The Stronger Sex (2 page)

She led me into a spacious living room with its far wall almost entirely made of glass. Beyond it lay a terrace and a garden, apparently not very large but densely planted.

She offered me a glass of juice, which I declined with thanks, saying maybe afterwards. Then she asked if I would sit here with her for a moment before she took me up to see her husband. I sat down in the armchair she indicated, looked out at the garden and remarked on the pleasant sight it presented. “Yes,” she said, “the gardener comes twice a week.” She smiled and sat down opposite me.

Her face was browned, so were her arms and feet, and her legs to above the knee. She probably went to a sun-tan studio regularly. Or maybe she had a sun lamp at home here, next to a home gym in the cellar.

The skin just below and at the corners of her eyes was rimmed with tiny lines. So were the corners of her mouth. She was probably rather older than she looked after all.

Maybe she sunbathed out on the terrace, all the same. Of course no one could see into this garden from outside.

I suddenly realized that I was staring at her as if tonguetied. I took a deep breath, but she got in first. “Have you been working for Dr Hochkeppel long?”

“For a little over a year.” My voice sounded hoarse; I cleared my throat. “A year and three months next week, yes.”

She nodded. “He's retired now, is he, more or less?”

“You mean Dr Hochkeppel?” Even as I asked I could hear alarm bells ringing. So she'd talked to Hochkeppel on the phone before he asked me to call her. I wondered, had he himself told her he had retired? And if so, why, when he hadn't?

She nodded. “Yes, of course. I mean Dr Hochkeppel.”

“Well, yes… more or less, as you say. A kind of retirement, you might call it.”

She nodded again. After a brief pause she said, “Naturally. He's reached retirement age, after all.”

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled – rather a foolish smile, I am afraid. “To be honest, I've no idea how old he is.”

“Seventy-seven.” She was silent again for a moment. Then she said, “A year younger than my husband.”

“Oh, I see.”

A bell rang twice, briefly, in the hall, but she seemed to ignore it. She glanced out at the garden, and then back at me. “But I hope he's well?”

“Dr Hochkeppel?” There I went again – what a stupid remark! I could have bitten my tongue off. “Yes, I think so. He's fine, so far as I can tell. He's… yes, he's in good health.”

She nodded, and said, after a while, “Give him my regards, would you?” Then she stood up, smiling. “Well, I'll take you to my husband now. He seems to be getting impatient.”

I followed her out. She went ahead of me to the stairs leading up to the floor above, which had been extended.
At the top of the staircase a chair lift had been fitted, the sort you see in the small ads. Stairs to climb in your home? No problem!

At the last moment I remembered what my father had told me about his dancing lessons in the Sixties, recommending me to do as he had been taught then, if I didn't want women to think me a lout. I hurried past Frau Klofft and went up the stairs ahead of her.

When we were at the top, she took my arm and stopped. I looked at her.

She said in an undertone, “My husband has… attacks sometimes. They're unpredictable. Please don't lose patience with him. Even if he happens to, well, to get abusive.”

2

Herbert Klofft was sitting in an armchair out on the balcony. There was a medium-sized table for his work in front of him, with several books, papers and newspapers lying on it. Among them was the
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch
or BGB, the civil code of Germany. And the thick, blue-bound
Personnel Book
, the legal compendium, widely used by the people who do the hiring and firing. Beside them stood a heavy crystal ashtray and a water tumbler, also crystal. On another, smaller table inside the balcony door I saw a laptop and a printer. The aromatic smell of the cigar that Klofft had obviously been smoking even at this time in the morning still hung in the air.

The entrepreneur wore an open-necked brown shirt showing part of his grey, hairy chest and leaving his sinewy arms bare. The hair on his head was still dark except for the grey at his temples. His thick, bushy eyebrows were dark as well. His skin was pale, but with a slight reddish flush on his forehead and cheeks.

He lowered his newspaper, waited until his wife had closed the door after me, fixed his eyes on me and said, “So you're Herr Zabel?”

