Chapter 2
The Question Before the Answer
Naoko refused to participate until Imani had been given a real chance to decline.
She said it in English so nobody could mistake the condition for a private arrangement.
Graham looked offended.
“Nobody is forcing her.”
“Then she can have five minutes away from the table.”
Imani went to the staff corridor with Nia. The corridor smelled of coffee grounds and warm bread. It was strange to be offered a sum that could change her life while standing beside the same broken hook where she hung her coat.
“You can say no,” Nia said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Imani laughed once, without humor.
“Not entirely.”
Nia leaned against the opposite wall.
“What do you want from the test?”
The money, Imani thought immediately. A repaired bathroom for Walter. The balance on the car. Training without counting every shift before paying the fee. A future that did not feel like a chair balanced on two legs.
She also wanted Graham to hear her finish a sentence without deciding in advance how much it could mean.
“I want the terms clear,” she said.
Nia took the tray from her and set it on the corridor shelf.
“You don't have to hold something while you think.”
Imani looked at her hands.
“Apparently I do it a lot.”
“You do.”
For a minute they listened to the kitchen through the door. Marta was asking who had moved a pan. Somebody denied responsibility too quickly. The sounds made the proposal at the table seem less believable.
“If I say yes, they'll think I'm greedy,” Imani said.
“Some people will.”
“If I say no, I'll spend years wondering.”
“Probably.”
She laughed.
“You're terrible at reassurance.”
“I'm trying to be good at being here.”
Nia had enrolled in an evening course the previous autumn. Imani had covered two shifts when examination dates changed. Neither had treated that as a dramatic act of solidarity. They had been tired women checking calendars and finding a way through.
Now Nia asked whether Imani wanted the manager in the corridor. She said no. She wanted the terms, time to read, and someone who would stop the recording if the exercise changed into something she had not accepted.
“I can do that,” Nia said.
Imani breathed out and checked her phone. Noah's message concerned a broken link on the audition form. A problem from the life she would return to after the table stopped watching.
She answered it before going back, relieved that one question still had a next step.
At the table, Graham's counsel, Peter Voss, had joined by video. He asked whether Imani was staking money of her own. She said no. The promise would be Graham's, made in exchange for completing the agreed demonstration, with no financial risk to her if she declined or failed.
Naoko and her colleague, Ryo Ishikawa, would assess conversational comprehension and the reading of an ordinary modern passage. They would not test specialist vocabulary or ask her to authenticate an object. The exercise would last ten minutes. Their conclusion would be recorded in writing.
“No endorsement of the collection,” Imani added. “And no permission to use my face in advertising.”
Peter looked briefly away from his camera.
“Those are sensible distinctions.”
Graham tapped his glass.
“Can we get on with it?”
Copies of the terms reached Imani's phone and the witnesses. She read hers twice. With everyone's agreement, Nia recorded the exercise from a position that excluded other diners and private documents not intended for the test.
Then Naoko began in Japanese.
She asked about Imani's day.
Imani almost laughed. She had expected something designed to expose her. Instead, she described the damaged account book, the difficulty of removing adhesive without disturbing the paper, and the pleasure of finding a penciled calculation beneath an old repair.
“You work with books?” Naoko asked.
“As a trainee. I still need supervision for most treatments.”
“And you learned Japanese for that?”
“I learned it because a neighbor let me sit in her shop after school. She made me ask for biscuits properly.”
Ryo smiled.
They discussed the harbor, a train journey in Nagoya, and a mistake Imani had made when first trying to rent a bicycle. She asked Ryo to repeat one question. He did, without treating the request as a failure.
For the reading, he selected a short printed note concerning an exhibition schedule. Imani explained its meaning and the conditions attached to a delivery date.
At ten minutes, Naoko stopped the recording.
“She has demonstrated the proficiency we agreed to assess,” she said in English.
Ryo confirmed it.
Graham raised his glass.
“Well. Congratulations.”
Imani waited until they had written the conclusion.
Then Naoko opened the auction folder and frowned at a different page.
“This,” she said quietly, “is the letter I was asking about.”