C4 antho - Chamber Four

~288~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
Joseph could easily sympathize with the boss on this occasion,
for Herr Halsa’s duke, his overlord, the very stylish
Herr Doktor Hühne, who might as well have come from
Berlin between the wars rather than any part of coarse
gemütlich Bavaria, was scheduled to enter in the middle of
this scene and, after half an hour, exit with nearly every German
speaker to a gala welcoming lunch. Following this, Herr
Doktor Hühne, without Joseph’s boss, was to call on customers
in the afternoon. Herr Halsa had spent days revising
a very smart, thoroughgoing agenda for the kick-off meeting.
When Hans Hühne arrived, he shook the beefy hand of
his prime underling in the United States, Herr Halsa―who
had in the meantime calmed himself and reopened his office
for the grand arrival―accepted Roswitha’s requisite offer of
Kaffee, and promptly left the office to shake Joseph’s hand
and enter into private negotiations.
Joseph felt courted. Here was perhaps the most stylish
suit-wearing man he had ever met―Herr Doktor Hans
Friedrich Hühne crossed his legs even while standing, and
turned his head gently to the side, not with any hint of arrogance
but nevertheless with the suggestion of a long cigarette
holder and a thin black tie―and, very consciously no doubt,
he chose to address Joseph before anyone else. At this formal
moment, the occasion of receiving a well-regarded superior
who has just disembarked from a transatlantic flight, Peter
Halsa could not very well emerge from his office. Herr Doktor
Hühne had chosen to leave it and would return in his
own time. But Herr Halsa clattered about―chairs, his empty
outbox―to express impatience to Joseph in a language that
Herr Doktor Hühne would not recognize.
“You translated the gantry catalogue, isn’t it?” Hühne
said. He spoke English with a smooth accent.
“Das habe ich, ja,” Joseph answered, wondering if he’d
made any kind of mistake in his German.