The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (15 page)

At first I could not see him in the press of people who came out from the various rooms. Then I caught sight of him speaking to Arne who was disappearing out through a garden door. Arne joined a number of people standing outside smoking cigarettes. Paul looked round, saw me and came over.

‘Hi. How did that go? Was it useful? Have you all decided the fate of Turkey?’

‘It was fascinating – so many views, so many conflicting interests. We needed some Turks there.’

‘From the point of view of people here, that would be impossible. If this were an academic, liberal, university conference, you would be right. Here, I fear, you will only see hard-nosed, market-oriented, business people. Many of our friends here won’t do business with the Turks because of their religion. Sad, but that is the fact. You’ve heard, I’m sure, in the discussion the old antipathy aired between Islam and Judeo–Christian Europe. The conflicting visions extend as far as business.’

He was right. That had been reflected in our group. We seemed to be in the grips of an old struggle between Europe and the Middle East.

Paul left me for a moment, sought out Arne, and came back to me with him. Arne said, ‘I understand Paul is going to show you a little more of Bologna. That’s a very good idea. Let’s meet later at dinner. We’ve hardly had a chance to talk. Enjoy your walk.’

Paul said that when I was ready we might set out. I finished my cup of tea and went to the lavatory. At the washbasin was Professor Caracci. I complimented him on his keynote address, and he asked me whom I was with. I very nearly, automatically, said the
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, but remembered just in time that my newspaper connections were forbidden and promptly answered Myrex. He commented that it struck him as a particularly aggressive company he would like to know more about. He suggested we might talk further. I was glad to be let off that hook by having to go with Paul. I apologised, made my excuses and left as quickly as I could to find Paul. I determined to avoid Caracci if he were still around at dinner. There was no way in which I could possibly talk to him about Myrex.

Paul and I set off. It was a pleasant, balmy evening, and he said we should walk to the Santuario della Beata Vergine di San Luca. We made our way along the Via XXI Aprile 1945 towards the Costa-Saragozza district. Such names for streets always made me smile: they were so long-winded and resonant of a particular event. The British do not christen their roads in that way; but then the British were not liberated as were some of our continental neighbours, were not occupied and oppressed in the same way. We have our important dates but we confine them to the history books. We crossed at the junction of Via Porrettana and Via Saragozza, and began a long slow climb up the gradual incline, a colonnaded, covered, intermittently stepped, pavement towards the church and shrine.

The sky was blue and clear. Bologna to our right lay spread out, a typical northern Italian industrial mess of buildings, factories, warehouses, tall chimneys, transportation yards, lorries coming and going. Behind us, and more to our left, lay the old city that glowed bronze and reddish in the late afternoon sunshine. Ancient, renaissance culture contrasted with modern industrial and commercial development that was slowly spreading like a blot around the old centre, the beating human heart of the distinguished city.

We walked slowly. There was no rush. The colonnaded walk offered shade. The sun, although westering, still was warm. I asked Paul about his background.

His father was a wealthy businessman and his mother a doctor who worked at the university hospital in New Haven. He had been to Deerfield, in his time a boys-only boarding school. He had been a good scholar and an accomplished sportsman. From there he had gone to Princeton. He was certainly clever, and at Princeton had studied a mixed bag of subjects in his first two years, theology, geometry, astro-physics, nineteenth-century French literature, all had been part of his degree. His education had turned him into a cultivated conversationalist. He was a university league tennis player. If you wanted the modern equivalent of renaissance man, Paul obliged. Then he went to SAIS and had eventually been recruited by Myrex. He was in Bologna because he knew it so well from his SAIS days and spoke competent Italian. I reckoned that Arne, if not Raoul, had selected Paul as the public front of Myrex Corporation at that conference.

Paul told me that he was usually based in a small office in Philadelphia where Myrex’s US interests were controlled. He did not particularly enjoy that part of his work. The people he met in the US, he thought, were never quite straight: many of them came from New York, Cincinnati and Chicago. He reckoned they were not exactly operating legitimately. The IRS had recently visited Myrex’s offices. He much preferred it when he was summoned by Arne to act as his personal assistant.

‘At the end of this conference I’m going to say to Arne that I want a change. I’m not going to go on working in the US for Myrex. I’ll ask Arne if I can be permanently attached to him. I want to travel and live abroad for a while.’

