Lorraine Connection

by Dominique Manotti

  ‘Antoine, are you going inside the factory?’

  ‘No. My shift finishes at two p.m. and until I have more information, I’m not on strike.’

  ‘So you can come with me to my office. Negotiations should begin very soon, and Park will keep me informed by telephone. I’d like to have your opinion.’

  ‘Got anything to drink?’

  A smile. ‘As usual, your favourite brandy.’

  ‘There’s nobody’s waiting for me at home.’

  On the waste ground behind the factory, Karim has set up his little business. He likes the place. Before him the valley’s verdant slopes stretch down to Pondange. When he was little, it was a street filled with blast furnaces – fire, noise, smoke and dust, day and night. His father wore himself out working at one blast furnace after another, and Karim’s destiny, as the eldest son, was all mapped out. At sixteen, a steelworker, alongside his father. Today, his father is slowly dying on a good pension, while he’s thriving on small time wheeling and dealing. The air is pure and the valley is green, life’s good, seen from the Daewoo waste ground. He makes kindling from the pallets, sets up a makeshift barbecue and, with the collusion of the cafeteria manager, is cooking the sausages he sells cheaply on improvised wire skewers.

  Two burly, thuggish-looking strangers with close-cropped hair, aggressive thirty-year-olds, are walking slowly towards him, their hands behind their backs. They look like cops, and none too friendly thinks Karim, who hesitates, glancing around. Nowhere to run. Spots the navy-blue ‘Security’ jackets, the uniform of Daewoo’s security guards. Relieved, Karim smiles at them and proffers two skewers. ‘For you, no charge.’ The two men nod, take the sausages and walk off without a word. Karim continues serving his customers, and for a little bit extra, he slips a gram of hash into the paper napkin containing the pair of sausages he hands to his regulars. A smoking corner has been set up in the stockroom, in the midst of the polystyrene packaging, well away from the security guards’ path.

  Rolande is in the cafeteria and has taken over the kitchen area. She sets to work with precise gestures, assembling crockery and cutlery. Cheerfully she peels, rinses, chops and stirs. Earth mother. To her it’s half a game, half sublimated desire. Her way of being part of the collective action.

  The first car loses no time in leaving the executives’ car park on the right-hand side of the building. It heads for the gate between two lines of men and women workers who have come running from all corners of the factory to stand and jeer. They stare at the car’s occupant, lean over the bonnet, thump and occasionally kick the bodywork, feeling a real thrill at being the ones to instil fear. It’s all good-natured ebullience for the moment. Étienne, all psyched up, has a good laugh. Aisha, starting out in the front line, amazed at her daring, soon tires of the game, too many men up too close, she allows herself to be edged out of the crowd and goes into the porter’s lodge where the two inscrutable security guards are making coffee. They offer her a cup.

  A first then a second car leave without hindrance. At the wheel are French managers, near strangers. They probably work in accounts. Then a Peugeot 606 driven by a Korean appears. A lot of people in the factory dislike the Koreans. That’s the way it is, no special reason. This guy’s reputed to make the women who clean the factory clean his apartment for no pay, the bastard. Someone shouts: ‘Search the car.’ One way of prolonging the fun. Suggestion adopted immediately, and executed. While a group of workers obstruct the saloon, Nourredine moves over to the door and glances at the back seat. Empty.

  ‘Would you open up the boot please, sir.’

  The Korean, his face terrified behind his thin, steel-rimmed glasses, suddenly winds up the windows and locks the doors, and signals that he doesn’t understand. He turns green, blinks very quickly, and breathes haltingly, opening and shutting his mouth soundlessly. A fish in a goldfish bowl, ridiculous.

  What happened? Did he panic? Or is it a deliberate attempt to force his way through? The car jumps forward and knocks down three workers. The crowd roars, around twenty men grab the bodywork and shake the car which bounces on its springs, almost lifts off the ground. One of the felled workers gets up and, standing in front of the bonnet, takes charge of the operation. Clear a space to my left, to my right, together, one … two … the car rocks … and three … one last push turns it on to its left side and it falls back with a crunch of crushed metal. The Korean, thrown against the left-hand door, hides his face in his hands and doesn’t move.

  ‘What’s he carrying that’s making him so scared? Drugs? Weapons?’

  The boot’s locked and won’t open. Grab the key from inside the car? Nourredine’s against it, too complicated, and might end up in a fight. Karim stands beside him with a little half-smile, and nudges him with his elbow.

