The Man Who Risked It All

by Laurent Gounelle

  The meeting finished late, after which everyone disappeared for lunch. Everyone but me. I went back to my office and waited to be sure that my floor was deserted. Then I opened the file perched on top of the bookshelf, pulled out two sheets of paper, and slipped them into my pocket I went out into the corridor, glanced both ways, and listened. Silence. At the top of the stairs, I stopped again. Still no one. I crept down to the floor below and peered around. I was alone. Stage fright was beginning to mount as I snuck into the fax room, my heart beating. I put my papers in the machine, aligning them carefully in the document feeder so the machine wouldn’t jam. I glanced into the corridor one last time. Still nothing. With trembling fingers I dialed the first number. Each key I pressed emitted what sounded like a deafening beep. Finally I pressed Start, and the machine began to swallow the first page.

  It took me nearly 20 minutes to send the list of Dunker Consulting’s bogus job vacancies to every newsroom in France. Every one except Les Echos’s.

  45

  IGOR DUBROVSKI WAS alone that evening in his immense drawing room. He was playing a Rachmaninoff piano sonata, his muscular fingers dominating the keyboard as the pure sound of the Steinway resounded in the vast space.

  The door behind him opened swiftly. He glanced over his shoulder without stopping. Ah, Catherine. She didn’t usually enter in such an abrupt manner.

  “Vladi is quite sure!” she said, visibly agitated.

  Dubrovski took his hands off the keyboard, keeping the right pedal down to prolong the vibration of the last chord.

  “Vladi,” she went on, “confirms that Alan is preparing to stand as a candidate for the position of CEO of his firm at the annual meeting!”

  Igor swallowed hard. He wasn’t expecting that at all. He released the pedal, and the last vibrations of the music died instantly, creating a heavy silence. Catherine, usually so calm, was pacing up and down as she spoke, visibly upset.

  “He has apparently enrolled in an institute specializing in public speaking. For one session. Just one. And in three weeks he’ll be standing up in front of I don’t know how many people, to convince them to vote for him. He’s in for one hell of a beating. It’s a catastrophe!”

  Dubrovski turned around, deeply moved. “You’re right,” he muttered.

  “It’ll destroy him! Can you imagine? Being humiliated in public, there’s nothing worse. He’ll be devastated. Everything we’ve done from day one will go up in smoke. All the progress he’s made wiped out at a stroke. He’ll be even more weak and fragile than before.”

  Igor didn’t reply, merely nodding in agreement. She was obviously right.

  “But why on earth did you give him the task?”

  He sighed and then replied in a flat voice, “Because I was convinced he would refuse.”

  “Well, in that case, why give it to him?”

  “Precisely in order to make him refuse.”

  A long silence.

  “I just don’t follow you anymore, Igor.”

  He looked around at her.

  “I wanted to make him rebel. Against me. I wanted to put him in such an untenable situation that the only way out would be to dare to confront me and break our pact. The moment has come for the disciple to free himself from his master. You can easily understand, Catherine, that there’s a paradox in guiding someone toward freedom by leading them by the hand all the way. Strict control was necessary because it made him do what he would never have done otherwise, but now he must free himself from my control to become really free. It’s not for me to free him. It’s got to come from him; otherwise he’ll never have really won his freedom.”

  Dubrovski took a swig of bourbon from the glass on the piano. The ice had disappeared.

  “By ordering him to take the place of his CEO, even if it’s impossible, I was giving him permission to question authority. I was sending him a metaphorical message about our own relationship.”

  He put the glass down. He could feel the weight of Catherine’s reproachful look.

  “Except that it didn’t work,” she said. “He didn’t rebel. On the contrary, he’s carrying on.”

  Igor nodded.

  “We must help him,” she said. “We must do something. We can’t leave him on his own to face this situation, after having brought him there!”

  A long silence followed, and then Igor sighed. “For once, I really don’t see what we can do, unfortunately.”

