The Zurich Conspiracy

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