Peter’s hands were clasped in front of his mouth, his elbows propped on his desk. He looked up at her, his eyes refocusing slowly, as if he were tired, or drugged.
‘A break?’ he asked, as if he didn’t know what the word meant.
‘Yes. Don’t you ever relax?’
‘Karen,’ he said, ‘we’re on Banking Procedures (ii). If you want to talk about relaxation, you’ll have to do it in your own time.’
‘You’re not that much of a machine, surely.’
‘I’m busy. I have fifty-five other things to do before we close down for the night. That’s all. It’s nothing to do with being a machine.’
‘Don’t you even drink coffee?’
Peter sat back in his revolving leather armchair, but his fingers still tensely gripped the edge of his desk.
‘Karen,’ he said, ‘are we going to finish this dictation or not?’
‘I only asked you a question out of human consideration,’ she told him. ‘You work with people, you want to know what they’re like, what makes them tick. Well, I do, anyway.’
‘What makes me tick is irrelevant to Banking Procedures (ii). It is also none of your business.’
‘All right. I didn’t mean to be offensive. I simply said that—’
Peter pressed the buzzer on his desk. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Fran Kelly, Karen’s own assistant, stepped in.
‘Mr Kaiser?’
‘Bring a steno pad and a sharp pencil. We have two hours of dictation to do.’
Karen sat up straight. ‘What goes on here? Just because I asked you a simple personal question—’
Peter stared at her, hard. ‘I’ll tell you what goes on here,’ he said, in a level voice. ‘What goes on here is work. Not talk. Not personal consideration. Not fraternisation. But work.’
Karen, pale-faced, stood up. ‘Work, huh? I suppose feeling my fanny by the water-cooler is work?’
‘Just leave my office,’ said Peter. ‘Type up whatever notes you’ve made so far, and make sure I get them before five.’
‘You’re not going to fire me?’
‘Why should I? When you’re not interrupting me with ridiculous questions, you’re good at your job. And besides, I don’t particularly want all the time-wasting hassle of sorting out your compensation.’
Karen slowly shook her head. ‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you’re real. I just can’t believe that you’re an actual human being.’
‘I assure you I am. Now, are you going to go type those notes before I change my mind about firing you?’
Karen was going to say something else, something spiteful and absurd and angry. But she managed to check herself and take a deep breath instead. She didn’t want to lose this job, not really; and a small, sane voice inside her said that Peter Kaiser was too thick-skinned to care about insults. He’d only enjoy the spectacle of her making her a fool of herself.
She closed her steno pad, smiled shakily at Fran, and said, ‘It’s all yours.’
‘And man the telephone,’ put in Peter, as she left the office. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed for the next two hours.’ Karen nodded, with mock-graciousness, and closed the door.
Back in her own office, a small windowless cubicle along the hall, decorated with nothing more than two postcards from Mount Shasta, Karen put down her pad, and leaned against the wall. She shouldn’t have let Peter shake her up like that. He was only a political office-boy, after all, and a cold-blooded s.o.b. to boot. But she could never get used to his abruptness, and his total lack of feeling. As one of her friends had remarked, you didn’t really object to Peter Kaiser fondling your backside in the corridor, because it was no more interesting than accidentally walking into the handle of an electric floor-polisher.
I could quit, she thought. I could tear up his goddamned banking procedures and stalk out. But that was why women failed in business. They took it too personally. Karen wanted to make it up the tree to those creaking branches where the heavyweights like Shearson Jones were perched, and walking out on Peter Kaiser wasn’t going to help her do it.
Just say after me: One day, Peter Kaiser, I’m going to fix your wagon. Then take seven deep breaths. Then sit down, take the cover off your self-correcting IBM and start typing up his fucking notes.
She had inserted the paper and aligned it and was all ready to start, when the phone rang. She picked it up and said smoothly: ‘Peter Kaiser’s office. Who’s calling?’
There was a ringing noise on the line, as if the call was coming from a long way off, then a voice said, ‘Is Senator Jones there? I’m calling long-distance.’
‘Senator Jones is at his office in the Senate right now. Peter Kaiser is his personal assistant. He’s here.’
‘My name’s Ed Hardesty, from Wichita, Kansas,’ said the voice. ‘I spoke with Senator Jones last night about the wheat blight.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well – I have some more information on the blight. Some really important scientific stuff. Do you think you could give me the Senator’s number?’
‘I could have him call you back. What did you say your name was?’
‘Hardesty. Ed Hardesty. Senator Jones used to be a friend of my father. Tell him it’s Dan Hardesty’s son.’ Karen could hardly hear Mm. ‘Do you have a message for Mm?’ she said, loudly.
‘The message is that the wheat blight is probably a virus of some kind… and that it’s attacking crops all over the country… the same kind of virus…’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Karen, ‘I just broke the point on my pencil. Now, what did you say about a virus?’
‘It’s the blight,’ repeated Ed. ‘The blight is spreading all over the country. Not just on wheat, but on com, and soybeans, and everything. The agricultural laboratory here in Wichita has already made tests… Dr Benson says the whole nation’s food supply could be at risk…’
‘Dr Benson? How do you spell that? Like Benson in Soap?’
That’s right. Like Benson in Soap. Now, do you think you could please pass that message on to Senator Jones, and have him call me? It’s very urgent.’
‘Okay,’ said Karen. ‘I’ll try.’
There was a fizzing sound, and then the call was cut off. Karen said ‘hello?’ a couple of times, but there was no answer, and she put the phone down. She glanced at the scribbled notes she’d made, and then she typed a message for Peter Kaiser.
‘Mr Ed Hardesty called from Wichita, Kansas, at three forty-five p.m.… he said that the wheat blight was probably a virus… and that it’s spreading all over the country on com, soybeans, everything. Dr Benson in Wichita has made tests, and says whole nation at risk.’
It was only when she had finished typing it that she realised the implications of what she had just written. She tugged the notepaper out of the IBM and re-read it. That was what the man had said, wasn’t it? ‘The blight is spreading all over the country. Dr Benson says the whole nation’s food supply could be at risk…’
The way Karen had heard the blight story on the news, it was nothing more than a minor seasonal problem affecting a few farms in the depths of Kansas. And who on earth ever worried about what went on in Kansas? But now, this Ed Hardesty had called to say that everything was blighted. Not just wheat, but everything. Karen suddenly felt unreal, and cold, and she read the memo over again, and couldn’t stop herself from shivering.
She was still looking at it when she heard a slight movement at her doorway. She looked around, and there was Peter Kaiser, leaning against the door-jamb, watching her. His face was expressionless, but the way he was standing, with one hand on his hip, somehow told her that he was more relaxed than usual.