Amélie Nothomb: Fear and Trembling

“Calm down. The order didn’t come from him. He was passing along instructions from Mister Omochi. He had no choice.”

“In that case, it’s Mister Omochi who’s a…”

She interrupted me.

“He’s an exceptional person. He’s also the vice-president. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“What if I spoke to the president about it. Mister Haneda. What kind of man is he?”

“Mister Haneda is a remarkable man. He is very intelligent and a very good man. Unfortunately, there is no question of your going to him and complaining.”

I knew she was right. It would have been inconceivable to skip even one rung in the corporate ladder—let alone several. I only had the right to speak to my immediate superior, who happened to be Miss Mori.

“You’re my only hope, Fubuki. I know that there isn’t much that you can do for me. But thank you. Your kindness alone does me so much good.”

She smiled.

I asked her what the ideogram of her first name was. She showed me her business card. I looked at the kanji.

“A snowstorm!” I exclaimed. “ ‘Fubuki’ means ‘snowstorm’! I can’t believe anyone’s actually called that.”

“I was born during a snowstorm. My parents saw it as an omen.”

The Yumimoto list came to mind: “Mori Fubuki, born in Nara on January 18, 1961.…” She was a winter baby. I suddenly imagined the snowstorm over the beautiful town of Nara and its innumerable bells. It made sense that this resplendent young woman should have been born on a day when the pristine, crystalline wonders of the sky drifted down upon one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth.

She told me about her childhood in Kansai. I told her about mine, in the same province, in a village called Shukugawa, not far from Nara and near Mount Kabuto. Invoking these mythological places brought tears to my eyes.

“I’m so glad we’re both daughters of Kansai! That’s where the heart of the old Japan still beats.”

I was five years old when we left the Japanese mountains for the Chinese desert. That first exile made such a deep impression on me that I had felt I would do anything to return to the country that for so long I thought of as my native land.

When we returned to our desks, I still had no solution to my amnesia problem. I knew less than ever about my status within the Yumimoto Corporation. But I had a great feeling of inner peace. I was a colleague of Fubuki Mori.

I DID WHAT I could to give the impression of being busy while also appearing not to understand a word of what was being said around me. I served the managers cups of tea and coffee without a whisper of a polite reply, or responding to their thanks. They were unaware of the orders I was under, and therefore mildly astonished that the friendly white geisha had transformed herself into a Yankee with no manners and nothing to say for herself.

Unfortunately, the ôchakumi didn’t take up much time. I decided, without asking anyone’s permission, to distribute the mail.

This meant pushing an enormous metal trolley and passing by each desk. The work suited me. It allowed me to make use of my linguistic competence, since most of the addresses were in ideograms—and because I was beyond Mister Saito’s sphere of influence I didn’t need to hide the fact that I understood Japanese. I quickly discovered that memorizing the employee list hadn’t been a waste of time. Not only could I identify every single employee, I could also use the opportunity, if it arose, to wish them—or their wife or progeny—a happy birthday.

“Here’s your mail, Mister Shiranai,” I would say with a smile and a bow, “and a happy birthday to your little Yoshiro, three today!”

This always earned me a disbelieving stare.

Distributing the mail took me all the longer because I had to travel throughout the entire Import-Export Division, which spread out over two gigantic floors. Accompanied by my trolley, which gave me a pleasingly industrious appearance, I spent endless amounts of time on the elevator—down to the mailroom, up to the forty-third floor, down to the mailroom, up to the forty-fourth floor. I liked this because just next to where I stood and waited for the elevator was the huge bay window. That was when I would indulge in what I called “throwing myself into the view.” I glued my nose to the window and imagined myself falling. The city was so far below that before I hurtled into the ground, I could look leisurely and appreciatively at everything around me.

I had found my vocation. This simple, useful, human task was so conducive to contemplation that I decided I wouldn’t have minded doing it for the rest of my life.

MISTER SAITO SUMMONED me to his office. I was treated to a well-deserved telling-off. I had committed the crime of showing initiative. I had taken a function upon myself without asking for permission from my direct superiors. What’s more, the Import-Export Division’s actual mail delivery boy, who came in the afternoons, was on the brink of a nervous breakdown because he thought he was about to be laid off.

“Stealing someone else’s job is a very serious offense,” Mister Saito told me, quite rightly.

I was devastated that my promising career had ended so soon. Apart from anything else, the problem of what I should do with myself presented itself again.

I had an idea, one that in my innocence appeared luminously clever. In the course of my wandering around the company I had noticed that every office had one or several wall calendars that were hardly ever up-to-date, either because the adjustable red frame had not been moved forward to the correct date, or because the page for a new month had not been turned over.

This time I did not forget to ask for permission.

“Mister Saito, could I put the calendars to the correct date?”

He answered yes without really thinking about it.

Every morning I went into each office and moved the little red frame to the appropriate date. I had a position: I was the calendar-turner.

Little by little, employees realized what I was doing. It spawned hilarity.

“Are you doing okay?” they would ask. “This undertaking isn’t exhausting you too much?”

“Oh, it’s terrible,” I would answer with a smile. “But I’m taking vitamins.”

My new job had the inconvenience of not taking up enough time, but it did allow me to use the elevator, and therefore to throw myself into the view. It had the added benefit of entertaining my colleagues.

A sort of professional pinnacle arrived when we went from February to March. It was not enough simply to adjust the red frame on that day. I had to turn over an entire page, sometimes even tear off the February page.

The employees greeted me as you would a champion athlete. I assassinated the months of February with sweeping gestures, like a samurai, miming a merciless struggle against—in this case—a giant photograph of a snow-covered Mount Fuji. Then I would leave the battlefield, feigning exhaustion, with the sober pride of a victorious warrior, to the banzais! of my delighted spectators.

Word of my glory reached the ears of Mister Saito. I expected a towering telling-off for having played the fool and had therefore prepared my defense.

“You gave me permission to make the calendars up-to-date,” I began before even being subjected to his fury.

He replied not with anger but with his usual tone of simple displeasure.

“Yes. You may continue. But stop making a spectacle of yourself. You’re distracting the employees.”

I was amazed by so light a reprimand.

“Photocopy this for me,” he added.

He handed me a huge sheaf of pages. There must have been a thousand of them.

I put the sheaf into the automatic feed of the photocopier, which executed the task with exemplary speed and courtesy. I delivered the original and the copies to my superior.