Sila's Fortune

by Fabrice Humbert

  One weekend Simon went back to Paris for Nicholas’s birthday, his former colleague at the laboratory. Since the party on the terraces, they’d become firm friends. His birthday was an opportunity to meet up again. Arriving by Eurostar, Simon took a taxi to Nicholas’s place, a one-bedroom apartment in the 19th arrondissement. The narrow, run-down stairwell made him feel uncomfortable. He thought of the soft, shimmering whiteness of his London flat. He rang the doorbell and found himself staring at … Julie, the girl who had a fleeting encounter with Matthieu on the terrace of their old apartment. She gave him a smile; he stood there speechless.

  ‘Surprised?’ she said. ‘Yep, I live here, with Nicholas.’

  Embarrassed at this reminder of an amorous escapade, she stood shaking her head nervously. Then Nicholas appeared, all smiles, wearing jeans and trainers.

  ‘Oh la la … still wearing the broker’s outfit then,’ he said checking out Simon’s suit. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t go with the dress code in this place,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll have to lose the jacket.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Simon, taking it off.

  ‘You know Julie, yeah?’ Nicholas said smugly, squeezing his lover’s shoulder. ‘She’s moved in with me. She’s my angel.’

  Simon found this last comment stupid. He stepped into a room with a sloping ceiling, utterly devoid of charm. There were already five or six people in there, two of whom Simon recognised from the maths laboratory. Nicholas introduced everyone. Everyone noticed his designer suit.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ was what Simon wanted to say to them, pleadingly, awkwardly, ‘I’m just like you, actually I’m worse than you, I don’t hunger for money, I don’t lust after power, I don’t even strive for recognition as much as you and I’ll never fight for a research post or a university chair. For years I lived holed up in my bedroom, terrified of life like a sick kid, and I’ll always be that kid. Don’t look at me like that. It’s just a twist of fate that pitched me into the world of money, and anyway in that world I’m like a sort of ghost so you’re wrong to look at me like that. It’s unworthy of you, all it does is make you seem mean and petty. All I want is for us all to get along, for the sake of the birthday. Please.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ve just got in from London,’ was what he actually said. ‘I didn’t have a chance to change.’

  ‘London?’ asked one of them. ‘And does Monsieur work in finance?’

  ‘And was Monsieur lured by the golden calf?’ joked another in a curious tone, at once jokey and venomous.

  ‘No, it’s just that I love mint sauce and warm beer,’ Simon joked feebly.

  They all laughed politely and, now reconciled by this barb at the expense of the English, they passed round the champagne. Julie poured and Simon couldn’t help feeling a twinge of bitterness in the pit of his stomach as he stared at her pale, slender hand with its elegant nails which, from the moment he first saw it, had seemed to him the supreme epitome of beauty. So, she had chosen Nicholas … A night with Matthieu, a lifetime with Nicholas. They seemed to get along well. Simon thought sadly – and all the more sincerely since he barely knew her – that Julie was his dream woman. Beautiful, charming, rather funny.

  ‘So, did you finally get your degree in maths?’ he asked.

  ‘You remember about that? I feel honoured. Yeah, I got it, I even passed my teaching diploma, I work in a secondary school now in Aulnay-sous-Bois.’

  Simon felt he had to ask a question, but didn’t know what it was. At random, he ventured: ‘You don’t find it too hard?’

  She smiled. ‘Let’s just say it’s not exactly easy. But it’s so rewarding, working with kids.’

  If they stayed on the subject of teaching, the conversation would become difficult. By some miracle, Julie already seemed bored with the subject and suggested everyone sit down to eat. The tablecloth covered the large wooden top of what was probably Nicholas’s desk. Two of the chairs were wobbly.

  The guests included colleagues of Nicholas and Julie and two friends, an actor and a businessman. The actor talked a lot and managed to keep up the party mood which Julie’s two colleagues rather spoiled, as both were clearly exhausted after a long week at school.

  ‘So what do you do?’ Simon asked the businessman.

