Borderless Deceit (23 page)

I saw it. I see it. I stare at it. It sears my vision
.

Is tearing out my eyes the only remedy?

Jaime studied each line and phrase. Peepholes into Carson's inner space. She had wanted this, yet having it, it now muted her. She imagined Carson's red-stained eyes. She touched her own. Like his, they had seen; they too felt singed.

More mundanely, the night was ending and her eyes really were exhausted. She rubbed them, but the diary page would not release her. She wanted to know more and swung over to another computer. An on-line search brought the El-Salamlek Palace up in an instant. She saw that, yes, it really was a palace, not large, but of a size and with a style that befitted its first occupant, a favourite concubine of an Egyptian king. In her tiredness, trying to form an image of the view from the top floor windows, Jaime had a vision too. Completing Carson's page she saw the launch arriving at the yacht. There on the lower deck stood a darkly handsome Morsi Abou-Ghazi with arms spread wide in welcome, as if accepting converts to his faith…

An hallucination. A mind playing tricks.

Jaime didn't like it, didn't want to observe what happened next, and with a start she was back in her lab, her head shaking. She grimaced at her stark surroundings. A dismal place for visions of Mediterranean sunsets with ships designed for romance. Time to quit. Get some rest. But one final bout of curiosity, one last thing to know, made her roll her chair back to the computer that crunched Carson's secrets. Swift key strokes dug out his diary page's antecedents.
Antony and Cleopatra
had been paired with
Gone with the Wind
. Two stories of passion with unhappy ends.

It sears my vision
. An expression of passion.

Tear out my eyes
. A prophesy for an unhappy end.

Jaime shut down – the computers, the whole day. Carson's classics had yielded answers, but all she really had were questions. An urbane Egyptian, a Berlin banker, a certain Rachel Dunn. And most intriguingly, Carson emotionally linked to it all.

“It didn't take long to figure out the banker was Nikko Krause,” Jaime was saying.

In a cocksure pose on a stool in my cell, she was telling me a story – my story – waving her hands up and down and sideways, setting her bracelets jangling. Sometimes she pointed at my chest. Gotcha! the gesture seemed to say, whereupon her laughter saturated our small space.

I listened in stony silence. The revelations laid me bare, drained me of resistance.

“Quite a man, Herr Krause,” she continued mischievously. “A wife. Four children. Quite a banker too. Talk about a Midas touch. No deal less than a hundred million. So tell me, what happened in Berlin? The attendance and leave records had that vague reference to you going there. Tantalising, but nothing specific. And your hard drive only had that one mention, you know, the poetic piece, the rhapsody, the view from the top floor of the Alexandrian palace. I'd like to know. What was so special about Berlin?”

Jaime's jesting tone scraped my psyche. “Nothing,” I replied. “Nothing happened in Berlin.” The disavowal came easy. My memories of the time spent there with Rachel were precious. To share them would be to soil them.

“I imagine he had charm. It's like that with bankers, right? The most corrupt do all the dazzling.” She rattled off some evidence of
Krause's tentacles reaching deep into many loathsome ventures on a global scale.

None of it was news to me and I scarcely listened. Jaime's spotlight on the years I always jealously kept secret was disorienting me. A distance was setting in between her voice and what my brain perceived. Syllable by syllable it grew more hollow until it was a distant echo only. I tried to analyse what was happening. Was my will to admit to nothing crumbling? Or was it escapism, pure and simple, that made me slump forward so far that I was staring at the floor? And was it desire for some kind of a release that caused me suddenly to see between my feet a chasm opening up? And why in the next split second, as blackness rushed in from the periphery, why did I see in that netherworld a form, an abstract monument, some kind of monolith, finely sculpted, brilliantly lit-up, beautiful yet menacing? I recall my shock at its perfection and how it seemed to threaten me. But threaten what? My future? My soul? My privacy? I recall I reached for the back of my chair, wanting to grab hold, fighting to stay up.

In vain. I groaned and the last I heard was Jaime's alarmed voice far away asking what was happening.