  “Why don’t you just tell him to drop it, that you realize what you asked him to do is too difficult?”

  “Absolutely not! That would be worst of all. It would amount to telling him that I, his mentor, don’t have confidence in his abilities. That would be a severe blow to his self-esteem. Never mind that it would permanently reinforce the dependency I’m trying to loosen!”

  “Okay, but you’ve got to do something! We can’t let him go like a lamb to the slaughter. Even if we can’t change the course of events, we must at least stop him from experiencing his failure too violently. We absolutely must avoid a total public humiliation. Let him save face, not feel pathetic.”

  “I’ve no idea what to do. I can’t see a way out. Leave me alone, please.”

  Catherine suppressed a response and left the room. Her steps sounded in the hall. He heard them recede, then vanish in the night.

  Silence returned, empty and oppressive. He was alone with his mistake, a huge mistake, unforgiveable. A mistake charged with consequences.

  He slowly placed his hands on the keyboard and joined Rachmaninoff in his tormented dreams.

  46

  COMING OUT OF the house that morning I saw Madame Blanchard’s black silhouette at the foot of the staircase. She was giving something to Étienne. I recognized from its shape that it was a cake like the one she had given me. Étienne looked highly surprised.

  I crossed the street to go to the newspaper kiosk, a knot in my stomach. The bakery was giving off its aroma of fresh baguettes and warm pains au chocolat.

  I bought all the daily newspapers, then went and sat on the terrace of the café next door. I opened Le Figaro and turned to the business section. I could feel my heart beating as I skimmed the articles, jumping from title to title. I searched in vain, my stress level going up as my chances went down, until suddenly I held my breath.

  “Suspected Malpractice at Dunker Consulting,” read the headline. There followed a few lines of explanation, neutral in tone.

  Excited, I grabbed Le Monde, and also found a brief item, followed by a feature on recruitment agencies, their methods, and the criticisms often leveled at them. Libération printed a relatively short but very visible article, with a photo of our company headquarters under a catchy headline, “When the Head Hunters Lose Their Heads.” Le Parisien calculated the time a candidate would have wasted applying for all the bogus vacancies, and the estimated cost of printing and sending out his CV. France Soir explained the extreme competition in the recruitment sector that could have made Dunker step over the line. L’Humanité devoted half a page to the matter, with a large photo showing an alleged candidate circling ads in a paper with a black marker pen, under a headline that announced “The Scandal of Dunker Consulting’s Bogus Job Vacancies.” The article included testimonies from numerous unemployed people relating that they had never received replies to their applications. For good reason, the journalist wrote. There were no vacancies to fill.

  The kiosk didn’t sell provincial papers, but given that there were Dunker offices dotted around the country, I felt confident that a similar mention would appear in those local papers, too.

  But most important was what the financial papers reported. From La Tribune to La Cote Desfossés and Le Journal des Finances, all published the information I had sent them. This meant the critical information had reached the decision makers. I had achieved my goal.

  I rushed to the office. I wanted to be there before 9 A.M., to see the opening of the stock market and follow the movement of our share price. At 8:50, I was at my computer, on
the Echos website. I had no way of knowing whether or not publishing the information about Dunker Consulting’s phony recruitment ads would have any impact on the company’s share price. Perhaps I was dreaming.

  At 9 A.M. precisely, Dunker Consulting’s opening price came on the screen. It was down 1.2 percent. I was flabbergasted, unable to believe my eyes. I suddenly felt enthusiasm, joy, extreme excitement. I, Alan Greenmor, had influenced the Dunker Consulting share price on the Paris stock exchange! It was incredible! Unheard of! Monumental!

  I remembered my prediction to Fisherman. I had announced a drop of 3 percent over the day. I had plucked the figure out of thin air, of course. But to maintain my credibility, the drop had to be as close to that as possible. And in this affair, my credibility was essential; my plan rested on it.

