The next day after lunch, dressed soberly in jacket and matching pants, Héloïse prepares herself to enter the workshops. She takes a deep breath and pulls the door open. This set of doors gives way to the passageway that connects the two workshops. Directly opposite the doors and perpendicular to the passageway is the wall that separates the workshops along their lengths. The din fills her ears.
The harsh cries of tortured sheet metal come from the right. From the left, she can hear the dull, regular thudding of wood planks falling rhythmically one on top of the next as the machine cuts them. From one side, the smell of machine oil makes her throat burn. From the other, sawdust prickles her nose. Héloïse stands in the passageway, motionless. Memories of the past race through her mind.
Suddenly Hubert walks briskly past her and bustles around motioning to the machine operators, who begin to shut down their equipment, one after the other. He gets behind them, and as he urges them forward, they slowly gather around Héloïse. Her spirits return. After what seems to her an eternity, they are all assembled and ready to listen. “For the first time,” she thinks.
Hubert motions to her to begin speaking. And so she does. She utters her words one after the other, as if she were deciphering a new passage of music. She doesn’t really know what she is saying, but she says it nonetheless. Later, she is able to vaguely recall having spoken about the company’s heritage, quality workmanship, faithful customers, families whose livelihoods depended on the work that was done at H. Rami, and her personal commitment not to leave the company until the future of each of them is assured. Swept away by her convictions, she nearly forgets to tell them about her decision to bring in a total-quality consultant to help her. Then she stops suddenly, her mind as empty as when she started to speak. She asks if there are any questions. There is a long pause. Her audience seems impassive, but faces have relaxed as her own body did while she formed her words. She feels relieved. Suddenly, a hand shoots up.
“Excuse me. We’ve been asking among ourselves. Should we call you ‘ma’am’ or ‘miss’?”
Héloïse gulps, dumbfounded. Why do men always need to check whether or not a woman is married? She is used to this most exasperating of questions, and usually counters in a barely disguised mocking tone, “Why do you want to know? Do you want to propose?” But this time, looking at the innocent moon-faced fellow who has asked the question, she feels almost tender.
“I’d be happy if you’d just call me Héloïse.”
There are no more questions. Gradually, as though in slow motion, the workers dressed in the blue grease-spotted overalls move to the right, while their counterparts, their yellow T-shirts and black pants smudged with sawdust, head to the left.
Héloïse smiles at Hubert. He looks at her admiringly. “The least we can say is that style runs in the family. But yours is quite different from your father’s. Come, I’ll introduce you to the shop steward. Every time the workers wanted to negotiate something with your father, Ivan was supposed to represent their views. He will pass your message on to them.”
They approach a stout, red-haired man with a ruddy complexion. He has a brush cut, and there are traces of sawdust on his yellow T-shirt and on his thick beard. He wears the black pants of the woodworkers. He is in no hurry as he turns his head toward Héloïse to study her with a serious look.
“My name is Igor Skisovitch, but here they call me Ivan. We’re all satisfied that you decided to come to talk to us, ma’am. I was the third person hired by the late Mr. Rami. I have been here for nearly thirty years. I was always frank with him whenever we didn’t agree, which was often. That is to say, nearly all the time. So I’ll be just as frank with you. If Jean-Marc Gridy carries on like this, he’s going to have problems.”
Héloïse opens her eyes wide, unable to comprehend what he is talking about. She turns to Hubert, who gestures toward the washrooms at the other end of the workshop. Héloïse looks at him questioningly.
“You know, the doors. The ones he thought it would be such a good idea to remove, so that—”
This time, she understands.
“Yes, yes, Igor—um, Ivan. I’ve heard all about it, and I think it’s completely unacceptable. I’ll see to it that the doors are put back on at once.”
Ivan takes his pencil out from where he put it behind his ear and turns back to his work. He has nothing more to add. Héloïse rejoins Hubert who has remained a few steps behind her.
“Hubert, let’s go speak to Jean-Marc right now. Where can I find him?”
Hubert gestures toward the back of the metal shop, and steps away discreetly. Héloïse sets off in that direction, and feels the familiar sensation of being watched rise in her stomach. She chases it away by focusing her attention on what she can see. This is not difficult: the scene is so surprising.
A myriad different things fills the workshop: dark greasy machines; small trolleys with rickety wheels, filled with bits of metal and dirty rags; wooden crates, some empty, but most filled with innumerable components of all sizes and shapes; grease-stained racks filled with nuts and bolts. Iron bars are spread out on the ground, or balance precariously on the machines. She has to be careful where she puts her feet. On the wall, there is an empty paper-towel dispenser that hangs forlornly over an ashtray that overflows with cigarette butts. While noticing that next to the ashtray is a large sign that says NO SMOKING, she nearly trips over an iron bar. She manages to catch herself by grabbing the door handle of a prefabricated glass shed, the windows of which haven’t been cleaned for a very long time. They are covered in sheets of paper that have been taped together, making sure that no one could see into what happens to be Jean-Marc’s lair. He comes out swiftly, allowing her barely a glimpse of a desk covered in papers and pieces of greasy metal.
“Hello Jean-Marc. I’ve come to talk to you about the toilet stalls. Could you please put the doors back on?”
“Well! Ivan sure doesn’t waste any time, does he? Don’t be taken in by him, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll go and settle it with the guys in the wood shop just like I did with the guys in my metal shop. None of my people would dare bug you with little details like that. They better understand that they’re here to work hard, and that if they’ve got a problem with the boss, they can go do something else for a living.”
“As it happens, I’m the boss now. Please be so kind as to put back the stall doors that you thought it was such a good idea to remove—and please do it quickly. In the future, if you’ve got any similar initiatives planned, you’ll speak to me about them first.”
Jean-Marc stares at her, aghast. Finally he stammers, “But ma’am! I thought it was the right thing! Ever since we came back from holidays, the guys have been slacking off. Especially in the wood shop, they go to the toilet several times a day! Productivity is way down. I’ve done all the calculations based on Georgette’s numbers. I thought it was the right thing. For the company!”
“But we’re human beings, after all,” says Héloïse, trying to soften her voice. “Surely it wasn’t my father who taught you to behave this way.”
“But I did it to show you that you only have to ask me to take over both workshops, and you’ll see how well I can turn things around.”
“We’ll talk about your ambitions later. In the meantime, just do as you are told.”
Héloïse turns and leaves the area quickly, zigzagging around the iron bars lying on the floor as she goes.
“How can they work in such a mess, day after day?” she wonders to herself. “What would my cello sound like if I didn’t maintain it regularly? Awful!”
The next day, Héloïse receives a visit from a small, bleary-eyed man who is a mass of nervous tics. He introduces himself as the representative of the association that could send H. Rami a retired quality expert to help with ISO certification. He is wearing a jacket