What a strange place for an interview, she said to herself as she crossed the thick wooden door guarded on both sides by two men in long black coats with a kippah on the top of their heads. Everything in this story was strange from the beginning.

The ad in the newspaper had surprising requirements for a simple secretary job. She would not have bothered to move that far from Gloucester if she thought she did not fit, and also if she had a choice.

A strong smell of alcohol assaulted her nostrils immediately, which was very surprising, she was thinking of applying to a bakery. She was beginning to regret her coming.

"This way." said the young man who preceded her, pointing to the barrel-lined path that seemed to lead to another room.

Without flinching she followed him. As she walked through the halls slamming her heels on the dusty floor, the light was a little weaker and, if there was no daylight that lit up her way a bit by the tiny windows at the bottom of the shed, she would probably have seen nothing.

Men bustled around barrels and beyond, around large vats, eying her generous figure in passing without addressing him any nod.

His guide finally stopped in front of a door that no direct light was reaching. He waited a few seconds for her to reach him and knocked carefully.

A sonorous and rocky "yeah" allowed him to open the door before passing his head through the crack.

"Your appointment Alfie, Miss ..."

"Sit her there, will you, Ollie?" His voice sighed, as if the person was exasperated by so many words.

With a nod to her, Ollie led the candidate into an office that was almost as dimly lit as the previous rooms, but the smell of rum was less strong and spicier.

Behind the desk sat a bearded man with broad shoulders and brown hair, wearing a wide ecru shirt hanging from his wrists adorned with bracelets, large hands, equally decorated with jewels, who wrote slowly on a piece of paper on which his face was leaning, he did not look up as she sat down.

At a glance around her, she noticed the windows that the dust made almost opaque around the room on the side, and through it recognized Ollie watching them, leaning against a wall.

When she looked at her host again, he was staring at her indecipherably, between the lamps that adorned his desk. An ounce of surprise crossed her face, but she held the man's gaze behind the glasses on the tip of his nose, neither of them bothering to smile.

"Can I help you?" He finally asked after a time that seemed endless, without letting go of her eyes.

Raising her eyebrows, she began to seriously wonder what she was doing there.

"It's up to me to ask you this, sir; I received this letter of convocation." She replied in a firm voice, with a noticeable foreign accent, by placing an envelope on the desk in front of her. The man watched her movement without blinking and then looked back at her.

"It's for the job?!" he exclaimed in an acute voice, "it must be a mistake ... I'm looking for a secretary, you see?" he added, narrowing his eyes.

She could not see, he realized to her face that mimicked his own puzzled expression.
He suddenly took off his glasses, which fell on the sides of his half-open shirt, and dropped back, into his seat.

"You see the desk behind you, yeah?" he asked, pointing at it, "this is where my secretary will work. You see the light of day here?" he asked, raising his hands to the sky.

These questions were quite serious to believe his face but the lack of consistency in his speech began to lose and annoy her.

"Excuse me, what's your point?" she asked with a sigh.

"Fuck ... she does not know. You do not know? Beautiful plants like you fade into a place like that, honey." He said with a sorry look, shaking his head.

Retaining her annoyance was almost a self-transcendence at this stage; she did not know how she managed to, probably restrained by the intimidating attitude of his interlocutor who had crossed his hands on his stomach, a smile on the corner of his lips.

"Listen, Mr Solomons, if the place is always free, as it seems, can you let me have this interview? At least I will not have come for nothing, you see?" she said with a cheeky air that made his smile grow wider.

"Am I wasting your time, Mrs. ...?"

"Miss Marchand." She snapped her accent easily recognizable by a man who had been to France. "Indeed, it would be more polite of you to come to the point."

"Oh ... You find me rude!" he exclaimed, opening wide eyes. "Rude, yeah? You could be more polite yourself, Miss Marchand. A smile to the man who could hire you in his successful bakery would not be too much to ask, would it?" he added, raising his voice.

His last words and the roar of his voice still rang in the room like a drum that goes away, suddenly making silent his guest, embarrassed by the reversal of the situation that had just occurred before her eyes.

Appreciating the effect, with an almost theatrical gesture Alfie Solomons slowly put his glasses on his nose, without taking his eyes off her, and leaned back on the paper on his desk. Picking up his pen, he scribbled something and then stopped.

"Your name, darling?" he asked calmly without looking up.

"Ariane." She said after a few seconds of hesitation, still frozen in disbelief.

The man wrote again and then handed her a thin bundle of documents which she seized without knowing why, before reading the first lines.

"You hire me?" she enquired, astonished.

"Not until you read all the clauses and sign knowingly, Miss Marchand, nothing in it is negotiable." He said with a serious look.

"May I ask you why?" She said slowly, uncertain that it was a good thing to do.

"Why you should not take this contract lightly?" His eyes widened again and he crossed his arms over his chest, carrying a hand to his beard that he rubbed gently, giving him a serious look of a teacher who is about to explain a difficult problem.

"Actually..." she started.

"Briefly, how did you land in this country?" he cut without even looking sorry.

With a resigned look, she answered after a few seconds, "I followed the wrong man, I guess."

"Yeah, well, here's the opportunity to learn from your mistakes."

"By...following the good man?" she asked, with an inch of irony in her voice.

"Fuck no! But the rules, yeah, they're good, they're the ones you'll follow, sweetheart." He stretched out his arms in front of him, laying his hands on his desk in a slam on the wood.

"Who made them?" What looked like a vague cynical smile stretched her lips as she clasped her hands on her lap.

At her expression, Alfie Solomons imitated her but his smile was much more pronounced behind his beard, giving his face a playful look. "Yeah ... I should have added one more it seems. Ollie!" He called, standing up, not letting her opportunity to raise a question.

It took her a few seconds to remember that the man he was calling had been watching through the windows behind her. Seconds during which she realized that she should quickly learn to read between the lines with a man like him. Seconds while she was observing the movements of this troubling man, opening a drawer and picking up something inside. Under the almost good-natured attitude he showed, she could not help feeling some kind of danger, and that confused her.

"Show the Mademoiselle her quarters, will you?" He said, handing a set of keys to the young man who had just entered the room, "and you, read carefully and sign, Mademoiselle Marchand." He added, pointing to the contract in front of her.

She stared at him with her big green eyes, trying in vain to understand if he was serious, then wondered what he meant by her quarters, but immediately gave up the idea of asking him, Ollie might be clearer about that. Grabbing the documents, she got up and walked to the door without a word.

"It seemed to me that French people had better manners, yeah ... everything is off the table ..." he harangued before she walked through the door, stopping her in her tracks.

"It will be done, Mr. Solomons, thank you for your time." She replied without a smile to his attention before continuing on her way, trying to sound impassive. He stared at her again with big eyes, as when she had entered, without showing better manners than hers. Alfie Solomons was definitely a mystery to her at that time, he and everything around him.

Ariane was still wondering what she was doing there, hoping only to find a place where she would be allowed to have a drink or two. This smell of rum had tickled her enough. She needed to take stock of what had happened, but strangely, she did not regret her coming after all.