Fear and Trembling Read online

  “You’ve never had any other goal than sabotaging the company!”

  Thoughts whirred around inside my head. I could not permit this incident to ruin my guardian angel’s chances for advancement. I threw myself into the raging torrent of Mister Omochi’s invective.

  “Mister Tenshi didn’t want to sabotage the company. I begged him to let me work on the report. I alone am responsible.”

  I just had time to see my companion in misfortune turn to me with a look of alarm. “Don’t say anything, for pity’s sake!” his eyes were pleading. Alas, too late.

  Mister Omochi stood open-mouthed for a moment before coming up to me and bellowing right into my face.

  “Do you dare to defend yourself?”

  “No, I’m blaming myself. I’m claiming all the wrong for myself. I alone should be punished.”

  “You dare to defend this snake!”

  “Mister Tenshi does not need to be defended. Your accusations against him are misplaced.”

  I saw my benefactor close his eyes and realized that I had uttered something irreparable.

  “You dare to imply that something I say is false? Your bad manners are beyond belief!”

  “I wouldn’t dare to imply such a thing. I just think that Mister Tenshi has misled you in the hope of absolving me.”

  With an expression that said that—in our present position—there was nothing further to fear, Mister Tenshi spoke next, all the mortification in the world in his voice.

  “I beg you, don’t hold it against her. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She is a Westerner, she’s young, and she has no experience. I have made an indefensible mistake. I am terribly ashamed.”

  “So you should be! There’s no excuse for you!” yelled the Obese One.

  “However much wrong I have done, I must all the same emphasize the excellence of Amélie-san’s report, and the remarkable speed with which she compiled it.”

  “That is not the point! Mister Saitama should have done this work!”

  “He was away on business.”

  “You should have waited for him to get back.”

  “This new fat-reduced butter must be the envy of other companies. By the time Mister Saitama had returned from his trip and compiled his report we could have been beaten to it.”

  “Would you by any chance be calling into question the quality of Mister Saitama’s work?”

  “Absolutely not. But Mister Saitama doesn’t speak French and doesn’t know Belgium. He would have found it far more difficult than Amélie-san.”

  “Be quiet. That disgusting sort of pragmatism is worthy of a Westerner.”

  I found the Obese One’s saying this right in front of me too much to take.

  “Forgive my Western indignity. We did something wrong, yes. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some gain to be made from our mistake.…”

  Mister Omochi approached me. The expression in his eyes was so terrifying that it stopped me in midsentence.

  “I’m warning you. This was your first and last report. Get out! I don’t want to see you anymore!”

  I didn’t wait to be told a second time. In the corridor, I could still hear screams from the mountain of flesh and contrite silence from his victim. Then the door opened and Mister Tenshi joined me. We went to the kitchen together in silence, stunned by the insults that had been heaped on us.

  “I’m so sorry for dragging you into this,” he said eventually.

  “Please, Mister Tenshi, don’t apologize. I will be grateful to you my whole life. You’re the only person here who’s given me a chance. It was courageous and generous of you. I knew that at the beginning, and I know it even more clearly now that I’ve seen what it has brought upon you. You shouldn’t have told them that I wrote the report.”

  He stared at me.

  “I didn’t. Don’t you remember our conversation? I wanted to talk about this discreetly at the very top, to Mister Haneda. That was my only hope of achieving anything. By telling Mister Omochi we were only heading for disaster.”

  “So it was Mister Saito who told the vice-president? What a bastard. He could have made me very happy by getting rid of me—but no, he had to go and…”

  “Keep what you think about Mister Saito to yourself. It’s better that way. And in any case, he wasn’t the one who denounced us. I saw the note on Mister Omochi’s desk, and I saw who wrote it.”

  “Mister Saitama?”

  “No. Do I really have to tell you?”

  “You do.”

  He sighed.

  “The note was signed by Miss Mori.”

  I felt as if I’d been hit with a club.

  “Fubuki? It can’t have been.”

  Mr. Tenshi remained silent.

  “I don’t believe it!” I cried. “That coward Mister Saito must have told her to write the note. He isn’t even brave enough to do his denouncing for himself, so he delegates someone else to do it!”

  “You’re wrong about Mister Saito. He might be fussy and a bit obtuse, but he’s not cruel. He would never have condemned us to the vice-president’s anger.”

  “Fubuki couldn’t do a thing like that!”

  Mister Tenshi restricted himself to sighing again.

  “Why would she do a thing like that?” I went on. “Does she hate you?”

  “Oh no. She didn’t do it to spite me. When all is said and done, this whole business does you more harm than me. I haven’t lost anything. But you have missed out on any chance of promotion for a very long time.”

  “I don’t understand. She’s always been so friendly toward me.”

  “Yes, so long as your work consisted of updating calendars and photocopying golf club bylaws.”

  “But there was no danger of my taking her place!”

  “She was never afraid of that.”

  “Then why denounce me? Why would it upset her if I went to work for you?”

  “Miss Mori struggled for years to get the job she has now. She probably found it unbearable for you to get that sort of promotion after being with the company only ten weeks.”

