Aslan Norval Read online

  She hung up the phone and looked at Beckford. “So, you are invited.”

  “Without asking me?”

  “Among old friends like us, you don’t have to ask. And just so you know: Our house is always open to you. You may consider it your own.”

  Beckford really had no idea how to respond to the lady’s inexplicable invitation. Should he decline? It was a little late for that now. All he could say to himself was: The trap has been set, and I’m already sitting in it.

  But while he was thinking that, he also realized that tonight, he would finally figure out what the woman wanted from him. He felt gratified that he had been right from the beginning. This mysterious conjuring of things for which he had not asked, the large office, all of it was only a cover. Under which she intended to get rid of the rich, unloved, incredibly boring husband, quietly and with perfect technique. No one would suspect the loyal and loving wife in the least. I may be sitting in the trap right now, but she will have miscalculated in the end, he said to himself.

  5.

  Unceasing and skillful propaganda had finally convinced flustered Americans to stick their noses in foreign affairs. The wise and farsighted forefathers of this great country had warned their people a hundred and fifty years ago never to entangle themselves in the affairs of other countries, least of all the European ones.

  Americans, however, had an infuriating habit of forcing others to adopt their own beliefs and opinions, which they considered superior. Believing that they could heal the world, they considered it their duty to impose their ways on poor and ignorant nations. Their apostolic teachings spoke of genuine and unadulterated democracy and freedom à la U.S.A., a nation’s only path to salvation.

  That was why Holved Suthers, a student of technical sciences, was forced to leave the Institute in his fourth year. Whether he wanted to or not, he was conscripted as a member of an artillery regiment. After ten weeks of grueling basic training, he was transported to France along with all the other defenseless lambs. As a sergeant, he was eternally stuck in mud and shit, hoping for an early end to the war so that he could continue his studies. Six days after his promotion to lieutenant, the muddy war ended with pomp and circumstance, as unexpectedly as it had begun.

  Having been taken out of school without warning, Holved had to overcome countless obstacles before he was back on track with his studies. The professors whom he had gotten used to and whose explanations he had understood had been replaced with new ones, who dealt with the curriculum in a totally different manner. A new director had been installed who’d revised the entire curriculum, which made it difficult, if not impossible, for Holved to continue the courses he had originally been taking. Those classes were now scheduled at the same times as other classes he was required to take for his final exams. The latter, however, did not do much to round out his knowledge and left many gaps, which could only be filled with great difficulty, or not at all. Despite all these troubles, he passed his exams without any of the help usually accorded to veterans. He now held the title of engineer.

  Friendships he had nurtured behind guns in the mud helped connect him with companies willing to take him on as a junior partner.

  Thereafter, he made contacts with other companies, and at the age of thirty-five he was the vice president of a construction company in Pittsburgh. Before turning forty, he headed the Round Island Trans Globe Tunnel & Subway Corporation, New York, NY. Their board had elected him as president for two reasons. On the one hand, because of his name and his proven energy. On the other hand, because he owned a majority of company shares, so he could do what he wanted anyway.

  By the time he turned fifty, two additional reputable companies listed him as president on their letterhead, and four others, as their vice president. In several others, he was a member of the board. Only his broker knew of all the other enterprises, companies, and corporations in which he owned shares.

  During the twenty-five years of his economic ascent, Holved married and divorced twice. No kids. Neither marriage had given him anything other than hell. The divorce settlements were calculated based on the wealth of the husband, though neither wife had contributed anything to the maintenance and increase of such wealth.

  Both women attributed the failure of their marriage to Holved alone. Both saw themselves as innocent victims, who had been treated without compassion and pushed almost to suicide.

  His second marriage was to a stewardess. She was an extraordinarily beautiful, slender woman who looked like the goddess Diana. She would give passengers the sweetest smile, possessing the attention of a Swiss hotel doorman and the patience of a mother with thirteen children. After the wedding, however, Holved never saw that smile again; instead, she only scowled at him at every opportunity. The divorce cost him a cool quarter million. When it was all over, he breathed a sigh of relief and swore to himself that he would never marry again, no matter how sweet, eye-catching, and otherwise enticing the woman might be.

  Holved was now fifty-five years old. However, those who saw him at work would have guessed he was forty-five. He had sealed a contract out west to build several very modern cross-country bus stations. On the plane back to New York, he chose a window seat. He was hoping to lean comfortably in the corner to read or just close his eyes, to relax and to forget about the acquisition of a new construction company for a few hours.

  Next to him sat a young lady who ignored him as much as he ignored her. People who travel by plane from New York to Paris often do not speak a single word to each other. Why would they?

  The stewardess served lunch. Holved lifted his cup of coffee just as the plane dropped into an air pocket and tipped right. Coffee spilled onto the light-colored dress of his neighbor. They looked at each other, startled. Holved blushed like a boy. Holding the empty cup in his hand, he stuttered: “P-p-pardon me, miss. I am so sorry. This is so regrettable!”

