The Man Who Risked It All Page 9

  I left the meeting room and went back to my office, preferring not to see Larcher. I didn’t want to see anyone, in fact. I waited for everyone to go to lunch before leaving myself. I opened my door a crack. Silence. I walked down the corridor. Just as I passed Thomas’s office, his phone rang. The switchboard was closed. Someone must be calling his direct line.

  I don’t know what came over me. It was neither my habit nor office procedure to answer someone else’s phone, but the ringing was so insistent that I decided to go ahead. I opened the door to his office. Everything was tidy. His files were in a neat pile, and his Mont Blanc pen was placed just so. A very slight perfume floated in the air. Perhaps his aftershave … I picked up the phone, a much more elegant model than we had in the rest of the department.

  “Al …” I was going to say my name to let the caller know I was not Thomas, but he didn’t give me time, cutting me off and talking at top speed with a voice full of hatred. “What you’ve done is shitty. I clearly told you I hadn’t resigned yet and was counting on your total discretion. I know you called my boss to tell him his head of administration was going to resign and that you were offering to find his replacement.”

  “Please, I’m not …”

  “Shut up! I know it’s you because I haven’t sent my resumé anywhere else. You hear? Nowhere! It can only be you. It’s disgusting.”

  10

  I WAS COMING out of the building when Alice suddenly appeared. She had obviously been waiting for me since the end of the meeting.

  “Are you going to lunch?” she asked.

  She was smiling, but I detected some uneasiness. Was she afraid to be seen with me?

  “Yes,” I told her.

  She waited a second, as if she wished the idea would come from me, and then said, “Shall we have lunch together?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  “I know a really nice restaurant that’s a bit out of the way. That way, we can talk freely.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Le Repaire d’Arthus.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s rather … original. I won’t say any more about it. I’ll let you discover it for yourself.”

  “As long as they don’t eat strange animals, it’ll be fine.”

  “You Americans! You’re so squeamish.”

  We walked down the Rue Molière and at the end ducked into a vaulted passageway connecting with the arcade that runs along the interior garden of the Palais Royal. What a haven of peace the garden is, in the midst of this busy district in the heart of Paris! Rows of chestnut trees, paths of packed earth, and the massive old building itself, loaded with history. Under the arches, we could smell the faint musty odor of centuries-old stone, as the click of our heels resounded on the worn flagstones.

  At the north end of the garden, we climbed a staircase with a pretty wrought-iron handrail. We passed a shop selling old music boxes then turned into the Rue Croix des Petits Champs. The sidewalk of this busy old Parisian street is so narrow we had to walk single file. Each of the little shops we passed seemed unique, light-years from the big chain stores that sell the same things in every city of the world. An umbrella seller stood next to a pork butcher’s, next to a hat seller, followed by a tea merchant, then a specialist in craft jewelry. Food shops, shoe repairers, an antiquarian bookshop—I wanted to stop and look at them all.

  “Do you know the Galerie Vivienne?” Alice asked.

  “Not at all,” I told her.

  We crossed the street and went under an archway squeezed between two shops, emerging in one of Paris’s famous covered passages. A beautiful relic of past centuries with a vaulted ceiling of glass and wrought iron, the gallery had been restored to its former glory. Upscale boutiques and restaurants lined the passageway. Our footsteps echoed like castanets as we walked along the mosaic floor. Away from the crowds and hustle bustle of the city, the gallery is an oasis of almost religious calm. Bathed in soft light, it has a melancholic serenity.

  “The gallery dates from early in the 19th century,” Alice explained. “It was a fashionable gathering place during the Restoration. I come here when I need to take a break and forget the office for a bit.”

  Back on the street, we noticed the smell of warm bread coming from a nearby bakery. It made me very hungry all of a sudden.

  “Here we are!” said Alice, moments later, pointing to a restaurant with a deep gray painted facade.