  ‘How much will you pay me to open it?’ There follows a howl of protest. ‘Just kidding. We’re entitled to, aren’t we? Today’s our big day.’

  He takes a minute screwdriver from the inside pocket of his leather bomber jacket and inserts it into the lock, turning it gently with his fingers, listening for the slightest reaction. He locates the notch, twists, applies some pressure. The boot opens with a grating sound and there, thrown in haphazardly are a computer and three boxes full of files. The game’s up. Nourredine, a man who’s never touched a drop of alcohol, feels intoxicated. Shapes sway around him. If you take one step, you’ll drop. They’re moving the files out. A hush falls on the little crowd. Haven’t had a bite to eat since this morning. His blood pressure rockets then falls. Want to puke. Quignard’s frank, direct handshake: Your boss, not a bad guy, huge misunderstanding … Bollocks, yes. And what about you, seeing everything through rose-tinted spectacles, you poor bastard. He shakes his head vigorously, the dizziness over, feels only rage.

  Someone gives him a leg up and he climbs on to the car. All those faces turned towards him: Nourredine, the semi-skilled Arab worker, and beneath his feet, the Korean manager, cringing in his car. A surge of pride. The car rocks. Big smile.

  ‘Better not rock it too hard. Right, this is what’s happening. The Koreans are moving the files out in secret, to make it easier to close the factory down behind our backs. Are we going to let them get away with it?’

  A hundred and fifty voices: ‘No way!’

  ‘I propose we occupy the admin section and confine the managers to their offices …’ The workers hold their breath. ‘… until our demand on the payment of our bonuses is met. There’s one solution to all this, just one. The warehouses are full. They sell the stocks under our control, and use the money to pay the agreed bonuses before they do anything else.’

  The assembled workers discuss the idea, it offers something concrete at last. Selling the stocks is a good idea, they’re worth more than the total owed on bonuses. Maybe, but locking in the managers … ‘We need to check we have the backup.’ ‘Management leaves us no choice. It’s one provocation after another. Anyone would think they’re trying to …’ ‘That’s what worries me.’

  ‘Look, we’ve got to act fast and decisively. We all go there together, we lock them in: one night will be enough, tomorrow morning, they’ll cave in. Look at the Korean in his car.’ Gives a little kick to the roof which clangs. They all see the terrified face again, the car rocking, the power of concerted action. ‘They’re afraid of us. Let’s make the most of it. If we don’t get their respect today, then tomorrow, they’ll close down and we’ll be left with nothing. We lock them in now. All those in favour?’

  There follows no more than an instant’s indecision. Étienne raises his hand along with the whole first shift from packaging. All the rest of the hands go up. Aisha finds it hard to believe, but she’s voting to lock the managers in. While four men retrieve the computer and the boxes of files from the boot (nothing that belongs to the company must leave the premises without our consent), the delegation re-forms and places itself at the head of the procession. The small troop starts to advance in a relatively ordered manner. The car lies aband
oned on its side, facing the gate, the boot gaping. The Korean still hasn’t budged.

  Park, his face sallow, is clamped to his phone.

  ‘They’re on their way, they plan to occupy the offices … There’s going to be trouble.’

  ‘What kind of a damned stupid thing have you gone and done? It’s a disaster. Explain what’s going on.’

  ‘When I started here, I set up a system of bogus invoices so as to pay the Korean managers a relocation allowance …’

  A roar from the other end of the phone. Quignard leaps to his feet, knocking over his chair. He bangs his fist down on his desk, making the brandy glasses jump and knocking over a vase of chrysanthemums, soaking the files sitting on the desk. Maréchal grabs the glasses, puts them out of danger, and rights the vase.

  ‘Delete the lot, for fuck’s sake, what are you waiting for?’

  Tell him they tried to smuggle the computer out and that it’s in the hands of the strikers? Better to die.

  ‘The bookkeeper who deals with it isn’t in today, we don’t know where the files are, we can’t delete all the accounts …’ Park squeals like a frightened rabbit, and the line goes dead.

  The management block, a cube of reflective glass with two steps up to the main entrance, a rather unimpressive glorified hangar, is only a few minutes’ walk away, but it’s enough to give them all time to think about what they’re doing. We’re venturing on to their territory, invading their space, barricading our bosses made of flesh and blood, pushing them around, locking them in with us, talking to them as equals. We’re disrupting the social order. At least for a while. So each step counts, we’ll remember each step. And they keep close together, in silent, closed ranks. The women bring up the rear, hanging back a little, anxious, hesitant – too many men, too close together. Some discreetly slip away, through the factory and across the waste ground.

