The Man With No Borders

by Richard C. Morais

  The alcohol-filled chocolates are my crack, as he knows, and I tear open the box. After I have had my fill, I say, “Let’s get on with this.” Hans-Peter hands me a napkin from the table, to wipe the chocolate off my face, before taking documents out of his briefcase. He recites what I had previously left Lisa.

  “That’s good,” I say. “Now, additionally, I want the boys to get ten million Swiss francs each. It’s enough to buy them some comforts—but not enough to kill their ambitions. They’ll still have to work.”

  Hans-Peter scratches away at his pad, takes careful notes. “And the bulk of the estate? The shares in the bank?”

  “I leave all my remaining assets, in trust, to Médecins Sans Frontières. It’s an excellent organization.”

  Hans-Peter calmly writes my instructions down. He makes me sign and date his notes. But I have known him a long time and can see the flickers behind his eyes. He wants to say something.

  “Are you shocked by my decision?”

  “It is not my position to be shocked. This is your wealth. You must do with it as you see fit.”

  “Come on, Hans-Peter. Don’t go all Swiss banker on me. Coño. We are old friends. Speak your mind.”

  Hans-Peter looks out the window before answering.

  “I am speaking as your friend, not as your banker. This money is what you leave the world, how you finally settle up the unfinished business of life, and, possibly, how you make amends and correct mistakes made while on this earth. Médecins Sans Frontières is an excellent organization, true, but I personally don’t see its connection to you and your life.”

  “Well, I guess I asked for it.”

  “The decision appears to me, if I may say so, rather fractured and arbitrary and disassociated from your life and who you are. You could have just as well left your wealth to abused animals or battered women as Médecins Sans Frontières. I think you are missing a real opportunity here to make a statement about who José María is and how he marked his time on this earth.”

  “Christ. You don’t hold back. All right, you said your piece. Let’s wrap this up.”

  “I will get the paperwork executed and return in a day or two to have you sign all the documents. But there is one more thing I need to bring up. It’s related to this estate decision.”

  “Go on.”

  “Word has got out that you are not well. I was invited to two lunches, back to back, with Rudolf Schneider from Swiss Federal Credit Bank, and with Peter Stücki, on the Zürich Union Bank’s board. They both expressed interest, on behalf of their institutions, in buying Privatbank Álvarez GmbH. Now Von Streubel has asked me for a meeting. The bank is in play, in other words, and, with so much interest, it could fetch a hefty premium.”

  “That’s interesting. What do you think?”

  “It would be foolish not to consider a sale. None of your heirs seem interested in running the bank.”

  “You are my heir.”

  Hans-Peter is clearly touched, in his bound-up Swiss way, that I would say something like that. But it’s true. He has, in many ways, been more a son to me than my own sons have been.

  “Well, you should at least consider the possibility of a sale. Interest like this doesn’t come around every day, and the bids could be played off each other. We could fetch between one point five billion and one point nine billion Swiss francs for the bank.”

  “Bueno. Thank you. I will take it under consideration.”

  My old partner packs up, shakes my hand goodbye, and slips out of my room. I’m exhausted by the effort of giving away my life and grab a few more kirsch-filled Schocki-Stengeli from the box. I’ve earned them.

  There is a God. Hallelujah.

  Dr. Sutter is releasing me from the hospital. But not without giving me a little speech first. “All right, Herr Álvarez. I am satisfied you are stable enough to go home. But, from now on, you must be prepared that things will be different. You are entering the end stages. Do you understand?”

  The important thing is you are returning to Ägeri.

  The ambulance reaches the farmhouse. I am elated. But a battered blue Volkswagen Passat is waiting for us in the courtyard. That makes me suspicious.

  What now?

  The EMTs lower me in a wheelchair from the back of the ambulance, and a large white-haired woman, with massive forearms made for kneading bread, climbs out from behind the Passat wheel, clutching a file. She wears sensible tie-up shoes, a long floral skirt around her bulging midriff, and a billowy white blouse and cardigan.

