Borderless Deceit

by Adrian de Hoog

  Other times, Krause on business travelled through Geneva where she would join him. Several times a year in different locations they met up with Morsi Abou-Ghazi to review programs sponsored by his Foundation. Occasionally they visited Foundation projects – in Nepal, Sudan, and Costa Rica. Rachel was in her element then, embracing children, encouraging village leaders, cajoling the local reps of inter-national donors to align their work with the objectives of the Foundation. She drew up reporting and evaluation mechanisms to detect flaws in the projects. Flaws were inevitable in developmental work, she argued. You have to catch the problems early on. In the jet cabin, meticulously reviewing stacks of project dossiers, she worked as hard as Nikko. Occasionally she wondered whether progress was as smooth as the documentation implied. How realistic were the financial flows? The projects were in remote regions. Could it really be that everything always went as scheduled? Was there never a hiccup? She mentioned her misgivings to Nikko. The disbursement patterns, she pointed out, were perfect. Always perfect. Too perfect. He seemed surprised. An accountant would look at it, he said. Something was done, because not long afterwards project reports began to include references to problems of design and delays in implementation.

  The affair continued calm and steady, no storms or doldrums, no problems brewing below deck. Nikko sometimes remarked that he and his wife were becoming estranged. Rachel wondered if this fore-shadowed a change in course, but she picked up no signs. A minor statement, she thought, factual, no different than some item mentioned in one of his bank’s shareholder reports.

  Actually, there were signs of transformation, but they were subtle and so slow in coming that Rachel didn’t immediately sense that an unravelling was on. A slight increase in Nikko’s assertiveness was the first faint indication. Instead of asking Rachel if she would be free to join him on a business trip, he suggested he’d like her to come. A similar shift occurred for weekends in Berlin. The desire that she come was politely expressed, with charm, almost as a wish. Initially nothing much could be read into it. But the insistence grew. Several times, one after the other, he declared he counted on her coming. A formal event, he explained, suitable for being accompanied by a partner. Rachel declined. She had enough formality in Geneva, she countered. Nikko backed off, though within weeks the pressure was back. In reaction, Rachel’s schedule in Geneva became more crowded. I have the patience of a saint, he sighed on the phone when Rachel made light of the fact that they both seemed very busy now.

  The final scene was in the apartment. She had placed her bag in the foyer and had scarcely taken off her coat when Nikko suggested she sit down. In the salon, in low chairs, they eyed each other across a coffee table. Daylight filtered grey by a joyless Berlin drizzle subdued the colour in the room. He went into attack mode. Rachel recognized it. His face was set no different than when he ripped through the bank’s paperwork. In a voice borrowed from his board meetings – clipped, icy, a prelude to decisions that heads should roll because there had been under-performance – Nikko itemised his views. His summation fixed on their compatibility. This was the essential issue. In a voice that threatened with its flatness and in the idiom of a banker, he stated, “We have proved we have it. Compatibility is our advantage. It creates synergies. One nurtures that. One does not undermine it.”

  Rachel’s turn. She had been preparing too. She recalled the contract agreed to at the beginning. No presents. No mementoes. No flowers for St. Valentine’s. None of that kind of thing. Implicit in this was an undertaking that the liaison would create no rights and no commitments. And it had worked. They had successfully avoided the burden of being beholden. That, Rachel pointed out, was the basis for their compatibility. Create rights, she said, and compatibility is gone. In their case, she argued, compatibility was a secondary matter. They should really be discussing only the primary one, that is, keeping things open, not forcing the future. She spoke calmly, in understatement, with slight inflections, the way she did when she charmed compromises out of UN committees.

  Nikko lost it then. Eyes flashing, resentment skewing his face, he leaned forward. With a finger jabbing the table top, in a barren tone, he went through the accommodations he had made to his schedule so that they would have time together. “I considered you had a right to that and I accorded it to you.” Anyway, he decreed, talk of rights was beside the point. The issue was one of emotions. It’s abnormal to spend so much time together, having so much quality companionship, giving and taking pleasure, sharing the best things life has to offer, and yet remain emotionally unaffected. He slapped his palm down hard on the table. “Damn it. We are not robots, Rachel. We are humans.”