  ‘I sell software,’ he answered chewing on a piece of lemon chicken dripping with sauce.

  ‘What kind of software?’

  ‘It’s for banks. Financial markets.’

  ‘Really? I know the territory, that’s what I work in.’

  ‘So I figured,’ said the man, still chewing. ‘Me and my partner, we’ve been approaching banks directly. We’ve had a couple of interesting propositions, but not interesting enough.’

  ‘To buy your software packages?’

  ‘Actually, there’s just one software package, very high-performance. Really high-performance. It was developed at Stanford University, in a lab my partner used to work at. It’s the best piece of financial software ever developed.’

  ‘How much are you selling it for?’

  ‘Ten million dollars.’

  ‘Ten million dollars for a piece of software?’ Simon choked and was about to go on when he noticed an awkward look flash between Julie and Nicholas.

  ‘It’s a fair price,’ the man went on. ‘The banks will earn billions with it. Traders won’t be able to live without it.’

  ‘There’s a lot of software like that out there. In fact in my own job, I develop statistical models for traders …’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said the man, giving Simon a broad smile, though his eyes were expressionless. ‘So we’re in competition.’

  Since people were now staring at them, looking increasingly embarrassed, Simon did not reply. But the businessman was on a roll. He began extolling the merits of his software and the longer he went on the more Simon realised that he knew almost nothing about finance, that under a veneer of technical terms and English words, what he was saying was preposterous. There were thousands of software packages out there whose sole purpose was to help traders make decisions. Setting a ten-million-dollar price tag was insane. He turned to Nicholas, who was listening politely as though to a child. He made an apologetic gesture. Everyone else looked at the smooth talker warily. Julie blushed and stared down at her plate.

  ‘We’ve been friends since high school,’ she said suddenly, looking up at the businessman. ‘Matthieu has a great imagination,’ she stressed the word, ‘and I hope this project gets off the ground.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ said Simon, noticing for the first time that the man bore the same name as his friend.

  A liar or a lunatic. Probably not a fraud since he would have been incapable of fooling anyone. Just someone lost in words and dreams. ‘… I’m telling you, it’s the perfect tool for a trader. No risk manager will be able to work without it, they’ll be recommending it to all their teams …’ The most astonishing thing was that Simon’s presence did not faze the man at all. Given that he was sitting opposite a quantitative analyst, he should have shut up, but the prospect of making a fool of himself did not stop him. He ploughed on, eyes utterly blank, speaking easily and fluently like a gifted but superficial actor, caught up in his daydream, an illusionist. ‘A complex collection of algorithms analysing correlations … In fact, our software can even calculate volatility …’

  He suddenly saw the man in all his miserable condition, a mediocre student who had never really grown up, living in a dream world, utterly destroyed by his unconditional, pitiful need to exist even if it meant lying, a pathetic version of the demons of greed that had taken hold of his contemporaries, twisting and sobbing in their need to exist, like a loud wail launched at the icy blue of the heavens.

  ‘It sounds very interesting,’ Simon interrupted him suddenly. ‘Actually, you should ask for fifteen million.’

  The fabulist’s face lit up.

  Finally, someone understood him.

  17

  Lev was worried. The crisis was more serious than expected and
his little oil empire was faltering. In fact, it was a surprise that Russia had held out as long as it had after the transition, what with a government incapable of governing, a clappedout economy and a people that had lost its way. The country had survived for a time owing to the shock tactics of Gaidar’s government, in spite of shortages even more devastating than those of the Soviet period, and slowly basic commodities had found their way back to the shops. But the government had problems paying civil servants and some of them now earned nothing at all. Elena had not been paid in over a year. The logical result of a bankrupt tax system, given that businesses and individuals alike paid taxes only under extreme duress. Uncollected tax revenues were estimated at 50 per cent. Across large areas of the country, barter had replaced money and a number of businesses paid their employees in kind, the onus being on them to then sell the products.

