The Man Who Risked It All

by Laurent Gounelle

  The neighborhood was very quiet, even though a number of July vacationers had returned. In my mind I ran through the different possible scenarios. My chances were slim, but I remained hopeful, impelled by the pressing need to free myself from Dubreuil’s control.

  The shadow of the château slowly rose before me as I drew near. The windows on the front were dark. A deathly silence reigned over the place, which seemed deserted. From time to time, lightning streaked the sky.

  I waited, hesitantly, before ringing the bell, peering into the darkness. Suddenly, I heard violent shouting. A woman’s voice. The hall light came on.

  “I’m sick of it! I’ve had enough!” cried the woman.

  The front door opened, and her silhouette appeared against the light. I was paralyzed, seized by surprise and incomprehension. The young woman who ran down the steps toward me was none other than Audrey. Audrey, my love. Before I could make the slightest movement, the little door next to the gate flew open, and we found ourselves face-to-face. It brought her up short. I saw the amazement on her face.

  “Audrey …”

  She didn’t reply, but fixed me with a distraught look.

  In the darkening sky, the lightning flashes multiplied.

  “Audrey …”

  Tears came to her eyes, as she drew back to escape.

  “Audrey …”

  I took a step toward her, overcome by emotion, torn between my unchanged attraction to her and the unbearable pain of her rejection.

  She put up a hand to stop me and said between two sobs, “I …

  I can’t.”

  The she ran off without turning around.

  My pain rapidly turned into violent anger. Forgetting my fear, I threw myself at the door beside the gate. Closed. I called like a madman on the entry phone, pressing the button dozens of times and then keeping my finger pressed on it.

  No one replied.

  I grasped the gate with both hands and shook as hard as I could, venting my anger, shouting with all my might, my voice covering the flood of barking from Stalin.

  “I know you’re there!” I shouted.

  I called again, in vain. The storm burst at last; there was a muffled rumble of thunder. The first drops were scattered, then quickly became more intense, and the clouds burst.

  Without thinking, I threw myself at the gate again. Propelled by an anger that gave me the energy of ten, I hauled myself up by the strength of my arms and managed to stand on top. I jammed my feet between the spikes and then jumped into the yard.

  The bushes cushioned my fall. I got up and rushed to the heavy door, out of breath. I entered the cold entrance hall. Light was coming from the main drawing room. I strode across the hallway, my feet pounding the marble. The noise rang out in the enormous space. I entered the drawing room. The subdued lighting contrasted with my anger. I saw Dubreuil at once. He was sitting at the piano with his back to me, motionless, with his hands on his knees. I was soaked to the skin; water was streaming down my face and my clothes, dripping onto the Persian rug.

  “You are angry,” he said as calmly as anything, without turning around. “That’s good. You must never keep your frustration or your resentment to yourself. Go on: Express yourself. Shout if you want.”

  His words cut the ground from under my feet. I had planned to shout at him but shouting now would be obeying his command. I felt trapped, my momentum broken. I felt like a marionette whose emotions and actions were being manipulated by someone pulling on invisible strings. I decided to thwart his influence and let my anger burst out.

  “What have you done to Audrey?” I screamed.

  No reply.

  “What was she doing here?”

  Silence.

  “I forbid you to interfere with my love life! Our pact doesn’t give you the right to play with my feelings!”

  Still no answer. I noticed Catherine on one of the sofas in the corner of the room.

  I went on, “I know you despise love. It doesn’t count for you. The truth is, you’re not capable of loving. You have repeated affairs with women half your age because you’re afraid of abandoning yourself and really loving one of them. It’s great to know how to get what you want in life, to have the courage to assert your will and pursue your dreams. I owe you that, and I acknowledge it’s precious. But it’s pointless if you’re not capable of loving, of loving a person, of loving others in general. You smoke in public places, drive in bus lanes, park on the sidewalk. You despise other people’s well-being. But what’s the point of knowing how to get what you want if you cut yourself off from others? You can’t live just for yourself, or else life has no meaning. All the luxuries in the world can never replace the beauty of a relationship, the purity of a feeling, even just the genuine smile of a neighbor or a passerby you hold the door open for, or the touching look of some stranger. Your fine theories are perfect, effective, brilliant even, yet you’re forgetting one thing, just one thing, but it’s essential: You’re forgetting to love.”

  I turned around. When I got to the door, I looked back.

  “And leave Audrey out of this!”

  34

  THE NEXT DAY, my rage gradually gave way to the incomprehension that was eating away at me.

  The more I advanced, the more inexplicable were the events that followed, and the more enigmatic my relationship with Dubreuil, or rather Dubrovski. How could he have infiltrated my life to that extent? And what was he up to? He wasn’t just a former psychiatrist who wronged his patients. He was dangerous, manipulative, and capable of anything.

  Even so, I thought I had put my finger on his weak point: his theories about human relations. For something magical to happen in a relationship, you had to allow yourself to love the other. Love the other. It was the key. The key to all relations, whether friendly or professional. The key that Dubrovski lacked. And which I lacked, too, when it came to convincing my boss. I didn’t like him, and he was bound to feel it. All my efforts were in vain, pointless. I should have found a way of forgiving his hateful behavior enough to like him a little, just a little. And then he might have opened up to me, to my ideas and my proposals. But how do you find the strength to like your worst enemy?