When I came to I was spread out on the floor with Jaime hovering over me, dabbing my forehead with a wet paper towel. “Take it easy,” she soothed. “Man! If corrupt bankers bug you that much, how do you cope with all the other slimebags running the world?”

I don't know how long it was until I spoke. Minutes? Probably longer. The monolith's stark and stunning form, its after-image, continued taunting me, although I couldn't then think why. Only now, with the tyrannies of all those years dispersed, is my perspective clearer. I believe the monolith was pointing at what was to come by forcing a crystallisation of what had been. Because with Jaime gazing down I suddenly beheld Rachel's Geneva years, when she was always travelling to Berlin, when she held ascendency over Krause. Those four years which she lived flawlessly, her full sensuality effortlessly kept in balance with her work, how those years had troubled me.

As Jaime probed the cause of my collapse, the details came back. And as she dabbed, with me flat on my back staring into her lively eyes, and while my spirit continued to be racked by spasms and my body trembled as if fighting a disease, and with my lips expressing what
was going through my mind, under Jaime's steady scrutiny I was transported back to when it began, to Geneva, to the boat on the lake…

Krause has made the arrangements for the boat on behalf of other international bankers who, like him, are in town for a conference.

It is a tranquil Sunday afternoon in spring. The Alps tower to the south, white-topped pewter pyramids, Mont Blanc rising the highest, all chiselled laser clear. The lake's shores seem painted in resurgent green. And the air is mixing, winter's grip being released from the water, the sun's new strength brought in on the breeze.

On deck there's mixing too. The bankers' invitation to go on the cruise was extended to finance ministers from poor countries. Scattered amongst them as well are some handpicked local diplomats and the odd UN heavyweight. At this early stage during the outing everyone is drinking Krause's champagne. As voices rise, the string quartet on the back deck jacks up the volume and the merry music spreads out across the water.

Rachel is there because she's been chosen to chair a UN committee for working up guidelines that will promote private sector financial flows to developing countries. The committee was her idea. She proposed it, argued for it, won a UN resolution that created it. And now the committee is on the boat. Because of her role, both here on the lake and for the week to come, she is being treated with deference. And she's dressed for the part, elegantly conservative, looking older than she is. A tan blazer, an elegant floral gold brooch on one shoulder, a brown-striped white blouse, a scarf with brilliant colours, beige slacks, simple shoes with heels, though not too much heel. The breeze plays in her hair, collaborating with the sun to tease out subtle ash-blond variations. Small diamond earrings animate the light. Rachel is a picture of great beauty, the greater because it is constrained.

Krause is doing introductions. He knows all the bankers and most of the ministers and has memorised the names of the UN crowd. In a correct accent – a touch of Oxbridge, no hint of German – he treats the outing as if it's a reception after an annual shareholders' meeting. He squeezes shoulders, pumps hands, listens, laughs freely and makes
everyone feel special. Rachel watches it. She sees his eyes flash, as if a switch flicks an inner intensity on and off. He's used to ruling, that's clear. The strong aristocratic nose, the precise short movements of his head, the lean body, the confident bearing, it all points to power. Even his hair – cut short like Caesar's – adds to the imperial air. Missing only a laurel wreath. She suspects much of Krause's show, the authority, the crisp ordering, is staged for her, because she's constantly at the centre of it.

“Ah, Samson, there you are,” he says. “Come here. Met Rachel Dunn? Our chair this week. Rachel, this is Samson Lenana, Finance Minister of Kenya.”

Lenana, a Masai, tall and thin with a rising forehead gleaming in the sun, towers over Rachel. With a broad grin he remarks she'll be presiding over the destiny of millions of poor people. If Krause sounds too close to being English to be English, somewhat the same is true for Lenana. His lazy drawl makes him sound almost American. Rachel, warm and friendly, like Lenana, politely disagrees with the African. It's not the meeting she will chair, but politicians afterwards doing something useful that will make the difference. Lenana nods then laughs heartily. Where in Kenya is he from? she asks. Narok is the reply. Lenana describes an administrative centre in Kenya's south, in Masailand. Rachel wants to know about Masailand, and in a sing-song voice he describes grassy plains, distant escarpments and bomas, the black circles of huts within which the Masai shelter their cattle at night from lions. And where is Rachel from? Oak Lake, she answers, telling him about the grassy plains there. No escarpments or bomas though. No lions either. Only gophers. In this way they discover they have open landscapes and soaring skies in common. Before Rachel can question the source of Lenana's drawl, Krause interrupts with an apology. All he can boast about as origin is soggy Schleswig Holstein. He takes Lenana by the elbow, steers him towards a Parisian banker and hauls the Pakistani minister into Rachel's presence.

