looks at Georgette inquisitively. “Why was my father so much more careful when it came to labor costs than he was when it came to buying wood for the factory? Surely the wood must be very expensive.”
Georgette’s eyes light up and a barely perceptible smile of disdain plays at her lips. “Actually, as I pointed out to Mr. Rami, when it comes to cost of goods sold, the biggest portion, 47 percent, goes toward salaries. But, whether the twenty-four salaried employees are categorized as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ employees, their salaries count as fixed expenses, because we pay them every month. We never have more than four temporary workers in the ‘direct’ category during the three months that we hire them, to help during the peak period of production and during our regular workers’ holidays. That is to say, we have a maximum increase in the workforce of 4 percent during one-quarter of the year. Because the salaries for temporary workers are low, they only represent 2 percent of our total expenditure on salaries, so when we hire temporary workers, our cost of goods sold only fluctuates up to 1 percent. Purchasing, on the other hand, represents 46 percent of our cost of goods sold, and more than half of this is spent on wood. A 10 percent increase in the price of wood therefore raises our cost of goods sold more than all of the temporary workers’ salaries put together. I know that Mr. Ambi used to work for a company that also bought wood, but it wasn’t anything like the same quality we use here. It would have been better to give him the authority to hire temporary workers than to supervise the negotiation of purchases. It would have been less risky—”
“Tell me again: who are these ‘direct’ employees?”
Georgette puffs out her chest. “Direct employees are workers that vary in number according to the amount of work that has to be done. The indirect employees on the other hand are, well, people like me, for example—office workers and workshop supervisors. Whether there’s a great deal of work or only a little, the indirect workers are always going to be there. But all the workers represent inarguably fixed expenses. It makes sense to hire temporary workers to absorb any sudden increase in the workload and not have to worry about keeping them on if the workload goes back down. The problem is, you need to train them. Once they’re trained, they often leave us, and we have to start all over again. That’s what used to drive Jean-Marc crazy, and that’s why—”
Héloïse interrupts Georgette, who is getting carried away. “Thank you, I understand. When is Hubert due back?”
“He left this morning for Saint-Nazaire. To see what happened with that order that we lost. He’ll be back on Friday.”
Héloïse gives a little smile, and says, “Good. I’ll come back on Friday morning to talk to him then. Tell Jean-Marc to be patient about the temporary direct workers until then.”
She rises from her desk. Georgette hesitates for a moment, before passing Héloïse a folder she had been concealing behind her back.
“I have some checks here that I’ve prepared for signature. There are invoices that need to be paid and are getting urgent. Perhaps you can go over them with your mother? If you’d like, I can also give her a copy of the cash-flow plan, now that we know that we won’t be getting any more orders from Saint-Nazaire.”
Héloïse sits down again and takes the sheaf of papers from her mechanically.
“Thierry’s probably got his dates mixed up,” she thinks to herself. “He’ll be back next week. Not a problem. I don’t start back at the conservatory until next Tuesday.”
Héloïse doesn’t wait until Georgette leaves before she begins to shuffle the papers absentmindedly. Her mother is the only one to be able to sign checks, as the major shareholder of the company since her husband’s death, but she is away at a health spa with a friend. Héloïse has not yet told her that “the new CEO who was going to take care of everything” had, in fact, disappeared.
“It is out of the question for me to become even more involved with the company,” she thinks. “I feel ill simply being here.”
She stares at the papers without reading them and allows the malaise to invade her very being. Feelings bombard her: irritation at Georgette’s condescending attitude and pity at both Roger Chaillou’s servile behavior and Jean-Marc Gridy’s displaced aggression.
In a flash, she remembers the resentment she had felt as an adolescent toward this place—before the argument with her father—when he had tried to interest her in the business. He had brought her to the factory to show her the new shipments of wood, explained to her how each of the machines worked, warned her of the dangers of the flying shavings in the metal shop ... and all without any acknowledgment by the machine operators, who had continued to work submissively away, while not missing a single nuance of the scene between father and daughter. This tortured Héloïse, who hadn’t heard a word her father had said. It was as though their feigned indifference had made her deaf. She had only one vague, lingering question in mind: should she be proud to be the boss’s daughter, or ashamed?
The later dispute with her father kept her from needing to find the answer. Since the age of eighteen, she had not set foot in the factory. She never saw any of the old employees again until the day of the funeral, except for one. She had met him about a year after the dispute, at the music conservatory where she taught. She hadn’t recognized the man in his street clothes, and her embarrassment about this increased tenfold when he introduced himself by saying, “I belong to the H. Rami company, I’m one of your father’s employees.” She realized in that moment that one day she would have to deal with this guilt about class, which is how she described her feelings to herself.
She lifts her head and takes a deep breath to clear her memories. Her thoughts dissolve into the sounds of musical instruments tuning up. The first notes of a Schubert sonata come back to her, but discordant. She is impatient to begin rehearsals with the string orchestra for the end-of-year concert, impatient to return to an atmosphere where people work together and strive for harmony with a healthy respect for each other’s talents. She rises briskly and exits the office, leaving the sheaf of papers behind. Hubert’s face imposes itself suddenly in her mind. If Thierry doesn’t come back, she will transfer control of the company to Hubert. After all he had done for its growth, it would only be fair. And too bad if her father turned over in his grave.
FRIDAY. 9:00 A.M. Héloïse slowly parks her car in the spot next to those of Hubert and the two workshop supervisors. She notices with a forced indifference that Thierry’s parking spot is still conspicuously empty.
“If this keeps up much longer,” she thinks to herself, “weeds will start growing there.”
She makes for the door with an air of self-assurance. Today, she wears her usual clothes: a long skirt of soft cloth and a short forest-green vest that shows her braided strawberry blonde hair to its best advantage. In fact, she is dressed for her second meeting of the day: lunch with the director of the music conservatory. They will be discussing her teaching responsibilities for the upcoming year. Her morning meeting with Hubert shouldn’t last long.
“Good morning, Hubert,” she greets him, trying to sound lighthearted.
“Good morning, Héloïse,” Hubert replies in a serious tone that she does her best to ignore.
“How was your trip to Saint-Nazaire?”
“Not good. Not only was I unable to get the chair order back, but I also discovered we are off their list of preferred suppliers for the rest of the year—off the list of our biggest customer! Their young purchaser stuck us with a failing grade when he did his evaluation, and there
