For the first night, they put him up in the Grand Hotel. His room looked out onto a pleasant corner of lawn, but since he was only on the second floor, he didn’t have what could be called “a view.” He felt a twinge of disappointment, for he had imagined himself on that first night in Tahas sitting on the balcony outside his room, a glass of whiskey in hand, ice cubes tinkling as they melted, staring out at the lights on the opposite shore as they plunged their reflections into the dark water like festooned banderillas.
But that’s not how it went at all, since his room had no balcony looking onto the Ovir; nor did he really feel like whiskey, a drink he didn’t particularly care for. He was feeling sleepy more than anything else.
An English-language newspaper had been left on his table. He scanned the headlines and nearly dozed off. He’d be better off just turning in for the night, since the time change meant he would be losing three hours of sleep, and he was supposed to report to the Parker Company early the next morning.
The building where the company had its offices was easy to spot: no other façade on the Ring—or in the entire city, for that matter—was painted in such bright candy colors: plum purple, strawberry red, pistachio green. The lobby walls were covered almost entirely in marble, engraved with all kinds of inscriptions followed by floor numbers, calling to mind certain chapels lined with ex-votos. Or a columbarium.
The secretary who greeted Quentin seemed unaware of his existence. She asked him to wait a moment, then disappeared behind a door. Right next to the entrance, a man sat reading a newspaper. A tabloid, surmised Quentin, based on the headlines. A gemstone ring attracted attention to the man’s thick, hairy fingers. Nothing in this person’s outward attitude suggested that he had noticed Quentin’s presence.
A glass case displayed a collection of objects: a model tractor, some dolls in traditional dress, embroidered place mats in a grayish color, and two plates decorated with hand-painted flowers—in all likelihood, samples of local crafts. It all looked rather dusty. On top of the case sat a trophy, a winner’s cup for some soccer match.
Quentin nearly jumped when the door opened. It was only a woman bringing a cup of coffee. She had an unpleasant face, pallid, round, and flat as a moon. She passed by without paying him the slightest attention and set the cup on the desk of the man who grunted something from behind his newspaper.
The secretary had been gone for a while now, and Quentin was starting to wonder whether there had been a misunderstanding. He sought comfort in the fact that they had reserved him a room in the Grand Hotel, a room whose luxury had even flattered him a bit, and that this was the clearest proof that they were indeed expecting him.
The woman finally returned, then proceeded to walk him along a corridor cluttered with boxes and files piled right on the floor, leading him into a tiny office whose size struck him as odd, since he’d had time to read “Conference Room” on the door.
The man receiving him looked tired, even sick. He was having trouble completing his sentences, and several times passed a hand over his eyes, like someone who hadn’t slept much, who couldn’t stand the light. He first asked Quentin how he was doing, whether he’d had a good trip, whether the hotel room was suitable.
He spoke haltingly, as though struggling to gather his thoughts. Quentin’s being hired by the Parker Company seemed of no interest to him whatsoever. There was a silence. He leaned on his elbows, thrust his torso forward, and began diligently joining his fingers, two by two, thumb to thumb, index to index, and so on. When the ring fingers had come together, he resumed:
“Unfortunately, the director is away today. He’s on a trip in the south of the country for a few days. He asked me to tell you how sorry he is not to be here to welcome you. But since his departure was rather last-minute, he didn’t have time to let me know exactly what your job here will be all about. It’s unfortunate, I know. Well, at any rate, if I understood correctly, it wasn’t so much for a specific job that Mr. Moser has brought you on board—we already have perfectly qualified employees, you understand, all quite competent—as to . . . well, to back him up, to help him out more generally, and to, uh . . . bolster the . . . what’s the word? . . . the uh, European staff, yes that’s it, the European staff of our company.”
He rubbed his eyes once again, breathing a little sigh of relief as though, as far as he was concerned, the hardest part was over.
“Madame Farge will show you your office. Feel free to ask her any questions you might have about settling in. You can also talk to Mr. Masko, our local assistant for . . . well, for all sorts of issues.”
In a supreme effort, he rose from his chair and shook Quentin’s hand. It was only at this point that Quentin noticed he reeked of alcohol.
The secretary walked him to an office that was nicely furnished but had no window, which confirmed the unpleasant overall impression he was getting from the place. An engraving above his desk depicted a sunset over a lake. On closer inspection, what he at first took to be rocks were in fact crocodiles lazing near the water, which he imagined as murky and disease-infested. Behind him, something rolled, then fell with a sharp click: it was a clock that counted out little steel marbles at the rate of one per minute.
Everything was settled very quickly. Moser’s assistant (whose name he never did find out) accepted Quentin’s resignation without making any trouble. He seemed distracted, not really listening. He was apparently indifferent to whether or not the staff was European, and seemed little concerned by what his superior might think of the matter.
When Quentin shut the door for the last time on the crocodiles and the clock, he sensed he’d somehow made a narrow escape. The only person he’d taken to at all was Masko, so he dropped by his office to say good-bye.
Everything Masko told him about the Parker Company and the two men who ran it confirmed his conviction that he had done well to quit.
“Yes, you’re definitely doing the right thing,” Masko told him. “And anyway, you probably have other plans in Tahas, don’t you?”
This simple question caught Quentin off guard, for he had no plans of any kind. He had toyed with the idea of going back to Europe, but he basically felt no real desire to do so. So Masko suggested he drop by the Consulate: he had heard they were looking for an emergency replacement for someone in the visa section.
“They’ll surely be delighted to add a European to their local staff,” he added bemusedly.
There was a short silence. A flash of something else in Masko’s look that Quentin was having trouble identifying. They parted on a chillier than expected note.
The Grand Hotel was not too far and he had seen no need to take a taxi, but it was so hot out that he soon wished he had. Halfway there, he suddenly felt terribly weary. The traffic noise on the Ring was deafening. He had forgotten his sunglasses, and felt as if the sun were boring into his skull. The hotel seemed to be receding into the distance, like a mirage. He made it at last, relieved at the idea that he would finally be able to lie down. He had a splitting headache.
In the elevator, what he had sought in vain to identify a short while ago finally became obvious: it was contempt.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves another oddball,” quipped Rosemonde Goult. “Seems he was supposed to