by Chamber Four
Joseph believed he knew exactly what they’d be doing. They’d be writing to the candidate far more experienced than the others. And because it was a beautiful day and the sun was making use of each passing car’s windshield to launch itself at the office walls, where long, overlapping triangles played across motivational posters framed in gold and black, Joseph nodded, looked Herr Halsa in the eye—calm Herr Halsa, for whom Herr Doktor Hühne’s visit had been sweated out in the gym—and said, “I’m happy to help.”
At first, nothing happened. And nothing seemed likely to happen. Why would it? Perhaps no one—least of all Joseph—would have expected anything to come of such innocuous or even friendly words on such a life-affirming day, where beyond the recirculating air of this boxy metal building the trillionth generation of bumblebees was unfurling from its hidden combs.
Herr Halsa smoothed a résumé like an angry mother pressing a shirt. “This is the one we’re hiring. Fred Wagner,” he said, still speaking in English.
Herr Halsa respected his translator, Joseph knew that. He felt the boss’s admiration every day. There was the unusual latitude that Herr Halsa afforded him, and one day, when Joseph was off sick, Halsa had moved him into that cubicle by the door—the other Americans he pushed to the periphery and spied on. Of all the employees in the American subsidiary, German and English, Joseph Stone was the only person allowed to keep a real plant. All other plants were required to be silk or plastic. So when Herr Halsa tickled a file into his hand and sat down with a tired sigh, Joseph at some level did not hear the words he had just spoken. Frederick Lebeaux Wagner? Herr Halsa pronounced the name “Vagna,” the German way—though the underqualified good ol’ boy with bobbing eyebrows and a love of dirty jokes was as American as Joseph himself.
Halsa placed his hand on Joseph’s shoulder, then patted it. He leaned forward with whatever he had to say. “Do you know why Hühne is a doctor?” he asked. Joseph couldn’t get over how unusual this was: Herr Halsa speaking English to him in private. “Hühne’s a doctor because the owner’s son, the old man’s son, who went to Gymnasium with Hans, has a younger brother who became—chancellor, is it?—at the University Köpfingen. But a chancellor at the University Köpfingen doesn’t give away free doctorates so easily, without work, so they arranged it in this way, that Hans Hühne, who couldn’t rise so high on the technical side without a doctor’s degree, would take his doctorate in insects, in bugs, and the university would confirm, yes, he’s a doctor, with no diploma printed. He’s a specialist in the dung beetle with his shit degree. I have only a certificate, but Doktor Schwanz Hühne has not even that much.” His face, which had cooled off since the gym, veered back towards plum as he spoke.
Joseph laughed because he thought Herr Halsa expected and even demanded a laugh from him—a good, strong, close-lipped laugh that said, Wow, is that true? I won’t ever tell anyone. But on the table in front of him, Halsa’s folder named the wrong man for inventory manager, very clearly and prejudicially wrong.
“What about Gary Jackson? For this job,” he said, tapping on the file. “The applicant who did the same job before.” Also the applicant Joseph had recommended. Herr Halsa had nodded, and the other person in the room had nodded, and Joseph had in fact written the offer letter already, and it was in his hand here, behind the other papers for which he’d already, while Herr Halsa was talking about the shit doctorate, gotten his trusting signature, and he’d been planning to go up front after this meeting and drop it in the mail.
“Gary Jackson?” Herr Halsa said. “The black one? I didn’t know you wore white make-up to work.”
“You said on the phone with the lawyer that you need more minorities.”
“Do not refer to private conversations between me and my lawyer,” Halsa said, abruptly switching to German. “You’re in the room to explain his meaning when I’m lost in garbagey lawyer words. You’re not supposed to remember any of it.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
Herr Halsa leaned in and pushed his chest hard against the table. He was speaking English again. “I don’t ask for your help,” he said, looking into Joseph’s eyes but pressing his thumb against the table’s high shine. “I don’t need your help ever, do you understand? I pay you!”
A truck flashed a stutter of sunlight across the posters again.