  I was still deep in thought and reflections about love, when I caught sight of my old neighbor walking toward me, dressed, as always, in black from head to toe. Since her last visit to my apartment, she had avoided talking to me.

  Our eyes met, but she turned away and pretended to be interested in the nearest shop window. Unfortunately, it was the window of a particularly alluring lingerie shop. She found herself staring at G-strings and garter belts displayed on models in very suggestive poses. In the center of the window, where she couldn’t fail to see it, was an enormous poster that revealed the charms of a curvaceous beauty, with the advice given by a famous brand of underwear: “Lesson number 36: Give your angular form some curves.” She abruptly turned her head away and walked on, eyes on the ground.

  “Hello, Madame Blanchard!” I called out gaily.

  She slowly looked up.

  “Good day, Monsieur Greenmor,” she said, blushing slightly, no doubt remembering our last encounter.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Lovely day, isn’t it? Makes a change from last night.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Now that I see you, I must tell you: I’m sending around a petition about our neighbor on the fourth floor. Her cat walks along the ledge and goes into people’s apartments. The other day, I found it lying on my sofa. It’s quite unacceptable.”

  “Her little gray cat?”

  “Yes. As for Monsieur Robert, I’ve had enough of his cooking smells. He could at least close the window when he’s cooking. I’ve already talked to the managing agent three times, but I’m the only one who’s complained.”

  Right. Let’s change the subject. I so wanted to get her onto something positive. “You’re out shopping?”

  “No, I’m going to church.”
>
  “On a weekday?”

  “I go every day, Monsieur Greenmor,” she said with pride.

  “Why every day?”

  “Well, why do you think? To tell the Lord Jesus of the love I have for him.”

  “You go to church every day to tell Jesus you love him?”

  “Yes.”

  I hesitated a second.

  “You know, Madame Blanchard, I must tell you.”

  “What?”

  “I have … how shall I put it? I have doubts.”

  “Doubts, Monsieur Greenmor? Doubts about what?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you are a good Christian.”

  She froze, stung to the quick, and then started to shake, red in the face. “How dare you!”

  “Well, I don’t think you’re following Jesus’s teaching.”

  “Of course I am!”

  “I’m not a scholar, but I don’t remember Jesus ever saying ‘Love me.’ On the other hand, I’m certain he said, ‘Love one another.’”

  She stared at me, dumbstruck.

  “However,” I said, “I acknowledge that you follow Jesus’s orders to ‘love your neighbor as you would yourself.’”

  She looked at me uncomprehendingly.

  Then, very gently and sincerely, I asked her, “Madame Blanchard, why don’t you love yourself?”

  35

  TWO IN THE morning. I would never get back to sleep, endlessly turning over the same thought in my mind. I didn’t know what Dubrovski really wanted.

  And that list of shareholders with his name on it that I’d seen online? Was it really just someone with the same name? Suppose it was him? I should have looked at it more closely. What was that company? Luxores? Luxares? Something like that.

  I got up, crossed the bedroom, and sat down at my computer. I typed Dubrovski’s name into Google. Again, the results in Russian came up on the screen. I scrolled through the entries until I came to the one with the list of names followed by percentages. I clicked on the link. Luxares SA—that was the company whose majority shareholder was an Igor Dubrovski. I copied the company name into the Google search box and clicked Enter. Just 23 results: newspaper sites, financial sites, and then luxares.fr, the link for the company’s site, “Restoration company specializes …, “ I read. I opened the page.

  I couldn’t help recoiling, stupefied by what filled the screen. It was a panoramic photo, shot at night. In the foreground were those familiar metal girders and behind them, picture windows, lit from inside, revealing the luxurious interior of the Jules Verne.

  36

  I WAS FRIGHTENED. It was no longer the slight apprehension that had been with me since the beginning of our pact but a terror that gnawed at me and wouldn’t leave. The man who had taken control of my life was all the more dangerous for being rich and powerful. Now I had only one obsession: getting out of his clutches.

  I called the policeman again, telling him about my discovery and insisting I get police protection. He repeated that all I had was just a bundle of suspicions—worrying, admittedly, but there was not even the hint of a crime. He could do nothing for me.

  I had searched in vain for all feasible ways of freeing myself. The only more or less realistic idea had been to try and negotiate with Dubrovski. Audrey’s presence had squashed that plan, and now I no longer had the courage to go back there, after the scene I had caused. I had insulted him in the presence of Catherine, and he wasn’t the sort to forgive easily.

  I had to face reality. My only hope for ending the pact was to accomplish the final trial he had given me—a task that was impossible. I was caught in his trap, cornered.

  The following two days were torture. I desperately sought a solution. My nights were disturbed, sleep impossible. At work I had terrible difficulty concentrating on my interviews. Alice said I looked like a ghost and advised me to see a doctor as quickly as possible. I was on a downward spiral.

