes discussing everything except the invoice, since neither of us could improve it.

Finally she agreed to release the unit if we paid half that morning.

I took the approval to the General. He signed it while speaking on the phone, without asking whom we were paying. I went back and called Denise.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Please don’t make me chase the rest.”

I promised she would not have to. It was the sort of promise my employment frequently required me to make on another man’s behalf.

At ten forty Polina appeared with a paper bag and placed it on top of the loan schedules.

“You forgot lunch yesterday.”

Inside was a sandwich from the place across the street.

“How do you know?”

“The receptionist said you were here all day.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t eat.”

“Then have two lunches.”

She sat down. I moved the bag carefully so that grease would not get on the papers. There was a napkin folded around it and a packet of mustard. I wondered whether she had chosen the sandwich herself. This was a question to which I attached an extraordinary amount of importance for a man who had just demonstrated his command of three hundred and twelve dollars.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked around the room. Her gaze stopped at the window, where the upper branches of a tree on the neighboring property could be seen above the parked trucks.

“It’s nicer in here than at the front.”

“There’s still time to exchange offices.”

“I don’t have an office.”

I knew that, of course. She used whichever room was empty, and when a visitor needed it her things were moved into a box. Once I had found the box in the hallway with a vase in it, still full of water.

“You could have this one,” I said.

“And where would you go?”

“The wine room.”

She smiled. It was a small smile, without the usual suggestion that I ought to be careful what I said next. I wanted to keep the conversation precisely where it was.

Naturally, I asked about the hotel.

“Did you get that sorted out?”

She looked away from the window.

“Have you?”

“I left it where it was. You told me to.”

“Then it’s where it was.”

“I can ask him today.”

“Can you?”

There was something in her voice I disliked, especially after the sandwich.

“It isn’t a great undertaking. I ask him about personal charges every month.”

“And what does he say?”

“Generally that they aren’t personal.”

“And then?”

“Eventually he tells me what they are.”

She studied the schedule beneath my hand.

“Is Laurent coming?”

I had heard her call the Frenchman by his first name before. It still made him seem improperly close to her.

“At eleven.”

“Then ask while he’s here.”

“Why?”

“I’d like to hear the answer.”

“You can hear it without him.”

“But I’d like to hear that answer.”

I leaned back in my chair.

She was looking at me now with real attention. A moment earlier I had been willing to give her my office in order to prolong a conversation about a tree. Now that I had her attention I wanted to complain about the terms on which she offered it.

“It’s a financing meeting.”

“So there will be money in it.”

“A hotel bill isn’t relevant.”

“I thought you wanted to settle it.”

“I do.”

“Ask him whether I owe it. Just that. You needn’t make a speech.”

“I wasn’t planning a speech.”

She lifted the corner of the paper bag and looked underneath it, though there was nothing there she had not already seen.

“Never mind, then.”

I could have let her leave. She had brought me lunch. We had had a civil conversation, almost an affectionate one, and there was a supplier to pay. Nothing required me to go further.

“Do you think I’m afraid of him?”

“Which one?”

“Either.”

She released the bag.

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

This was so clearly untrue that I felt obliged to answer it as though it were an accusation.

“You think because I work here I have to agree with everything he does.”

“I think you work here.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Then ask.”

She stood up and straightened the visitor’s chair with both hands.

“The amount is two thousand eight hundred and forty-six,” I said.

“Yes. I remember.”

“And you want me to ask whether you’re personally responsible.”

“If you must rehearse it, do it after I’ve gone.”

She left. I waited a moment, then took the statement from the drawer and placed it beneath the loan schedules.

I did not eat the sandwich.

The Frenchman arrived at eleven ten. He apologized to the receptionist for being late and asked whether her son had recovered. I had not known that anything was wrong with her son. It annoyed me that he knew, and annoyed me more that he appeared to have remembered without consulting anything.

His name was Laurent de Grieux. He wore an open-necked shirt and carried a slim leather folder. I had seen him in the same shoes on several visits, which suggested either that he did not spend much on clothes or that the shoes cost more than I understood.

“Alexei. You had a good break?”

“Very good.”

“And the market?”

“Also good.”

“Excellent.”

There was no reason for him to ask how good. Nevertheless, I resented him for not asking.

The General came to meet him. They shook hands with a warmth that made the extension fee seem like an unfortunate misunderstanding between friends.

“We won’t keep you long,” the General said to me.