Joseph tried to think how to react like a German. Most of his German friends would have quit. The good, decent, strong-willed Germans would have argued, then quit. But what about the businessy Germans? The Nieten in Nadelstreifen, idiots in pinstripes? Or come to think of it, this bitter subversive feeling most closely matched his friend who drafted all the factory drawings here, that’s who he felt most like. It was maybe pure American bitterness that welled up and spat a calculating line back at Herr Halsa in Joseph’s most cordial tone of voice: something that would stab the boss without giving him grounds for firing.
“Herr Doktor Hühne just wants me to translate a new catalogue.”
This maneuver, once he’d completed it, did seem German to him—after all, his American friend, the draughtsman, had lived in Darmstadt for fifteen years. And Peter Halsa proved more adept at it.
“You’re not the company translator waiting for everyone’s work,” he said. “You take your jobs from me. If anyone needs your time, tell them to ask first, they can knock on my door. But I won’t give up my secretary’s time for everybody’s pet project.”
Without quite knowing how, Joseph retired from Herr Halsa’s office to his own cubicle, where he could at least drink the melted ice at the bottom of his long-finished iced tea. He didn’t buck forward or run. He walked upright, and he remembered squaring the signed papers on the boss’s table in a very casual way before excusing himself. Halsa had already said, too, that there wasn’t enough time to write to Fred Wagner before five and they should do it first thing in the morning. Joseph slipped his signed letter to Gary Johnson into a company envelope, affixed one of the personal stamps he kept in his top drawer and licked the envelope shut, exultant to have the last word. Sooner than face a lawsuit, they’d keep Johnson on—the most qualified man, a balm or salt to their racism, salutary either way.
The afternoon had lengthened the building’s shadow more than halfway to the ball factory, nearly there, where the five o’clock shift had just arrived, bringing with it a fleet of cars vetted and certified to meet the arcane union rules for what it meant to be “Made in the USA.”
Herr Halsa was hiring an inventory manager for one reason. He had fired two lawyers and with Joseph’s help retained a third who’d given him the legal opinion that putting in the last few bolts in the production area would allow the company to pitch its robots as “Assembled in the USA.” The lawyer before this latest had sent a long description in quotation marks, with his signature below: “Final assembly done partially in the United States from some parts manufactured from metals mined and smelted partially in the USA.” And now, as Joseph squeezed another lemon into a fresh iced tea and breathed in the spray of lemon oil, he felt with decreasing urgency the embarrassment of having helped Herr Halsa turn away from the truth. Herr Halsa didn’t want the truth of anything. He wanted whatever would seem to raise him up, well past his competence.
Meandering past Helmut Schall’s test gantries, which flung an engine block back and forth ten, fifteen, twenty thousand times to prove their stamina, Joseph kept himself safe with an extra-wide margin, in case the many-worlds theory proved to be true and a few random quanta of difference in some conceivable world, leading to a stumble or a careless turn, put him fatally close. Whenever he approached a precipitous edge, or a car passed near enough to unsettle him, he wondered if in some other universe his mother would have cause to grieve now, and the thought of hurting her in that way, somewhere, saddened him.
He didn’t pace for long. The company was paying. But he could feel how little that mattered now. He needed to finish the proposal by tomorrow and despite everything he couldn’t help wanting it to
be perfect, down to the indentations and centrings. Thirty pages’ worth. But none of that was the main reason he sat at his desk again, resqueezing his lemon, dusting a few leaves of his ivy plant—a final act of defiance, since Herr Halsa’s “permission” was unspoken and grudging—and pasted in more blocks of pre-written text. These cubicles of words: he’d worried over them, like a boss getting a new job description right, and then, without testing it overmuch, he’d called the cut-and-paste system finished, suitable for all occasions, never to be questioned again. The main reason he dropped his disgust, gave up pacing and returned to his privileged corner was that he was bored.
