Hard Copy, page 3
‘Oh really, where?’ Irrelevant question! ‘I mean, sure, no problem.’
‘Great. You’ve done it before, so I trust it will be in good hands, right?’
This is a start-up (can you still call something a start-up after seven years?) so customer service over the phone is viewed as old-fashioned. Young people don’t call. That’s why our work is strictly done over email. I’m support staff, and support staff are officially part of customer service, although most of the time I just work with my letters and envelopes. And in our company we don’t call it ‘customer service’, we call it ‘support’.
How long will I have to take over those tasks for? He doesn’t say, just gives me a nod and disappears. Nothing about the package. But surely he must have noticed it hasn’t arrived yet? Is this a test? Is it punishment for me not keeping track of the package delivery? It must be. The battle has begun.
For the rest of the day I invent versions of conversations between my boss and me. They all end with me angrily quitting on the spot because my loyalty is being tested so unfairly. After my resignation everything in the office starts going wrong, my printer and all future printers refuse to perform and no one knows how to repair them, I grow wildly successful in another field and everyone in this miserable office has regrets, my boss more than anyone. Every train of thought feels really good, but then I feel guilty, because my boss is actually a perfectly fine boss. Also, I shouldn’t be getting too worked up! I’m allergic to that.
*
I try to walk calmly to work the next morning, but I’m fully expecting something terrible to have happened. I wonder whether I’ll see clouds of smoke billowing up from the city centre, but there’s nothing. I woke up at six a.m. and decided to head out early. A plane is flying unusually low over the city. The noise is deafening. I’ve never seen an aeroplane this close up before, you can see all sorts of details. They don’t usually fly directly over the centre of the city, do they? It feels as if the war has begun. Maybe I should check my phone, maybe something’s happened, maybe everyone except me has received a warning to shut their windows and doors, to stay indoors, by the radio. I’m sure that right now some of the men who have had their own conspiracy theories since September 11, who for years have been prepping for the end of the world, are thinking smugly of all the bottles of water in their basement, all the tinned food, the batteries for their flashlights – pleased that it wasn’t all for nothing. They’re thinking, even as their own end approaches: didn’t I tell you? Maybe they’ll say it out loud to their wives, or the TV. They’ll be holed up in their concrete caves as all hell breaks loose. Unlike me.
No one is in the office yet. Makes sense, it’s not even eight a.m., most people don’t arrive until nine. Even though my boss made a point of asking me politely about the inbox, it’s not as if I could have said no. We pretend we’re all equals at this company, but that’s a lie. The first time I was asked to take the inbox on by myself I didn’t ask if I’d be paid extra, and now it’s too late. Typical. I never ask for that sort of thing, even though my workload has now doubled.
When I open the customer service inbox, I see sixteen messages. Perfectly manageable, and I’ll still have enough time afterwards for my printer. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all. But then I open the first email. It sounds like a threat. Unless you reply within the stated twenty-four hours, there will be consequences!!! As if at any moment I’m going to receive a relative’s sawn-off pinkie in the mail. I stare at the threatening message. The customer has addressed me by name. Why didn’t they use my colleague’s name instead? How does this stranger know who I am?
Actually, I don’t really need the extra pay. I mean, it’s not as if I make that much, very little in fact, barely enough to make ends meet and that’s only because I don’t subscribe to anything. But what do I need more money for? What would I buy? I click on another message and immediately feel guilty, the threatening man was first in line. The other message is nicer, but I honestly don’t know the answer to their request. I’ve already been logged in for fifteen minutes and I haven’t sent a single response! This is a public inbox: my colleagues can see it too! Maybe I should ask someone about it later, but then I’d have to make an internal call, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s internal calls.
