“Can I offer you something? And please do sit down,” said Anna in the same cheerful energetic tone, while he was still frantically trying to sort out his thoughts.
“A… a… a glass of water...” he stammered.
“You’ll have it in a moment. Fizzy or plain? Ice? And lemon?”
“Sparkling!” he responded emphatically, with a small burst of joy that he could finally articulate a response, waving away the offered ice and lemon. With that, Anna left the room. Relieved, Helmut tried to concentrate and prepare for what might follow. He sat down on the luxurious sofa and, with critical eyes, he carefully inspected the area. Everything in the place was white and brightly lit: walls, doors, ceilings. The sparse, expensive furniture in the vast space was exquisite, sophisticated. The contents of the elegant apartment reflected perfectly the minimalist Scandinavian taste. Helmut thought it would take a whole shop to fill this vast area with furniture. He thought also – it was evident – that every fine furnishing and object had been selected with great care and taste and was definitely worth a fortune.
“White leather sofas – a pretty penny was paid for those!” he mused. And the paintings – collectors’ items – she’s got moderns mixed in with museum stuff; can they be originals? But on the white walls, they look so right... soothing...
A wide range of artefacts covering different eras and cultures, everything was placed in calculated relationships resulting in the perfect aesthetic display of a gallery or great museum, the diverse works enhancing one another. The small spotlights hung at strategic levels from the ceiling and on the walls illuminated each item perfectly.
“Here we are!” Anna came in, carrying a gleaming crystal goblet and a small bottle of Perrier and set them on the glass coffee table in front of him. “You won’t mind, I hope, if I indulge in something a little stronger,” she laughed, and turned to open the doors of a Chinese black lacquered cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, revealing bottles of vodka, gin and other expensive liquor.
Helmut gulped, clutching his glass, his mind roiling. But risk it he must. It would be worse if he allowed… He took a quick sip of his mineral water, and made a strange choking noise as it went down his throat. He took a deep breath to fortify his nerves.
“Anna, I understand the reason for your invitation... And I want to tell you first of all that I feel incredibly flattered by your preference and the feelings you may have for me... And I won’t pretend that I don’t personally find you a terribly attractive woman. But as you know very well, I am recently married, love my wife very much and I'm not willing to endanger my marriage in any way, or cheat on her...” His voice trailed off as he leant back on the sofa like a deflated balloon, as though relieved of a great weight.
Anna turned and stared at him in astonishment for a few seconds. Then her face cracked as she exploded into a huge belly laugh. “Oh, my God!” she gasped amid gales of almost hysterical mirth, laughing so hard she had to catch hold of the Chinese cabinet for balance. And when she caught her breath at last, her eyes were still brimming with merriment.
“Just a minute!... One minute! You seem to have jumped too quickly to the wrong conclusion!” she said, trying to choke off her laughter. She continued to chuckle as she filled a heavy crystal glass with whisky from one of the bottles. Still giggling, she sat down opposite him. Helmut looked at her, now completely bemused, looking almost pathetic. He started to say something but before he could open his mouth, Anna interrupted him with a gesture.
She had managed to get her amusement under control, but she thought it a good idea to down two big swigs of her whisky before she spoke. “I'm not sure I know exactly what you’re thinking, but I think you’ve completely misinterpreted my invitation to come here tonight,” she said, her face suddenly serious. Helmut now hardly knew where to look. He wished he could sink through the couch into the floor. He knew his face had gone quite red.
Anna took another swallow of whisky and looked him straight in the eye. “Let me explain. The reason I called you here is purely professional, Helmut. It’s about something highly confidential and I did not want to have this kind of discussion in the office for several reasons. But first let me assure you from my very own lips that I did not and do not have any intention whatsoever to get involved with you in any affaire, liaison or what is it they say now… relationship? You know very well that I’m married, too, even though my husband lives in Stockholm. We don’t get to see each other regularly because of that. But I prefer to remain faithful, just like you are to your wife! At least for the time being,” she rushed to correct cheerfully, her look suggesting some kind of regret.
