Florian's Gate

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Splendid. With this heat, I believe we’d be wise to stay with fish, don’t you, Jeffrey?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then let us have a bottle of your finest Pouilly Fuissé,” he said, pronouncing it correctly. He waited while the maitre d’ made his bowing exit, then turned back to Jeffrey. “American waiters are all either college students with too much smoke between their ears or actors who never made it on stage, don’t you agree?”

  Jeffrey decided to try a dose of honesty. “You aren’t anything like what I expected.”

  “I’m not the least bit surprised. When the family is not painting me out to be a mock prince sporting around one of his three dozen castles, they have me living off the crumbs from some rich heiress’s dining table.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, there’s more than a bit of truth in both of them. I do have several residences, although none of them are quite grand enough to deserve the title of palace. And anyone in the antiques trade lives off the rising and falling fortunes of others. An antique is nothing more than a used bit of life’s flotsam and jetsam that someone or another has decided is worth a king’s ransom, either because it’s old, or because it’s pretty, or because it has belonged to someone they deem to be worthy of remembering. Whatever the reason, one thing you may always bank upon—another backside has rested in that chair before you.”

  As the meal progressed Jeffrey found himself becoming captivated by the gentleman. Alexander’s strong Polish accent added an alien burr to his polished speech, and came to represent the two sides of his character—the gracious international businessman on the one hand, and the mysterious relative on the other. Jeffrey sat and ate and listened and slowly came to the decision that he genuinely liked the man, mystery and all.

  “Jeffrey. What a positively American-sounding name. I suppose all your friends call you Jeff.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Alexander Kantor showed genuine alarm. “Don’t tell me you’ve been turned into a Jay.”

  “Good grief, no.”

  “Thank heavens. I’m certain I couldn’t bear the strain of having a Jay skulking about.”

  Jeffrey started to ask, skulk about where. Instead he replied, “I don’t skulk, and nobody’s ever called me Jay twice.”

  “Do I detect a note of steel beneath that bland American exterior?” Alexander Kantor inspected him frankly. “Well. There might be hope yet. Tell me, Jeffrey. How have you spent your time since university?”

  “I’ve worked with McKinsey Management Consultants out of their Atlanta office for the past six years.”

  “Really.” The jutting eyebrows raised a notch. “In Europe a man hired from university for a consultant position is considered to be one of the best. Is that the case here?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “There were about four hundred applicants for each person hired.”

  “How interesting. I suppose you must find the work tremendously stimulating.”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Do you prefer honesty or corporate diplomacy?”

  “I have always put the highest value on honesty, young man,” Alexander replied. “Carry on.”

  “The pay for the lower grades is lousy. There’s an endless back-stabbing battle to see who is going into one of the senior slots. Partners go out to the client companies, make the presentations, and leave us behind to do the trench work. Because of the competition, people on my level spend ridiculous hours doing research, poring over figures, writing out stuff that nobody in his right mind is ever going to read. Justifying the fees charged by the partners, basically.”

  Jeffrey leaned back, allowed the waiter to collect his plate. “Working there has been like joining a secret order or fraternity, with the partners coming by our cubicles every once in a while to pat us on the back and tell us to keep at it, because look how wonderful it’s going to be once we hit the jackpot. But only less than one in ten actually make partner. The rest suffer from severe burnout and drop by the wayside.”

  “And which are you to be?” Alexander Kantor asked gravely.

  “Burnout, most likely. I lack some of the basic ingredients, like an overriding desire to go for the jugular. Sometimes I pull back and wonder what in the world I’m doing there. It all seems so silly, chasing after an ulcer, a heart attack, and an early grave. But every time I put on the brakes I see all the others start pulling ahead, so I dive back down in the trench and keep on digging.”

  “I take it, then, that your present occupation does not grant you the satisfaction of having found the purpose for which you were placed upon this earth.”

  Jeffrey laughed a rueful no.

  “Let’s see. This would put your age at twenty-six, is that right?”

  “Twenty-seven. I took a year off to travel before graduating.”

  “Ah yes. I recall a card or letter to that effect, saying that I should expect to find a bedraggled and no doubt bearded young man on my doorstep, and that I should not set the dogs on him. You were to be fed and allowed to wash your drawers. I believe your dear ones also included a request to have the doctor check you for lice and other horrors before placing you on the plane home—as though there were European strains of bacteria designed to attack visiting American college students.”

  “I think it was more a fear of where I had been sleeping.”

  “No doubt with good reason. In any case, I was quite disappointed not to have heard from you.”

  Jeffrey sipped at his water, recalling the impressions he had carried with him to Europe. Somewhere in his backpack had been a series of three or four addresses, enough to seem as if there was at least one place in each country he had visited belonging to this unknown uncle. Only he wasn’t really an uncle, and no one in the family could bring themselves to speak of him without a smirk and a shake of the head.

  Jeffrey had dutifully carried the addresses around with him for a year, along with a mental image that kept shifting between a crotchety old man with too much money and something a little more swish. Upon his return, he had made some vague excuse for not having called the mystery relative, and nobody had seemed very concerned.

