C4 antho - Chamber Four

~302~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
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.”