The giant of a man now sitting in a pathetic huddle opposite her looked as wretched as a five-year-old caught in mischief. He had made a terrible mess and was waiting for the axe to fall.
The attitude of his sixteen stone, six-foot-three frame was so miserable that she could only soften up a bit and try to downplay his blunder.
“All right, never mind! It was just a little misunderstanding. Let’s forget it, just delete it! No doubt that you were smitten by my irresistible beauty!” she said with another laugh. “But all this seems trivial compared to what we have to talk about.”
She turned towards him encouragingly and raised her glass, so that Helmut must do the same, and so they could clink glasses before they continued. It seemed that the contretemps had been handled with practical Scandinavian spirit and humour and she thought it best to forget the whole thing as quickly as possible. Helmut agreed silently with eyes full of gratitude and lifted his own glass. His tense position on the couch eased somewhat as she said, “Well then, cheers!”
The silence of the room was broken by the ring of crystal glasses coming together and Anna said gaily, “It would be a good idea to get right down to it and avoid any other little misunderstanding!”
“I hear you...” Helmut finally stammered hoarsely, still trying to find his voice after his terrible blunder.
“I called you to come here to my apartment outside office hours because, as I said, the problem is related to work and highly confidential. You know, of course, a certain lady called Mme Sévérine Moret?” she asked, watching him closely to mark his reactions. Helmut was one big question mark. Anna had emphasised the word lady with intense irony. This name was the last thing he’d expected to hear that evening.
“Yes, of course I know her,” replied Helmut with a frown, wondering what on earth was coming next. He knew the woman well enough to have as many reasons to detest her as did his other colleagues. “But what about her, then?”
“This is the lady who grabbed the position of Deputy Director General of our Directorate right out from under me, even though she had years less service time and experience,” said Anna her look darkening, swirling the ice cubes around in her whisky glass in a rhythmic dance.
“Yes, I know all about that,” agreed Helmut hastily. “I know that whole story. There’s rather a lot of talk about her in the Service. And if you want my personal opinion, that choice was quite against my own notions – and common sense. That lady has neither the credentials and experience nor the guts for such a post. The Lithuanian Commissioner’s private office simply shoved her in there in a purely political move, no doubt in exchange for something or other, or something promised. Maybe political support in the Commission.” His relief was making him babble, he thought. But he couldn’t stop. “Everyone knows that a lot of senior management positions don’t always go to those who really deserve them, but to those with the longest tongues for licking! Always political connections. And most of these people are ruthless and have made a deal with the devil to get to the top of the hierarchy at all costs even by climbing over dead bodies.” He was slowly but steadily recovering his composure after the shock of his terrible faux pas.
“I totally agree with you, but this isn’t quite the moment for this kind of discussion. Let’s leave it for another time,” interrupted Anna. “Look, I have reason to believe that the
lady is embroiled in a very serious plot. I’m not entirely sure yet how far it may go – or who it may touch. We’re talking about a first-rate scandal, a long-range bomb that could cause serious damage, not only to Commissioner Paulauskas but to the entire European Commission, and of course the whole Service, if it gets out.” She was observing his every reaction intently.
“But what are you saying? What’s going on?” said Helmut with genuine concern. “This is beginning to sound worrisome! What can be so serious that it can’t be discussed in the office and we had to meet up here?”
“The very strange story that I’ll tell you came up quite by chance, completely unexpectedly, three days ago,” Anna began, frowning with concentration. “A very close friend of mine, an Italian former colleague, an interpreter who often works in the Ministerial meetings of the Council of Ministers, came and told me about something that happened during a break in one of the last sessions of the Agriculture Council of Ministers. It is a really preposterous story, but, quite accidentally, he overheard a shocking conversation from the Director of Commissioner Paulauskas’ private office, without even knowing who the person speaking was. This person then told someone on the phone a number of interesting…” she went on, looking Helmut straight in the eyes. And then she told him word for word the conversation reported by the Italian friend who had happened to be eavesdropping. “I don’t need to tell you that I ask complete confidentiality about this.”