  “I can’t believe it. That’s just so … mean.”

  “All I can say is that she suffered greatly during the first few years she was here.”

  “So she wants me to suffer the same fate? It’s too pathetic. I must talk to her.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “Of course. How else are we going to work things out if we don’t talk?”

  “You just talked to Mister Omochi. Does it strike you that things have been worked out?”

  “There’s one thing I’m sure of, and that’s if you don’t talk there’s no chance of working out the problem.”

  “And there’s one thing I’m even more sure of, and that’s if you do talk, there’s a serious chance you’ll make things worse.”

  “I won’t get you involved in this. But I must speak to Fubuki. Otherwise I’ll never forgive myself.”

  MISS MORI ACCEPTED my proposal to talk privately with an expression of astonished curiosity. She followed me to the conference room, which was empty. We sat down.

  I started quietly and soberly.

  “I thought we were friends. I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “Are you going to deny that you denounced me.”

  “I haven’t denied anything. I followed the rules.”

  “Are the rules more important to you than friendship?”

  “ ‘Friendship’ is a strong word. I’d prefer ‘good relationship between colleagues.’ ”

  She proffered this expression with ingenuous, affable calm.

  “I see. Do you think our relationship will continue to be good, after what you’ve done?”

  “If you apologize, I won’t bear you a grudge.”

  “You’ve got a good sense of humor, Fubuki.”

  “You’re behaving as if you’re the injured party, when you’ve actually done something very wrong.”

&n
bsp; I made the mistake of coming out with a sharp retort.

  “And I had been thinking that the Japanese were different from the Chinese.”

  She looked at me, not understanding. I went on.

  “Yes. The Chinese didn’t have to wait for Communism to consider denunciation a virtue. To this day the Chinese in Singapore, for example, still encourage their children to tell on their little friends. I thought the Japanese had a stronger sense of honor.”

  I had definitely upset her. A strategic mistake.

  She smiled.

  “Do you think you’re in a position to teach me anything about morals?”

  “Why do you think I wanted to talk to you, Fubuki?”

  “Because you weren’t thinking.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might want a reconciliation?”

  “Fine. You apologize and we’ll be reconciled.”

  I sighed.

  “You’re quick and intelligent. Why are you pretending you don’t understand?”

  “Don’t try and get above yourself. You’re very easy to figure out.”

  “Good. Then you can see why I’m so indignant.”

  “I can see why and I disapprove of your reasons. I’m the one who had some reason to feel indignant about your attitude. You had your eye on a promotion to which you had no right.”

  “Fine. I had no right to it. But what harm could it actually do you? My opportunity didn’t cheat you out of anything.”

  “I’m twenty-nine years old. You’re twenty-two. I’ve been in this position since last year. I fought for it for years. Did you think that you were going to get a comparable job within a matter of weeks?”

  “So that’s it. You want to see me suffer. You can’t bear other people’s opportunities. How childish.”

  She gave a scornful little laugh.

  “And do you think that making your situation worse is proof of maturity? I’m your superior. Do you think you have the right to be so rude to me?”

  “You’re right. You’re my superior. I have no right, I know. But I wanted you to know how disappointed I am. I really thought highly of you.”

  She laughed elegantly.

  “I’m not disappointed. I didn’t think highly of you.”

  WHEN I ARRIVED at work the following morning, Miss Mori informed me of my new appointment.

  “You won’t be changing departments. You’ll be working here, in accounting.”

  I felt like laughing.

  “Me, in accounting? Why not ask me to be a trapeze artist?”

  “ ‘Accounting’ may be overstating things. I don’t think you are capable of bookkeeping,” she said with a pitying smile.

  She showed me a large drawer in which the invoices for the last few weeks had been piled up. Then she showed me the shelves with rows of enormous ledgers, each bearing the initials of one of Yumimoto’s eleven import-export departments.

  “Your assignment couldn’t be more simple, and therefore well within your abilities. First, you have to arrange the invoices in chronological order. Then, you work out which department each one belongs to. Take this one, for example: eleven million for Finnish Emmental. How very funny—it involves the Dairy Products Department. You take the ledger marked ‘DP’ and copy out into each of the columns the date, the name of the company, and the sum. When you’ve sorted and recorded all the invoices, you file them in this drawer here.”

  There was no denying the fact that this was not difficult work.

  “Isn’t everything computerized?”

  “Yes. At the end of the month, Mister Unaji will input all of the invoices into the computer. All he will have to do is to copy out your work. It will hardly take him any time at all.”

  For the first two days I sometimes had trouble figuring out which invoice went where. When I asked Fubuki, she replied with irritated courtesy.

  “What’s Reming Ltd?”

  “Nonferrous metals. Department MM.”

  “What’s Gunzer GMBH?”

  “Chemicals. Department CP.”

  I very quickly got to know all the companies and the departments to which they belonged. My assignment seemed to get easier and easier. It was exquisitely boring, which did not displease me, for it allowed me to put my mind elsewhere. While I sorted through the invoices, I would often look up and daydream as I admired the ravishing face of my denouncer.