  She is smiling and waving at me in an overly familiar way.

  “Ja, Gruezi wohl Herr Álvarez!”

  “Hello,” I say coldly. “Who are you?”

  “I am Sister Bertha. From St. Agatha’s Hand of Mercy.”

  “I see.” I gesture at the bag on my lap. “You can bring in my bag.”

  She roars with laughter, as if that is the funniest thing she has ever heard.

  “No. No. You are quite capable of helping yourself.”

  She grabs my arm and with great force hauls me up out of the wheelchair. She forces me to carry my bag in one hand, while balancing myself with the other on the pole that is dragging along my drip. Her own fist is clamped like a vise above my elbow, keeping me on my feet in case I stumble.

  “It is good to work the muscles. If not, you become like a hard pear.”

  Lisa comes around the other side of the ambulance and finds Big Bertha hauling me around the courtyard, my drip rattling as I drag it across the cobblestone toward the front door.

  “Oh. You’ve met. Sister Bertha is from hospice, José.”

  “Ja. Ja. Your husband and me. We are already old friends.”

  I look at my wife with pleading eyes. Her eyes let me know she understands my distress but there is nothing she can do. I am now in the nurse’s care.

  “Lift your feet,” Bertha barks. “Lift your feet. Ja. That is better.”

  “Take this.”

  I am in my bed in the study, and Sister Bertha is clutching a gray-and-white bottle in her massive fist and thrusting a spoon at me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Stool softener. Go on. It will make you go caca.”

  Impossible woman.

  I make a face.

  “Mein Gott, Herr Álvarez! You fight everything. Constipation is side effect of opiates. You have been complaining. So, now, take the stool softener. Do you want to feel uncomfortable? Verstopft.”

  It is true. I feel like I am going to explode. I open my mouth and she spoons the gray-pink liquid down my throat.

  “Two spoons. Ja prima. So isch guet. Now rest. I will sit here and do my knitting.”

  She sits next to me, and pulls her red wool and knitting needles out of her bag. I close my eyes, try to rest, but I hear the clack-click of her fast-moving needles and they make me think of my mother. My eyes pop back open.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am making woolen caps. For the poor souls with HIV and hepatitis C. They die of liver failure usually. Cirrhosis.”

  “Why woolen caps if their livers are falling apart? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “In the end stages of those diseases, the patients become very cold. I make the woolen caps to help them feel warm. I am not sure it helps. But we have to do something to help the poor souls, don’t we?”

  “How in God’s name does someone get all those diseases at once?”

  “Unsafe sex and drugs.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “I once took care of a young man in Zürich. He was a prostitute. He must have been handsome once, but when I took care of him, when he was dying, he was not pretty at all. He was only thirty-six but looked like he was seventy. They give off a bad smell, from their breath, when the liver is failing. It is a very hard death. There is much pain in the joints.”

  “Sounds gruesome.”

  “But you know, some people, when they die, they are full of rage at what the world gave them. And some, it is the
opposite. They are filled with God’s grace. This young man was quite special. He was cold, so I knit him a cap. I finished it, he put it on, and then he died. He was in such pain, but he stayed alive just long enough to wear the cap he knew I was knitting for him. I could see it. Such a remarkable young man. We had so many interesting conversations before he died.”

  Sister Bertha gets choked up. She dips into her bag, retrieves a handkerchief, and wipes her nose after a good honk.

  “Ja. Enough of this. There is a special place in heaven for the young men and women who sell their bodies. They suffer so much while on this earth. So I knit the caps, for when they come to me. But always in Miguel’s honor and memory.”

  I am sweating and freezing at the same time.

  “Where was he from?”

  “Miguel? He was one of your compatriots. From Barcelona.”

  I look at her anew—and wonder.

  Is this the hand of God at work?

  Or am I hallucinating?