  Amrouche marches despite himself, borne along by those behind him. This is it, now, the explosion, the anger, my years of dread, the other side is so much stronger, they’ve always won, they’ll always win. Lambs to the slaughter. He leans towards Hafed.

  ‘We’ve got to stop all this, it’s going to be a disaster.’

  ‘I don’t understand why the management scumbags haven’t already all gone home. What are they playing at? We can’t do a thing.’

  Nourredine, pushed forward by his comrades, stands in front of the door: locked. Tries to slide it open: jammed. He doesn’t have time to turn around before a surge from the back of the group, gathering momentum from row to row, lifts the men at the front off the ground and flings them against the glass door which gives way and shatters. A moment’s pause as Amrouche stumbles before ending up spreadeagled on the blue carpet amid shards of glass. Nourredine, his nose fractured and his face cut and bleeding, finds himself alone face to face with the Korean CEO who’s standing in the middle of the lobby, rigid and pale. A voice shouts: ‘Let’s drag them out of their hiding places and bring them down here.’ The men rush forward, trampling Amrouche underfoot, and disperse through the offices, flinging open doors, pulling the occupants out of their seats, half carrying them down to the lobby which gradually fills with panic-stricken suits. Winded, Amrouche has got to his feet and pushes the CEO towards the boardroom. He knows this room well, so many useless, never-ending discussions, those arseholes who never listen, and now … Hafed, slightly groggy, joins him. They bring the executives in one by one: ‘No, not all the workers, there isn’t room. Only the shop stewards, but we’ll keep the door open. Immediate payment of the bonuses, everyone knows why we’re here. We won’t allow anyone to leave until our demands are met, but let’s all calm down, we’re not hooligans.’

  Nourredine is sitting on a chair in the lobby, leaning forward, trying to plug his bleeding nose with a roll of toilet paper. His eyes are closed, his hands covered in blood, his brain sluggish and his thoughts confused. Hafed crouches beside him.

  ‘Amrouche and I will deal with the management in the boardroom. You must get up to the offices. Do you hear me?’ Groan. ‘It’s important. Organise the occupation. Pickets on the doors, patrols in the factory and the offices. OK?’ Nourredine silently nods. Give the guys something to do. Then he repeats: ‘It’s important,’ and goes back inside the boardroom.

  Quignard tilts his chair back into the upright position, sits down, eyes closed and makes himself breathe slowly, regularly, exhaling through his mouth, his large hands placed flat on the desk. Maréchal has picked up his glass and is taking little sips to disguise his urge to laugh while waiting for Quignard to regain his composure.

  ‘So now what’s he done, your pyromaniac firefighter?’

  ‘This is a nightmare, Antoine. I left them less than an hour ago. They were setting up a meeting to start negotiations, only now the workers are invading the managers’ offices.’

  ‘It’s already happened to other bosses, and it didn’t kill them.’

  ‘Maybe, but Park takes the opportunity to tell me that he’s siphoning off money via a system of bogus invoices to pay his gang of useless Korean managers bonuses. And to make matters worse, the evidence is there for all to see in the company’s accounts … If some bright spark decides to snoop around … The factory has to be evacuated.’ Quignard reaches for the telephone. ‘I’m calling the superintendent …’

  Maréchal halts his hand in mid-air.

  ‘Don’t do that. You’ll end up with a massive fight, and the cops won’t have the resources to deal with it. It takes time to get the riot police out, and you have to be able to give good reasons.’

  The two men drink in silence. Quignard broods.

  ‘Pyromaniac firefighter you said. That’s an idea, the fire brigade. A fire breaks out and everyone’s evacuated.’ Renewed silence. The two men drink. Quignard mutters to himself: ‘Especially as there’s no danger of those shit-stirrers from the insurance company poking their noses in.’ Then Maréchal, who’s finished his drink, gets up.

  ‘Karim Bouziane has set up a barbecue on the waste ground behind the factory. With the strike on, he must have been doing a roaring trade throughout the afternoon. Right, I’ll let you get on, I’m going home. Thanks for the brandy.’

  A farewell wave and the door slams.