  I spent a good part of the day checking the share price on my screen. Even during my interviews, I couldn’t help but glance at it every now and then.

  Except for a slight improvement in the middle of the day, the downward trend continued. At the close of trading, the final price was down 2.8 percent. Luck was on my side.

  Euphoric, I left my office and rushed to the staff room. I didn’t exactly expect to find champagne coming out of the machines, but I drank a Perrier, savoring my first victory.

  Returning to my office, I passed cubicles full of employees stressed out by the ever more dehumanizing management style, harassed by the demands of stock-market profitability, and no longer motivated by an exciting business plan. What a waste to see all these people unhappy on the job when every one of them could be fulfilled, could bloom in their work! The contrast with my enthusiasm at that moment was stark. I suddenly understood that it wasn’t just my fear of Dubrovski that was making me take on my final task. Caught up in the whirlwind of an intoxicating game whose first round I had just won, I felt within me the first stirrings of a calling, a mission. Even though I risked losing everything and finding myself in the street, I had only one desire now: to go to the end.

  Coming back from lunch, Marc Dunker casually glanced at his share price on the Internet. “What’s all this shit?” he suddenly shouted.

  Andrew’s voice could be heard from the next room. “Do you need anything, sir?”

  Dunker ignored him. “What’s happening, for Christ’s sake?” he bellowed.

  Andrew appeared in the doorway. “Did you read the newspapers I put on your desk this morning, sir?”

  “No, why? What’s up?” Dunker asked, worried.

  “Er … it would appear there have been leaks, sir.”

  Marc Dunker’s heart skipped a beat. He jumped up and grabbed the pile of papers. “What are you saying?” he asked, madly searching through La Tribune, half-tearing pages as he went.

  “Page twelve, sir,” Andrew prompted.

  Dunker immediately saw the article his secretary had highlighted in yellow. He read it, then closed the paper and slowly sat down.

  “There is a black sheep among us,” he said with a thoughtful air. He was calm, but his face had gone red. “It doesn’t matter,” he stated, as though to convince himself. “In a couple of weeks, everybody will have forgotten.”

  47

  DUNKER WAS RIGHT: The stock exchange has a short memory. For ten or so days, the Dunker Consulting share price remained at the level it had fallen to, then slowly started rising again. The investors apparently couldn’t have cared less about the fate of the unfortunate candidates replying to bogus vacancies. All our CEO had to do was publish projected accounts so optimistic they were laughable for the financial markets to regain confidence. Investors, it seems, seldom look too deeply into the real capabilities of a business. In any case, the reality matters very little, as long as everyone involved gets excited. Fortunately, I had a little surprise up my sleeve, likely to calm them down.

  I called Fisherman at Les Echos. Had my prediction coming true put an end to his skepticism? I now had to strengthen my embryonic credibility.

  “I have another piece of information for you,” I said in a confidential tone of voice.

  Zero reaction from Fisherman. But he didn’t hang up.

  “The Dunker Consulting share price will go down by more than four percent the day after tomorrow,” I told him.

  Once more, I had pulled a figure out of thin air. A little bird told me that the accumulation of scandalous news would amplify the stock exchange’s reaction.

  “The day after tomorrow?”

  A miracle. He had spoken. He was licking the hook with the tip of his tongue.

  “Yes, the day after tomorrow.”

  That way I was leaving him time to print his predictions in tomorrow’s edition of the paper.

  No answer.

  I hung up, beginning to regret having chosen Fisherman. I had bet on him because of his constant criticism of my company in his articles, but my mistake had been to believe that he had it in for my boss personally and would leap at anything that tarnished the firm. Perhaps I’d projected my own feelings onto Fisherman. Thinking about it, he seemed totally devoid of emotion. He was critical of Dunker only because he didn’t believe in his strategy.

  This realization spoiled the rest of my day. My whole plan depended on Fisherman. Was I failing already? That evening, I had great difficulty going to sleep.