  “Why do they talk about you as they do?” he asked.

  “Who, my long-lost American kin?” Kantor made a regal gesture dismissing the waiter’s offer of anything further. “That is quite simple. Anything that is not known becomes shrouded with supposition, Jeffrey. It is one of life’s unwritten rules. With time, the supposition becomes reality. It is much easier to believe nonsense than to search out the truth, and most people are either too lazy or too comfortable to look for truth any further than their front gardens.” He cast a careful glance Jeffrey’s way. “I do hope I’ve not offended you.”

  “Sounds to me as if you know them perfectly. The family never visited you, did they?”

  “Not in years, although I must admit that I have not made an effort to visit your clan since Piotr’s untimely departure from this earth. I tried to keep in touch, in my own feeble way, but your own family seemed to hop across the nation at such speeds that I would receive the latest address only to learn that you had already moved elsewhere.”

  “Yeah, that was Dad’s life. When I was a kid I thought for a while that he was paid to move.”

  “Another of the prices for being an American executive. He was with IBM, I believe.”

  “Still is.”

  “Of course. Well, enough about the various kinfolk, as you say. Tell me more about yourself, Jeffrey.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, perhaps a bit more about your work.”

  Jeffrey leaned back in his seat and took a moment to gather his thoughts. Alexander Kantor offered a sense of immediate intimacy. He invited a frank discussion by offering the gift of intense listening. Jeffrey found it immensely satisfying to have this chance to speak with someone who understood.

  “When I started out, the work at the big consulting groups w
as already shifting—only I didn’t know it then. We went from helping companies identify problems and learn better management techniques, to simply growing bigger faster. Mergers and acquisitions became the name of the game in the eighties. Those words alone are enough to start a consultant salivating.”

  “Change is inevitable,” Kantor said. “Why should you be disturbed by an altering of direction within the consulting industry?”

  “Mergers tend to wipe people off the map,” Jeffrey replied vehemently. “It brings out the worst trait of business, lack of concern for the little person. And even the people who are left after the firing squads have worked their way through the companies—which was one of our jobs—still end up feeling either left out or squashed down. People are so shaken by this change in their working life that they forget about other people. I only see it inside the businesses, but I’ll bet it happens in their families, too. They don’t have time anymore for other people’s feelings, fears, ambitions—anything but their own skin. I hate what it does to people, and I hate the misery it causes for everybody but the handful of top executives who skim off the cream. It’s become about seventy percent of our business, the most profitable section. If you’re a trench worker like me, the best way to make it to partner is to get yourself attached to an M and A team. You can always tell who they are, too. They’re the ones walking around with blood on their hands.”

  “How remarkable,” Kantor murmured. “A businessman with heart. Tell me, Jeffrey. Do you like dealing with people?”

  “I’ve always thought so. That was why I got into management consulting work in the first place, so I could deal with a lot of people and a lot of issues. Maybe somewhere up the ladder that’s the way it is, but right now I spend so much time in my little cubbyhole, I’m not sure I even remember how to be cordial.”

  “You’re doing quite well, I assure you,” Kantor said. He reached for an inner pocket, drew out a slender metal tube, and unscrewed the cap. He drew a cigar from a paper-thin screen of wood. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. My grandfather used to smoke them.”

  Kantor smiled. “He most certainly did.”

  “I love the smell; I just can’t stand the taste.”

  “Tell me, Jeffrey.” He brought out a polished key chain and grasped a gold-plated guillotine the size of his thumb, an apparatus with a springblade and circular opening to clip off the cigar tip. “What would you say is your strongest point?”

  Jeffrey thought about it, replied, “That I’m hungry.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Not for money. Well, sure, that too. But it’s not number one. I want to learn. And do. And expand. I’m not sure that makes any sense.”

  “On the contrary, it makes very good sense. It is always difficult to put matters of the heart into words. You wish to stretch the limits of your experience.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “A most commendable trait.” He rubbed the cigar back and forth between thumb and forefinger, asked with deceptive casualness, “And what would you say is your greatest failing?”

  “As far as your business goes? Simple. I don’t know the first thing about antiques. Or furniture. Or interior decorating. Nothing.”

  “It is indeed an issue, but not an insurmountable one. You clearly have the aptitude for learning and have expressed a willingness to adapt.” He fastened upon Jeffrey with a gently penetrating gaze. “Besides this, then, where is your greatest weakness?”

  He did not need to search very far. Feeling very exposed, Jeffery replied, “I’m so frustrated and impatient with my life I feel as if I’m going to explode sometimes. I get incredibly angry at everyone, at life, especially at the people close to me, because I feel so trapped. I don’t know which way to turn to get out of the bind, and that gets me even angrier. I’ll start thinking about it sometimes without even realizing it, and then all of a sudden I’m so furious I’m shaking.”

  Alexander Kantor eyed him for a very long moment. “Your candor is most admirable, young man. You certainly did not need to consider that one very long.”