  Rachel absorbed this. “We agreed at the beginning there would be no obligations,” she repeated. “Obligations would have stopped us. They would have prevented our experiences. I’m glad they happened. I’ll always treasure them. If now things can’t continue as before, we have no choice but to let go. That’s being human too – living with regret and moving on.”

  Nikko shook his head with bitterness. “It is abnormal for humans who gratify each other not to deepen their involvement. It’s clear to me now. You want pleasure, but not its consequences. You love humanity, but you’re not capable of loving its members. You take, but you can’t give. Giving threatens your perfection. And so you exile yourself…”

  And so I left. The first departing flight was to Paris, where here in the railway station waiting for the train to Geneva I have time to write.

  I haven’t counted all of Nikko’s accusations, dear Anne-Marie, but I understand his perspective. Still, if it’s normal to make a commitment, is it abnormal if one doesn’t?

  I knew from the beginning it would end, even if for a long time there was no end in sight. Why then, when tensions set in, didn’t I start the conversation? Why did I wait? Something to think about.

  It’s interesting to look back. With Nikko, things remained uncomplicated for what seemed like an age. He was witty and urbane. He knew a lot. We laughed frequently. What I saw of him on the surface I liked. But much of him stayed hidden. I glimpsed enough of it to know that it was best if it remained that way. I willfully ignored large parts of him. Why?

  Maybe he was right. Perhaps I took but didn’t give. Quite possibly I am an exile. I like to think, though, that it’s not my destiny to remain one. But for the moment, Anne-Marie, I feel no regret. I’m relieved it’s over and can again do with my time as I please.

  “No,” Rachel said, breaking the coffee-shop reverie, “not an IMF type. Just another banker. Shall we get going? Feel like strolling? Let’s make our way to the Reichstag, and from there to the museums.” In this way Nikko Krause was dispensed with.

  It wasn’t a stroll we set out on – forced march was more like it. Years before I’d seen Rachel was a strong skier and now she showed she was no less a walker. We started in what had once been West Berlin, pushed our way along a canal, then veered north towards the central park. I had no difficulty keeping up. But I had an advantage, because Rachel used her breath not just to maintain a fast pace. She also did the talking. When and why the German army dug this canal through the middle of the city – to keep soldiers busy when there was no war; how the central park, Tiergarten, with its quacking ducks on little lakes, came by its name – from when it was a game park outside the city limits. There was the Victory Column, the statue of Bismarck, the Avenue of the 17th of June, and a welter of other landmarks all prompting historical anecdotes. Rachel made Berlin’s history come alive. But more than the words it was Rachel’s voice, cheerful and melodic, that bewitched me. Striding beside her through intriguing surroundings under a sun that inspired, I could have been on a magic carpet slipping through space not caring about time. That voice! Every few minutes it courted my name.

  The interesting thing about the Victory Column, Carson, is those gilded ornaments ringing the four levels. See them? They’re cannon barrels captured by the Prussians in their wars with the Danes, Austrians and French. When Berlin was
occupied after the last war the French wanted all that taken down and destroyed. The British said no and, this part of the city being their zone, they rubbed French noses in Prussian history and loved it…

  When at last we stood before the Reichstag, I blurted from within my magical capsule that the scene was fantastic. She asked if I agreed it was a somewhat squat, slightly forbidding, and over-designed building. I replied I needed to look at it a bit longer. And what’s your opinion of the cupola, Carson? I said I liked it, sort of a German version of a minaret. I don’t think it fits. The building is heavy. The cupola is ephemeral. But that’s Berlin. Motley, mischievous, fun.

  We spent an hour in and around the Reichstag, that symbol of one hundred years of German history in total disarray. Next came the museums on the island and a fast tour of Alexanderplatz, a showpiece of urban planning in the communist style.

