by Terry Morgan
"That is it—exactly. That is it."
Johnson's reply was hardly a sign that official agreements, signed, witnessed and legalized, were to form any part of this relationship but Jonathan let it pass.
It was one thirty by the time he slipped into the warm bed alongside his wife, Claire, and put his cold arm around her. There was no reaction, but Jonathan's mind was on other things. Despite the hour, he was still wide awake. Something had happened tonight that might add another dimension to what Jan Kerkman was already doing and the idea growing in his mind would need Jan's help. But he also desperately wanted to speak to Jim.
At 5:00 a.m. he could wait no longer. He got up and emailed Jim to suggest another meeting.
Chapter Twenty-Five
IT WAS 4:15 IN the afternoon, another meeting was over and another thirty million Euros of funding had been agreed to on schedule.
Dirk Eischmann, the Director General, gathered his few papers together and left Committee Room 4/116. As usual, he took the lift to the sixth floor, swiped his security card over a doorway and walked down the carpeted corridor to his office at the far end. And, as always, he dropped the files onto his desk, opened the drawer, took out a fresh bottle of Glen Scotia Scotch whiskey, poured himself a glassful, loosened his tie and took his glass to the wide, leather chair in the corner by the potted fern and the coffee table. At 4:35 p.m. he returned the now empty bottle to the drawer, got up, closed the door of his office and left the building.
By 5:30 p.m., he had parked his black BMW in the basement car park of a shopping mall. He took a lift up and made his way to a coffee shop. Casually dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt, and already sipping a cappuccino at a table close to the main concourse, was Jan Kerkman. Eischmann scraped up a metal chair and sat down as Jan wiped froth from his mouth with the back of his hand.
To Jan, Eischmann looked as if he was trying to conceal something that pleased him. He was right. Eischmann spoke first. "Exactly as expected. All agreed except the one for the Sudan. That made sense. The politics there are too fragile."
"Coffee, Mr. Eischmann?" asked Jan, thinking that perhaps the Bangladesh bid had been approved and that was what pleased Eischmann.
"No."
Jan's first meeting with Eischmann had been at the Eindhoven Novotel a week ago but he had no idea what to expect next. He tried appearing eager to help. "What can I do, sir?"
"Nothing yet. You will meet someone on Sunday who will explain. You can expect a phone call."
Eischmann seemed distracted, on edge. He was glancing furtively around the mall as if he was uncertain about what to say next, but he clearly decided to bite the bullet. "Yes, it was a good afternoon's work—twenty-nine million Euros granted—let's call it thirty million—a drop in the big ocean and no real issues. We will draw you in slowly, bit by bit. There is much for you to learn."
Jan just nodded.
"I'm meeting a Minister from Pakistan tonight," Eischmann continued. "He is here with his Central Bank officials. They seem to think a bit of lobbying might be good for them but I always remind them that bribery and corruption is frowned on. And, anyway, the systems, procedures, checks and balances are so tight it's impossible."
He paused and looked straight into Jan's eyes. "This is just the start," he said seriously. "You will learn much more on Sunday."
With that, he nodded, pushed his chair back and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
JIM'S MORNING HEADACHES troubled him. Sometimes it was like a hangover though to the best of his knowledge he had, until recently, only ever had around three drink-related headaches in his life. But some mornings, instead of a throbbing head, he felt dizzy and disorientated. Strong coffee usually fixed things especially if he just sat quietly, talking to himself whilst waiting for the caffeine to circulate through his system. But the feeling that something was wrong came soon after he'd return from his latest trip to Amsterdam.
It happened as he was taking his morning shower. The cold water was always a shock to Jim's naked body and, inevitably, caused a sudden intake of air into his lungs, but he regarded regular cold showers as a good ritual, one that his mother would, undoubtedly, have approved. He had dropped the shampoo bottle. It rolled out of sight beneath the plastic curtain of the makeshift cubicle and he had struggled, bending, twisting in the confined space to find it. Soap was already stinging his eyes. "Damn…where the blazes did that…go…out of sight."