  We entered a small room with just 20 tables. The décor was baroque, and the walls were hung with pictures made up of quotations in carved wood frames. The owner—short, fair-haired, 40-ish, with a silk scarf knotted at the neck of his pink shirt—was in the midst of a conversation with two customers. He broke off as soon as he saw Alice.

  “Here’s my recruiting sergeant!” he said in a mannered voice that if it hadn’t been accompanied by a knowing smile, would have seemed obsequious.

  “I’ve already told you not to call me that, Arthus,” Alice said with a laugh.

  He kissed her hand.

  “And who is the handsome prince accompanying you today?” he asked, eyeing me intensely from head to toe. “Madame has good taste … and she’s taking risks, bringing him to Arthus.”

  “Alan is a colleague,” Alice told him.

  “Oh! You’re one as well! Don’t try and seduce me. I warn you: I’m quite unemployable in a company.”

  “I only recruit accountants,” I replied.

  “Oh,” he said, simulating great sadness. “He’s only interested in number-crunchers.”

  “Have you got a table for us, by any chance, Arthus? I haven’t booked.”

  “My astrologer told me that an important person would come today, so I’ve kept this table. It’s for you.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  He handed us the menus with great elegance. Alice put hers down without a glance.

  “You’re not looking at it?” I asked.

  “No point.”

  I shot her an inquiring look, but she merely gave me an enigmatic little smile.

  The menu was fairly extensive, and everything looked appetizing. Not easy to choose from such a fine variety of dishes. I hadn’t even finished reading when our host came to take our order.

  “Madame Alice.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, Arthus.”

  “Oh, I like it when women submit to me! Henceforth, you’re mine. Has my handsome prince made up his mind?” he said, leaning toward me slightly.

  “I’ll have a mille-feuille, a napoleon with tomatoes with basil, and …”

  “No, no, no,” he muttered.

  “Sorry?”

  “No, no, that’s not a starter for a prince. Let me choose. Let’s see. I’m going to make you chicory with Roquefort.”

  I was a little put out by his attitude.

  “What’s Roquefort?”

  Arthus’s jaw dropped in mock surprise.

  “What? My prince is joking, isn’t he?”

  “My colleague is American,” explained Alice. “He’s only been living in France for a few months.”

  “But he has no accent,” Arthus said. “And he’s cute and not too big for a Yank. You weren’t brought up on cornflakes and Big Macs?”

  “His mother was French, but he’s always lived in the States.”

  “Right. We’ll have to educate him. I’m counting on you, Alice. I’ll look after him from the culinary point of view. So let’s start with Roquefort. You know that France has more than five hundred cheeses?”

  “We’ve got a number in the States, you know.”

  “No, you haven’t,” he said vigorously, with mock exasperation. “We’re not talking about the same thing! Not at all. What you have isn’t cheese, it’s plastic wrapped in cellophane. It’s gelatinous gum flavored with salt.

  “We’re going to have to teach him everything!” Arthus continued. “Right. Let’s start with Roquefort. Roquefort is the king of cheeses, and the king of cheeses—”

 
I interrupted him. “Okay, let’s go with the chicory and Roquefort. Then, I’ll carry on with—”

  “We don’t carry on, here, my prince. It’s not a pantomime.”

  “Right. I’ll follow it up with—”

  “No, we don’t follow anything up here, either. We’re not policemen on a case.”

  I started again, choosing my words carefully: “Then I will have boeuf bourguignon with boiled potatoes.”

  “Oh no,” he said very firmly. “That’s not you at all. You can’t go slumming with a boeuf bourguignon. No, I’ll bring you, let’s see, turkey forestière cooked in yellow wine from the Jura region, with oyster mushrooms from Sologne.”

  I was a little lost. “Am I allowed to choose my dessert?”

  “You have every right, my prince.”

  “Then I’ll have the tarte Tatin.”