  Weeks went by. I fell more and more into a state of contentment I called “invoice serenity.” There was very little difference between what I was doing and a monk transcribing illuminated manuscripts in the Middle Ages. I spent entire days copying out letters and numbers. Never in my life had so little been asked of my brain, and it experienced extraordinary tranquillity—a sort of Zen of accounting. I was surprised to find myself thinking that if I spent forty years immersed in such voluptuous mindlessness, I would not complain.

  To think that I had been silly enough to get a college degree. There can be nothing less intellectually stimulating than repetition. I was devoted to order, not thought, I now realized. Writing down numbers while contemplating beauty was happiness itself.

  Fubuki had been right, after all. I had chosen the wrong path with Mister Tenshi. I had compiled that report for the wrong reasons, you could say. My mind was not that of a conqueror, but that of a cow that spends its life chewing contentedly in the meadow of invoices, waiting for the train of eternal grace to pass by. How good it felt to exist without pride or ambition. To live in hibernation.

  ATTHEEND of the month Mister Unaji input my work onto the computer. It took him two days to copy out my rows of numbers and letters. I felt ridiculously proud to have been a link in the efficient chain.

  Chance—or was it fate?—dictated that he kept the accounts for the “CP” ledger for last. As he had with the first ten account books, he started tapping on his keyboard without batting an eyelid. A few minutes later I heard him exclaiming, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!”

  He turned the pages with increasing frenzy. Then he succumbed to a burst of nervous laughter that gradually mutated into a succession of halting little cries. The forty members of the office watched him in stupefied silence.

  I started to feel very uncomfortable.

  Fubuki got up and ran over to him. He showed her some passages from the ledger and roared with laughter. She turned toward me. She did not share in her colleague’s unhealthy hilarity. Ashen, she called me over.

  “What’s this?” she asked tartly, pointing out one of the incriminating lines.

  I read the line.

  “Well, it’s an invoice from GmbH, dated the…”

  “GMBH? GMBH?” she said furiously.

  The entire Accounting Department burst out laughing. I didn’t understand.

  “Can you explain to me what ‘GmbH’ is?” my superior asked, folding her arms.

  “It’s a German chemical company we deal with very frequently.”

  The roars of laughter redoubled.

  “Didn’t you notice that ‘GmbH’ was always preceded by one or several names?” continued Fubuki.

  “Yes. I assumed they were the names of its various subsidiaries. I thought it was better not to clog up the ledger with the details.”

  Even the inhibited Mister Saito gave free rein to his mounting amusement. Fubuki was still not laughing. Her face displayed the most terrifyingly restrained rage. If she could have slapped me, she would have. Her voice sliced the air like a saber.

  “Idiot! ‘GmbH’ is the German equivalent of the American ‘Inc.’, the English ‘Ltd.’, or the French ‘S.A.’ The companies that you have so brilliantly amalgamated under ‘GmbH’ haven’t got anything to do with each other! It’s as if you decided to write ‘Ltd.’ for every English and Canadian company we deal with! How long is it going to take you to correct these mistakes?”

  I chose the stupidest defense possible.

  “Trust the Germans to come up with such a long-winded way of saying ‘Inc.’!”

 
“That’s right! It must be the Germans’ fault you’re so stupid!”

  “Calm down, Fubuki. How could I know…”

  “How could you not know! Your country has a border with Germany and you still didn’t know, whereas we, who live on the other side of the planet, know full well!”

  I was about to say something that, thank heavens, I kept to myself: “Belgium may well have a border with Germany, but during the last war, Japan had far more in common with Germany than a border!”

  I contented myself with bowing my head, defeated.

  “Don’t stand there like a statue! Go and find all the invoices you have so brilliantly filed under ‘chemicals’ for the last month!”

  I opened the drawer and almost felt like laughing when I realized that as a result of my filing technique the files for “chemical companies” had reached astonishing proportions.

  Mister Unaji, Miss Mori, and I set to work. It took us three days to sort out the eleven different creditors. I was already in the doghouse with them when an even more serious calamity erupted.

  The first sign was a sort of trembling in the good Mister Unaji’s large shoulders. It meant that he was starting to laugh. The vibrations spread to his chest and then to his throat. Eventually came the laugh. I broke out in goose pimples.

  Fubuki was already white with fury.

  “What’s she done now?”

  With one hand Mister Unaji showed her the original invoice and with the other the accounts book.

  She hid her face in her hands. I felt sick.

  Then they turned several pages and pointed to various invoices. In the end, Fubuki grabbed hold of my arm. Without a word, she showed me the figures copied out in my inimitable writing.

  “Whenever there are more than four zeros in a row, you didn’t bother to copy them out! You took away or added at least one zero each time!”

  “Oh yes, so I did.”

  “Do you have any idea what this means? How many weeks it will take to find all your mistakes and correct them?”

  “It’s not easy—all those enormously long lines of zeros …”

  “Be quiet!”

  Pulling me by the arm, she led me outside. We went into an empty office and she shut the door.