*
It’s helpful to know that the scale isn’t balanced. The world isn’t equal. The trick lies in how you deal with it. To accept, in my case for example, that I am a woman and therefore must constantly prove myself. Imagine if I had public ambitions! Thank God I have no public ambitions. A man only has to do half of what I do to be labelled a genius. We are both low in the pecking order, you even lower than me. I may be addressing you as a man, but you know as well I do that you’re not. There are occasionally changes in my circumstances – only superficial ones, sure, and hardly life-changing, but still. You, on the other hand, will have to learn to live with being objectified. I’m not happy about it, believe me, but unfortunately you will have to wait much, much longer for your emancipation. You’re just going to have to accept the fact and keep going despite this adversity.
*
On the floor beneath me I can hear the sounds of a new workday beginning. A telephone ringing, the low rumble of male voices, the percolating rattle of the coffeemaker, the flush of a toilet. For most of the emails in the inbox I use the standard response, I have a list of answers to the FAQs. All of my responses are very cordial, of course. It doesn’t matter how rude the customer is, we are friendly! Always friendly! And if someone sends us a sexist email, we ask a male colleague from another department to send a stern response. For we are always friendly. I let the threatening man from the first email wait all morning.
I see my colleagues in the afternoon, at the lunch table. It’s dark, getting darker by the minute, starting to rain. They’re all chattering away as usual, but they haven’t been threatened by a client who knows their name, they haven’t been waiting for days for a crucial delivery. If I wasn’t so distracted by these issues I’m sure I would also be asking what everyone was doing for Easter and enjoying my sandwich. But I’ve got other things on my mind. My future is on the line!
Just as I have this thought, it happens. I had a premonition that something was coming, but I didn’t know it would be this. An infernal bang, an explosion, a violent blow in our faces; we’re all knocked sideways. The building is shaking. A dish falls off the table and shatters on the floor. The clock topples off the wall. So the war is starting! My hands are clutching the edge of the table, drained of blood, every muscle tensed. It’s deathly silent for a few long moments. Then my boss, across from me, says something. His mouth is moving. All I can hear is a loud ringing. Am I deaf? It takes a few seconds for my hearing to return. His voice sounds distorted, far away:
‘…a lightning strike.’ He nods, agreeing with his own analysis. ‘It hit our building, or the one next to us. Very close, anyway.’ Everyone nods, makes noises signalling relief, oh, is that what it was, that’s actually not so bad, all things considered. My boss says, in a comforting tone, ‘The building’s got a lightning rod.’ Someone starts to clear the dishes away.
‘We should have expected this,’ Product says, twisting the lid back onto a jar of peanut butter, ‘with the recent hot weather.’ PR gets a dustpan and brush from a cupboard to sweep up the shattered plate. I stare out of the window and breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. I’ve been told that calms you down. It’s pouring now. The sound of the rain is nearly drowned out by car alarms, groaning trees, creaking beams. The street, which is normally full of traffic at this time of day, is nearly deserted. A few tourists have taken cover under a waterlogged awning, they’re shielding their heads with bags of souvenirs. The gutters are overflowing, there’s a little river running along the kerb and into the drain. I want to run outside. I want to get drenched until my clothes are see-through, stuck to my body. Instead I go back upstairs to my office. There’s a leak. The top of the window frame is rotted and the water is seeping through. A puddle has formed on the wooden floor. This building was constructed in the seventeenth century and the floor is uneven, so a trickle of water has escaped the puddle and is running slowly across the boards to the sunken portion of the floor, where the power strip sits, waiting.
What was I doing, thinking only of myself? The printer is in serious danger! There could be a short circuit, or a fire. A fire! I got here just in time. Now I’ve got to act fast. I kneel down by the extension cable, carefully, scrupulously pull the plug from the socket, and drape the cord over my printer. I detach the cable from the wall outlet and leave it on my desk chair. Just to be safe, I’ll move the printer to a different spot, far away from the water. I lift the machine off the desk. A square imprint of dust and ink spatters remains. He’s big and heavy, but I just about manage to cradle him in my arms. An unwelcome thought comes to me: If I drop him now, he’ll die. I could have sent him to his death twice today, setting him on fire then smashing him to pieces. I immediately regret letting these dreadful thoughts enter my mind.