“Yes, I'm Alexander Zabel. Good morning, Herr Klofft.”

He made an elaborate business of folding the newspaper, put it down and looked at me. “And you're Bruno Hochkeppel's young man?”

“I'm not anyone's young man. I'm a qualified lawyer, and I happen to work in Dr Hochkeppel's chambers.”

He raised his eyebrows, kept them raised for some time, and finally asked, “How old are you?”

I put my briefcase down on his table, pulled out the chair beside it and sat down. “Twenty-nine.”

He stared at the briefcase for a while, then looked up. “And how long have you been qualified?”

After a brief pause I said, “Two years. Why?”

He began shaking his head slightly, the trace of a smile showed on his face as if he were amused, then he suddenly broke off this performance and stared at me. After some time he asked slowly, and with emphasis, “Do you have any experience worth mentioning of industrial tribunals?”

I said, “I tell you what, Herr Klofft. Why not call Dr Hochkeppel and tell him to send you another of our colleagues?” I stood up and took my briefcase off the table.

He raised both hands. “Hey, wait a moment! Are you out of your mind? What the hell's the idea of this?”

It occurred to me that the pleasant Frau Klofft had warned me about this shit and asked me to be patient with him, but it was too late now, and I don't know whether I'd have reacted any differently if I'd remembered in time. I said, “It's perfectly simple. I can't act for you if you consider me unsuitable.”

“Who said I did? You're imagining things.”

“You said so, more or less clearly. And kindly note that I am not imagining things, nor am I out of my mind, and I can hardly say the same of you.”

He threw both hands up in the air. “Good heavens, what a sensitive little flower you are! Calm down, do!” He pointed to the chair. “And sit down again!” Seeing that I stayed where I was, he looked up. After a moment's hesitation he said, “All right, for God's sake, I apologize! Of course you're not imagining things! And you're not out of your mind either!” Another short pause, and he added, “Right, is that enough for you?”

I sat down again deliberately slowly.

He let out a sigh as if he'd just been hauling a refractory donkey into its stable, pushed the papers on the table apart and pulled out a folder, stared at it and then looked at me. The red on his forehead and cheeks had turned a little darker. He took another deep breath. “Right, this is what it's about.” He stared at the folder again and then looked up. “I suppose you know about my business?”

I hesitated. “Not in detail. I've—”

“What does that mean? Hasn't that old windbag told you anything except that we used to go hunting together? Or maybe a couple of stories about our skittles club?”

I said no, of course not, Dr Hochkeppel had said only that he, Klofft, had taken over a small workshop nearly fifty years ago and built it up into a company operating all over the world, with almost a hundred employees, most of whom —

He waved this aside. “Yes, yes, never mind the soft soap. We don't have almost a hundred, we have exactly sixty-two permanent employees.” And he held up the folder. “Well, sixty-one now that I've chucked that… that lady out.”

I saw the folder in his hand beginning to tremble, and after a moment's hesitation he let it drop to the table, put his hand on it and seemed to be pressing his fingers firmly
on the cover, as if to stop them shaking. His glance moved away and wandered over the treetops outside, then returned to me.

“Specialists,” he said. “We've specialized, that's why the business runs so well. And of course we're better than the competition. Technical measuring devices, control engineering, I don't know if that means anything to you. Pressure…” He hesitated. His eyes became fixed, then he said abruptly, “Pressure gauge systems. Flow sensors.” He stopped and stared at the folder. After a brief pause he added, “Valves.
Klofft's Valves.
We sell them abroad too. Take a look at the brochures; I had them put into this file.”

He raised his hand, pointed to the folder and immediately put his hand back on it. “And we… and we have sole agency in the German-speaking countries for two leading foreign manufacturers. A British company and a Swedish company.”

Suddenly he reached for the tumbler, which was half full of water, raised it to his lips and drained it. His hand was shaking; I heard the faint rattle of the glass against his teeth.