In the conference room Blanche was looking at a seating plan on her phone. She had come to confirm Thursday’s arrangements and was waiting for the General to finish. Polina sat at the far end of the table with a bottle of water. Neither had a loan schedule. I put one in front of the General, one before de Grieux, and retained the third.

The General looked at my copy, then at the chair I was pulling out.

“Just a moment, Alexei. We may need you for a figure.”

I remained standing.

De Grieux opened his folder. There were two pages inside, already marked with small tabs where the General would sign. Before he could explain them, Blanche asked whether Mercer’s wife was coming on Thursday.

“Of course,” said the General.

“She hasn’t replied.”

“Put her down.”

“I have. I need to know whether to put down the fish.”

The General laughed and said she was very thorough. Then he turned toward me.

“That will be all for now.”

There was a pause in which I could hear the air conditioning. Polina was peeling the label from her water bottle. She did not look up.

“There’s one item I need clarified,” I said.

“Later.”

“It will only take a moment.”

The General’s hand remained on the document de Grieux had placed before him.

“What is it?”

I pulled out the American Express statement. The paper caught against the bottom schedule, and for a second I was occupied in separating them. This small difficulty seemed to last a very long time.

“The three-night hotel charge. Two thousand eight hundred and forty-six dollars. You’ve marked it personal, with Polina’s initial. Am I meant to record an amount due from her?”

Nobody moved. Blanche lowered her phone.

The General looked first at the statement and then at Polina.

“We’ve dealt with this.”

“I haven’t received an instruction.”

“Then I’ll send you one.”

I should have thanked him and left. I had asked the question. Whatever Polina had required was done.

But de Grieux had turned slightly toward her, and I thought I saw understanding pass between them. I could not bear to have made a fool of myself merely to introduce a subject they understood better than I did.

“So she doesn’t owe it?”

The General put down his pen.

“Alexei.”

“I’m asking where it belongs.”

De Grieux glanced at the amount on the statement, upside down from where he sat.

“If it’s causing a difficulty, we can arrange—”

“It isn’t,” Polina said.

Her voice was so sharp that I looked at her. She had stopped peeling the label. A wet scrap clung to her finger.

“There’s no difficulty,” the General said. “It was a family arrangement. Put it to me. Personal. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then perhaps we could return to what we’re here for.”

I gathered the statement and my copy of the schedule. The General watched until I had them straight. De Grieux had already turned back to his folder.

As I reached the door, Blanche asked the General whether he could check his phone for Mrs. Mercer’s reply. Her tone was exactly what it had been before. He took out his phone with visible relief.

Polina said nothing.

In my office I entered the charge to the General’s personal account. The task took less than a minute. I attached his written note, added the date and substance of the clarification, and saved the entry.

I had done the work properly. No one could dispute that.

The remainder of the morning offered several opportunities to discover whether I believed it. Whenever I heard footsteps I looked toward the door. I moved the sandwich to the windowsill, then moved it back because there was sun on the glass. I answered a supplier’s email twice, deleting the second reply just before sending it.

At twelve the General came in and closed my door.

“What was that?”

“I needed to clear the item.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Speak to me as though I’ve never seen you clear an item.”

He stood with his hand still on the door handle. There was no theatrical rage in him. He looked tired and embarrassed, which was much less convenient.

“You had that statement yesterday. You’ll have it tomorrow. There was no reason to bring it into that room.”

I said nothing.

“And certainly no reason to discuss Polina’s expenses in front of Laurent.”

“He holds a note against the business. He sees considerably more than a hotel charge.”

“That doesn’t entitle him to every conversation in this family.”

This was so reasonable that I began disliking him in a new way.

He pulled out the visitor’s chair but did not sit.

“Did she ask you to do that?”

I looked at the statement. I had laid it face down after posting the charge.

“I asked you a bookkeeping question.”

“Yes. And I’m asking you a different question.”

There were several answers available. I chose silence, partly out of loyalty and partly because I could not bear to describe the conversation in which I had agreed. *Then ask.* It would have sounded worse aloud.

The General released the chair.

“In future, bring these things to me privately. If you can’t manage that, I’ll have to think about who has access to the accounts.”

He opened the door, then stopped.

“And pay the balance to those refrigeration people on Monday. I don’t want the technicians standing around again.”

“I’ve arranged it.”

“Thank you.”

After he left, I went to the break room for a plate. The sandwich had become warm at one end and remained cold at the other. I ate standing beside the counter.

Blanche came in for water.

“He’s finished?” she asked.

“With me, apparently.”

She took a glass from the cupboard.

“He’ll forget it.”

“There’s nothing to forget.”