  “Fine! So that’s”—he was concentrating on what he was writing down—“a chocolate mousse. Thank you and bon appétit! Arthus is delighted to be able to serve you.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen.

  I burst out laughing. “What’s all that nonsense?”

  “The menu is a load of bull. In fact, there is only one menu, the same for everyone. But it’s very good. All the produce is fresh. Léon cooks all the dishes,” she said, pointing to a tall man I could see through the round glass window in the door to the kitchen.

  “I’m dying of hunger.”

  “The service is fast. It’s the advantage of having only one menu. Their customers are all regulars. Except, once, there was a German tourist. He reacted very badly to Arthus’s little game. He kicked up a fuss and left in an uproar.”

  Arthus came back out almost right away, twirling the two appetizers in the air.

  “And here’s your chicory with Roquefort!”

  I was preparing to throw myself on my starter when I looked down and saw something disgusting. “Alice,” I murmured, “my cheese is rotten. It’s moldy. It’s disgusting!”

  She looked at me for a couple of seconds in silence and then burst out laughing.

  “That’s how it’s supposed to be!”

  “My cheese is supposed to be moldy?”

  “That’s how it’s eaten, it’s …”

  “You expect me to eat rotten cheese?”

  It felt like another task imposed by Dubreuil.

  “It’s not rotten, it’s just moldy and …”

  “Rotten, moldy, it’s all the same.”

  “No! This is healthy mold,” she insisted. “I swear you can eat it without risk. Besides, without the mold, the cheese would be of no interest.”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “No, I assure you! Watch.”

  She skewered several pieces of cheese with her fork and popped them in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed with a smile.

  “It’s foul!” I protested.

  “Try it, at least!”

  “Certainly not!”

  I made do with the chicory leaves, carefully choosing the few that hadn’t been in contact with the cheese.

  Arthus looked distraught when he came to remove our plates.

  “I’m going to have to hide this from Léon. He’d shed tears if he saw you hadn’t honored his appetizer. I know him; he’d be inconsolable.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen with our plates. Alice rested her forearms on the table and leaned toward me.

  “You know, you really surprised me at the meeting. I never would have imagined that you’d stand up to Larcher. You were taking a risk.”

  “I don’t know about that. At any rate, I was sincere. I’m convinced it’s not in the firm’s interests to neglect candidates who don’t immediately fit a vacancy.”

  She looked straight at me for a few moments. I had never noticed before how pretty she was. Her light chestnut hair was tied back, revealing a slender, very feminine neck. Her blue eyes were both gentle and assertive, shining with intelligence. There was something very graceful about her.

  “I’m more and more convinced,” I went on, “that Larcher, Dunker, and the other members of the management team are deliberately making decisions that aren’t in the interests of the firm.”

  “Why would they do that?” she asked.

  “The decisions are dictated above all by the financial markets. By the stock exchange, in fact.”

  “You mean by our shareholders,” Alice said.

  “So to speak.”

  “I don’t see what difference that makes. It’s in the shareholders’ interest, too, for the company to prosper.”

  “No, it depends …” I hesitated.

  “Depends on what?”

  “On their motives for being shareholders. You know, we have all sorts of shareholders: small investors, banks, investment funds. Do you think that the majority of them are interested in the healthy, harmonious development of our company? There’s only one thing that counts, or rather there are two: that the share price keeps going up and that we cough up dividends every year.”

  “That’s not so shocking,” Alice said. “The principle of capitalism is that those who take a financial risk by investing in a company are the ones who earn the most if it succeeds. It’s the remuneration for their risk-taking, thanks to which the company is able to develop. The value of the shares goes up, you know, if the company develops successfully, because then the risk seems weaker and the number of people wanting to invest increases. As for the dividend, it’s just the distribution of profits to the shareholders. For there to be dividends, the company has to be in good health.”

