The Zurich Conspiracy (5 page)

Now he was considering her silently, an inquiring gaze on his handsome face. Josefa was in an unmistakable bad mood. She sat in her chair as if turned to stone; her arms propped on the armrests, her hands folded, stubbornly looking straight ahead. Finally she spat it out: “I feel like screaming right now.”

Pius prowled like a puma around the desk and stopped at the window. “Oh-oh-oh,” he uttered. “How bad is it this time?”

Josefa rubbed her nose. “Bad enough to ruin my whole holiday.”

“Nobody in this company has any right to an enjoyable vacation, you know that,” he replied with a smile.

“No right to a vacation, no right to recognition, no right to be treated with human dignity,” Josefa exclaimed, realizing she shouldn’t speak so loudly with the door open. But she didn’t give a damn. About anything else for that matter.

Pius carefully laid a briefcase on the table.

“Here are my ideas for the thank-yous to the St. Moritz VIPs,” he said, leaning toward her and bracing his arms on the table, his face enticingly close to hers. Josefa could smell his aftershave and even imagined for a moment that he might kiss her.

“Loyn is
not
the only thing in the world, Josefa,” he said softly. Then he was out of the room in a flash. Josefa sat there for a minute, composing herself; then resentment got the better of her again.

“No, the world is only slimy caves and blind bats,” she grunted as she picked up the phone and asked Claire to come in.

Through her window she could see the swallows dancing.

Oh my God! Werner Schulmann.
He calls himself a communications consultant and an expert on new media. Josefa had worked with him a few years back when Loyn threw a birthday party for its new collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Schulmann purported to be a specialist for every imaginable kind of technical gimmick—video sound shows, lighting effects, large-screen projections. They had worked together well while planning the event; he was easy to get along with, was open to her ideas, and had charm and a pleasant, sporty appearance. But he let her know in San Francisco that he didn’t like to spend his nights alone and made her an unambiguous proposition that she politely turned down. Schulmann still wouldn’t drop it, and Josefa had to be even more explicit: “You must take no for a no.”

He just smiled and said suavely, “Do you really know how much your eyes expose your sexual hunger? Maybe you should do something about that.” Then he turned on his heel and left with a spring in his step. Josefa was speechless—that’s what annoyed her the most afterward. Why hadn’t she come up with a good retort right off? She was normally so quick-witted.

Back in her hotel suite later that evening, she ordered a bowl of soup and a pot of peppermint tea. When the doorbell buzzed, she assumed it was room service and opened the door without looking through the peephole first. Schulmann was on her before she realized her mistake. He grabbed her and began kissing her and fondling her breasts. Josefa was terrified and overwhelmed; she tried to get out of his grasp, the struggle seemed like an eternity. When all of a sudden Schulmann let her go. The buzzer. The waiter. The soup. She threw open the door as fast as she could.

“Please c-c-come in…” she stammered. The waiter looked unsure of himself, and Schulmann took advantage of his hesitation to push past them and disappear down the corridor.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, placing the tray on the table.

Josefa shook her head. “Can I get another room?”

She was still rather new at Loyn back then. That birthday party was her acid test, and Schulmann’s production was an important component. The next day Schulmann acted as if nothing had happened, and Josefa only talked to him when absolutely necessary. But her grudge festered. She rejected out of hand the idea of telling her superiors; she constantly heard about some “bedtime story” or other on every floor of the office. Who would ever come to her defense?

Back in Zurich she argued in her post mortem that Loyn ought to shift their focus onto its products and their best-known advertisers; the distinguished and understated Loyn image was not well served by extravagant sound and light effects. She never received an official response to her report, but Schulmann never got another assignment from Loyn.

The sound of approaching footsteps snapped her back to the present. Claire appeared in her doorway in a salmon-colored two-piece suit that made her look paler than she already was. Closing the door in anticipation of their conversation, she took a seat across from Josefa.

“Walther has had a talk with me,” Josefa said, getting right to the point. “We’re getting a new marketing head.”

Claire said nothing.

Didn’t she get it?
Josefa thought, adding, “The new man’s name is Werner Schulmann.”

“I know,” Claire said flatly.

“You know already?” Josefa flared up. “Am I the last person in this company to find out?”

Why does nobody tell me anything?

Claire leaned back in her chair, as if trying to avoid a blow. “Werner Schulmann told me yesterday.”

Josefa stared at her in disbelief.

Claire squirmed in her seat. “Werner and me…we…OK, we’ve been together for six months. I met him at a mutual friend’s. In Paris. He called me up afterward and…he invited me to dinner. And I fell in love with him. Just like that.” She was in agony.

Josefa was thunderstruck. Claire Fendi and Werner Schulmann. Claire and that…that…How could
such
a smart young woman be taken in by a con artist like
that
! Claire never talked about her private life; that was none of the corporation’s business. That was another reason Josefa had always relied one hundred percent on her discreet, trusty, always ready and able assistant who was now spelling out her defeat in rapid-fire words.

“I thought he felt the same way. He…he gave me presents and wrote a love letter every day. Then yesterday he told me—not until yesterday!—that he had been offered and accepted the job at Loyn. He said we could still be together, but nobody must find out about it.” She tossed her head back. “I didn’t know a thing about it before yesterday, Josefa. He never breathed a word about it…I don’t know what to do.”

Josefa tried to read her pallid face. Did Claire know about her run-in with Schulmann? Had
he
told her about it? She rejected the idea immediately. It wouldn’t have been in his interests to portray himself as a stud. But maybe he’d tried to winkle information out of Claire about Loyn and about her boss…

“Did you tell him anything about the company?”