But the next few seconds or minutes of time were lost. The next thing he remembered was lying on the rough timber floor with water trickling on his head and the torn shower curtain tangled between his bare legs. Strangely, it was the sound of the water and the rustle of the plastic sheet that seemed to revive him from whatever blackout he had had. He remembered trying to unravel the shower curtain, staggering and grasping the blue plastic water pipe to pull himself up. But the two screws holding the pipe to the wooden wall came away and, once more, he found himself on the floor with the water now running not from above but along the floor next to him.
Eventually he struggled to sit upright but his neck felt hot, as though someone had tried to strangle him.
"Bit hot around the collar… so to speak… and, God, the chest feels a bit tight…must have strained a muscle somewhere…but can't sit here like this…got to get on…"
He stood holding the loose, blue pipe in his hand with the water spraying lightly on his feet whilst he steadied himself. The water then stopped running. "Perfectly normal…was expecting that…only enough in the tank for one shower at a time."
Leaving the pipe and curtain to be fixed later, he strolled naked into the middle of the room where the bright, morning sun shone through the open doorway leaving dark shadows in corners and showing hanging strands of gray cobwebs. But he couldn't stand. He felt weak, dizzy and disorientated and so he sat on an upturned bucket holding his throbbing forehead. "Another coffee—that'll do the trick—strong, three spoonfuls."
Jim's coffee was always made with Nescafe granules, hot but not boiling water, two spoonfuls of damp sugar containing the specks of dead or living ants, the contents of a Carnation Coffee Mate sachet and a thick pouring of similarly branded condensed milk direct from a punctured can. It was good but always tasted the same. Finishing quickly, he put the empty cup on the floor by the upturned bucket and slowly dressed in his usual pair of underpants, khaki shorts and yesterday’s gray tee shirt. Then, still feeling drained of energy, he shuffled to the door.
The direct sunlight almost blinded him and didn't help his throbbing headache and he slumped into the low wicker chair at the top of the steps. For a while he just sat, looking out over his plot of land. A koel called from the trees, a pair of peaceful doves came to scratch around below and tiny blue butterflies flitted amongst the damp grass. But then came the distant sound of a motorcycle, a tractor and a truck, passing on the road beyond the track. He sometimes smelled the school bus a minute or two after it passed. Like everywhere on earth, people and their transport were encroaching. Nature hung on as best it could.
"Another coffee?" he asked himself. "But you need to finish the painting of the grasshopper. Got to get on, there are things to do. And you need to visit Lek's to check email."
Jim struggled to stand up, leaning heavily on the timber support post, then on the doorframe. He shuffled inside, but the bright morning sunlight outside now made it difficult to see anything inside, so he switched on one of the two strip lights knowing it would make no difference. All he could see were dark outlines of boxes and reflections off jars of paint. And he still felt weak. It was his legs and arms now. There was something definitely wrong. "Fever? Insect bite? Last night's chicken past its sell-by?"
He groped his way to the far corner where his latest work—the unfinished painting of a grasshopper—was propped against the wall. It was an experiment using several shades of green—the insect several times life size, its square-looking head, feelers and eye giving the impression it was watching the painter.
"Not bad. One hind leg is too long—and perhaps you need to add a simple flower, a daisy perhaps—white and yellow—good contrast. Bloody headache, though. Legs feeling terribly weak."
He brought the painting outside into the growing shade of the overhanging roof. Around him the trees hung motionless and there would have been total silence but for a few birds and the throaty snarl of the punctual school bus on the road.
He climbed gingerly down the wooden steps and walked the few yards to his toilet—a ramshackle affair of slit bamboo with a sparsely thatched roof, the darkness inside lit only by lines of sunlight shining through the bamboo, but still dark enough for scorpions and spiders. They gathered together around and under a plastic bucket of water and a small plastic bowl that he kept next to the porcelain crouch facility. "Must move the WC soon. Might try behind the house for a change. I'll get some more bamboo. It works well, lets the air circulate."
Five minutes later he emerged feeling just a little better. The throbbing headache had become just a dull pain in his forehead, his breathing was normal but the weakness in his legs was still there. "Crouching, I suppose. Darned knee's hurting now. Did you hear the bone crack?"