  “Yes, in theory,” I agreed. “But in practice the system is completely distorted. Now the shareholders who are really concerned about investing in the long-term development of the company are few and far between. Most of the shareholders either want to make a killing fast by selling their shares as soon as the value has gone up enough, or they hold enough shares to influence the company’s decisions. And believe me, even the large shareholders aren’t really interested in the company’s development but only in making sure it can pay fat dividends, even if that jeopardizes future growth.”

  “And you think that’s the ga me Dunker and his henchmen are playing—serving the shareholders’ interests at the expense of the company’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even so,” Alice argued, “it’s Dunker’s firm; he was the founder. I find it hard to imagine he’d favor a course of action that would slowly destroy it.”

  “It’s not really his firm anymore. Since he took it public, he only holds eight percent of the shares. It’s as if he had sold it.”

  Alice pulled a face. “Yes, but he’s remained at the head of the company. So he must love it all the same.”

  “He’s not a sentimental person,” I reminded her. “No, I think his staying at the helm is part of an agreement between him and the two major shareholders, who bought stock at the initial public offering.”

  Arthus set down our turkey and left us to greet another regular customer.

  “Countess, at your service!” we heard him say.

  Alice shook her head. “Poor Arthus. However far back my family tree may go, there are only peasants, yokels, servants. And, you know, the nobility was abolished in 1790.”

  “Yes, but Arthus seems to have reestablished it!”

  The turkey in yellow wine was delicious. This type of dish was enough to keep even the most cornflakes- and Big-Mac-fed American on French soil.

  “Did you know Tonero?” asked Alice between two mouthfuls.

  “The man who resigned shortly after my arrival?”

  “Yes. He was the best consultant. A very clever guy. And a salesman without equal. He knew his worth and tried to negotiate a raise.”

  “They refused, if my memory serves me right.”

  “Yes, but he didn’t back down. He prepared a dossier to prove that if they refused, his resignation would cost them more than his raise. He calculated the cost of recruiting and training his replacement, how long
the replacement would be paid before he was really operational, and so on. In fact, it was a no-brainer. It would cost them less to give Tonero a raise than to let him go. And yet, that’s what they did. Do you know why?”

  “A question of pride? Not to back down on their decision?”

  “Not even,” Alice said. “They coldly explained that, if they started to let wage costs go up, it would show up right away in the projected budget, and the share price would be affected. On the other hand, most of the cost of recruiting his successor would appear under Fees and Training, and the stock exchange is far less sensitive to those cost centers.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “In the Training division, it’s not much better. Before, the courses used to finish at 6 P.M. Now they’re over by 5.”

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “You want the reason given to the client or the one dictated by business?”

  “Go on …”

  “On a pedagogical level, it’s fundamental, ‘Mister Client, sir. Our research shows that a slight reduction in hours improves the training by optimizing its absorption by the course participant.’”

  “And the reality?”

  “The trainer has to be on the phone by 5:05 P.M., canvassing new clients. Understand, by 6 P.M. nobody is available anymore.”

  I took a sip of wine. “Talking about unfair practices, quite by chance I discovered that one of our colleagues ratted on a candidate, telling his company he was leaving before he had resigned.”

  “Oh, haven’t you been informed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was the day you were absent. Dunker came along to the weekly business meeting. He hinted that there was good business to be done that way.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Mark Dunker, our CEO, is inviting his consultants to indulge in that sort of practice? It’s revolting!”

  “He didn’t explicitly tell us to do it. But he made it understood.”

  I looked at the gray sky through the window. The rain was beginning to fall.

  “You know, even if it does us good to get it off our chest,” I said, “it still depresses me. I need to believe in what I’m doing. To get out of bed in the morning, I have to feel that my work serves a purpose, even if it’s not directly connected to some noble cause. At the very least, I want to be able to feel the satisfaction of a job well done. But if we’re supposed to do any old thing, at top speed, just to enrich shareholders, who aren’t even interested in the company, then it doesn’t make sense anymore. I need my work to have meaning.”