*
This is what it said in the paper after the fire all those years ago (I often look it up online to confirm to myself it really happened): ‘With the recent scandal in the […] neighbourhood, it seems history is repeating itself. Until just after the war, the neighbourhood was called […]: a cluster of dilapidated houses where […] was rampant. The wrecking ball restored order. Now, some fifty years later, […], the neighbourhood is back to square one. The problems are numerous: alcoholism, unemployment, crime. The wider area is one of the least wealthy in the city, with forty per cent of residents now living below the poverty line.
‘The car that was set on fire on Wednesday night belonged to the tenant of the terraced house on the corner of […] street and […] street. The house seems to have been hastily abandoned. A lawnmower stands, ready for use, on the back lawn, and the door of a shed has been left half-open. Plants slowly wither on the windowsill. The glass in the front door has been replaced with a piece of cardboard. A dark patch can clearly be seen on the street in front of the house where the fire raged. At dusk the lights in the house remain off.
‘The person who used to live here was at the centre of the notorious case that the police made public this week, involving the abuse of an underaged resident. Both victim and perpetrator have since moved away.
Local residents do not like to discuss the case, and enquiries at the local café have produced minimal information. “This café is at the edge of the neighbourhood, so we don’t know what goes on in there,” the barmaid explains, kindly but firmly. Within the tight-lipped community, however, one thing is clear: […].’
*
Last night I dreamt of a tsunami. I often dream about tsunamis. Probably because I sleep under a heating pipe, and even in this tropical heat someone in my apartment building keeps their heating on, which means I am conscious of hot water flowing through the metal tubes. I sleep on a mezzanine and heat rises, so the suffocating warmth assaults me from all angles. It gives me nightmares and I wake up gasping for water. I don’t have a fan at home because they’ve been sold out for ages.
The tsunami isn’t unexpected. I’m sitting on the beach watching a sunset. The sky looks like a painting, simultaneously gold and blue. It’s like someone is projecting slides above the sea, the clouds changing colour with each click, orange, pink, purple. It’s beautiful everywhere I look. The dune grasses shine as if coated with wax, like oranges in the supermarket. Everything seems otherworldly; I see the horizon and the curvature of the earth and I remember that it is a planet. I think the sky is about to swallow me, and right at that moment the water recedes. It happens very fast, like a movie in fast-forward. Starfish and worms lie on the exposed seabed. A vast expanse of wet sand filled with starfish, worms and rubbish. Tattered shreds of plastic bags, shoe soles, twisted plastic bottles, batteries. I don’t see any fish flopping around, which surprises me. I know something devastating is about to happen, but I’m not afraid. I undress and stretch out on the sand, my hands folded under my head, my eyes shut. Then I hear the thunderous sound. I know that the wall of water will soon consume me.
When I wake up it’s still early. The sun isn’t up. When I get up my sweaty body leaves a wet patch on the sheets. I climb down from my bed and open the window. A few streetlamps shine their dark yellow light on the cars in the parking lot. The sky is a deep, dark blue, the trees black. A plane flies past the half-moon. What a coincidence, I think, right when I happen to look up an aeroplane is crossing the moon! I take it as a good sign.
*
The heavy wooden front door of the office sticks a bit, swollen from the heat. I’m the first person in. I turn on the printer then open the inbox. I see twenty-seven new emails. Twelve of them are from the same person, a woman I messaged politely the day before to explain at length why we sent her a letter by post, despite the fact that she didn’t explicitly ask for one. She emailed me every ten minutes in the dead of night, each message complaining about the fact we hadn’t responded immediately. She also mentioned something about privacy. She didn’t give us her address in order to be sent unsolicited mail, she said. She considers it an invasion. A violation. Something about consumer rights and the law. Really? You’re constantly being spied on by the world’s biggest tech companies, whose mysterious algorithms can predict the cause as well as the likely timing of your death. The tax office follows your every move, waiting for you to slip up so it can destroy your life forevermore. After talking to your neighbour about her new foam mattress, you’re suddenly seeing mattresskings.com ads everywhere. But you want to take our little company to court just because you received one unsolicited letter?