About an hour into the cruise when the champagne's effect is optimal, Krause steps back to a railing and claps his hands loudly three or four times. A stillness settles. He makes a short speech about the committee's work that will begin next morning, about improving conditions for foreign investment so there will be more paid work,
better education and improved health in developing countries. He pledges support to Rachel Dunn, thanking her for accepting the task of leading them. His intensity switch seems to flick to
on
then, because he throws her a javelin-like look, part daring, part teasing. He seems to will the projectile to its target. Rachel calmly absorbs it before diverting her attention. The bankers and ministers raise their glasses. To the work of The Committee! Krause declares the buffet open.

The next day the committee settles down to work. Rachel – amicable, charming, confident but not assertive, her inner harmony in plain view – lays out the challenge for the week. When she asks the group, in the spirit of making the best use of valuable time, to avoid statements based on ideology, her eyes flirt with them. And would it be acceptable, she cordially asks, if she rules long-windedness out of order too? Her determination, though pleasantly expressed, is unmistakable. The bankers and the politicians, men used to having things their way, silently size her up. Rachel gives them a chance to protest. She surveys the room, offering a flattering smile each time she meets another pair of eyes. Not a sputter. A whole room seduced. Krause watches it. The second hand of the great clock on a side wall has barely gone round half a dozen times, but already the committee is compliant. Like horses they may stamp, or snort, or even squirm, but with Rachel at the reins they'll be pulling in formation.

Rachel announces she wants a small group –
friends of the chair
– to advise her on scheduling the week's work. Could the committee decide on them over the coffee break? An hour later in the corridor, with the delegates balancing their demitasses and hanging around in a circle, Krause artfully proposes Lenana to speak for the ministers of finance. This harvests the quick observation that he, Krause, should not be reluctant to assume the duty of representing the bankers. Both march over to Rachel to let her know they'll be assisting her.

As the week moves along Rachel sets a fast pace, veering around obstacles, keeping the team going, reaching the milestones. She really does seem to be a wagon master who, with a clicking tongue, is out to cross a continent. Krause and Lenana are her scouts and she listens to them about the routes available before making her decisions. As the days pass the bankers and ministers are buoyed by a sense that they are getting there, that despite the odds they'll be arriving.

Naturally, throughout the week the pasturage is excellent – lunches, receptions, dinners – a frenzy of eating and drinking. The chair and her friends, fresh from planning the next stage, often arrive together at the functions. The steady synchronisation of their ideas – and their schedules – has an impact. Each day there's more affinity. Rachel recognizes it from other committees she's been on, this growing camaraderie, this tightening into a clique.

At one dinner in a restaurant, just the three of them – Rachel, Nikko, Samson – as they huddle around a small table with heads together like conspirators, there's a sudden change as they spin a cocoon around themselves and become oblivious to other tables. Without a signal they shed their roles. No longer a wagon master; no more scouts. They transform and simply become fellow travellers. Nikko provides the impulse and Rachel reads it. There's a signal in his eyes, a switch gets thrown. A score of little wrinkles directed at Rachel proclaim,
Let's have some fun!

Why a diplomat? he asks her. Why isn't she a banker? She has a natural feel, an intuition, for the art of international finance. It's obvious from the way she's conducting the week. Nikko's stare is steady, almost hypnotic.

Rachel takes her time. She looks in Samson's direction. His grin says he'd also love to see her dressed up as a banker. Rachel's reply is deliberate. “The art of finance?” she observes with irony. “Spending a lifetime thinking only about making money? A black art, surely.” She slants her head and waits.