The Gordian Knot

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GEORG WAS DRIVING HOME. He left the highway by Aix and took a back road. From Marseille to Aix there are no tolls, from Aix to Pertuis there is a charge of five francs: that’s a pack of Gauloises.

Georg lit one. The trip to Marseille hadn’t panned out. The head of the translation agency that sent him jobs now and then had had no work for him this time. “I said I’d give you a call if anything came up. Things are a bit slow right now.” Monsieur Maurin had assumed an anxious expression-what he had said might in fact be true. It was his agency, but he lived off jobs from the aircraft factory in Toulon, the Industries Aéronautiques Mermoz. When the joint European venture for a new fighter-helicopter in which Mermoz was involved stalled, there was nothing for Monsieur Maurin to translate. Or else he had once again tried to get better terms and Mermoz was teaching him a lesson. Or the factory had made good its long-standing threat and hired its own translators.

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