He remounted the steps and almost sat on the incomplete grasshopper. "Mmm, go careful—a full day's work almost ruined… chicken must have been past its sell-by…why don't you go to Lek's earlier today? Then you can come back and finish it off? Break the routine a little. Perhaps you'll be more productive later."
Jim continued to mutter quietly to himself but then found himself staring at the mango tree. He couldn't take his eyes off it. His almost incoherent muttering was about grasshoppers, beetles and blue butterflies, but the tree was distracting him. He leaned forward, looked at it with one eye through his rolled hand once, twice. It didn't look right. "It's the grass around the base and the aerial roots hanging from the tree behind. The balance is gone, at least from this angle. The lower branch needs to come off."
Forgetting the lingering headache and the earlier faint or collapse or whatever it was, he went down the steps again, retrieved an axe that was propped beneath the house and carried it to the tree. It was not a long branch or a thick branch but he could only just reach it and getting the right angle to remove it with a good clean cut was difficult. He struck it—once, twice, three times—he started to sweat and his arm ached. Finally, the branch cracked and splintered. "Damn it." It was not the clean cut he'd wanted and he branch bent and fell to the ground at his feet. He wiped his sweating brow with the back of his arm and bent down to pick it up.
That was when Jim's problem occurred for the second time. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and the same feeling of dizzy disorientation as if he might collapse yet again. The pain was definite. It was across his chest and down one arm.
"Not good…Christ!…Dear me…that hurts…is this it, then?…The final calling? Couldn't he make it less painful? Need a…bloody ambulance…but out here?…Perhaps I'll thumb a lift…Christ!"
He couldn't smile. It was impossible. The sweat ran from his forehead, his armpits felt thick and greasy and the wet tee shirt clung to him. He stayed, crouching down, staring wide-eyed at the severed mango tree branch and the axe he'd dropped almost onto his bare feet, feeling the pain, frowning, wincing. He stayed there unmoving, hurting, disorientated, confused, dizzy, not even able to mutter. The coffee of earlier rose into his throat and stayed there, but the chest pain started to subside and his arm felt lighter.
Jim remained crouching down, uncomfortable, his heart pounding irregularly though whether from fear or a definite physical defect he could not tell. Consciously, he decided he would feel more comfortable if he sat down but, because there was not enough energy to stand up first, he fell backwards and turned onto his side to make it easier for the coffee to decide which way it wanted to go. He lay in that ungainly position for several minutes, gradually feeling confident enough to try to sit up again. He did it first going onto his hands and knees and then slowly into a sitting position. Then the mumbling started again.
"Christ!…What the hell was that?…A coronary?…You need to get to a doctor, old chap…want them to find a skeleton wearing only a pair of shorts…when they come to widen the road…in ten years time? And what about Jan and Jonathan?"
Jim suddenly felt very old, sick and worried.
"So peaceful here normally…I hate this sort of disruption…it upsets the rhythm, the pattern, the routine. Such a damned nuisance…comes to us all in the end. I feel a bit like the white egret I saw flapping around by the coconut palms last week—disorientated, unsure what was happening to itself—looking a bit untidy—dirty white feathers—its beak opening and shutting, scrabbling to fly but without the energy. Flies were already buzzing when I passed by the next day."
He glanced behind him at the house, the tin roof bathed in bright sunshine, the veranda now in shade, the wicker chair with the grasshopper waiting to be finished. "Definitely needs a flower, behind its back…yellow anthers, white petals, like a daisy…perhaps two flowers…one in full bloom, the other just opening…need to finish it today…Then tomorrow?…Start another…I've not finished yet. So many things to do.
"Need a few more years…if possible…after that, well…so where does it all end?…I planned to leave things tidy, sorted, accomplished… I know one job leads to another but what about Jan and Jonathan? That'll never get finished at this rate, Mother. Should I just draw a line, say enough's enough. But I've got new responsibilities now besides the old ones…Jan Kerkman for one…it was my idea… yes, he was willing…but Jon says he's getting cold feet, nervous now…I can understand that…he needs some help, Mother…and that's my responsibility…I need to help."