“Then that should be easy.”

She filled the glass. I expected her to ask why I had done it, and prepared an answer about the inconvenience of allowing personal expenses to accumulate in a company’s books. She did not ask.

“Did you find out what you wanted?” she said instead.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She left me with the sandwich. I could not decide whether she had been kind.

I found Polina outside, in the narrow strip of shade behind the office. There were two plastic chairs there, a planter with nothing in it, and the remains of a cigarette someone had balanced on a bolt in the wall. She was speaking on the phone. When she saw me, she turned away.

“I said I understood.”

I stopped by the door.

“No. Don’t send anything.”

She listened, holding the phone so tightly that the tips of her fingers had gone pale.

“I’ll call you.”

She ended the call and put the phone in her pocket.

“What?”

“I’ve moved the charge.”

“All right.”

“To his account. There’s nothing under your name.”

She nodded and looked toward the loading area, where a driver was backing between two trucks. I had imagined finding her alone in this way all morning. Now that I had, she seemed to be waiting for me to finish.

“He wasn’t pleased.”

“No.”

“He came to speak to me.”

“I thought he might.”

“He asked whether you told me to.”

At that she turned.

“And?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

She looked at me for a moment, then took out her phone and checked the dark screen without unlocking it.

“You could have.”

I laughed. It was an unpleasant sound, and I wished I had not made it.

“Would you have preferred that?”

“I didn’t say so.”

“You asked me to ask him. I asked him.”

“Yes, Alexei. I was there.”

I could feel the heat from the wall through my shirt. Somewhere behind us a truck gave a short reversing beep and then fell silent.

“At least you have your answer.”

“I had it this morning.”

I looked at her.

“He wrote to me before nine,” she said. “He said I wasn’t expected to repay it.”

“Then why—”

“You offered.”

“I offered to straighten it out.”

“And now it’s straight.”

“You could have forwarded the email.”

“Yes.”

She said it without triumph. This made it harder to be angry. If she had laughed, I could have accused her of enjoying my humiliation. Instead she stood with one shoe resting against the empty planter and seemed to consider what I had said.

“Why did you want me to do it in front of him?”

“My stepfather?”

“Laurent.”

I disliked saying his name as much as hearing her say it.

She looked down.

“I wanted to hear him say it.”

“You just said he’d written it.”

“People write all sorts of things.”

“And what did you want from me?”

She rubbed a small piece of adhesive from her thumb. It must have been left by the bottle label. I watched it roll into a gray speck.

“I wondered if you actually would.”

There it was. She gave it to me as though it were a minor piece of information she had forgotten to mention.

I had prepared for gratitude and even for regret. I could have been generous with either. Curiosity was more difficult. It left me standing outside my own office holding half a sandwich in a napkin.

“And now you know.”

She looked at what I was holding.

“You don’t like it?”

“What?”

“The sandwich.”

“It’s fine.”

“You used to get that one.”

I could not answer immediately. She remembered what I ate. This absurd fact arrived at precisely the wrong moment and prevented me from saying several things I had almost managed to say.

She pushed away from the wall.

“I have to go.”

“Who were you speaking to?”

“On the phone?”

I nodded.

Her expression changed. It was slight, but I knew at once that I had lost whatever permission I had possessed a moment earlier.

“That isn’t something you need to straighten out.”

She went through the door. I remained outside until the driver finished backing in, though there was no reason to watch him. Then I put the rest of the sandwich in the bin and went back to work.

By four the incident had become considerably more defensible in my mind. The General had put her initial beside a charge and later changed his position. She had been entitled to hear him acknowledge it. If she distrusted a private message, she probably had reasons. I had not asked for those reasons; it was therefore unreasonable to conclude that none existed.

As for the manner of asking, some embarrassment was unavoidable when correcting an injustice. That he was also my employer did not make the injustice less real.

I had almost finished this account of events when a technician came in to ask where we kept the replacement fuel cards. I told him, rather sharply, that I had given him one yesterday.

“That was Luis,” he said.

I apologized and got him a card.

At five fifteen Blanche sent the final arrangements for Thursday. The General forwarded them with a request that I attend in case Mercer had any questions about his recent installations. My name appeared near the bottom of the guest list. Polina’s was two places above it.

There was a perfectly good reason to decline. I had work to finish, the service manager knew more about the installations than I did, and after that morning the General could hardly claim that I improved a gathering.

I opened a reply and wrote that I would be there.

Before sending it, I moved the cursor into the guest list and counted the names between mine and Polina’s again.