  As we went, Rachel sometimes fell silent. I wondered, was she thinking about Krause? Why was she reluctant to tell me about him? Had Anne-Marie not said she considered me her oldest friend and aren’t confidences something that old friends share? I assumed that her desire for privacy was stronger. Thinking this through (in fits and starts as we passed from one Berlin monument to the next) I became uncomfortable with jabs of guilt, a slowly growing apprehension that, really, I wasn’t her friend. I was more of a traitor, a traitor to the spirit in which we were spending the day. She desired to keep her affair with Krause private, yet I had stalked it. It was more complicated still. I knew Krause was a villain on a global scale and Rachel was lucky to be rid of him. So I’d committed treason to our friendship twice. Not only had I stalked, I also denied her what I knew, insight she might well have wanted to have. Good friend? I lacked the courage for being one. In this way Rachel’s silent moments were torture for me, and every time she broke the stillness with a new burst of enthusiasm for an alley, or square, or building old or new, or yet another spot which had poignantly contributed to the history of our times – Look there, Carson. Look closely. Do you see what I mean? – I was grateful because it pushed my conscience away. And so I worked hard to match her energy. “Oh my!” I’d cry with exuberance at her remarks. Or, “How lovely!” Or, “So splendid! So fascinating!” To banish introspection I tried to keep her talking, and luckily she did.

  We had dinner in a pub, then took a bus back to her hotel. Rachel proposed a nightcap.

  A waiter in the hotel bar delivered two tall glasses of foaming beer. We clinked. After a satisfying draught, I said, “A wonderful day, Rachel. Thank you. I had no idea it would be so interesting.”

  “It’s fun showing you around. You get so involved.” There was a slight tightening around her eyes.

  I took refuge in blandness. “The places you took me were rivetting. You know everything about them.”

  “Do you do it often?”

  “What?”

  “Visit other places.”

  “Not much, Rachel.”

  “Why not?”

  “Work, I guess. Too much of it.”

  “Would you travel more if you had time?”

  Rachel’s ambiguous smile was unwavering. I couldn’t pin it down. Was she teasing? Or prodding? Could it be, here in the hotel bar, drinking beer, that Rachel was signalling she wanted our talk to become somehow familiar? “Travel more?” I said. “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure? How so?”

  I paused. “I haven’t really thought about it. Perhaps nothing spurs me.”

  This amused her. “Perhaps that’s it,” she said.

  “And you? Would you travel more? I mean, if you had time?”

  Right away I kicked myself. I shouldn’t have turned Rachel’s question back on her. After all, she’d spent four years skipping around the world with Krause, on the fringes of his corruption. Why would I force her to think of all that again?

  She reflected, the teasing giving way to weariness. “I don’t think I want to travel more. I prefer to travel less. I’ve become too rootless. The opposite of you, Carson. You seem deeply rooted. There’s something to be said for that.”

  It startled me. “Rooted?” I asked. “Stuck’s a better word. I’m stuck. I’m more stuck than rooted.”

  “Stuck? No. That describes me.”

  “Rachel,” I protested. “If you’re stuck, the rest of us live entombed. You have a wonderful career. You deal with fascinating people. You have exciting friends. You travel to places with airports that don’t even show up on maps.”

  It was the most I’d said all day and already it was too much. I clamped up.

  Rachel laughed. “What do you know about it? How much does Anne-Marie tell you?”

  I blushed. “I don’t know anything. It’s the impression you give, the way you go about everything…with authority and confidence. And isn’t it true you’ve been everywhere?” Rachel tilted her head, daring me to go on. “What I mean is that this last conference was probably like all the others. It probably created follow-up committees to be convened God knows where. And you’ve probably been asked to chair half of them. You’ll have to travel to the ends of the earth.”

  Rachel reached for her glass, not to lift it, but to move it absent-mindedly around, turning it left and right as if it were a wheel. She nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “There’ll be some of that. I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about it. No longer.”