I knew instinctively and immediately that I had to alert Rovde to Paul. He was an ideal recruit for the Agency, if he were not already embraced. The dubious connections that Myrex had in Philadelphia did not surprise me. The more I knew of the company’s involvements, the more I felt they were not entirely on a straight business level. Perhaps, then, Raoul was a big-time criminal, who, so far, had been clever enough to evade the law. In which case, I worried about Roxanne. What would happen to her if Raoul’s empire crashed, if the law demanded its due from Myrex, or if one of his competitors transpired to be more ruthless than him and succeeded in squeezing the lifeblood from the corporation? Roxanne would be stranded; although, I calculated, Raoul would probably have made cautionary provision for such an eventuality. It did not bear much thinking about. I did not relish the prospect. The arrangement that Roxanne and I had at that time was perfect. I wanted no more engagement with her than that which we shared already. She was just right for short periods of time; but she had no intellectual depth, and I knew that she would quickly tire me. I needed someone I could talk to about the important matters of life, philosophical, religious, cultural. All those things were what made up my life. Our relationship survived because we burned brightly in a physical sense for short periods.

The portico reached towards the last of its six hundred and sixty-six arches, curved slowly round to the top of the Colle della Guardia, and there, as we emerged into open ground, the Church of San Luca stood before us overlooking the great city that for a long time, as a bastion of Stalinist communism, had been the antithesis of religion and Christianity. Paul and I surveyed the panorama of the old city and saw in the distance the Apennines. A few pilgrims, devotional souls, not more than half a dozen, wandered in and out of the building. The interior was in deep shadow, lit solely by a kaleidoscope of red, blue, purple and green, projections from stained-glass windows, apart from the dimly illuminated, twelfth-century, Byzantine painting of the Madonna of St Luke that hung in the chancel. We were silent. The atmosphere of utter calm induced a quiet reserve. Neither of us wanted to speak. The half-light helped to close my mind off from the rest of the world and created a state of reflection, introspection, and, I think, virtual meditation. I understood what mystics instruct us. If we are to lead an ordered, peaceful, moderate life, adjusted to the interests of other people as well as ourselves, then we must look deeply into our own minds. That beautiful, dusky sanctuary enabled me to do that.

A little later outside, I mentioned the disciplines of contemplation and meditation to Paul. We were both relaxed and once outside, talkative: we both positively wanted to talk. He revealed that for a year or so he had adopted the Buddhist faith, the Eightfold Path. He had gone most of the way with his teacher, eschewed alcohol, become a vegetarian: all life was sacred. He had then gradually retreated from the religion, or philosophy, he was unsure what to call it, but the habit he had cultivated of meditation, he still maintained. He described how he would sit cross-legged and concentrate his mind on some material object and achieve complete peace within himself.

‘I understand how you could do that,’ I said, relying on my own knowledge of Buddhism. ‘Isn’t it a bit like yoga? The same sort of principle applies.’

‘To an extent,’ he replied. ‘Of course, the similarities are there. Sometimes I do stand on my head – triangle of forehead and elbows – make the arrow, my feet pointed to heaven, and try to think. Usually though, I have to count and concentrate on keeping balance.’

‘Yes. That’s too difficult for me. But it is necessary to clear the mind of all clutter and think clearly in a focused way. Otherwise your consciousness is overwhelmed by the rubbish in the world.’

We agreed. I asked him if he had a relationship with a girl. It was obvious that he was not married.

‘I’ve a girl I see regularly in Philadelphia. She’s a chemist, a research assistant in an industrial lab. She’s cool. But I don’t think we are destined for a long-term affair. When I’m there, it’s good for a few days here and there.’

I thought that it all sounded similar to Roxanne and me. We looked for a last time at the magnificent view of the city and the mountains beyond as the sun began to settle in the west. We then began our gentle descent to the city and our conference centre. As we went down through the porticos we were alone until almost at the bottom, where we met a lone priest fingering a rosary who was walking slowly upwards. He looked up and nodded to us as we passed, then cast his eyes down, like a stooped, black-robed figure from a Spy cartoon, and continued his solitary pilgrimage.

Back in the city the evening traffic shunted noisily through the narrow streets. Its din contrasted with the calm we had experienced at the top of the Colle. Paul suggested that we stopped at a small wine bar. It was tucked away in a side street and its rolling shutters were three-quarters of the way down. That did not deter Paul. He stooped under them and called me to follow him. Inside there were already four or five men drinking and playing cards. Paul hailed the barman who was also the owner.