  ELK was caught in a pincer movement between plummeting oil prices and the credit crisis affecting the banks. A number of banks had been wound up and some oligarchs had been completely ruined. Lev was not in this position, since, although his reserves of roubles were worthless, his dollar investments, some with a London hedge fund called Saniak, the rest dispersed in various tax havens, were flourishing. That said, there was no possible comparison between his personal fortune, large though it was, and the value of ELK, and if the business went bankrupt, he would be nothing. An oil empire was not built in a day, nor without major investment. Lev’s debts were colossal. But now the drying-up of credit following the banking collapses meant he was boxed into a corner. He could afford to pay salaries for the next two months, but after that …

  Yeltsin could have helped him. With his influence, he could have found money. But what was the President now? A sick old man given to fits of authoritarianism, preoccupied with his own interests and blinded by the oligarchs in his entourage, seven of them, known as ‘the boyars’, like the Seven Boyars of the Time of Troubles in the seventeenth century. They had bankrolled his re-election campaign in 1996, when all was lost, when all the polls predicted the Communists would win, something which obviously no oligarch was prepared to accept. At this point the seven oligarchs – Berezovsky declared they were ‘half the Russian economy’ – did a deal with ‘The Family’, as Yeltsin’s inner circle was known. They controlled the raw materials, the banks, the media. All the powers in the country, in fact. They poured money back into the economy, spewed propaganda through the media, they were lavish with ‘gifts’ and rumours of electoral fraud were rife. All the incredible, unscrupulous energy upon which they had built their empires, they placed in the service of a lost man.

  And their man won. They used him like a puppet, dangling his heavy-set frame, at once unpopular and charismatic, in front of the crowds, and the hero of 1991, standing on his tank, had been re-elected, ensuring the power of the seven puppeteers laughing behind the screen. Litvinov was one of the Seven. And Lev was not among them.

  In a sense, his absence was unsurprising. He had neither the money nor the power of the Seven. And he had no influence with the media. But in the race between the oligarchs which began with the transition, his absence signalled his defeat. Wealth feeds on wealth. Retreat and delay were costly. Now that he was in trouble, where could Lev find an ally? The Seven were in a position of strength and if banks were rescued, it was their banks. And their businesses were afforded every advantage.

  It was a dangerous moment. Fate was hesitating, something of which Lev was well aware. A game had begun on which his whole future was to depend. And he did not hold all the cards, since his fate was tied to that of the country. As usual, since the period of transition, he was an attendant to History, an economic and social cog in the great machine, exploiting the flaws and the pitfalls of the half-blind mechanism to try his luck, to elevate his status as a man, vulnerable to the slightest reversal of fortune. For the moment, he wasn’t broke. Though he had no illusions about the role he had played, Lev still felt that he had been at the right place at the right time, had known how to make the most of it, with a little intelligence and a lot of effort. Though he sometimes doubted how much scope he had in his decision-making, he was still Lev Kravchenko, Russian billionaire, a paradigm of power and wealth, even if Lev knew better than anyone the flaws in the paradigm, in its fleeting and illusory nature.

  That evening, he got home late. The lofty gates parted for his car, operated by the austerely deferential caretaker, heralding the tedious ritual of his evenings. Lev walked up the steps, briefcase in hand, with, he noticed, a heavier tread than usual.

  But this evening, the ritual was different. Elena did not appear. The hall was empty. Vast, cold (these things were normal), but empty too.

  ‘Is my wife not here?’ he asked.

  ‘She went out, sir. With the children.’

  Where could she possibly have gone at this hour?

  It was true their relationship had deteriorated since the Riabine affair. And yet, when he swore to her that he had rejected violence, she had believed him. Her whole body had seemed to crumple as though exhausted at having had to bear such a terrible weight.

  ‘You’re a brave man, Lev. You rejected fear. You’re the man you used to be.’

