At the farewell dinner

When Tomas announced that he was leaving the company, we made speeches about his courage. He smiled as if courage were a gift we had bought collectively and he did not wish to seem ungrateful. For years he had covered shifts for colleagues who called him dependable; now those same colleagues called him adventurous. Nobody mentioned the conversation in which he had asked for fewer hours and been told how much we relied on him. I had helped arrange the dinner. I knew which restaurant he liked, and I knew that he disliked speeches. Knowing the first fact had enabled me to ignore the second with a clear conscience. When my turn came, I described how often he had stayed late to help me. Tomas looked down at his untouched pudding. Afterwards he thanked me for organising everything. I began to say that we would miss him. Instead I asked whether he would like help carrying the presents to his car. He gave me the smallest of the parcels. We walked out together, and for once I did not tell him what sort of person he was.