  “My girlfriend broke up with me last week because of it, so it’s still on my mind a lot. She said she was tired of trying to make a go of it with someone who was never satisfied. I tried to tell her that the problem wasn’t with us, but it didn’t make any difference. Not to her, anyway.”

  Kantor released a long thin plume of smoke toward the ceiling. “If it is any consolation to you, young man, I learned a lesson about dissatisfaction some time ago that has brought me great consolation over the years. Shall I share it with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “It is quite simple really. Dissatisfaction tends to lift one’s eyes toward the horizon. Those who are comfortable rarely make the effort to search out something better. They may yearn for more, but they do not often receive it. They are too afraid of losing what they already have, you see, to take the risk. And there is always risk involved, Jeffrey. Always. Every major venture contains a moment when you must step off the cliff and stretch your wings toward the sky.”

  Jeffrey watched the man across from him and was suddenly struck with a feeling so solid it arrived in his mind already cemented into certainty. He wanted that job. There was no question, no need to doubt or consider his possibilities or salary or benefits or anything. Every mundane detail paled into insignificance beside the utter appeal of working with such a man as this. He wanted that job.

  “A moment ago I mentioned a need to adapt,” Kantor went on. “This cannot be stressed too highly, young man. The greatest failure of most intelligent people is a false confidence in what they already know. If you are going to succeed in this game, you must begin by assuming that you know nothing. Nothing at all. It is essential to your success.”

  Struggling to keep his eagerness from touching his voice, Jeffrey replied, “I understand.”

  “I am not sure you do,” Kantor responded gravely. “I am not speaking solely of your knowledge of antiques and the related businesses. That in itself is only a small part of what is required. You must begin by assuming that you know nothing. Not how to dress, nor how to stand, nor how to greet a client, nor what to read, nor in some cases even what to think.”

  Kantor paused to draw on his cigar and gauge Jeffrey’s reaction. He in turn kept his face carefully blank as he felt the words sink deep.

  Clearly pleased with this silent response, Kantor went on. “You are about to enter an entirely different world, young man, one totally alien to anything you have ever experienced before. It has rules all its own. To assume that all people everywhere are basically the same, and thus you can get by on what passes for etiquette or correct prejudices or current wisdom here in your American existence, will doom your efforts to abject failure.

  “This does not mean that you must affect a false attitude. I personally loathe the catty pettiness that pervades such people’s lives. No, what I mean is that you must learn to adapt while remaining true to yourself. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” he replied solemnly.

  Kantor examined him carefully, and in time appeared to reach a decision. “Splendid. Now tell me, Jeffrey. What would you think of a ninety-day trial period in my London business?”

  Resisting the urge to jump up, run screaming around the restaurant, kiss the frowning maitre d’, he responded with a simple, “That sounds fine.” Then he gave the game away with an enormous face-splitting grin.

  Kantor replied with a small smile of his own. “Excellent. Ninety days will grant us ample time to see whether or not you have the ability to learn the required lessons and adapt to the new world, I am sure. Now I think it would be proper to offer you a small gesture of congratulations for this decision. Have you ever flown first class?”

  “No, but I’m sure I could adapt to it very quickly.”

  “No doubt. It doesn’t make long flights enjoyable. Nothing could go quite that far. But it does enliven the time considerably. When can you leave?
”

  The grin would just not stay down. “I have to give a month’s notice.”

  “And I must take care of a few items in Canada before returning to Europe, then travel on the Continent for a week or so before arriving in London. Let us say that I shall expect you on the first day of June. That gives you fifty days to prepare. Is that sufficient?”

  “Great. Just great.”

  “Splendid.” He reached back into his coat pocket, extracted two folded sheets of heavily embossed paper, handed them over. “I prepared these in hopes of finding you a worthy candidate. On the first sheet you will find various addresses and telephone numbers for my residences and the London business. I must tell you, however, that when I am on a buying trip I am rarely in a position to be contacted. The second sheet contains a list of books I would like you to commit to memory before your arrival. There are fifteen in all, and should give you a basic overview of some of the more important areas in which my business trades. You will find them quite expensive. They are all extensively illustrated with color plates, which should assist you in understanding the finer points. Bring the receipts with you. At the bottom of the page is the name and address of my New York travel agent. He will be sending you a plane ticket and the address of your temporary London residence.”

  Jeffrey looked up from the pages, said gravely, “Thanks a lot, Mr. Kantor.”

  “You are quite welcome, young man.” He signaled to the waiter and rose to his feet, extending his hand to Jeffrey. “I shall look forward to seeing you in London. Until then, good afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 3

  As Jeffrey was ushering Betty back through the front door, the phone rang. It was the assistant chief of Christie’s furniture section. “Sorry to bother you like this, Jeffrey, but I’ve had a rather strange call this morning.”

  A year in the place had not diminished Jeffrey’s enjoyment of the fruity way Britain’s upper-crust spoke, though it left him feeling the uncouth country cousin. “No problem. What can I do for you?”

  “It seems that we have an official from the German government coming in for a bit of a snoop.”