  He had closed his eyes and kissed her. He felt no guilt about lying to her, because he wanted to save their marriage, but also because for a long time now words had not meant the same thing to him as they did to her. Elena’s words described the realities she believed in, however misguidedly, whereas for Lev, words were weapons designed to persuade, to seduce, to attain. His aim was to appease her; he had succeeded. They had made love with somewhat exaggerated passion. It was a game he found not unpleasant, although deep down he no longer had the innocence for these displays of affection, the caresses, the devoted looks. It was not that he no longer loved his wife, not at all, it was simply – tragically – that he was too shut away inside himself to express his feelings or to show them. It is impossible to become a statue without harmful consequences; Lev’s tragedy was that he had lost all contact with the world and if he had won a reputation, what he had lost as a man was irreparable.

  The following morning, when he woke up, the conversation had continued, blithe and cheerful. Then came the question: ‘But what’s going to happen to this Riabine? Are Liekom going to take him over?’

  Lev could lie, but Elena would easily be able to check later. And he was almost sure that she would do so.

  ‘Absolutely not. We’ll make him a better offer.’

  ‘You said yourself, he’s very attached to his land.’

  ‘And he is,’ Lev said in a soothing tone. ‘But he’s not stupid. I’ll make him a very advantageous offer. It’ll bankrupt me,’ he added, laughing, ‘but I’ll get his land.’

  Perhaps Elena thought his laugh sounded false. In any case, she slipped out of bed, put on her slippers and left the room without a word. And later, each time he tried to recapture the harmony of the previous evening, he failed, because his wife, her eyes like those of an inquisitor, could see right through him. A translucent glass partition came between them, distorting what was seen, muffling every sound. Doubt. Their conversations became stilted and monotonous, all vitality sapped. Nothing but words that underscored the tension. Elena wondered what Lev had done to Riabine, and in doing so, what he had done to himself, because she thought his soul hung in the balance. His soul! What a thought! Yes, of course Riabine had given up, and from what the wrestler said, they didn’t even have to shake him up too hard. He’d signed and moved out. Within the hour. Taking his cheque with him. He was probably in the Bahamas by now, gratefully lying on the sand by the sea, his pale, silent family sunning themselves and eating in the sunshine, far from icy Siberia. Why cling to that muddy patch of ground when he could be rich? And if they’d shaken him up, it was for his own good. And ELK had acquired a promising deposit of something which, in these difficult times, was not to be sneezed at.

  Why was the palace so deserted?

  Lev opened the wardrobe. M
issing coats and dresses left a gaping void. He checked the children’s wardrobes: half the clothes were gone.

  He searched for a note, a message. Nothing. She had left nothing. Explained nothing. But what need was there to explain? She had discovered the truth about Riabine. How? Because she knew everyone in the city and because through the leaky cracks of a lie, the truth finally comes out.

  Lev sat in the living room. The vastness of it was comical. Over the years he had grown accustomed to these surroundings, but now that he was alone the cavernous rooms with their anachronistic proportions resumed the ridiculous appearance they had had at first, that farcical air that had prompted Lev to buy this palace of fallen princes.

  Lev could understand his wife’s reaction. He felt no anger, nor did he feel sorrow. This was how things were, that was all. He had gambled, he had lost. He had tried to resolve the situation as he thought best, to come up with a credible lie, and eventually he had been found out. But he had had no choice. Riabine’s oilfield was crucial. The crisis only confirmed that. He could not show any sign of weakness.

  Lev was alone now, and though he could use every reason on earth to try to justify his position, he could not change the fact that the only woman he had ever loved had just left him, because he was a coward, because he was corrupt. And in a world of predators, Lev could survive only by fighting and winning. The departure of his wife and children left him weaker. At a moment as dangerous as this, this first desertion was inconvenient. He would fight, as he always did. He would try to win back his wife, but his chances were slim. He would try to save his business. Always the struggle.

  But in this moment beyond time and battle, on a white sofa in a deserted palace, Lev was not thinking about fighting. Everything in him that had not been hardened, all that is weak and frail in man, yielded. And the eternal question posed itself: ‘What was it all for?’

  He stayed there for hours until late into the night. He could think of no answer. Suddenly he got to his feet, took a couple of paces, went and fetched his briefcase from the next room and took out his address book. He picked up the phone and dialled a number. Someone answered. He said a few words.