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The Interview

The butterflies were having a merry dance in Kevin Kronig’s stomach, but he did his best to ignore them as he rapped softly on the highly polished wood. The murmur of conversation continued unabated on the other side of the door. Had they heard him? He looked back to the secretary, but her eyes stayed determinedly on her computer screen. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the handle, but in doing so noticed a white stain by the buttons of his cuff. His hand jerked back in horror. Why hadn’t he bought a new suit, or at the very least had this one dry-cleaned? He wet his thumb and attacked the mark, but it really didn’t improve matters, just turned it into a white stain within a larger grey smudge. He glanced nervously back at the woman behind the desk and found her watching him. Blushing furiously, he knocked again. This time, it sounded shockingly loud and the voices abruptly quietened. A moment later came the sound of movement, and then the door swung inwards, revealing a neat, bespectacled man with outstretched arm and amiable smile.

“Ah, Mr Kronig, welcome,” said the man as they shook hands. “I’m Arthur Trent. We spoke on the phone.”

Kronig mumbled something incoherent in reply and his gaze slid away from the pleasant expression to the gloomy interview room beyond. Four faces peered back at him from behind a long table, but it was hard to make out details.

With a touch, Trent ushered him into the room. “Please take a seat and make yourself comfortable.”

Kronig slipped off his jacket and set it over the back of the proffered chair. His shirt felt uncomfortably damp, and he just prayed that the gloom would hide any wet patches. As he sat down, the clammy material became uncomfortably sandwiched between his back and the chair’s cool leather and he struggled to conceal his discomfort. He jumped at the sound of the door closing, but Trent just smiled reassuringly at him as he made his way back to the empty chair on the far side of the table. Blushing again, Kronig turned to examine the dark wooden panelling of the walls. The meagre light was emanating from a softly glowing strip around the edge of the ceiling, and the only well-lit portion of the room was a small section of the panelling that had the benefit of its own illumination. It wasn’t a work of art held within though, but gilded words. The first line was eminently legible, but the rest was far too small to make out at a distance. 

“Yes, that’s us, the Bruberger Foundation,” said Trent. “The text below is Carl Bruberger’s original charter.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” said Kronig cautiously.

“No reason you should have,” the man said with a faint smile. “He was a wealthy American industrialist who died over fifty years ago. The Foundation was his legacy, although in truth that is precisely what he wished to avoid.”

“I’m sorry?”

“After his wife passed away, his energy and money were squandered on vain attempts to ensure that he never did.”

“He was trying to live forever? What exactly do you people do here?”

“Now, now, Mr Kronig,” chided Trent gently. “There will be plenty of time for questions later. Let’s try not to get ahead of ourselves.”

Kronig could do nothing but stare at the back of his hands as the blood rushed into his cheeks again; it seemed to be the theme for the morning. Noticing the glass of water just beyond his fingertips, he gently nudged it into its proper place. 

Trent cleared his throat. “Let me introduce the panel.”

With sinking heart, Kronig nodded and scanned the wall of faces set against him. Three men, two women, with pen and thick pad of paper in front of each, as well as a glass of water, but nothing touched and all still in perfect alignment.

“On my far right is Dr Gerard, who is head of the medical section. Next to him is Dr Francis, and she is in charge of our anthropologists. On my sinister side is Dr Slane, and she is responsible for our mental wellbeing. Finally, we have Mr Albright, who makes sure we never have enough money.”

Each nodded in turn as Trent introduced them, although Slane and Albright didn’t seem particularly happy about the light in which they’d been portrayed. Then came a moment of uncomfortable silence during which Kronig searched the faces for hints as to what lay ahead. He wondered who had been tasked with asking the evil questions, and whether his fate had already been decided.

Trent scribbled a few lines on his pad before looking up. “The five of us constitute the Board for this institution,” he said. “Today we’re here to interview for the post of personal assistant to Jon Blundell. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Kronig for coming in on such short notice. I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding us?”

Kronig shook his head, then feeling more was demanded, added, “It’s an impressive place you have here.”

“Yes, Duncluff Castle certainly is that,” agreed Trent. “The original keep was built in the early thirteenth century, but it has spread out quite a bit in the intervening eight hundred years. Sadly, it was almost destroyed by a fire a century ago and would have fallen into the sea if the Foundation hadn’t rescued it.”

Kronig mumbled something noncommittal. He couldn’t imagine how much money and influence it had taken to convert a historical site into the monstrosity it now was. As he’d walked down corridors that wouldn’t have been out of place in a modern office complex, he had seen the brutalist extensions encroaching on the castle’s spacious courtyard. From the outside, it all looked reasonably authentic, at least until you noticed the modest tinted windows in place of arrow slits and the reality that the curtain walls couldn’t obscure all the changes within. Even the gatehouse no longer boasted a portcullis; it had been gutted and outfitted with a glass-walled foyer replete with revolving doors.

“Can we just get on, please,” muttered the woman to Trent’s left.

Kronig inadvertently met her eyes, then felt her rummaging through the baggage in his head. He couldn’t help the flush which again threatened his cheeks.

Trent sighed. “Dr Slane is quite correct. We don’t have a great deal of time this morning.”

