Whatever: a novel Read Free Page B

condition. The only excuse I can come up with - and it seems extremely feeble to me - is that my car has just been stolen. I'm saying, then, that I'm currently grappling with a nascent psychological problem. This is when my head of department flips; the theft of my car visibly angers him. He didn't know; couldn't have guessed; now he understands. And when the moment of leavetaking arrives, standing by the door of his office, feet planted in the thick pearl-grey carpet, it's with emotion that he'll urge me `to hang in there'.

    7

    Catherine, Little Catherine

    The receptionist at the Ministry of Agriculture always wears a leather miniskirt; but this time I don't need her to find room 6017.

    From the start Catherine Lechardoy confirms my worst fears. She's twenty-five, with a higher technical certificate in data processing, and prominent teeth; her aggressiveness is astonishing. `Let's hope it's going to work, your software! If it's like the last one we bought from you ... a real bastard. In the end, of course, it's ... I'm just the bimbo, I'm here to clean up the shit the others leave behind. . .', etc.

    I explain to her that it's not me, either, who decides what is sold. Nor what is produced. In fact I decide nothing. Neither of us decides anything. I'm just here to help her, give her some copies of the instruction manual, try and set up a teaching programme with her ... But none of this satisfies her. Her anger is intense, her anger is deep. Now she's talking about methodology. According to her everyone in the business should conform to a rigorous methodology based on structured programming; and instead of that there is anarchy, programmes are written any old way, each person does as he likes in his little corner without considering the others, there's no agreement, there's no general project, there's no harmony. Paris is a horrible city, people don't meet, they're not even interested in their work, it's all so superficial, they all go home at six, work done or not, nobody gives a damn.

    She suggests going for a coffee. I accept, obviously. An automatic machine. I haven't any change, she gives me two francs. The coffee is foul, but that doesn't stop her rant. In Paris you can drop dead right on the street, nobody gives a damn. Where she is, in the Warn, it's different. Every weekend she goes back to her place in the Warn. And in the evenings she takes courses at the CNAM to improve her prospects. In three years she'll maybe have her engineering diploma.

    Engineer. I'm an engineer. It's vital I say something. I enquire, in a slightly strangled voice,

    -Courses in what?

    -Courses in management control, factor analysis, algorithmic, financial accounting.

    -That must be hard work, I remark in a rather vague tone.

    Yes, it's hard work, but work doesn't frighten her. In the evenings she often works in her studio flat till midnight getting her studies done. Anyway you have to fight to get anything in life, that's what she's always believed. We go back up the stairs towards her office. `0.K. fight, little Catherine . . .' I mournfully say to myself. She's not all that pretty. As well as prominent teeth she has lifeless hair, little eyes that burn with anger. No breasts or buttocks to speak of. God has not, in truth, been too kind to her.

    I think we're going to get along very well. She has the decided air of organizing everything, running the show, all I'll have to do is come down here and give my courses. Which suits me fine; I have no wish to contradict her. I don't reckon she'll fall in love with me; I get the impression she's beyond trying it on with a man.

    Around eleven a new person bursts into the office. His name is Patrick Leroy and apparently he shares the same office as Catherine. Hawaiian shirt, buttock-hugging jeans and a bunch of keys hanging from the belt, which jangle when he walks. He's a bit knackered, he informs us. He's spent the night in a jazz club with a mate, they managed to `make it with a couple