He put the glass down a little too hard, bent to one side and picked up a bottle of mineral water that had been standing beside his chair. Then he hesitated, glancing at the bottle. It looked as if he were wondering whether he could refill the tumbler successfully.

I put out my hand for the bottle. “May I?” Obviously surprised, he let me take the it. I filled the tumbler, put it on the table and left the bottle beside it.

He looked at me in silence. Then his gaze wandered out into the garden again. After a while he began to move his lips silently.

“What department did the lady work in?” I asked.

He looked at me as if he didn't understand the question.

I said, “The lady you… dismissed.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” He nodded. “A qualified engineer. Very promising girl. I hired her eleven years ago. She had… she'd just taken her diploma.” He smiled. “She still had long hair then. A mane of it, right down to her bum… Like that weather girl on TV. Really very beautiful. Or shall we say… well, never mind that!” He laughed. “Of course I didn't hire her for her mane of hair.”

He thought of reaching for the glass, interrupted his movement, put his hand back on the folder. For a while he said nothing but just looked into space. Then he rubbed his forehead and suddenly looked up. “Yes, well. I'd put an ad in
Der Ingenieur
. Over the first three days I had three dozen or so applications… three dozen or thereabouts. All men. She was the only woman, but she had the best exam results.” He laughed.

It took quite a long time. In the end, after several odd digressions and pauses in which he simply said nothing, I had at least a rough idea of the story of the legal dispute in which I was to represent him before the tribunal.

He had fired the deputy head of his production department, Katharina Fuchs, a qualified engineer, aged thirty-four and unmarried, without notice. She had done impeccable, even outstandingly good work for him for ten years, he said, and then matters had changed. She had repeatedly been late for work, he said, she had taken to leaving her desk for an hour or two in the middle of the day, or went home before the office closed at five. In general she had made it obvious, he claimed, that in contrast to the last ten years she was no longer particularly interested in her job, and considered the work more of a tedious necessity.

He had no alternative but to warn her, he said. Her conduct did improve then, but it didn't last long. Two weeks ago, in the middle of the month or around then, anyway on a Wednesday, but I would find all that in the file, well, that
Wednesday she had gone to see Herr Pauly, his business manager, and said she had to take the following week off. For urgent private reasons. The whole week.

Pauly had asked what those reasons were. At that, apparently, she had turned awkward, asking if he hadn't heard her say they were private, wasn't that enough? No, Pauly had replied, it wasn't enough, so he couldn't decide whether or not she could take the week off himself, she would have to ask the boss in person.

Next morning she had turned up here and told him the same story, she wanted time off for private reasons, and like Pauly he had asked what did she mean, private reasons, he needed to know in a little more detail. Thereupon she had said insolently no, he definitely did not need to know in more detail, private reasons meant private reasons, they were nothing to do with anyone but her. And then…

Here he suddenly fell silent, looked out at the garden again and suddenly began nodding his head.

After a while I said, “And then you refused to give her time off?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, without looking at me.

“You refused to give her time off because she didn't want to tell you what her private reasons were?” I asked.

He turned back to me and smiled. “Of course not.” Another glance out into the garden, and then he said, “I informed her that the next week, I mean the week she wanted to take off, I was expecting a very large order. From a very interesting foreign customer. And that I wasn't sure of the conditions yet, but I expected to have to deliver very quickly, so we'd need all hands on deck. And so I told her I was afraid she'd have to postpone her holiday.”

After a ponderous nod, he added that the lady… that apparently that woman wouldn't see reason. She had actually objected that Herr Pauly hadn't said a word to her about any such order. To which he had replied that indeed
Herr Pauly couldn't have said a word about it; he didn't know about the order yet. He himself, Klofft, had had the final discussion with the customer only that morning, and hadn't had time to tell Pauly because, instead of dealing with the really important and necessary business in hand, he was obliged at that very moment to argue with her about her unreasonable wish to take time off.