Helmut listened with intense attention and German discipline throughout the course of the narrative. His first reaction was that he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Hmm. How reliable is this friend?”
“I’ve become very good friends with this particular fellow. I won’t tell you his name, not yet. But I can tell you he’s also a good friend of my brother, Eric, which is how we met. He’s gay, like my brother. They had a brief affair in the past... We’ve known him very well for, oh, at least five years. We’ve become very close and we’ve spent lot of time together – I have no family here.” A fond expression passed across Anna’s face. “I assure you that I have absolute confidence in this chap. He’s very serious and very quick. Once he realised that the story was about our own Service, he came straight to me and reported the incident – he knows I work in the same department as Moret. He’d have no reason to pass on such a tale if he hadn’t heard it clearly with his own ears. And this matter concerns the narrow circle of our General Directorate, and all of us directly.
“Also, and equally important, maybe this wretched story gives us a chance to get rid of the famous Moret once and for all, if we can scotch the scandal before it goes ballistic and takes us all down with it!” Anna’s revelation had left no room for comment by Helmut, other than a few ‘Whews!’ and the bewilderment and surprise expressed clearly on his face.
“Incredible!” was his first spoken reaction, uttered with some admiration. “How should we react? And what should be our first step? It’s something to be very careful about at this point.” His words betrayed some anxiety.
“I remind you that it must remain strictly between us. We’ll need to act very carefully and discreetly. Possibly we can set a trap to force Moret and her friends to make specific moves that we can use as evidence. I couldn’t agree more with everything you said about her... Unbridled ambition has brought her far. A meteoric career. The woman may look ruthless, but deep down she could be vulnerable. She’s not so terribly competent, she trips herself up in her reckless pursuit of her ambition and follows her wilder instincts without thinking them through. She plunges ahead, fearing neither God nor man in her rush to the top. Perhaps these characteristics are all on our side. One might induce or compel her to take a wrong step...” Anna pushed her hair back with both hands and sighed. “The good thing is that she doesn’t suspect that we know. If we go on watching her closely but discreetly, without letting her catch on, I'm sure that sooner or later she’ll make the fatal mistake – if she hasn’t already. Anyway, Helmut, you know she’s not as sharp as she thinks!”
“But how should we act, what we should do exactly?” he insisted. “I have to be out of the office next week; I need to go to Africa for a few days. My wife and I have to travel to Ghana to sign the adoption papers for our second child.”
“Yes, of course, I know that; I signed your request for leave of absence,” replied Anna, “and I wholeheartedly wish you good luck with it! As for our case, there is no need to rush. We must be very careful and wait patiently for the others to make their next move. And meanwhile, I shall introduce a preliminary confidential report to the Internal Fraud Office to warn them, telling them that I’ll be looking into it and we’ll give them additional information, if we find anything in the next couple of weeks. I repeat, we must be very circumspect.
“God knows what complications and interests are behind this story. These people may be dangerous. For all we know, lives could be at stake!” She looked at him piercingly. “I thought you needed to know, because you’re my right hand here, and I must trust your complete discretion. Not a word to anyone in or out of the office. Not even your wife. Absolutely top secret, understood?”
“Not a word. My lips are sealed!” Helmut replied rather formally and stood up. He had not yet quite recovered from his initial blunder and all the distressing conversation that followed hadn’t helped to restore his equilibrium. “I’m off tomorrow at lunch time, but as soon as I get back, I shall ring you to be informed of developments, and what’s to be our way forward. Mobile phones work most of the time in Ghana, so if necessary you can contact me. And if you need anything while I'm gone, my phone will never be switched off! Just, well, I'll be with my wife and I don’t know how privately I’ll be able to speak.”