  Her work, that side of her, her public self, it was safe conversational ground, so I asked about the international protocols to be negotiated, the places for that, the individuals she’d be dealing with. Over two more tall glasses Rachel described the humanitarian work ahead. The way she portrayed what she’d be doing, it seemed she was planning it scene by scene like a director of a play, anticipating the transitions, from pathos to comedy and back again. For an hour, maybe longer, from the best seat in the house I witnessed a drama unfolding.

  Striding back to my hotel filled up with beer, I felt inspired. Talking to myself I punched the air to emphasize my thoughts… about a role I might assume in Rachel’s play. For hadn’t she asked if I might travel more? If I did, and since I was her oldest friend, surely that opened a door to my appearing in some of the scenes? As what? I stopped to think…As what? What could I contribute?…It came to me. As a tree. Rachel considered I was deeply rooted. She could place me in the middle of the drama. Rachel’s script would have the standard, messy parts: petty jealousies, struggles for primacy, endless mendacity. When all that swirled around, as she orchestrated major and minor actors, my role could be simply to be there. Abruptly I decided to rehearse it. On a Berlin corner I stopped, raised my arms into two branches and remained motionless with proud defiance. This would be my contribution to Rachel’s future global work.

  Others on the street scarcely noticed. No one clapped. No one tapped a finger against his head. In Berlin, my brew-stoked pose didn’t seem unusual or abnormal. I maintained it until my arms tired, then continued on my way to my hotel, content and ascendant. I still recall how that evening gave me hope.

  Rachel had promised a river cruise and the next morning we marched soberly to the central station, jumped on a train which rumbled through endless stretches of an uninspiring urban landscape consisting of the back ends of apartment buildings and then through miles of forest to deliver us at the end of the line to a watery idyll. The river flowing through the western part of Berlin widened here into a lake. The waterfront was lined with restaurants and marinas; yachts ferried in and out; sailboats darted with the breeze. On the quay, Rachel studied the available cruises and acquired tickets for an outing that would take us through a string of connected lakes into the surrounding countryside. We hadn’t said much on the train but now, cruise tickets bought and with time to kill before departure, we loosened up.

  “Almost overdid it last night.” Rachel’s smirk was slightly mischievous and a tiny bit bleached.

  “Guess what I did after I left.”

  “You concentrated on walking a straight line.”

  “We
ll…actually, the whole way back I tried to see myself as rooted, as you said I was, and on a corner I stopped. I tried to grow some roots right there. But no luck.”

  This livened Rachel up. She laughed. “So you see, you don’t have it in you to be stuck.” She spied a kiosk. “I need a coffee. And let’s find a postcard for Anne-Marie.”

  The choice of cards was endless: Berlin landmarks from every perspective at all times of the year. Rachel took her time, occasionally seeking my opinion. The Brandenburg Gate? The Victory Column? Graffiti which once covered the west side of the Wall? Checkpoint Charlie when it was still active?

  “Good,” I said each time. “That’s good.”

  But Rachel wasn’t satisfied. Eventually she chose one showing two brightly plumed parrots in the aviary of the Berlin Zoo. “Let’s sit down.” She pointed at a bench. After a few sips of coffee, she dug out a pen. “You dictate. I’ll write. Start off by saying something about the parrots.”

  “I’m not good at this, Rachel,” I warned. “I don’t have much occasion to write postcards.”

  “Are occasions needed? Maybe people like receiving postcards even without occasions. It shows they were being thought about. I liked getting yours. Well, what shall we write Anne-Marie?”

  I thought for a moment. “Parrots?”

  Rachel nodded, pen at the ready. She eyed me severely, like a school mistress.

  I frowned. “How about…” I began, “how about…Berlin is more colourful than parrots. Lots of lovely things to see. Yesterday we walked a great deal; today there’s a river cruise. Wish you were here.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Not even close. Lighter. It should be lighter. We’re both sending this postcard. We’re two and there are two parrots. Something in that direction. We want Anne-Marie to enjoy it, Carson. Try smiling when formulating the message. It helps.”

  I forced a smile.