At five o’clock Herr Halsa came out of his office and Joseph’s pulse quickened. Towards or away? He glanced over: towards, and it was clear that Herr Halsa had forgotten everything, put it all behind him. He was wearing his smart suit jacket, finely tailored—Joseph took particular note of it. And he looked confident now. You couldn’t think about the Peter Principle when Herr Halsa wore that suit jacket. Maybe Joseph should spend some of his paycheck on a hand-tailored suit. He didn’t know what occasion he’d have to wear such a thing, but it seemed the perfect antidote to molded rubber balls, a factory pond, the gray rugs climbing up the walls of his cubicle.
Herr Halsa laughed. He had a deep, hearty laugh when the day was done. And he told Joseph to go play a little.
Joseph chuckled and nodded. “Good advice,” he said.
“Das ist kein Ratschlag, das ist ein Befehl,” Herr Halsa said. “It’s not advice. It’s an order.”
Almost drunk now, Joseph gave a casual evening salute. “Jawohl. Tschüß!” he said familiarly. Swatting the envelope against his wrist, back and forth, he watched Herr Halsa swagger away, and noticed with a certain amount of unbecoming pleasure that even as the boss passed a trio of underperforming American salesmen he said nothing to them, lost in his pre-dinner whistling.
That was it. Without considering what was inside, or rather, thinking of it sidelong, as evidence of his importance here, Joseph raised the sealed envelope in a toast and shredded it, along with a few sensitive documents that Herr Halsa didn’t want the others to see. He stood up and, with the last moments of the day—because Herr Halsa had left twenty-five seconds early—he wetted a square of paper towel in his melted ice and wiped the leaves of the ivy until they glowed.
About the authors
Steve Almond (“Men Alone”) is the author of six books, most recently, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. He is also, crazily, self-publishing books. This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, is composed of 30 very brief stories, and 30 very brief essays on the psychology and practice of writing. Letters from People Who Hate Me is just plum crazy. Both are available at readings. In 2011, Lookout Press will publish his story collection, God Bless America.
Aaron Block (“Nothings”) received his MFA from Emerson College, where he teaches college writing. When not teaching or writing he is usually buying records, eating a sandwich, or doing online jigsaw puzzles. His heroes include Orson Welles, Gary Giddins, and whoever came up with online jigsaw puzzles. He lives in Boston with his girlfriend, Fritha, and their cat, Ella.
Taryn Bowe (“Everything is Breakable with a Big Enough Stone”) has published fiction in literary journals, including Boston Review, The Greensboro Review, The Beloit Fiction Journal, and Redivider. She lives in Portland, Maine with her husband and baby daughter.
Corey Campbell (“Pool”), a student in Warren Wilson’s MFA program for fiction, published “Pool” at Anderbo.com and “The Plants” in New Southerner Magazine. Her story “Everyday Things” was showcased in the New Short Fiction Series at the Beverly Hills Library. A runner-up for Open City’s RRofihe Trophy two years in a row, Ms. Campbell has taken workshops at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and is the recipient of a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences scholarship for her writing.
Scott Cheshire (“Watchers”) earned his MFA in fiction at Hunter College, City University of New York. He is currently working on his first novel.
Steve Frederick (“Dragon”), a lifelong journalist, is inspired by the high lonesome prairie. His fiction writing can be found in Night Train; Snow Monkey; You Have Time for This: Contemporary American Short-Short Stories; Best American Flash Fiction of the 21st Century (a book used as a text in China); Emerging Voices; and in a variety of online sites, including Vestal Review, The God Particle and The Story Garden.
Castle Freeman, Jr. (“The Next Thing on Benefit”) is a novelist and short story writer living in southern Vermont. His stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, and his most recent novel, All That I Have, was published last year by Steerforth Press, Hanover, New Hampshire, and by Duckworth Publishers, London.
Eric Freeze (“Seven Little Stories About Sex”) is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Wabash College. He has published stories and translations in a variety of periodicals including most recently The Southern Review, Boston Review, and Tampa Review.
Roy Giles (“Black Night Ranch”) is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is a founding member of Arcadia Literary Journal where he serves as the drama and assistant poetry editor. “Black Night Ranch” is his first published story and originally appeared with Eclectica Magazine where he was chosen as the “Spotlight Author” of that issue.