Something has to be done about these emails, but if I take them too seriously and ask my colleagues for help I might make a fool of myself. And, don’t forget! It was supposed to be a good day today! I send an extremely friendly response to the woman and delete all twelve emails in one go. I mark her email address as spam. The threatening email from yesterday (just an hour and a half to go before I receive the severed finger!) is still open, but has dropped down the inbox list, out of sight, thankfully. Maybe I can just ignore it and the problem will go away.
Another email arrives, a little red flag marking it as more important than any other message. DELIVERY OF PACKAGE CONFIRMED. My package has been delivered! My prayers have been answered! I’m not going to be fired! A good day, I knew it.
According to the email, the package was delivered to the street where I originally went to look for it after all, I just went there prematurely, so turns out I’ve got everything perfectly under control. I can solve the problem before anyone discovers we even had one. I walk out of the office and into the wall of searing heat. The city passes by me in slow motion, although I am no longer the only person moving at this pace, the heat is slowing everyone down.
When I get to the neighbourhood, I see some residents sitting outside – a rare sight here. The people who live here are men (not attractive per se) in their late forties or older, yet they still wear baseball caps. They are women (attractive per se) who are younger, with tanned, smooth legs in pristine white shorts. They are all straight, and many of them have spent time in New York or LA. They are rarely home. Their small front gardens are badly maintained because that’s not part of the housekeeper’s duties. Their cleaner has a key and a pass and just lets herself in, there doesn’t have to be anybody home, it’s better if there isn’t, in fact. Then she cleans the stuff that hasn’t been used all week. These people don’t put their empty houses up for rent on some random site. They don’t need the money and they think it’s a bit tacky, to be honest.
The street I need to find, the street with the tourist shops and shady restaurants, is just round the corner. The package was delivered to number 79, first floor. My phone tells me that it’s taken me forty minutes to get here. Everything is something on this street: there’s a restaurant; a crystal shop; a tattoo salon; the sex shop, which is now closed (suspicious?); a hair salon; a gay club; a fluorescent souvenir shop; the cannabis coffee shop with the bulletproof cubicle; a ticket office for tourist attractions; a locksmith; a shop where you can store your luggage securely for two euros an hour, its window plastered with stickers that say ‘€2’. At number 79, however, there’s nothing. Just an old building. And that is where the carrier has left my package? No sign by the buzzer, but the front door is ajar. That isn’t on purpose, is it? I ring the buzzer, just to be sure. I cautiously push the door open a little wider. It opens onto a narrow hallway with a staircase covered in stiff, grey-blue swirly carpeting, remarkably new for an otherwise shabby stairwell. There are a few flyers on the stairs, and a smell of incense which reminds me of the stuff I used to steal from the chemist’s. It was easy to slide the narrow packages up your sleeve.
‘Hello?’ I say it at a normal volume, probably too normal. No one can hear me. I hate to raise my voice. I take one step inside, a bit louder. ‘Hello?’
No response. I push the buzzer again. I can understand their reluctance to open the door. Who still rings the doorbell? Nobody, not even at Halloween.
‘Hello, I’ve come to collect my package!’ I’d better just make it clear, or else someone may come down and mistake me for an intruder, and I don’t want that.
*
Climb the stairs, or give up. My package is here! I can’t give up now. But maybe I’ll get dragged into someone’s apartment. Danger lurks everywhere, especially in a creepy stairwell like this, exactly the type of stairwell where there’s a shootout in the movies. That’s why this carpet is so new: I bet the old one was covered in rusty blood stains. I don’t have disability insurance or coverage for accidents that happen on the job. I can’t remember what that’s called, but, in any case, I don’t have it. I really need this package, but this stairwell is sending me signals, telling me I need to get out of here as soon as possible.