  On the evening of the second day, as I turned around to go back to the office to get my wallet, which I’d forgotten, I caught sight of Vladi, who just happened to be a few yards behind me on the Avenue de l’Opéra. My fear went up a notch.

  The following night, I had a strange dream. It took place in America, on a farm in Mississippi. A frog had fallen into a vat of cream. The sides of the vat were very high, and the frog was trapped, unable to get a footing in the cream. There was no possibility of escape; its fate was sealed. All the frog could do was wait to die. But it was too stupid to understand this obvious truth, and it continued to struggle as hard as it could, without thinking how futile its actions were. The frog struggled so much that finally it churned the cream into butter. Now the frog had something solid to stand on. It leapt out of the vat and regained its freedom.

  In the wee hours of the night, I made up my mind. I was going to fight tooth and nail to take my CEO’s place.

  37

  I DIDN’T WASTE a moment.

  I downloaded the bylaws of Dunker Consulting from the Chamber of Commerce website, along with the most recent annual reports. I had to know all the ins and outs of the organization.

  Over the next two nights, I plunged into this torridly erotic literature. Why do French lawyers have such convoluted ways of expressing things? I needed help.

  One of the good things about working as a recruiter is that you rapidly build up an impressive address book. I contacted a young finance director I had recruited some weeks before, mentioning the help I needed. He replied right away, sending all the documents I needed by express delivery.

  We met a few days later at the end of the afternoon, at an outdoor café near the Luxembourg Gardens. He had taken the time to read everything on my company.

  “Dunker Consulting is an SSC quoted on the new market of the Euronext Paris stock exchange,” he told me.

  “An SSC?”

  “Yes, a simplified joint-stock company. That’s similar to a limited liability company in the U.S. An SSC is particularly well suited to a small or mid-sized company because of the flexibility it offers in establishing the bylaws under which it operates.

  “The founders of the company make up the rules, is that it?”

  “To a certain extent, yes.”

  “And what are the specific rules that characterize it?”

  “Nothing special, apart from the appointment of the CEO.”

  “That’s precisely what interests me.”

  “The CEO is elected directly by the shareholders, at the annual meeting.”

  “So all the shareholders vote to choose the CEO, is that it?”

  “No, not quite. Only the shareholders who are present at the meeting. Everyone can take part, of course, but in practice virtually none of the shareholders attend the annual meeting and vote, except the major shareholders. Dunker Consulting has two main shareholders and tens of thousands of small investors.”

  “Let me guess. I bet one of the major shareholders is Marc Dunker.”

  “No, he owns only eight percent of the shares.”

  I remembered then that Alice had already told me that when Dunker took the business public, he had kept only a small stake in the company. The power wasn’t really in his hands anymore.

  “Who are the other big shareholders?”

  “An investment fund, INVENIRA, represented by its director, David Poupon, and an American pension fund, STRAVEX, represented by a certain Rosenblack, the manager of the French subsidiary. Between them, they hold thirty-four percent of Dunker Consulting. No other shareholder, apart from Dunker himself, owns more than one percent of the shares. It goes without saying that Poupon and Rosenblack have a free hand.”

  I decided to take an enormous risk and outline my plan to the finance director. He was kind enough not to laugh.

  “I don’t want to put you off, but it won’t be easy,” he said.

  “No, I don’t doubt that.”

  “In fact, mathematically, you have no chance. If Dunker has remained CEO, that obviously means he had the votes of the two big
shareholders.”

  “Why? They’ve only got thirty-four percent of the shares, not fifty percent.”

  “For the reason I gave you just now: The small shareholders don’t come to annual meetings. What would they get out of it? No, the only shareholders who come are a few retired people who are bored and turn up in the hope that there will be a buffet and drinks after the meeting. They have no impact on the voting.

  “Let me remind you,” he continued, “that there are tens of thousands of small investors, almost every one of whom would have to turn up for their votes to count. And that never happens, except perhaps when a company is on the brink of disaster and the shareholders are afraid of losing their nest eggs. Then they turn up and weep in unison.”

  I was the one who felt like weeping at the moment.

  “If Dunker was reelected CEO,” the finance director went on, “then he obviously has the support of the big two. Their thirty-four percent of the shares probably represents at least eighty percent of the voting rights of the shareholders present at the annual meeting. I don’t want to jump to conclusions about your talents or your powers of conviction, but I don’t see why those two would change their opinion to support a young consultant employed by the company.”

  I remained deep in thought, disheartened by so much good sense.

  “I’m so sorry,” he finally said, with great sincerity.

  It’s always nice to feel other people’s compassion when everything is going wrong, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I had to find a solution, a plan of attack. There must be a way.

  “If you were in my place, what would you do?”

  He replied without hesitating: “Give up. There’s nothing you can do. In your situation, you have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”

  My situation. If only you knew what it was, my friend.

  I paid for our Perrier waters and thanked him for his help.

  I set off through the Luxembourg Gardens. I was downcast, but I didn’t want to capitulate. This battle was my only hope of regaining my freedom, perhaps even of staying alive. I was going to throw myself into it body and soul, even if my chances of winning were close to nil. I had to find a line of attack.