"Sir, a word with you, please."
I hold my step. Who talked to me? Those people gutting fish all look the same: blue plastic coats, hairnets, boots, face masks -- identical robots.
"Here sir, Susan."
"Ah. Yes Susan, what do you want?"
"Not now sir, too busy." We run the conveyor belt so fast that the six workers can just keep up. If one of them is slacking for a second, the others have to put in an extra effort.
"What time are you done? Please come to the office after hours."
"Half past five, sir."
"Then I'll see you at half past five."
"Are you planning a date, the two of you?" says the woman next to Susan, in the rich accent of the region. She surveys me from head to foot. "You don't want her, you should take me. A mature woman with experience. That's what you need, pretty boy." While teasing, her hands stay busy filleting.
I laugh faintly, but Susan can stand up for herself. "You keep it out of it, Aunt Winnie." Yes, of course, Aunt Winnie. A proper fishwife, in the best sense of the word: foul-mouthed, but with a big heart.
- - -
When Susan has a request, it means work for me. She is, without knowing the word, a self-appointed shop steward who is not afraid to speak her mind when she considers something is wrong. She started working with us directly out of school and now, four or five years later, she is a veteran. I must add that she has twice saved us from a major disruption, as well as preventing a strike once. If Susan wants a word with me, she is welcome.
- - -
She knocks on the door at a quarter to six.
"Come in. Sit down."
She is timid, not her usual assured self. She fumbles, obviously nervous, with a handkerchief.
"What can I do for you?"
She hesitates, takes a gulp of air. Softly: "I wanted to ask if you can do me a favor."
What a pity. So it is going to be a request for higher wages, or promotion. I'll have to fob her off with my little standard speech: that we should adhere to trade union wages, that if I advance one employee I will have them all at my back in a few months, that the current circumstances in our line of business do not allow me to...
She feels my disappointment. "No, something very personal." She still hesitates. Then she takes a deep breath and starts over: "Wednesday is my birthday. My twenty-first birthday..." With a wave of her hand she stops my obligatory remark, "... and I am still a virgin."
Now she has my full attention. It is obvious that she has rehearsed her story. Looking down at the hands plucking on her kerchief, her cheeks getting redder and redder, she continues: "I am not beautiful, I know. But I kept hoping for the Prince on the White Horse. A mixture of George Clooney and George Foreman, something like that. But now that I am getting twenty-one... that man does not show up any more. Or, if he appears at all, he will not even once look at me. Everybody tells me that by now I should be having a husband. All the girls from my High School class are already married, you know. So, I am past due. My parents want me to choose between a fisherman's mate, who is ugly, or a grocer, who is fat."
I feel her pain. She is the daughter of a fisherman with his own ship. Marrying a mate, ugly or not, is a big step down the social ladder. And if the grocer is the one that I think it is, well... I would not want to marry him, however desperate I might be.
She raises her head a second, looks me in the eye. "Mind you, I don't complain. If this is the Lord's will, so be it. I had only hoped that I would loose my virginity to a handsome, experienced man. Just once in my lifetime...."
She stops talking, looks down at that handkerchief. I look surreptitiously at her. Indeed, she is not beautiful, not even pretty. Big-boned, chubby (or, frankly, just fat), wispy half long brown hairs, big nose, cheap clothes. I cannot discern her figure, the way she sits bent over, but she never attracted my attention before. I must confess that I tend to look at that, in my female staff.
We both remain silent for a while. I think I know what direction she is heading for, but I want to hear it from her own mouth. "And so?"
She heaves a sigh. "I hoped that you would... that you could...." Clearly, her script fails her.
"Do you want me to find a husband for you?"
She shakes her head, still looking down. I feel sorry for her, but I definitely do not want to be accused, later, of taking the initiative.
Her cheeks are now scarlet. She whispers: "Would you please... deflower me?" Once the word has been said she is able to return to her script. "It's part Aunt Winnie's doing, you know. She calls you a pretty boy. And that made me look. You are, indeed, handsome, and a man of the world. You've been married and you are now divorced." She marshals her thoughts. "You are the kind of man that could give me... pleasure. Not wham bang, thank you ma'am, like a boar with a pig... you have style."
Now she looks directly at me. Not so much like a beggar, more like a negotiator. "Just this once, and then I will never bother you again."
"Well, thank you for the compliments, but no. I just cannot do that. I am your boss, it is against the law." How do I explain to a girl that guts fish for a living that doing a thing like that would be morally unjust? Abuse of power, abuse of my position. My ex-wife, my sisters, my associates would gut ME, and with pleasure, if they heard about me doing a thing like that.
"Nobody needs to know about it. We could do it here in the office..." she looks doubtfully at the door with the big window in it "... maybe after hours..."
She is immediately belied. It is almost six now and, just like any evening, the foreman of the afternoon shift comes to report. He steps into the office without knocking, looks curiously at Susan, who is in his team this week, but he says nothing. In a company with just 26 employees anyone is invited into the manager's office now and then.
"Everything is clean, sir, the truck departed well on time." He pauses a second and then continues in another tone of voice: "The conveyor belt derailed twice this afternoon. We did get it running again, but I am afraid that somebody should come over and look at it. Every time it derails it takes us at least a quarter of an hour to get it back on track again. Fortunately it was a quiet afternoon."
I heave a deep sigh. "Yet another loss."
He shrugs. "Yes, it is an old machine. The best thing you could do, in my opinion, is have the belt integrally replaced."
Yeah, sure. It is not his money. A job like that takes at least forty thousand -- two months of profit. "Well, I will look into it. Thanks for the warning, anyway. Anything else?" He shakes his head. "Then I wish you a pleasant evening."
"Thank you sir, you too." Then, not much interested: "You as well, Susan."
"Bye Joe, have a good night."
He looks at her for a second, shrugs again, turns and walks out of the office.
Silently we watch him depart. Once he is out of earshot Susan says, businesslike: "Not twice, but three times."
"Say again?"