  “It was most certainly not your fault. It could just as well have happened to me. We seem to be having a lot of turbulence, just look at those errant wisps of clouds.”

  “That’s often the case when the plane crosses the Rockies.”

  The stewardess had already rushed over with a wet towel to administer first aid for the beautiful and expensive dress.

  “Please come with me to the lavatory and we will see what we can do,” the flight attendant invited the young lady.

  They both disappeared.

  Holved slid around in his seat restlessly. He wished to be rid of the tray with empty dishes as soon as possible, but the second stewardess appeared just then and filled his cup again. She showed him her beautiful, well-practiced smile. He could only see the satanic grin of his second wife behind her sweetly smiling mask. At times, when he thought of his ex and how she had managed to catch him, the powerful business tycoon, with nothing but a sweet smile, he would’ve liked to have murdered her.

  The young lady took her seat next to Holved again.

  “The stewardess tried her best. It doesn’t matter. I would’ve sent the dress to the dry cleaner’s right after my arrival in New York anyway.”

  She’s being so gracious, thought Holved. Another person would’ve been scandalized and probably would’ve demanded that I pay for a new dress, and yet here she is, pretending she would’ve gone to the dry cleaner’s anyway.

  He took the newly filled cup and held it tightly with both hands as he brought it to his mouth. He glanced at the lady over the rim of the cup drolly: “How quickly one can learn from an embarrassing incident. I’ll never let this happen again.”

  She enjoyed his youthful gesture and laughed out loud. “Maybe not with coffee. Next time it will be red wine.”

  “God forbid. I love red wine, but after this, I’ll never drink it on a plane again. Of course, please allow me to send you a new dress, if you would be so kind as to give me your address.”

  “That’s very kind, but I doubt you or any other man could choose a dress that I might like, let alone would actually wear. Men have terrible t
aste. They can’t even choose an appropriate tie or the proper color for a suit.”

  He smiled at her, you might say paternalistically. “And what do you think of me then? Do you think I’m as tastelessly dressed as all men are in your opinion?”

  She looked him up and down as if assessing him: “I would say: so-so. Not very elegant and not terribly tasteless. So-so. Fifty-fifty. To judge properly, I would have to know whether your tailor, your wife, or your servant chose the material and cut.”

  Holved meant to say that he was not married, but he swallowed his response. He also did not mention that he had a servant, a chauffeur, and a housekeeper. He said to himself: Why? In a few hours we’ll arrive in New York and I’ll never see her again. Plus, I’m not interested in seeing her again. Why? What would be the reason? A third wife? Not me. I’ve had plenty with two. And plus, she’s too young for me. She can’t be older than twenty-five.

  “You talk so much about good taste, but when I see the scarecrows women wear on their heads, the words ‘ridiculous,’ ‘appalling,’ and ‘terrifying’ seem like an understatement.”

  “You’re right. But for your information, a woman wants to be noticed and will stop at nothing, not even wearing the most monstrous hat, as long as she is the only one in the entire city wearing it. When she is walking down the street, she wants all eyes on her hat, especially those of other women seething with jealousy.”

  As if she wanted to change the subject, she tipped her head and indicated the book that was peeking out from the seat pocket in front of him. “May I ask what you are reading on this trip?”

  “I always carry two or three books with me. But usually just when I have finished the first chapter and want to start the second one, the announcement ‘Tighten your belts for landing’ comes on. Then I push the book back into my briefcase and it’s very rare that I find time later on to pick it back up.” He pulled out the book. “Toltec Architecture,” he said, looking at the title and handing the book to her.

  “Are you an architect, if I may ask?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. I do work in construction. And you know, the Toltec, a perished Indian people of Mexico, were great builders. We can learn a lot from them. If they had known how to melt and forge iron, and if they had known about the keystone and the wheel, they would have far surpassed Europeans and Asians as far as construction is concerned.”

  She browsed through the book.

  “Every once in a while, I have something to do with the Toltec, Maya, Aztec, Inca, and similar ancient civilizations,” she said, handing the book back to him.

  “Are you a student of archaeology, anthropology, or history?”

  “Far from it, very far.”

  “Really, very far? How far, if I may ask?”

  “Well,” she said, “you couldn’t measure the distance in feet, I would say.”

  She ran her hands down her damaged dress while saying this, as if she wanted to smooth it out. Following the movement of her hands, he thought that she was really more of a girl than a woman.

  “For three years,” she said without looking at him, “I’ve been the chief officer of the review body of the WWGLS Film Corporation. I have my own private office, two front offices with three secretaries, and five assistants. I can’t think of any other work that would satisfy me as much. I have a massive library at my fingertips. In addition, all expenses like hotel, per diem, taxis, drinks, and entertainment are paid for during every business trip, like this one. The company needs me more than I need them.”

  “You said review body. What kind of research and examinations do you have to do? And what is the purpose? Do you mean to say for detective films?” he asked.