For the next twenty minutes, Kronig was accosted by the usual barrage of questions about his previous job, his goals and ambitions, even his hobbies. It was a repeat of the countless interrogations he’d been subjected to in the six months since his summary expulsion from the design studio. Despite the practice though, he was far from confident as the questioning wound down.

“My colleagues will undoubtedly have a final few questions,” said Trent. “But I’d like to give you the opportunity to ask about anything you’re unsure of.”

Kronig’s heart started beating faster and he had to take a sip of water to allay his suddenly dry mouth. “Well, I’m not entirely clear what duties would be required of me,” he said.

“You’d be assisting with Jon Blundell’s recuperation,” replied Trent.

“He has all the medical care he could ever wish for here,” added Gerard. “However, that isn’t the sum total of what we need for him.”

Kronig wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being someone’s personal helper, but this job paid well, suspiciously well. “What exactly is his condition?” he asked.

“He was in a motorboat accident some years ago and has some problems with his memory,” said Gerard.

“He’s a basket case, more like,” interjected Francis. “Used to be one of my finest researchers, but now can’t remember what happened yesterday let alone anything from before the accident.” She blushed furiously on catching the disapproving looks of her colleagues.

“We call it a fugue state,” clarified Gerard.

“I still don’t really understand what you’d want of me,” complained Kronig.

“Talk with him, form a rapport, that sort of thing,” said Trent.

It made little sense. What wasn’t being mentioned? Pessimism about the chances of being offered the job battled with anxiety about taking it.

“We offer a full relocation package,” said Albright, the accountant. “You would have your own office and full use of the recreational facilities.”

“A relocation package,” said Kronig carefully. “Even though the post is just for six months?”

“In the first instance,” said Trent with a smile.

Kronig nodded, but everything he heard just served to increase his unease.

“Oh, just one little thing,” said the other man. “I see no mention in your résumé of the year or so you took out from university, or the fact that you started at Cambridge but finished your degree at a, let us be kind and say, lesser institution.”

An icy hand caressed Kronig’s spine. He hadn’t been expecting this. Just how much checking up had they done on him, and why? “I didn’t think it was relevant,” he replied cautiously. “I had some personal issues and it suited me better to be in a less competitive environment.”

“Hmm, interesting,” said Slane, scribbling furiously.

Trent circled something on his own pad, then peered over the top of his glasses. “It’s all right, Mr Kronig. We’re not here to attack you. A final set of questions from my colleagues, I think.” He gestured to his right.

“Mr Kronig, have you any first aid training?” said Gerard. “For instance, do you know CPR?”

“Um, no,” he admitted. “Would I need to?”

Rather than getting an answer, the questioning passed down the line to Francis. “Mr Kronig, during your time out from university, you wrote a number of interesting articles concerning various doctrines,” she said. “What can you tell me about these?”

A punch to his stomach and he saw the job flutter away on his expelled breath. His mind blanked and he floundered for something to say, anything at all. But what came out was the truth. “I don’t remember,” he said, cheeks flushing. “Even now, I can’t read them. I had a breakdown or something and I wasn’t thinking straight. It was over ten years ago.” As his mind started to get back up to speed, he couldn’t begin to imagine how they’d linked those dreadful manifestos to him. They hadn’t even been in his name. But when he met the woman’s gaze, he saw no accusation there, just polite interest. He mentally prepared himself for her next question, determined not to be such an easy mark again.

However, it was Slane who picked up the shell. “What did you dream of last night?” she asked.

Given she was the head shrink, it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, but the disconnected questioning was leaving him quite unbalanced. He was about to say that he couldn’t remember when a dream came back to him. “I was standing on a riverbank, wondering how to get across,” he said. “There was someone on the far side, although I couldn’t see them properly. I wanted to be with them but they turned and walked away. I searched for stones to make a crossing but couldn’t pick any up, not even the smallest pebble.” He waited for her interpretation of the dream, but she just nodded and wrote something on her pad.

“Mr Kronig, we of course look at our prospective employee’s backgrounds rather thoroughly,” said Albright, the last in the row.

The interview had transformed into something dark and threatening, and if he hadn’t needed the money so badly, there would have been angry words and a slammed door. If they’d uncovered the obscure articles he’d written a decade ago on the Internet, under a different name no less, the present should provide no obstacle.

“You have a gambling problem,” said Albright. “That is the only reason you are here today. Are we assured that it won’t become a larger problem?”

Kronig floundered for words, stuck somewhere between anger and mortification.

“Right, I think we’re done here,” said Trent abruptly. “Thank you for coming in, Mr Kronig.” He got up and walked back around the table.

Kronig felt the ground drop away beneath him, but automatically rose to meet the other man. The handshake was rather perfunctory. “When will I hear?” he asked as though nothing untoward had happened.

“Oh,” said Trent. “I believe that we’re already decided.”

Embarrassed that he wouldn’t even be given the benefit of time and privacy to hear, Kronig retrieved his jacket from the back of the chair and shrugged it on. Feeling an aching dryness in his throat, he reached for the glass and drained the remaining water. “Thank you for your time,” he said, irritated to see amusement in Trent’s eyes.

“No, thank you for coming in,” replied the other man. “Your contract will be sent through in the next day or two. Someone from personnel will be in touch to discuss your start date.”

Kronig just stood there dumbly. “You’re hiring me?” he said at last.

“An ideal fit,” muttered Slane from across the table.

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