  I awake with a jerk. I stare out the French doors at the fleshy red petals. I have come to rely on a single, surviving winter rose to ground me and remind me where I am. But the nauseating wave of pain that woke me makes stars flash before my eyes. I push the red button in my hand and am flooded with opiate relief.

  I smell lime shaving cream and spearmint gum.

  My brain is no longer functioning properly, but my sense of smell, for some reason, has become acute. I sniff the air again, to see if I am imagining things.

  I am not.

  I turn over on my side.

  “Hi, Pops. You’re awake.”

  Sam is a little grayer at the temples than I remembered, but still handsome and fit looking, sitting calmly in a tweed jacket and faded jeans in the armchair by my bed.

  My eldest. He has come.

  “Oh, Sam. I am so happy to see you.”

  I make an effort to sit up and he jumps to help. He plumps my pillows, kisses my forehead. I grab him back in teary gratitude, and bend as far forward as I can manage, to kiss whatever flesh and muscle I can find on his forearm. Sam stares at me blank faced, unused to seeing me so demonstrative and emotional.

  Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together.

  “Sorry. I am just so happy to see you. When did you arrive?”

  “About an hour ago. You were sleeping. Mom told me not to wake you. I’ve been catching up with her upstairs.”

  “Hostia. She has undoubtedly informed you of all my affairs, sparing none of the details.”

  “Are you in pain?”

  I wave a hand, dismissively.

  “Comes and goes. When I get an attack, I push this little red button here and—presto—opiates flood the system. I finally got a taste of what all you boys were doing when you were teenagers.”

  “Watch out when John’s here. When you’re asleep, he might sneak in, unhook you, and attach himself to the drip.”

  “Ha ha. Yes, well, there are downsides, too. The constipation. I feel like I am packed full of toxic waste. Can’t get rid of the damn stuff.”

  “Ouch.”

  I brush my bald spot, the invisible hair. “How do I look?”

  “Honestly, not bad. A little thinner. The way Mom talked about you, I expected you to look much worse.”

  It is 11:30 a.m. Sister Bertha, in her dull gray dress and cropped silver hair, comes through the door. She is startled by my son’s presence, but recovers and says, in her deep baritone, “Gruezi wohl, Herr Álvarez Junior.”

  Sam responds accordingly and she formally shakes my son’s hand, before turning in my direction. “Now is time for pills, Herr Álvarez Senior.”

  “Sam, this woman is here all day, torturing me.”

  “So amusing, your father. We should put him on die Bühne—the stage.”

  Sam smiles appreciatively at how she is handling me, and backs away from the bed, to give her room. “Thank you for all you are doing for my father, Sister. We can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t encourage her, Sam. I want her out of the house. Out.”

  Big Bertha smiles at my nonsense, hands me a glass of water, and makes me take three pills. Even I know I can’t do without her.

  You can’t even remember what these fucking pills are for.

  Bertha takes my pulse, checks the drip, and speaks again to Sam. “I am in the room next door. Always. Night and day. Just ring this bell if you need me. My relief, Sister Martha, works on the weekend.”

  Sister Bertha leaves, and my son and I find ourselves sitting in silence, our small talk already exhausted. Sam stares slit-eyed into space, rubs his temples, his right foot jiggling. I wish for Bertha to return.

  There is movement in the corner of my eye.

  Juan is sitting behind my desk, in the shadows, staring at us.

  I turn back to my son. “So,” I say with effort. “How is . . . ?”

  Coño. I can’t remember her name.

  “Sharon. She’s fine.”

  “And the girls?”

  “Good. They switched boarding schools. They’re in New Hampshire now.”

  “I see.”

  Another silence.

  “Dad . . . I am sorry about all this. Truly. You don’t deserve this. No one does.”

  We look at each other.

  “It is what it is. Let’s talk about other things. What’s the latest with your Maritime Strategy Impact Fund?”

  “We made Barron’s list of the top fifty impact-investment funds again. We’re ranked eighth.”

  “Fantástico. What an accomplishment.”

