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My mind is definitely made up: I shall not relinquish the spot next to the window, the place where I do all my day-dreaming, which is no mere poetic image—I loathe poetry. When the workday is over, fantasy is my sole indulgence. All labor deserves its reward, Father often said. And I couldn’t agree more.

If she makes a mistake, I’ll order her, in a superior tone, to retype the whole page. I’ll see that she types it a third time, if necessary. I will insist on that.

I’m inflexible about deadlines.

I’ll only use harsh words.

Hurry up and finish those charts, I’ll order. No, it can’t wait, I’ll insist while keeping my composure.

I’ll correct her in a stern voice. The word résumé has accents over the e’s, I’ll snap, emphasizing é.

Should she venture to ask a question, I’ll refrain from responding right away. I’ll wait until she asks again. Nicely. Meekly. Sweetly servile. How I’d love to attain that quality of disdainful authority over my inferiors that Father was forever trying to instill in me . . .

My coldness will prevent any friendly impulse on her part. I despise familiarity. In word or in deed. Informality should be reserved for addressing dogs, no one’s fellow man.

I’ll occasionally smile at her mistakes. She’ll be at a complete loss, the idiot.

I’ll keep her guessing. My tactic will be simple: each objection on her part will be met with unyielding silence. Keeping silent comes easily to me. Keeping silent is my job. Which I accomplish with zeal. Keep silent. And then strike. Ah, to have the audacity of real leaders! I’ve been inwardly training myself for that. After nightfall, when my thoughts emerge from their depths, I go back over what was said that day, her words and mine. I refine my tactics, reappraise my plans. I must be ruthless. It will be a hard fight, this I know. And in the end, our every utterance will be judged.


2


Whatever my intentions (which I assume to be malicious), I won’t let myself be caught off-guard. I’m methodical in all things (as soon as a thought crosses my mind, I’m in a thorough control of its ramifications) and have a special gift when it comes to organization. I foresee. I classify. I pinpoint. I delete. I like things to be orderly. Monsieur Meyer often compliments me on this. And until now, my life has been—I dare say—as neat as my desk. Nothing ever used to go wrong.

But these days I’m filled with doubt and unsettled; I waver and procrastinate. When I walk past an old wall, I’m suddenly aware that it could come crashing down, crushing me. I won’t risk walking under a ladder for fear of some new catastrophe. Time seems to shorten, then lengthen. Slippery as an eel. My soul is as sensitive as an exposed nerve. There are days when I long for my former peace of mind. And other days when the war I wage against her—and that’s what it is: a war—excited and invigorates me, creating the sense that there’s some magnificent destiny awaiting me.

The new secretary has only been sharing my space for a week, but already life doesn’t move forward in a fine linear manner anymore, but sideways, tortuously, like a crash. Her presence is strangely disconcerting. I say disconcerting deliberately. I simply can’t get her out of my mind. She’s putting down roots within me, spreading, living, aching inside me, sending shoots into the tiniest cracks. (Isn’t it odd that I find myself using the vocabulary of love to evoke her, even though she has a way of getting on my nerves, and I’ve come to detest every fiber of her being?) And she’s the one I think of, time and time again, when my cheek up against the windowpane, I look out at the street. Her enormous breasts. Her big moon-face. Her beady little eyes, stuck in her face as if in lard, looking frantically around every corner as if something might jump out at her. I watch the cars go by, honking their horns. I count twelve of them. A birdie flashes by, smothered in armfuls of white flowers. My heart sinks as I imagine her nuptial night. On the sidewalk across the way, two children squat playing a game of marbles. I hear one of them say the old lady’s watching us. Yes, it’s true, I am old.