Standing at Anka the Receptionist’s desk, Kordian wondered if he should risk making a fool of himself and ask for the voucher. There was a lot at stake. If he got it right, he’d come across as brilliantly prepared, totally clued up about Żelazny & McVay’s corporate culture. If he went over and said, ‘Good morning, I’d like a Hooker and Snooker voucher please’ and had judged it right, people would talk about him as the bright new boy who knew all about the firm’s traditions even before his first day. If on the other hand, Chyłka had set him up, he’d be a laughing stock.
‘Good morning. I was here yesterday,’ he said meekly, hoping this would explain everything. Clearly, all guns blazing wouldn’t have been the right approach.
The receptionist narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose.
It occurred to Kordian that every time he opened his mouth, he was breathing out fumes from the Davidoff he had just smoked. He should have thought to chew some gum on the way over – the extra-strong sort that burned out your insides – but he’d been so distracted by that crazy woman that he didn’t even have time to think.
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Anka indifferently from behind the reception desk, then fell silent.
He wondered how many newbies like him stood in that spot every week. Probably around ten, of whom only one or two would make it through; the rest would decide that staying on to work from dawn till dusk and be pushed around was simply not worth it.
He cleared his throat, deciding that he had better speak, because Anka the Receptionist was saying nothing, and what little interest she had was rapidly vanishing.
‘I’ve come for the voucher,’ he ventured.
‘The what?’ asked Anka, frowning. Then, ‘Go to the second room on the left, the one marked HR. They’ve got the paperwork.’
Kordian nodded and smiled, although he thought he had done all the paperwork the previous day. He walked off towards HR, pleased that he had not mentioned the hooker thing after all. He had taken the middle path – perhaps that was the way to survive in this place.
He knocked on the door marked HR, glancing quickly down the corridor. It was so bright it could have been a hospital. Everything was ecru in colour – that is, not really any colour at all. There were a few plant pots dotted around, but they were full of weeds, with no flowers in sight. Sunlight flooded the space, reflecting off the glass walls wherever he looked; the overall impression was one of dazzling brilliance.
It was a good few minutes before someone opened the door. Kordian had imagined the room as a hotbed of evil, full of people devising ever more ingenious ways to force colleagues out of their jobs. Not easy in a law firm where most employees were familiar with employment law, where everyone knew that if you simply claimed not to have seen your dismissal notice you’d be untouchable; that if the notice wasn’t delivered, it was null and void. He wondered whether companies such as Żelazny & McVay outsourced the firing of employees – but then again, the bosses probably liked to retain control over everything that happened within their walls.
‘Oryjski?’ asked a man in a suit so tight you could see his ribcage.
‘Oryński,’ the young man corrected him.
‘Come in and sit down. I haven’t got all day.’
It was time to get a grip, Kordian decided. That lawyer was one thing, but he wasn’t going to let this pen-pusher intimidate him. He sat down on the chair in front of the desk, crossed his legs, folded his arms and looked up expectantly.
The clerk knew that look all too well. He had seen it in the eyes of all those would-be legal heroes who felt they were about to set the world on fire now their studies were finished and their official training had begun, and that the world was their oyster.
Perhaps it had been their oyster once, years ago, when the commercial, energy and new technologies sectors were crying out for good lawyers. But now there were no new areas left to exploit.
‘Sign here, here and here,’ he said, pushing several documents towards the young man.
‘OK,’ Kordian replied, leaning over the first sheet of paper. The clerk raised his eyebrows.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Reading.’
‘You’re supposed to sign them, not read them,’ grumbled the clerk, taking a gulp from his Starbucks mug. He glared at the silent Kordian. ‘Oh, just do it, neither of us has time for this.’
‘I need to read it before I sign,’ retorted Oryński, but with little conviction. The clerk shook his head and sighed. For a moment they both sat in silence.
Not wishing to make a fool of himself, Kordian signed where he had been told.
If he had looked more carefully at the text, perhaps he would have noticed that his mentor was to be Joanna Chyłka. Perhaps then he could have done something to change the arrangement, or thought twice before signing. Perhaps then fate would have prevented him from descending into the maelstrom, into events which were to change his life.
‘Excellent,’ grunted the clerk, gathering the papers into a slim stack. He tapped them several times on the desk and put them into a file with Kordian’s name on it. ‘You’ll be working in the room for interns.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Normally trainees work in the office with their mentor, or next door to them, but that’s not what your mentor wants.’
‘So I’m to sit . . . now hold on a moment, this must be a mistake,’ Kordian objected.
Dark thoughts filled his mind. Memories of long hours cramming for exams, burning the midnight oil, taking anything and everything that could possibly help him get through those papers . . . and all of that to sit with interns? He’d have been better off going for the quiet life in some measly law firm in the suburbs.
He had chosen the legal behemoth Żelazny & McVay because they offered something unique: they had a knack for injecting new life into the driest of laws. In theory, every legal trainee had a mentor. In practice, however, few mentors even knew what the trainees looked like, and trainees rarely had anything to do with the people officially looking after them. But he’d been led to believe that things were different at Żelazny & McVay. Here there was supposed to be genuine cooperation between mentor and mentee.
Suddenly, he realised exactly who his mentor was.
‘Did I get Chyłka?’
‘Well, aren’t you catching on nicely!’ said the clerk. He cleared his throat, opened a drawer, pulled out yet another piece of paper and placed it before Kordian with a flourish. ‘Your Hooker and Snooker voucher. And now, to work. I hear your first client’s a psychopath.’