The heavy, sweet, cheap perfume filled the hallway, ruining the fresh scent of a September afternoon streaming in through the window. When Edit smelled it, she would have preferred to retreat back into her office. Her already sensitive nose was further challenged by her condition. It wasn’t just the smell that repulsed her but also the type of person who wore such a scent. She was bothered by the incompetence and pretentiousness of her clients. She was too tired and irritable to sit for long in the company of the couple. The wife didn’t even need to open her mouth for the attorney to know that this wouldn’t be easy. Yet, a land sale shouldn’t have been such a burden. Edit had promised herself that during her pregnancy, she would only take on cases that could be handled on autopilot. Someone like her had no choice if she wanted to take care of both the baby and herself. And indeed, Edit worried about something from morning till night. Stress filled her every day; she was incapable of relaxing. Fortunately, the growing baby inside her was not bothered by any of this in the least, developing exactly by the book.
She didn’t want to sit with her clients until the buyer arrived, as she would have to breathe in the cologne-like scent that was slowly starting to mix with the husband’s equally strong aftershave. For the couple living in the remote village, going into town was a big event, especially to see a lawyer. They had bathed, put on their finest clothes, and wore shoes they only pulled out from the bottom of the closet for big events.
“Did you write down that we only accept cash?” the assertive wife started the conversation in a sharp tone. “Because the little lady already tried to convince me to transfer the money to a bank account, but no way! Why should I pay to get my own money?”
“I prepared the contract as we discussed. Don’t worry! We’ll sign it, and in a month, the money will be yours.”
She would have liked to add that they could sew it into their mattress, but she restrained herself. She was hungry, tired, her stomach was churning from the nauseating perfume, and she felt like she was going to explode with tension.
“I just don’t know what these young people today think,” continued the woman grumbling. “Do they think we are fools who will run to the ATM?”
At that moment, the “little lady” also arrived. The buyer was the complete opposite of the couple. Young, reserved, elegant, and yet she inexplicably evoked antipathy in Edit.
“Look it over, then we can start signing. Make sure to sign on all thirteen pages. There are seven copies,” she instructed the group. “If any information is incorrect, let me know, and we’ll correct it.”
The couple quickly flipped to the payment terms. They wanted to see it stated clearly: once the land office approved the contract, they would receive their money in fresh, crisp banknotes.
The lawyer impatiently waited for her office to finally empty so she could get this case over with.
She had to summon all her strength to let her clients in. She hoped she was well-prepared to blame the buyer for any mistake. She wouldn’t blame herself for such a foolish error. She kept them waiting a bit longer in the drizzling November rain, just to make them feel how busy she was.
“What on earth are they doing over there?” screeched the heavily made-up woman. “What’s not right with them?”
The buyer said nothing, asked no questions.
“You told me you’ve been living here for years,” Edit addressed her reproachfully to the buyer.
“How could I have said that?” she replied in a detached tone. “You can see from my address card that I moved to the area only a year ago.”
“But didn’t you say you were from around here?”
“You must be confusing me with someone else.”
With the sellers, she achieved what she wanted; they looked daggers at the “little lady,” who seemed to be nothing but trouble. They weren’t concerned that the lawyer had mentioned something in the contract’s accompanying documents that didn’t even exist. Edit believed the couple had no idea what the right of first refusal was. The land they were selling was inherited, and their only concern was to get rid of it as soon as possible for cash.
Edit wasn’t concerned about the buyer’s emotional state. She was too repulsed by the young woman.
“Okay, once you’ve signed again, I’ll take it to the land office immediately. There shouldn’t be any more problems now.”
Her hand was trembling. How could she have been so stupid? And why didn’t those people in the office speak up the first time? She couldn’t blame anyone else for this. But she would preserve her dignity at all costs. After all, she was the lawyer, and they were just clients out there on the street who didn’t have a law degree. They might not even have a flawless elementary education. And Christmas was approaching, so even if she submitted it soon, no one would deal with the contract at the land office until January. She pressed the button to let the three people in, who were already beginning to haunt her nightmares.
Calmly, she explained the reason for the new rejection, briefly apologized, and put another pile of papers in front of them.
“This isn’t good for me,” the buyer said coldly. “If I can’t start cultivating it in time, I don’t want it. I don’t want to waste a year.”
The sellers rolled their eyes, and Edit felt dizzy. The last thing she needed was for the unsympathetic woman to start dictating the pace to her. She froze for a moment. Under the table, she instinctively put her hand on her belly, as if expecting help from her unborn child. She didn’t want her despair to show on her face.
The woman wrapped in a cloud of sugary perfume pulled out a market vendor’s style that would put even them to shame to prevent the impatient buyer from backing out. The lawyer bought herself some time and came up with a solution acceptable to everyone. This way, only the buyer would be a problem for a short while, at most two months, but she could endure that.
That’s it, it’s all over. All her dignity had fallen to the ground. She no longer wanted to be superior; she just wanted to go home, forget the whole thing, and get rid of the irritating “little lady.” Her tears mixed with her snot, and she burst out crying loudly after accidentally messing up the documents to be submitted once again. The baby could be born at any moment, and instead of picking out baby clothes, she was sitting in the office with this woman, whom she would have liked to throw everything on her desk at, one by one.
“I’ve never had this happen in my life! I never made a single mistake, let alone four times! I couldn’t even submit this one-page document without errors; I’m completely exhausted.”
The buyer’s heart sank for the desperate and visibly exhausted lawyer.
“Don’t be upset, but I think this is rather funny. Don’t cry either; it’s not good for the baby. We will cultivate the land; the rest doesn’t matter. If it takes a year to finalize, then so be it. We should have no bigger problems. I’m sure we’ll put an end to this matter soon.”
Edit, who was accustomed to clients’ outbursts and officials’ pointless nitpicking, was surprised at how differently the “little lady” viewed the world. True, this didn’t help with the fact that she felt professionally shattered by so many mistakes, but deep down, she agreed with the buyer. The baby was healthy; nothing else mattered. She wouldn’t see this woman much longer, and then, as long as she could, she would spend time with her child.
Neither of them could have imagined that it would indeed take a year, or even a total of a year and a half, for the land to be transferred to the buyer’s name.
Had all this not happened, she might still be working as a lawyer, irritably smelling indigestible colognes and aftershaves that expired ten years ago, occasionally spiced with the scent of sweat.
She loved minerals, and jewelry-making was the best relaxation for the young mother. She learned how to manage the webshop much faster than she would have thought. She only dealt with clients online, no longer caring who the buyer was. Sympathy no longer mattered.