“Not to worry. There’s no rush. As for mobile phones, frankly, I'm not sure it's a good idea to have such discussions on a mobile phone. One never knows how far these people may go.”
Helmut shook his head, which he’d begun to feel might come off any moment now. “Unfortunately, it’s impossible to cancel my trip. We’ve been months chasing the authorities in Ghana to arrange this appointment and the adoption documents. They’ve changed the dates three times so far. It's a huge bureaucracy there. But there will be no discussion in the office about this. You have my word of honour!” he added with pomp and circumstance, as if giving a military oath.
With a sudden movement he examined his watch, giving her to understand that he had to leave. “I must go... My flight tomorrow is at half five in the morning and I have not prepared anything...” he told her, already heading to the door.
Anna followed him out and said goodnight by the lift, with a reassuring gesture as if to say “Never fear! It will all work out!”
As the lift door closed behind him, Helmut realised that now he felt even more at sea than when he had entered Anna’s flat an hour and a half earlier. But now for diametrically opposed and completely different reasons, with all this mystery and muddle just as he was departing...
“What a mess, and what inconvenient timing!” he sighed to his tired reflection in the elevator mirror.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fourth Stop: Joséphine-Charlotte – Giovanni
The first hours of a new day had already attacked the chill of the past night, making little impression on an indoor temperature which had skyrocketed to that of a tropical swamp at noon. The underground club was jammed with athletic, half-naked male bodies glistening with sweat in the dimness, rocking to the deafening beat of music pounding from the guts of huge speakers looming overhead, a hair’s breadth from the head of the tallest. Intense buzzing shook the foundations of the walls of the old and ill-kept building. The walls were draped in black velvet, a dramatic background to cheap copies of famous masterpieces in gilded rococo frames. A colourful crowd of regulars moved through the claustrophobic crush, glasses in hand, creating a hubbub to rival the music, squeezing through in search of one another, throwing provocative glances here and there. The area around the bar was packed,
some patrons were posing at strategic points, others were being pushed by the crowd into small noisy groups. The crepuscular atmosphere was thick with smoke, poppers, marijuana and testosterone.
The music stopped abruptly. The building ceased to rattle. The lights dimmed and the room plunged into gloom. The chatter stopped abruptly short. A sudden silence filled the space that moments before had been juddering to the racket of Techno and Chaos music and the clamour of voices. A small stage had been wedged in by the bar. Blinding spotlights suddenly revealed a pair of cheap red satin curtains apparently on fire, as though for a dramatic presentation. At deafening volume, the words First I was afraid, I was petrified... filled the room with Gloria Gaynor’s I will survive, to be met with wild applause and whistles, cheers and shouts of enthusiasm. It was after two in the morning, the witching hour so eagerly awaited. The shimmering curtains parted to reveal the dazzling sparkle of the rhinestone-studded golden dress and brilliant smile of Tiffany, one of the best known and most popular drag artists in Brussels. Hysterical shrieks of joy greeted ‘her’ appearance. And she, in a bouffant scarlet wig and teetering on a pair of gold sandals with heels six inches high, waved magnificently to her fans as she sang gracefully in the voice of the immortal Gaynor. Amid loud shouts and even more whistles from loyal fans, she headed, acrobatically regal on her platform shoes, to the centre of the small stage, accompanied by even louder applause. Lights, pulsing to the ear-splitting rhythm of the song, played over the glittering dress in a changing shower of colours. Only a few seconds had passed since the first notes of the song and yet the atmosphere had altered. In almost no time at all, it had already become more than explosive.
The patrons of the gay club ‘Attraction’ had swarmed in that evening, irresistibly drawn by the announcement that the famous drag queen would honour them with a special one-time-only appearance. All attention was focused on the coruscating glitter of the star interpreting the song with exaggerated gestures. Her presentation, overloaded with writhing sexual movements and facial contortions emphasised by silicone-bloated lips and whitened teeth, inspired an increasingly noisy appreciation from her fans.
The Next Stop Page 13