  Think, fast. A brandy. Tomaso, the right man for the job? Quignard thinks back to their first meeting. A business contact had taken him to the Oiseau Bleu in Nancy. A very special place, he’d been told. A restaurant, the best in Nancy. The boss, Tomaso, had come to greet him. Behind the tall elegant form Quignard had sensed a relentless hardness, a blue-tinged steeliness that had immediately appealed to him. After the succulent dinner, they went downstairs to the nightclub in the basement of the restaurant, known for its whores, the best Nancy had to offer. He had become a regular at the Oiseau Bleu where he spent a lot more time than he did at home, and a friend of Tomaso’s, who’d opened up to him a little. He was an old warhorse in the process of adjusting to civilian life, still bearing the scars of the battles and injuries that Quignard had dreamed of as a youth during his brief stint in the OAS, fighting underground in the doomed bid to maintain French rule in Algeria. Nostalgia, nostalgia. Besides Tomaso was forty. He could almost be his son, the son he’d never had. So Quignard had ensured that his security firm was awarded certain contracts, including that of Daewoo Pondange, and was very glad he had. Whether dirty tricks against troublesome trade-unionists, the transfer of suitcases full of cash, a spot of financial espionage – Tomaso had never turned down an assignment. On the contrary, he operated with the utmost efficiency and discretion. Of course he was the right man for the job of starting a dustbin fire in a factory under occupation.

  Around twenty workers have gathered in the doorway, trying to see inside. Amrouche’s voice can be heard opening the meeting in solemn tones.

  While Nourredine sits there dazed, his head in his hands, finding it hard to breathe, the rest of them disperse among the offices, taking possession of the premises with obvious pleasure. The fitted carp
ets, walls, clean, furniture, tidy, soft pastel colours, a well-ventilated space, reveals another world to that inside the factory. They want to play around, sit in the swivel chairs, put their feet on the desks, use the metal filing cabinets as instruments for a novel kind of drum kit, set all the internal phone lines ringing. They’re at home, or rather, they’re acting as though they’re at home. Then, tired of messing around, they come across a bottle of whisky in a drawer, which they serve in coffee cups. They telephone friends overseas, and a few trifles – electronic diaries, mobile phones, coloured felt-tip pens, souvenirs for the kids, a Montblanc fountain pen – vanish into anonymous pockets. Two men help themselves to a state-of-the-art computer and all its gadgets through a window overlooking the factory floor.

  In the boardroom, the discussion is drawn out in endless preliminaries, as the interpreter translates each intervention into Korean or French. Amrouche goes through a list of grievances that have accumulated since the factory opened. The group of spectators in the doorway slowly dwindles. The afternoon drags on and people are beginning to get bored. The security guards patrol the main corridor, to general indifference. A group is sitting in a circle in the Head of HR’s office, passing spliffs around. Pity the secretaries have already gone home, they’d have made the evening more fun. ‘What about our women, where are they?’ ‘They’ve chickened out, I bet you.’ Sniggers, male camaraderie. Around the coffee machine, others have resumed their perpetual card games. There’s a TV in the boss’s office. It proves impossible to find the remote and the TV set is thrown on the floor. Nourredine has fallen asleep in his chair, his head on his knees.

  Étienne has brought back the computer seized from the Korean executive’s car. He finds a quiet office and plugs it in. He knows a thing or two about computers, he does. Here’s his chance to see what they get up to in the offices. It amuses and interests him. He opens up the computer, no problem, and starts tapping away. In the folder labelled ‘management purchases-sales suppliers’ there are several files, identified by numbers. He opens one at random, and discovers lists of names: French names, foreign names, all unknown. He clicks on one of them. In an inset on the left of the screen, a close-up of a woman giving a man a blow job, repetitive, forceful, animated graphics. Étienne clicks on another file, another graphic, blow job again, but different angle and position. He flicks gleefully through folders and files, jumping from masturbation to sodomy, threesomes and other variations. Étienne’s jubilant: those bureaucrats, got to hand it to them, they’re well organised. The image of Aisha lying on the floor in the dark comes back to him, he smells the fragrance of shampoo in her mass of black hair, and then the overpowering smell of blood. A virgin, a special feeling, a good feeling. Massive hard-on. He jumps. Karim is leaning over his shoulder with the easy familiarity between a supplier and one of his regular customers, and slips a ready-rolled joint into the pocket of his overalls.