Jim Smith had never had a day's serious illness in his life. He had lived a busy life, traveled a lot and put his mind and body through a long hard test. Was it, he wondered, starting to break up? He knew that if anyone could see him they would also be worried about him. He struggled further upwards and leaned on the trunk of the mango tree for a few minutes.
Slowly he started to feel better. The pain subsided, the heavy sweating stopped, his heart seemed to revert to its normal pace, he pulled up his shorts that had fallen to an indecent level and then reached into the back pocket to take out a small, menthol nasal inhaler that had been there for weeks. With no confidence that a popular treatment for a stuffed up nose was a good enough treatment for a heart attack he leaned on the mango tree, stuck it up each nostril and then into his mouth and inhaled the vapor. Surprisingly, the improvement felt immediate, but he continued to lean for a while, taking in a few more breaths and looking in turn at his bare feet, the axe and the jagged length of tree branch.
A few more puffs and he felt strong enough to walk slowly, stooped, back towards the house. He pulled himself up the steps, feeling drained of energy once more and slumped into the chair wondering what to do or whether to stubbornly ignore it as a warning only—a warning not to overdo things, not to think about traveling to Amsterdam for a while. They were brave thoughts and Jim knew enough about body matters to know he should probably see a doctor. But who and where? He had never had to bother. It had crossed his mind occasionally over the years that the time may come when he would need one.
"Never had a day's illness in my life, Mother. Never even took a day off in forty years. Was too darned busy but I put the old torso through a few hard times over the years, heart too I expect. A bit stressful at times…normal for running a business with responsibilities for staff…anyone can get mad sometimes, the bureaucracy, the politics, the inefficiencies of others…but I always took it as part and parcel of the day to day. Now look at me."
He knew his bank was still making regular payments to a health insurance scheme—he had a card somewhere—but he had never made use of it and had not checked the policy for years. Perhaps he should see if it was downloadable. There were a few small clinics in Kanchanaburi—he had seen notices outside buildings in some of the side streets—and there were dentists that adve
rtised themselves with diagrams of molars. The local pharmacies also had dubious looking clinics attached but they were hardly the place to go for a heart problem. He also knew there was a big public hospital, overcrowded with locals and a smaller, private one somewhere else. But he had no phone and no one was likely to come to see him because they never did. Suddenly he felt hungry. His stomach groaned, his bowels seemed to shift.
"Ah, good sign…not much to eat here though."
He eased himself up and wandered inside the house, still feeling shaky and weak. He was right. There was not much to eat. A bunch of bananas hung on a hook, fruit flies swarming around them, a tin of lychees in syrup, a bunch of red onions hanging on another hook, the coffee ingredients and a plastic sack of rice. Deciding that, if nothing else, he needed to eat something, he decided to take the motorcycle—"not so strenuous just sitting there, holding the handle bars."
He found his wallet and the keys to the bike, shut and bolted the rickety door, climbed down the steps and pulled out the motorcycle from beneath the house. Minutes later he was on the main road, the breeze in his beard and long hair and feeling as if nothing had happened. He stopped at a row of roadside stalls, leaned the motorcycle against a concrete post and went to the shade of some tattered umbrellas above tables laden with fruit. Several locals were sitting in the shade of a clump of banana trees and shouted out to him, “Hallo, Jim.” Jim only waved. He wasn't up to conversation today.
Instead, he stood and scanned the fruit—green mangoes, bananas, pineapples, rambutan and fresh green coconuts floating in polystyrene boxes of iced water. He bought his favorite, ice-cold coconut, the stall owner expertly hacked off the top with a large knife, stuck in a plastic straw and smiled as she handed it to him. Jim tried to smile back but wasn't sure if she saw it. Inwardly, though, it was as if she were the doctor who had just saved his life. He paid her and went to sit back on the saddle of the bike in the shade to drink the cool, sweet juice. Bliss, except he kept remembering the morning’s little problem. It was spoiling his day.