‘He doesn’t open up fully until later in the evening. He likes to run it partially as a sort of private club for his friends. That’s why he keeps the shutters down. It keeps out the general run of tourists until he feels it’s time for his proper business to start. Then he takes as great advantage of them as he can.’

Paul asked for a couple of glasses of local white wine. It was cool and tasted good, dry and lemony. We watched the card players and the half-lit scene reminded me of a painting by Frances La Tour. Refreshed and re-invigorated, we thought it time to rejoin Arne.

When we arrived back in the conference centre, we decided to smarten ourselves up in the men’s room. At one of the washbasins was Arne. He was looking at himself in the mirror, combing his hair and seemingly exercising his facial muscles. I registered that there was some considerable vanity about the man that usually he did not show. He was vain, realised it, and knew that it was a failing if he displayed it. He saw our reflection in the glass and turned to us.

‘I hope Paul has been looking after you. He knows Bologna well. He haunts its nooks and crannies.’

‘Yes, I’ve discovered that. He’s just taken me to an interesting little bar you wouldn’t know existed,’ I replied.

‘I can see you two get on well. That is good. Anyway, when you are ready, we had better go to the dining room.’

In spite of Arne’s rather formal English, in easy conversation the three of us went into dinner. I sat in between the two of them. Inevitably, Arne talked about Myrex. He explained the corporation’s ambitions in Europe. He told me that the management welcomed the enlargement of the Community: it undoubtedly would make business easier and increase opportunities. Myrex wanted to exploit the leftovers of the Soviet empire in the East European states as much as they were doing in the Baltic states. I asked him about Myrex’s management.

‘I know, of course, Raoul is important as Myrex’s chairman, but who else is in control. I mean, who are the backers, who exerts policy direction, who has money in the business besides Raoul? I know you are a sort of chief executive officer but who are the big stakeholders?’

‘Well, you are right. I am, in effect, a CEO but I am not listed as such. The proper CEO is a Swiss, an old colleague of Raoul’s, whose role is nominal. I do the work. I carry out decisions from above. I put into effect what the major investors want. At our monthly meetings, I sit at the Swiss CEO’s right hand. The other eight are obscure finance men, some Italian, some American from Detroit and Chicago. There is a Spaniard, very close to Raoul. But, Pelham, none of them like publicity. They prefer to work in the shadows, and, I can tell you, they are hard taskmasters. In every sense,’ he said, and I thought, rather menacingly, ‘I am their executive arm. They seek the highest return for their investment.’

‘Is it possible to know more about who they are? I know our financial pages would like to know where the investment comes from.’

Arne was quick to cut me off and answered, ‘They would not thank you for that. They are very private individuals; and I would not advise it. My experience is that they do not like outsiders probing into their business. You should join us, Pelham. I have told you before, you have gifts we could use.’

I thought that statement curious. What did he mean? What was there about me that Myrex might prosper from? I said, ‘I doubt that.’

‘Raoul thinks otherwise. He has suggested more than once that you should be approached. If you like, you can regard what I am saying now as an official approach. I have the authority to make an offer. Remember, I am the executive arm. You would have to give up, of course, your other work.’

‘Well, as a definite proposal, this comes as a surprise. I must think about things.’

That was exactly what I was doing. I was thinking about what he meant by my other work. My
Journal
writing went without saying, but the question that began to cross my mind and then firmly lodged in it, was, did he imply that he knew of my connection with Willy. It was hardly credible that Myrex was not aware that I had some connection with the security services. After all, Myrex operated in the Baltic and had important interests in the emerging ex-satellite states of Russia. Myrex could not be naïve. In which case, why did they want me on board their commercial wagon. In the Baltic or Eastern Europe, had they wanted someone like me out of the way, they could easily and cheaply have me eliminated: an accident could be arranged. I thought of Belmont’s demise in civilised Spain. I could not think that I had anything really valuable to offer them. Perhaps it was my connection to Raoul that was preserving my skin; but then again, I knew that in the cut-throat world of business that edged on to organised crime, no one was sentimental. Close relations, brothers, cousins, could easily be eradicated: strangers to the family, more easily so.