Amélie Nothomb: Fear and Trembling

Fubuki had been right, after all. I had chosen the wrong path with Mister Tenshi. I had compiled that report for the wrong reasons, you could say. My mind was not that of a conqueror, but that of a cow that spends its life chewing contentedly in the meadow of invoices, waiting for the train of eternal grace to pass by. How good it felt to exist without pride or ambition. To live in hibernation.

ATTHEEND of the month Mister Unaji input my work onto the computer. It took him two days to copy out my rows of numbers and letters. I felt ridiculously proud to have been a link in the efficient chain.

Chance—or was it fate?—dictated that he kept the accounts for the “CP” ledger for last. As he had with the first ten account books, he started tapping on his keyboard without batting an eyelid. A few minutes later I heard him exclaiming, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!”

He turned the pages with increasing frenzy. Then he succumbed to a burst of nervous laughter that gradually mutated into a succession of halting little cries. The forty members of the office watched him in stupefied silence.

I started to feel very uncomfortable.

Fubuki got up and ran over to him. He showed her some passages from the ledger and roared with laughter. She turned toward me. She did not share in her colleague’s unhealthy hilarity. Ashen, she called me over.

“What’s this?” she asked tartly, pointing out one of the incriminating lines.

I read the line.

“Well, it’s an invoice from GmbH, dated the…”

“GMBH? GMBH?” she said furiously.

The entire Accounting Department burst out laughing. I didn’t understand.

“Can you explain to me what ‘GmbH’ is?” my superior asked, folding her arms.

“It’s a German chemical company we deal with very frequently.”

The roars of laughter redoubled.

“Didn’t you notice that ‘GmbH’ was always preceded by one or several names?” continued Fubuki.

“Yes. I assumed they were the names of its various subsidiaries. I thought it was better not to clog up the ledger with the details.”

Even the inhibited Mister Saito gave free rein to his mounting amusement. Fubuki was still not laughing. Her face displayed the most terrifyingly restrained rage. If she could have slapped me, she would have. Her voice sliced the air like a saber.

“Idiot! ‘GmbH’ is the German equivalent of the American ‘Inc.’, the English ‘Ltd.’, or the French ‘S.A.’ The companies that you have so brilliantly amalgamated under ‘GmbH’ haven’t got anything to do with each other! It’s as if you decided to write ‘Ltd.’ for every English and Canadian company we deal with! How long is it going to take you to correct these mistakes?”

I chose the stupidest defense possible.

“Trust the Germans to come up with such a long-winded way of saying ‘Inc.’!”

“That’s right! It must be the Germans’ fault you’re so stupid!”

“Calm down, Fubuki. How could I know…”

“How could you not know! Your country has a border with Germany and you still didn’t know, whereas we, who live on the other side of the planet, know full well!”

I was about to say something that, thank heavens, I kept to myself: “Belgium may well have a border with Germany, but during the last war, Japan had far more in common with Germany than a border!”

I contented myself with bowing my head, defeated.

“Don’t stand there like a statue! Go and find all the invoices you have so brilliantly filed under ‘chemicals’ for the last month!”

I opened the drawer and almost felt like laughing when I realized that as a result of my filing technique the files for “chemical companies” had reached astonishing proportions.

Mister Unaji, Miss Mori, and I set to work. It took us three days to sort out the eleven different creditors. I was already in the doghouse with them when an even more serious calamity erupted.

The first sign was a sort of trembling in the good Mister Unaji’s large shoulders. It meant that he was starting to laugh. The vibrations spread to his chest and then to his throat. Eventually came the laugh. I broke out in goose pimples.

Fubuki was already white with fury.

“What’s she done now? ”

With one hand Mister Unaji showed her the original invoice and with the other the accounts book.

She hid her face in her hands. I felt sick.

Then they turned several pages and pointed to various invoices. In the end, Fubuki grabbed hold of my arm. Without a word, she showed me the figures copied out in my inimitable writing.

“Whenever there are more than four zeros in a row, you didn’t bother to copy them out! You took away or added at least one zero each time!”

“Oh yes, so I did.”

“Do you have any idea what this means? How many weeks it will take to find all your mistakes and correct them?”

“It’s not easy—all those enormously long lines of zeros…”

“Be quiet!”

Pulling me by the arm, she led me outside. We went into an empty office and she shut the door.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” I replied pathetically.

“No, you’re not! Do you think I can’t see what you’re doing? You made these incomprehensible mistakes to get your revenge on me!”

“I swear I didn’t.”

“I know you did. You resent me so much for telling the vice-president about the business with the Dairy Products Department that you’ve decided to make a fool of me in public.”

“It’s me that I’m making a fool of, not you.”

“I’m your direct superior and everyone knows I gave you this job. I am therefore responsible for what you do. And you know that. Your despicable behavior is typical of Westerners. You put your personal vanity ahead of the interests of the company. You didn’t hesitate before sabotaging Yumimoto’s accounts to get your revenge on me, knowing perfectly well that your mistakes would fall on my shoulders!”

“I had no idea, and I didn’t make these mistakes on purpose.”

“Oh come on! I know that you’re not very intelligent, but nobody could be stupid enough to make mistakes like that!”

“Yes they could: me.”

“Stop it! I know you’re lying.”

“Fubuki, I give you my word of honor that I did not copy them out incorrectly on purpose.”

“Honor! What would you know about honor?”

She laughed scornfully.

“Believe it or not, honor does exist in the West too.”

“Ah! And you find it honorable to admit openly that you are the stupidest person on earth?”

“I don’t think I’m all that stupid.”

“You’re either a traitor or you’re a half-wit. There’s no third option.”

“There are normal people who are incapable of copying out rows of numbers.”

“That sort of person doesn’t exist in Japan.”

“Who would dream of challenging Japanese superiority?” I was actually trying to sound contrite.

“You should have told me you were mentally handicapped, instead of letting me entrust you with this work.”

“I didn’t know. I’d never copied out rows of numbers in my life.”

“It’s a peculiar kind of handicap. It doesn’t take a scrap of intelligence to transcribe figures.”

“I think that’s precisely the problem with people like me. If our intelligence isn’t required, our brains go to sleep. Hence my mistakes.”

Fubuki’s face at last lost its combative expression. She assumed an air of bemusement.

“Your intelligence has to be required? What a quaint idea.”

“It couldn’t be more normal.”

“Fine. I’ll think of some work that will require intelligence,” my superior repeated, apparently delighting in this turn of phrase.