“The usual trivialities, the sort of things you tell your partner.” Her soft voice started to break. “I don’t want him interfering with my work. It’s an impossible situation. He didn’t even ask me before accepting the offer! He kept the whole thing under wraps.”

Josefa felt increasingly dizzy. The five years with Loyn had not been easy, but now one problem after another was stacking up before her eyes, threatening to bury her.

“The sad thing is,” Claire said, “that he’s starting next week.”

“What? Next week!” Josefa blew up. Walther hadn’t uttered a word about that. Clearly they intended to give Schulmann a grace period while she was on vacation. They were giving him time to stake out his turf.
Her
turf.

She needed to think this through in peace and quiet.

“Take care of this,” she said to Claire curtly, pointing to Pius’s photo file lying on the table.

Claire took the folder and looked Josefa straight in the eye. Josefa spotted something defiant there, some rebelliousness.

“Why didn’t
you
apply for the job?” Claire asked in a firm voice. “You ought to have applied. With your qualifications you’d have made a super marketing head!”

Josefa felt she’d been caught off base, caught in the act by her own assistant. She looked away and was annoyed at the ensuing pause. She was struggling to find the right words, and Claire could tell. When she finally answered, her voice was more strident than she intended.

“Why? Well, for starters, the position was already filled, that is, by Bourdin and me—I’m in effect running marketing. They could have
offered
me the job. It would have been obvious to talk to me about it first.”

Claire kept looking at her—challenging her, Josefa thought—but said nothing. Josefa was irritated by her silence and knew it was a mistake to justify herself to Claire, but she couldn’t stop the words from coming out.

“This whole business with Schulmann really shows that they don’t want to give me a higher managerial position. Claire, this company keeps the glass ceiling very, very low. I can work and work, give it everything I’ve got—what’s the point?” She leaned back in her chair, making an effort to appear above it all.

“You mustn’t give up so easily, Josefa,” Claire said earnestly, leaning forward. “Maybe you should’ve tried to stay in closer touch with Walther, to butter him up more. You know how he goes for that. Walther wants to be courted; he likes to be the benefactor, beloved by his people.”

Josefa just stared at Claire, her irritation growing. So it had come to this
.
She was receiving well-meaning advice from her assistant on how to climb the career ladder. What’s more, it was coming from a woman who was having a liaison with the very man who could jeopardize her career, who could undermine her position, who could make every meeting, every day, miserable.

Josefa was almost sick at the thought that she wasn’t Bourdin’s immediate subordinate anymore, but Schulmann’s. He would seize this opportunity to take his revenge on her, she was convinced of that. He would keep important information from her, cut her bonuses, force her to work with whomever he chose. Who’d give her any support against Schulmann? She couldn’t count on Walther or Bourdin, and not on Auer certainly. Now she was fighting mad.

But she realized she had to choose her words carefully. Claire had the tendency to overreact to criticism. Josefa cleared her throat, propped her elbows on the desktop, and clenched her hands into fists.

“I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have if I didn’t know what this company needs. You must believe me, Claire. You don’t get very far by just being nice or making eyes at somebody; you need different artillery. It’s important to know who’s on your side, who’s got your back when you need it.” Josefa stood up and adjusted the cuffs on her silk blouse.

Claire rose from her seat as well and half turned to the door. “As for Werner Schulmann, I know where I stand in spite of everything, Josefa,” she said, before walking out.

“I’m standing in the middle of the woods.”

Josefa heard birds chirping, children’s voices, some snapping and rustling.

“Are you stalking something?” she asked, getting a cup of tea from the kitchen. She had called Helene’s cell phone because her friend was always off somewhere, as an ornithologist or a hunter. In the fall she’d go to the mountains in the Canton of Graubünden to shoot game. In winter she was often in Borneo, Madagascar, or some other tropical bird paradise. When it turned warmer in Switzerland, Helene would climb fire ladders, venturing into the attics and chimneys of condemned houses and buildings to relocate bird colonies.

“I’m taking some schoolchildren through the woods,” Helene shouted.

“I absolutely must talk with you, can you hear?” Josefa yelled back.

“Today?”

“Any way we can.”

The background crackling grew louder, sounding like a herd of wild boars crashing through the underbrush.

“You know what, come up to the Dolder,” Helene suggested. “It’s nearby.”

Josefa hesitated. The famous Dolder Grand, renowned for its sublime site on a slope above the city, was the most expensive hotel for miles around.

Helene took her silence as a sign of agreement, adding, “Four o’clock in the bar,” before hanging up. Helene didn’t waste time on small talk.

Josefa finished her tea and dialed Stefan’s number. The sun’s feeble rays shimmered in the early summer air outside her window, its pale beams reflecting into Josefa’s room. His voice mail picked up.

“It’s me. I’ve been trying to get you since yesterday,” Josefa chattered away. “Today’s the first day of my vacation, but I’ve got a big hassle at the office. Nothing to do with St. Moritz, that all went well, very well, as a matter of fact. I’d just like to hear your voice again. I’m home this evening. Ciao.”

Stefan was seldom in when she phoned, which usually didn’t bother her. She’d decided to have this affair because Stefan was married, and a father, and didn’t want anything more from her than she was prepared to give. She was on safe ground with him; it was a passing relationship free of any anxiety over impending loss.

Before Josefa left for the Dolder, she glanced into the laundry room. Somebody was monopolizing both washing machines once again. She met a woman of indeterminate age on the staircase wearing a kaftan and a headscarf. Josefa had never seen her before, but that was not unusual as the tenants changed frequently on the lower floors. The city administration had been putting up asylum seekers on the second and third floors; some of the long-time tenants had protested to no avail. Josefa really couldn’t care less; she was traveling most of the time anyway.