  The next day at dawn, I went down to the kiosk to buy Les Echos. Not the slightest word in it about Dunker Consulting. I was disgusted. It was too late to turn to another journalist. I was probably going to use the last of my ammunition for nothing, but I had to continue counting on Fisherman. When a gambler has played red all evening in vain, he seldom has the courage to put his final bet on black, because if, as ill luck would have it, red came up, he would never forgive himself.

  At lunchtime, I went back to the fax machine and sent every newsroom irrefutable proof that Dunker Consulting had knowingly decided to canvass insolvent companies.

  It had taken me nearly three days just to choose the theme of my talk. Obviously, you can only speak well about a topic you know. That being so, I had a choice between accounting—my original training—and my present profession, recruitment. The latter was a minefield. I risked having my audience remember unpleasant personal experiences of job hunting and then projecting their resentment onto me. So I took refuge in a topic from accounting. Besides, wasn’t it a hiding place for all the timid people on the earth? My talk might not be very exciting, but at least I was lessening the chance of endangering my relationship with the audience. If they fell asleep, I would feel all the safer.

  I prepared my text with great care. When you suffer from stage fright, it’s very useful to have a script to hang on to in order not to stand there desperately searching for words, mouth dry and head empty.

  I arrived at Speech-Masters early. It would be comforting to see the associates arrive one by one rather than having to face them all at once. It would give me time to get acclimated—to master my fear and not let it grab me by the throat and rob me of my intellectual powers.

  Éric greeted me kindly, putting me at ease right away. I looked at the platform like a condemned man looks at the scaffold from which he’s about to hang. I was surprised to see a microphone. On my previous visit, I hadn’t noticed that the room was equipped with a public address system.

  People trickled in, saying hello to Éric, then joking among themselves. It was very pleasant and reassuring, even if, at the same time, I couldn’t help but think that if they were regulars, they had no doubt reached a level much above mine.

  Éric shut the door at the agreed time, which was a miracle for Paris, a city where everyone thinks it’s normal to be 30 minutes late. I was glad to see that there were no more than 25 members present. I would be more at ease than if there had been a full house.

  After a few announcements, Éric said to the group, “Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming a new member … “

  Breathe, I told myself. Take deep breaths. Relax.

  “… who is going to make his first
speech: Alan Greenmor.”

  Everyone clapped as I stepped onto the platform. My heart was pounding. All eyes were fixed on me. I took the microphone in my right hand, keeping my notes in the left so I could refer to them if need be.

  “Hello, everyone,” I began. My voice was muted, as if it was stuck in my throat. My lips were trembling, and my body felt stiff. “I’m going to talk to you about a topic that I’m aware doesn’t have much sex appeal: American accounting practices.”

  General laughter, immediately followed by thunderous applause.

  Hey, what’s going on here? I thought. This wasn’t what I had expected. I had spent nearly an hour looking for something funny to start my speech with, but I didn’t think it would be so successful. Their response immediately warmed my heart. My stage fright dropped 50 percent. Let’s carry on. But I must articulate better, place my voice better.

  “I studied the subject for four years in the U.S., and, er …”

  Damn! What was I supposed to say next? A blank. A complete blank. Yet I knew my speech by heart! Oh, right, my notes.

  Reading from my notes, I continued: “When I landed in France, where I come from on my mother’s side, and looked for work.”

  I must seem such a moron reading a cheat sheet in front of everyone. It’s so uncool.

  I continued, “The consultant in a large recruitment firm that you all know told me with a big smile that French accounting practices were so different from American ones that I might as well put my American qualifications in the garbage.”

  More laughter. They’re all looking at me with broad smiles, in such a kindly way. I love them.

  “He, too, laughed a lot as he told me that. I didn’t.”

  Another outbreak of laughter, then long applause. I couldn’t believe it. It’s crazy how much fun it is to make an audience laugh. I suddenly understood why some people make a career of it.

  “So I felt the need to study the differences between the French and American accounting systems.”