Andy Henion (“Bad Cheetah”) likes sharp-tongued movie sidekicks, burnt-orange automobiles and hominy from a can. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot, Thieves Jargon, Pindeldyboz, and other places. He lives in Michigan with some people and an animal.
B.J. Hollars (“The Naturalists”) is an instructor at the University of Alabama where he also received his MFA in 2010. He’s served as nonfiction editor and assistant fiction editor for Black Warrior Review and currently edits for Versal. He is the author of the forthcoming Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America (University of Alabama Press) and the editor of You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside The Story (Writer’s Digest Books, 2009). His website is bjhollars.com.
Trevor J. Houser (“On Castles”) was born in Oregon, but since then has lived in other places, like Mexico, where he drove a sort of gas truck. His writing has appeared in StoryQuarterly, ZYZZYVA, and Pindeldyboz among others. Two of his stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is currently working on a novel about werewolves in colonial times and how that affects the modern human condition. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.
Svetlana Lavochkina (“Semolinian Equinox”) was born, raised and educated in Eastern Ukraine, where the cities steamed with important factories, where dandelions poked through the concrete in some places. A decade ago, she moved to Eastern Germany, where Leipzig teems with parks and stucco nymphs call from the pink façades. Svetlana’s short stories were published in Eclectica (shortlisted for Million Writers’ Award 2010), The Literary Review, In Our Words Anthology, Chapman, Textualities and are forthcoming in Mad Hatters’ Review. Svetlana has been in unreciprocated love with English since she was seven. She tries to breathe with it, but this air is as thin as high on the mountain. The words tease, bully and won’t obey.
Angie Lee (“Eupcaccia”) is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. Raised on the top of a water tower in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Angie holds an MFA from Cal Arts and has exhibited in both the US and Europe. She often thinks of traveling to the moon and roasting her own coffee beans at the same time. Her work has been published in Giant Robot and Witness, and she blogs at www.moonquake.org.
Ron MacLean (“The Night Dentist”) is author of the story collection Why the Long Face? (2008) and the novel Blue Winnetka Skies (2004). His fiction has appeared in GQ, New Ohio Review, Fiction International, Night Train, Other Voices and many more publications. He is a recipient of the Frederick Exley Award for Short Fiction and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. He holds a Doctor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY, and is a former executive direc
tor at Grub Street, Boston’s independent creative writing center, where he still teaches.
Michael Mejia (“The Abjection”) is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the NEA and a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. His novel Forgetfulness was published by FC 2, and his fiction, nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, Seneca Review, Notre Dame Review, Paul Revere’s Horse, Pleiades, and American Book Review, among others. He lives in Georgia. His website is michaelfmejia.com.
L.E. Miller (“Peacocks”) has published short stories in The Missouri Review, Scribner’s Best of Fiction Workshops 1999, and CALYX. One of her stories was also selected as a PEN/O. Henry Prize Story for 2009. L. E. Miller holds an M.A. in fiction writing from the University of New Hampshire. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and son and is completing a collection of short stories.
Valerie O’Riordan (“The Girl In The Glass”) is just about to complete her MA in creative writing at the University of Manchester, England. Her short fiction has been published in print and online; she won the 2010 Bristol Short Story Prize and in 2009 she was a finalist in Flatmancrooked’s inaugural Fiction Prize. She’s working on her first novel and she blogs at www.not-exactly-true.blogspot.com.
David Peak (“Helping Hands”) is the author of a novel, The Rocket’s Red Glare (Leucrota Press), a book of poems, Surface Tension (BlazeVOX Books), and two chapbooks. Other writing has appeared in elimae, Annalemma, and Monkeybicycle. He lives in New York City.
Alanna Peterson (“How to Assemble a Portal to Another World”) lives in Seattle and attends the University of Washington law school. She wrote this story during an NYU summer writing program in Paris, although she completed her undergraduate education at USC, and it was first published on failbetter.com.
