The Black Path (10 page)

I
NNA
W
ATTRANG:
That was very unusual at the time, trading in securities. Not like nowadays.

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG:
And Mauri was very good.

I
NNA
W
ATTRANG
[
leaning forward with a teasing smile
]: And Diddi talked his way in.

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG
[
giving his sister a playful push
]: “Talked his way in!” We became friends.

I
NNA
W
ATTRANG
[
pretending to be serious
]: “They became friends!”

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG
: And I put in a little capital…

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: Did you get rich?

Half a second of silence.

Oops, thought Anna-Maria, trying to drink the coffee Rebecka had sneaked in with. It was far too hot. You mustn’t talk about money. It’s vulgar.

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG
: By student standards, yes of course. He had such a good instinct, even in those days. Bought big in Hennes & Mauritz in 1984, hit the bull’s-eye with Skanska, Sandvik, SEB…his timing was perfect nearly all the time. At the end of the eighties a lot of the market was about commodities, and he was a demon for finding the next thing that was going to go up in value. Property became important when we were about halfway through our studies. I remember when Anders Wall came and gave a lecture, and advised us all to buy property in inner-city Stockholm. By that time Mauri had already moved out of his student room, bought a rental contract, converted it to a tenancy agreement, and had a two-room apartment that he lived in himself and two one-room apartments that he rented out, and the difference between them gave him enough money to live on.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: The press call him the whiz kid, the prodigy, the financial genius from nowhere…

I
NNA
W
ATTRANG
: He’s still the same. Long before China got involved, he was prospecting for peridot in Greenland. Then he had both LKAB and China down on their knees begging to buy the deposits.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: Perhaps you could explain to those of us who are not familiar with the story.

I
NNA
W
ATTRANG
: You need peridot to make iron into steel. He realized before anybody else that the steel market here was just going to go through the roof when China got involved.

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG
: He was absolutely sure of China. Long before everybody else.

It’s February 1985. Diddi Wattrang is in his first year at Business School. He’s not a natural student. But the pressure from home has been considerable, both on him and on his teachers. His mother has invited the ladies of the area to the summer concert which is held at the beginning of August every year, outdoors of course, you don’t let just anybody inside the house. For those who have been invited it is still one of the high points of the year; they are happy to pay the small amount for their ticket; after all, the money always goes toward the maintenance of the cultural and historical value of the house, it’s almost a charitable cause, there’s always a roof that needs repairing and walls to be replastered. And as they’re mingling afterwards, Mama makes a point of saying firmly to Diddi’s French teacher: “The family regard him as a very gifted student.” Papa is on excellent terms with the principal of the school, but the principal knows it’s a question of give and take. It’s nice to be friends with the lord of the manor, but of course it doesn’t come free.

Diddi has got through high school somehow, cheating a little here, borrowing there. You can always find hardworking but dull people who will exchange help with essays and exams for a little bit of attention. A win-win deal.

He does have one talent, does Diddi. He’s easy to like. Tilts his head to one side so that his long blond fringe isn’t in his eyes when he’s talking to someone. Genuinely seems to like everyone, especially the person he’s talking to at the time. Laughs with both his mouth and his eyes, reaching out and touching people’s hearts with such care and ease.

Now it’s Mauri Kallis’s turn to feel chosen and special. It’s a Wednesday evening and they’re hanging out in the student bar. It’s as if they’ve been friends for ages. Diddi ignores a pretty blonde girl who’s sitting and laughing just a fraction too loudly with her friends a little way off, glancing in their direction. He says hi to loads of people who come over and want to chat. But that’s all; this evening does not belong to them.

Mauri is drinking a bit too much, the way you do when you’re nervous at first. Diddi is keeping up with him, but he can tolerate it better. They take it in turns to buy. Diddi has a little coke in his pocket. Just in case the opportunity arises. He’s playing it by ear.

But actually, this guy is not completely without interest. Diddi talks about selected highlights of his childhood. The pressure from his father to study. The outbursts of rage and the humiliating words when the exams had gone badly. He admits openly and with a laugh that unfortunately he’s just a ditzy blond, and doesn’t belong here.

But then he defends his father. He’s got his own baggage, of course. Brought up in the old school, had to stand in the doorway and bow to his father, Diddi’s grandfather, before he was granted permission to come in. There weren’t too many cuddles, sitting on Daddy’s knee.

And after offering these initial confidences, he begins to dig and to ask questions. And he watches Mauri, this skinny guy whose trousers are too big, who wears cheap shoes and a beautifully ironed shirt made of such thin cotton you can see the hairs on his chest through it. Mauri, who carries his course books in a supermarket carrier bag. He doesn’t spend his money on material things, that much is clear.

And Mauri talks about himself. He did a break-in when he was twelve, and got caught. He talks about the social worker who made him pull himself together and start studying.

“Was she pretty?” asks Diddi.

Mauri lies and says yes. He doesn’t know why. Diddi has to laugh.

“You really are full of surprises,” he says. “You don’t look much like a criminal.”

And Mauri, who tells half-truths and chooses what he’s prepared to talk about, doesn’t say a word about the fact that it was a gang of older boys, his foster brother and his pals, who sent him and some other younger kids who weren’t old enough to be charged to do the crap jobs.

“What does a criminal look like?” he asks instead.

Diddi looks slightly impressed.

“And now you’re the college star,” he says.

“Just about passed Business Studies,” says Mauri.