  I strain to remember everything I can about his fund. I recall it invests in for-profit companies tackling the environmental issues of our polluted oceans. I know one company he is heavily invested in, a Danish biotech firm, is trying to create enzymes and microbes that break down petroleum-based scum and other ocean pollutants. But beyond that, what he is doing is a mystery to me.

  “What’s your latest strategy?”

  Sam’s face lights up. He leans forward in his chair, makes a steeple with his fingers, his voice no longer wary. He goes on about how one warm winter day, passing through Reykjavik, Iceland, he sat at an outdoor café, next to a river that ran through the town. It was the first time in a while since he had been to Iceland in January, and there was just a smattering of snow, not the usual deep snowdrifts and frozen landscape.

  In that moment, sipping tea, sun on his face, Sam had an epiphany. He realized that global warming had probably affected rivers near the Arctic Circle. Water that previously had been a frigid one to two degrees Celsius in the summer, too cold to sustain salmon, had in the last decade risen to five to eight degrees Celsius, the optimum temperatures for breeding salmon.

  That meant, he realized, once icy and barren rivers in nearby Greenland could be turned—with enough capital investment, for hatcheries and proper river management—into productive salmon rivers, collecting high rod fees from sports fishermen, and in effect turning a nonproductive natural asset into a major source of income for his fund and the impoverished Inughuit who lived in the area. And newly productive rivers would help replenish the world’s dwindling stocks of wild salmon.

  “Bringing salmon back,” he says, smiling slyly, “while good for the environment, is also a huge turn-on to my investors, who, as you know, are looking to earn market-rate returns from positive environmental and social projects. The play, I realized, could massively increase our fund’s credibility with impact investors and create a virtuous circle of bringing in more funding for our projects.”

  So that day, before others saw the opportunity, Sam was on a plane and quietly negotiating an “exclusive long-term river development agreement” with the Greenland government. Negotiations were drawn out and tough, particularly over revenue-sharing terms, but in the end the agreement was successfully concluded. A spin-off fund was jointly created with the Greenland government, and Sam has since raised $295 million in capital from new investors.

  “You would love i
t, Dad. Our marine biologists are now traveling through Greenland, identifying the rivers best suited to turn into new salmon habitat. It’s not just river temperatures they are measuring, but also how much insect life lives in the waters, so the salmon parr born in the river, before they head to sea to feed and fatten up, actually have enough food to sustain them during those crucial early years of river life. Also, some rivers have natural geological impediments—a high waterfall that no returning salmon could climb, for example—so that, too, will factor into our decisions. In such cases we might want to build ladders, but that significantly raises development costs and it’s very risky. Salmon, as you and I know, don’t always like the man-made ladders. But it’s pretty exciting and really fun to figure out.”

  And then, because we are both financiers at heart, he walks me through the numbers. How he figures it will cost on average $1.2 million to develop twenty kilometers of river, with an on-site hatchery costing an additional $2 million. He goes on, in great financial detail, but his calculations are too complicated, I cannot follow him, and I realize then, with great sadness, my mind is no longer up to the task.

  “Payback to our investors should take place in year five. The returns could ultimately exceed sixty percent per annum,” he says. Sam is spent by his speech, and he retreats to his temple-rubbing posture, with his eyes half closed.

  I am so moved, so proud of him.

  Such passion. Such brilliance. He is my boy.

  “Sam, Sam. You should have taken over the family bank. What we could have accomplished together.”

  My son stiffens, sits up in the armchair. “Please don’t start with that again, Dad. I just got here. We’ve done enough rounds on that one to last several lifetimes. Come on. I come in peace. Let’s put it aside, take it easy.”

  “You know that Hans-Peter and I cleaned up the bank. We don’t handle clients with tainted sources of wealth anymore.”

  “Yeah, after 9/11 and you had no choice but to clean up or get busted.”

  That remark hurts me and I can’t help it—I get angry. “That’s a distortion of the facts. You know full well that Hans-Peter and I began our new strategy, of only accepting onshore money, before 9/11.”