  “Quite often for detective films. You are right. Mainly though, I am responsible for making sure that in a film, let’s say a film about the time period of Richard II, not only the costumes but also the weapons, the shape of the chairs, the beds and water bowls, as well as the baby cribs are historically accurate and authentic. I have to find out whether the Roman legions under Caesar marched in a closed column and in step, or whether it was an unorganized heap of soldiers. I spent a lot of effort—and the company a lot of dollars—to figure out exactly when, on what occasion, and in which locations forks, napkins, handkerchiefs, high heels, braids, wigs, and crinolines were used for the first time. Often, it’s not the public but the critics who jump on these incidental mistakes and they do so not so much as to criticize but rather to show off their knowledge.”

  Holved laughed. “I have to say that you have a devilishly difficult responsibility. I assume every now and then you have to figure out how many tons of concrete and square feet of glass are needed for a building with twelve floors?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Have you ever had to answer those questions?”

  “Not exactly those, but similar ones. Two months ago, I saw the first showing of a western in our screening room. It was about a gold digger who walks through a desert for three days before he comes upon a miserable farm. He has loaded his haul and tools onto a pony. According to the script, his haul was worth one hundred fifty thousand dollars. After the screening, I went into my office. Fifteen minutes later, I explained to the production director that you would need at least three, if not four ponies to carry that amount of gold dust. I also informed him that if a gold digger did not find water at least twice on his march through the Arizona desert, neither he nor his pony would reach the farm. The change did not hurt anyone and cost the company less than three hundred dollars. It seemed the only thing they needed to change was the dialogue, reducing the worth of the gold dust to eighteen thousand dollars and the duration of the march to two days and a night. It would be a ridiculously hard journey, but at least a possible one. If the company had not made the change, it would have received no less than two hundred letters calling us idiots. So, you see how important my work is. The question is not only how authentic the material looks, but also where to get it from.”

  “What I don’t get,” said Holved, “is why the director doesn’t notice such glaring mistakes.”

  “He can’t worry about such things. To him, the details are incidental. He receives the script and that’s what he uses to direct. He has to concentrate on the whole and can’t be interrupted every ten minutes to ask someone who happens to be standing around: ‘Listen, could you possibly tell me what the age of conscription is in Bosnia?’ As you can see, division of labor is as vital here as in any other prominent business.”

  “Tell me about it. Division of labor. If division of labor did not exist, we would not be sitting in this airplane, which is transporting us from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast in just a few hours. I admit that it does so not without causing us some anxiety, since we’re human beings and not birds, but with quite a bit of comfort, ease, and almost one hundred percent safety. In the same way, if I understand correctly, no film could be produced without your work, your painstaking work.”

  “That’s not entirely correct. If I didn’t have this job in the company, someone else would do my work, maybe even as well as I do it or maybe even better. Who knows?”

  “My case is a little different, to talk about me for a change. I’m the sole ruler, with one caveat: only so long as the stock market is stable.”

  “And when the stock market crashes, a shot to the head solves all problems?” she added.

  “You’re totally mistaken, miss. I have plenty of reserves to remain on top, reserves other than stocks and money. Stocks are the preferred toys of those who think that they can get rich overnight without effort and work. I don’t play roulette with stocks I own. I let my stocks work as hard for me as I work myself. And when I said, ‘so long as the stock market is stable,’ I meant to imply that I would suffer great losses, but it would not ruin me financially.”

  “Good to know,” said the young lady, “that there are people like you in the country.”

  “And like you, miss. I am convinced you are traveling to New Yo
rk to find out when and where a tailor sewed buttons on a piece of clothing for the first time.”

  “You’re not far off. However, in a case like that, I make it easy on myself. When I’m not sure whether the Merovingians buttoned, hooked, or tied their uniform jackets, I just tell our costume designer to cover up the jacket so you can’t see buttons, hooks, or ties. I let the audience figure it out, which they love doing. People want to guess what the gangster said to his Molly at the exact moment the bullet struck him down at the end of the film. They also want to imagine with whom Molly will go now. People don’t like it when the director of a film treats them like idiots who need every thought expressed aloud so that they can understand the film.”

  Holved interrupted her, laughing: “You have missed your calling. You should have pursued a career as a diplomat.”

  “For now, I prefer my current career.”

  “Unfortunately, there is no room for promotion, if I understand correctly. I think that you are already at the height of your career.”

  “Are you at the height of your life?” she asked.

  “Neither today, nor tomorrow. I don’t live in the past. Not even in the present. I live entirely in the future. What lies behind me, I have already forgotten, and I don’t waste my time remembering events that have already happened. It is a waste of time, it ages you fifty percent more than your real age. Only people who don’t see a future write their memoirs. When I leave this world one day, I want to leave it for good. I don’t want to be some ghost haunting others from my memoirs and biographies. When I’m dead, I want peace and quiet.”