“But that’s because you study the stock market instead of anything else. Everybody knows that.”

Mauri doesn’t reply. Tries to attract the barman’s attention to order two more beers, feels like a dwarf who’s being ignored, trying to be seen over the top of the bar counter. In the meantime Diddi takes the opportunity to smile at the blonde and gaze into her eyes. A little investment for the future.

They end up in a club, in the packed bar, paying three times as much for their beer.

“I’ve got a bit of money,” says Diddi. “You should invest it for me. Seriously. I’m willing to take the risk.”

Diddi doesn’t quite have time to work out what it is he sees in Mauri. A split second where he kind of straightens up, switches to a sober section of his brain, checking, analyzing, reaching a decision. In time Diddi will learn that Mauri never loses his judgment. Fear keeps him alert. But it passes so quickly. Mauri gives a slightly drunken shrug.

“Sure,” he says. “I take twenty-five percent, and as soon as I’m tired of it you can take over yourself or sell, whichever you want.”

“Twenty-five percent!” Diddi is completely dumbfounded. “That’s profiteering! How much do the banks take?”

“Go to a bank then, they’ve got good brokers.”

But Diddi says okay.

And they laugh, as if everything is just a joke, really.

The program editors have included Mauri Kallis’s arrival at the interview. In the lower right-hand corner of the picture you can see Malou von Sivers’s hand rotating briefly, “keep rolling,” to the person behind the camera. Mauri Kallis is slender and short, like a stiff schoolboy. His suit is a perfect fit. His shoes are shiny. His shirt is white, these days they’re tailor-made in heavy, top-quality cotton, anything but see-through.

He apologizes to Malou von Sivers for his late arrival, shakes her hand, then turns to Inna Wattrang and kisses her on the cheek. She smiles and says, “Master!” Diddi Wattrang and Mauri shake hands. Somebody produces a chair, and all three of them are sitting with Malou von Sivers in front of the camera.

Malou von Sivers goes in softly to begin with. She saves the difficult questions for the later part of the interview. She wants Mauri Kallis to feel comfortable, and if the interview goes wrong it’s best if it happens at the end when they’re done.

She holds out the copy of
Business Week
from spring 2004 with Mauri on the cover, and a center spread from the financial section of one of the major dailies. The newspaper article’s headline is “The Boy with the Magic Touch.”

Inna looks at the newspapers and thinks it’s a miracle those articles were ever written, since Mauri refused to give interviews. In the end she got him to agree to the photographs. The photographer from
Business Week
chose a close-up shot with Mauri looking down at the floor. The photographer’s assistant dropped a pen and it rolled away. Mauri followed it with his eyes. The photographer took a lot of pictures. Mauri looks lost in thought. Almost as if he’s praying.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: From problem child to all this [
she moves her head to encompass the Regla estate, his successful business empire, a beautiful wife, the whole lot
]. The image we have of you is very much like a fairy tale; how does that feel?

Mauri looks at the pictures and hardens himself against the feeling of self-loathing they bring out in him.

He’s everybody’s property. They use him to prove their ideology is the right one. The national confederation of Swedish industry, Svenskt Näringsliv, invite him to speak. They point at him and say: “Look. Anybody can succeed if they want to.” Göran Persson mentioned his name on television recently during a debate on youth crime. After all, it was a social worker who put Mauri on the right path. The system works. The Swedish welfare state is still there. The weak have a chance.

It sickens Mauri. He wishes they’d stop bloody using him, pawing at him.

He lets nothing show. His voice remains calm and friendly. Perhaps a little monotonous. But he isn’t sitting there because he has a charismatic personality, Diddi and Inna can take care of that.

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
I don’t feel…like a character in a fairy tale.

Silence.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
[
trying again
]: You’ve been described in newspapers abroad as “The Swedish Miracle,” and been compared with Ingvar Kamprad.

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
Well, we both have a nose in the middle of our face…

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: But there’s something in that, surely? You both started with nothing. Succeeded in building up an international company in a Sweden which is regarded as…difficult for new businesses.

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
And it is difficult for new businesses, the tax laws favor old money, but there was a chance to build up some capital in the transition from the eighties to the nineties, and I took it.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: Tell me about that. One of your contemporaries at the Business School said in an interview that you didn’t like the idea of just using up your student finances, “eating them up and then crapping them.”

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
That was rather coarsely put. And I wouldn’t wish to use language like that in this context. But yes, that’s true. I’d never had so much money at once before. And I suppose that brought out the entrepreneur in me. Money ought to work, be invested. [
He allows a glimpse of a fleeting smile.
] I was a real stock market nerd. Always had a copy of the latest stock market reports in my briefcase.

D
IDDI
W
ATTRANG
: And you read the Swedish version of
Business World, Affärsvärlden
.

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
At that time it had edge.

M
ALOU VON
S
IVERS
: What did you do next?

M
AURI
K
ALLIS:
Well, then…

Mauri’s student corridor consists of eight rooms with a shared kitchen and two shower rooms. A cleaner comes in once a week, but you still wouldn’t want to walk on the kitchen floor in your stocking feet. You can feel crumbs and garbage right through them, and here and there you get slightly stuck to something tacky that hasn’t been wiped up but has just kind of evaporated. The chairs and table are made of yellow pine. Clumsy and heavy. The kind you’re always bumping into, for some reason. You end up with bruises on your thighs, keep stubbing your toes.