Monsieur Candela was sitting at his desk with the sullen, scornful glower of a manager expecting an underling who has suddenly fallen from grace. Playing bad cop doesn’t suit him, he has a sunny, cheerful Mediterranean disposition. I hadn’t even closed the door when he ripped into me. ‘Are you planning to keep up this shit?’ This is how he always talks at work, very American, shooting from the hip, straight to the point, no pussyfooting. It makes sense, after all we are here to make money and the company article of faith can be summed up in three words: Time is money, our god is the Almighty Dollar. The company is 100% American, the only thing foreign about it is the market. And the staff – the pissant, prolix, profligate Frogs, though at least they get to pay us in French francs – they consider to be infidels.

‘I’m going through a bad patch.’

‘So what else is new? Is it Ophélie?’

‘Not really.’

‘What then? Is monsieur having a crisis of conscience?’

I told him the whole story, about the 24 April massacre, about Papa’s past. I gave it to him in bullet-points like it was a corporate debriefing. I skipped over my crisis of conscience. He skipped over his shock and his questions.

‘Let’s go to the café, we can talk there. But I’m warning you, the boss wants your hide – or my head. Your sales figures for the last six months are a disaster, and he’s obviously got someone keeping tabs on every day, every minute, you’re out of the office. Congratulations. You’ve set a new world record! I’ve put in a good word for you, but this is a company, not a church, so you’re going to turn this fucking thing round right now or three months from now you’ll be clearing your desk. Is that clear?’

It was clear. I was going to be fired. My stay of execution was complicated by other factors, the union wouldn’t get involved, there were too many human resources hoops to jump through, too much red tape. The company was doing well, but per capita revenue is per capita revenue. It’s a principle we’ve been taught to carry around like a sick man carries a thermometer. The company philosophy is simple as a biblical exhortation: ‘Better we throw out one bad apple rather than risk infecting the whole barrel.’ The ‘we’ in that sentence is a formality – the rank-and-file swallow management decisions hook, line and sinker and parrot them as their own. It’s inevitable, given our profit-sharing system. How was I going to break the news to Ophélie? She wouldn’t believe it. Say nothing, tomorrow is another day, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof . . .