Cornucopia

by John Kinsella

“Yes.

  She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “We can swim in the pool.”

  Monday morning they set out to visit the Cascadas de Juan Curi, near San Gil. They parked the car and after a walk of about fifteen minutes along the bank of a river, they reached the fall that towered more than two hundred meters above a pool of crystal clear water.

  “You can climb to the top,” said Lola pointing to a ladder and ropes.

  “No thanks, I don’t feel like breaking my neck.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, it’s a joke. I prefer to swim.”

  It was hot, though not much more than a fine English summer day. There were no seasons, Lola told him, the vegetation perpetually green with flowers throughout the year.

  “Nobody comes here?”

  “Yes, but only weekends, or in the high season.”

  “So, shall we swim.”

  He had taken the precaution of wearing his swimming trunks under his shorts and was quickly undressed and in the water. He was surprised by the pleasant temperature.

  “Come on,” he shouted to Lola.

  “I forgot my, what you say … top.”

  He laughed, “Never mind, I won’t look.”

  He turned his back and a few moments later she was behind him lacing her arms around his waist.

  “Guess who?”

  He playfully wrestled her under the water and then splashed off towards the fall that cascaded into the pool over a series of step-like rock slabs.

  We can go up, there are more pools, she point to the fall.

  They clambered over the rocks, through the cascade to the upper pool where they played like happy children under the fall as it tumbled down the mountainside. Sitting down on a shady ledge, they shook off the water and listened to the splashing stream.

  “How do you like it Tom?”

  “Very beautiful … like you.”

  A

  Caballero in Barichara

  She put her hand on his and drew herself to him, her lips brushing his cheek.

  “Te quiero Tom,” she whispered softly.

  He kissed her lips and pulled her close. She seemed to melt in his arms. He felt her firm breasts, his desire seem to submerge him.

  “No Lola,” he said gently pushing her away.

  “Si Tom....”

  They lay on the rock, apart from the movement of the water a total calm reigned. Her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest, he watched the gentle rise and fall of her back as she breathed. Their love had been tender, natural, she was not experienced and had let him guide her.

  An hour later they slowly made their way back to the car, their arms entwined; not a word was spoken.

  Lola was not very talkative when it came to her grandparents, though it was evident that they were the centre of her world.

  What Tom Barton gleaned came from Emilio.

  Don Pedro Herida was a grandee, an important man in the region, often absent for his business affairs in Bogota, Medellin or Cartagena. His splendid colonial home was situated five or six kilometres from the old town of Barichara, which Barton had only glimpsed from a distance during his afternoon rides with Lola.

  C

  ascadas de Juan Curi near San Gil

  The invitation to the Hacienda was inevitable, which did not make him any less nervous. Lola had told her grandfather he was teaching her English, which Barton realised was rather thin, to say the least. In a small town there were eyes and ears everywhere, commencing with Jesus, the old gaucho.

  Barton was picked up at his hotel by a chauffeur and driven to the hacienda where Lola, after shyly introducing him to her grandfather made some excuse almost immediately disappeared, leaving Barton alone with the tall, aristocratic Colombian.

  “Welcome to Colombia Señor...”

  “Barton …” Tom Barton, he said introducing himself, somewhat intimidated, not in awe of the Colombian, but rather because of his own awkwardly embarrassing position as a not very convincing ‘English teacher’.

  “So my granddaughter tells me you are teaching her English,” said Don Pedro raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes, but I am afraid I’m not an English teacher,” replied Barton, believing it was better to avoid being ridiculous from the start.

  “Oh!”

  “I’m spending some time here in Barichara,” discovering Colombia.

  “That’s good news. My family came here more than four hundred years ago with Pedro de Herida. In 1525 to be exact, when he landed in Santa Marta. My forefather was his brother.”

  There was a silence.

  “Señor Barton, I will be honest, my granddaughter is very special to us, she is very young … she is also very headstrong, the temperament of her mother. Lola has never shown much interest in the things many young women of her age seem to be attracted to, fashion, big cities, music .... We have been worried about her future… you see we are, as they say, getting on in age.”

  But ..., he added with a quizzical smile, “just recently she seems to have become more easy going, happier, perhaps it is your English lessons? ¡Quién sabe!”

  Barton choked.

  “As I said, I will be direct. My information is you are a serious person. You have means … banking and investment, I believe.”

  “Yes,” admitted Barton seeing the old man had done his homework.

  “But I am curious as to why you are in Colombia?”

  “That’s a good question Don Pedro, so I will be equally frank. It is true I have been successful in my investments, but money is not everything. I decided, if you can understand it, to take a pause. Business meetings hotels and airports and do not make for a happy life.”

  “I can understand that. You have no family?”

  “No, I am not married, if that’s what you mean. My parents passed away some years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So what do you want to do in Colombia?”

  “Barichara’s a nice place, perhaps I’ll look at some property here.”

  That would be a good idea … and Dolores?

  Barton shrugged his shoulders, surprised the two were linked, and lost for an answer.

  “There is a big difference in age, she is just twenty.”

  Barton acquiesced.

  “When I married Lola’s grandmother, there was also a big difference in our ages .... When we lost our only daughter, Lola’s mother, it was very hard for us. Now Lola is all we have. So I will ask you to be good to her.”

  Barton nodded numbly. It seemed everything was cut and dry. He confusedly wondered what he was letting himself into without having the time to think about the future.

  “Our family has consolidated its wealth over generations. I would not like to see Lola married to a poor architect or a penniless actor. Marrying young in our country is a long tradition. In the past life was hard and people did not live long. Before I die I would like grandchildren. You understand Señor Barton.”

  Barton smiled and nodded, he understood Herida’s urgency and his concern about the family fortune. On the positive side, if that’s what it should be called, it seemed as though he had passed a test.

  “I have always admired the British … they gave us a lot of trouble over the course of our history, but that is the past. The English were empire builders like us.”

  Barton smiled, relieved the don had a good opinion of the British.

  “What would you like to drink Señor Barton? Maybe a glass of our very own wine?”

  *

  It was time Tom Barton tended to his affairs, there were a few pressing matters, but it seemed he had burnt his bridges. His future it seemed lay in Colombia and it was time to ensure his investments were protected.

  To start with he instructed his lawyer in London to ensure the maintenance of his home and properties in the capital as well as those in France. As for the Emerald Pool, which was no longer so far away, that was bein
g looked after by Sarah Kavanagh’s staff.

  After winding down the hedge funds he managed, he had banked his gains, the others would be looked after by the bank. He had doubled his earnings since 2010, but all the signs the bull market was coming to an end were there. Wall Street was becoming less attractive as risks grew. When the Ukrainian crisis erupted, he had on the advice of Sergei Tarasov switched to blue chip investments. The previous summer he had got out of oil futures when he realized over production, together with Putin’s adventure, made for bad news. Then he dumped his American shale investments, sooner or later they would be hit by high production costs, growing stocks and falling prices.

  He cut his losses as the Europe Zone stalled deep in the doldrums. From where he stood the Old Continent was in trouble: France stagnated under Hollande’s socialist policies, the euro had weakened, so logically he spread his currency holdings to Swiss francs, dollars and sterling. What he gained on the Swiss franc he had lost on the euro.

  Barton’s net worth had grown spectacularly over the previous five or six years. His relations with INI, Tarasov and investment banking had given him access to unequalled sources of information. What information he learnt with the bank was within the rules and very precious to those with the means to invest.

  As investment fund manager he had netted massive gains and investors huge profits, his departure left some disappointed but richer investors. As he saw it he had accomplished what he had set out to achieve and it was time to move on.

  He had the feeling the market had reached the end of a long positive cycle, perhaps he was wrong, but in any case he had had a long winning streak. What came next would be more volatility and less visibility, and though he was a lot of things he was not a gambler.

  It was time to retire and enjoy his wealth, and even if he was old enough to be Lola’s father, many good years lay ahead in Colombia: new horizons; a new life; and a new and exciting world.

  HOTEL COLOMBIA

  It was late afternoon when Tom Barton’s phone rang: it was a text from Liam Clancy announcing they were nearing Panama City. Barton replied informing him he would be waiting at the Casablanca bar on the corner of plaza Bolivar in Casco Viejo. He had rented a studio appartment for Liam in what was once the Hotel Colombia and where he himself was staying.

  Barton had been engrossed watching CNN News as anchorman announced Vladimir Putin had signed an agreement with Cyprus, that gave Russian navy ships access to the island’s ports, an information did not bode well for the future, as the deal coincided with a new flare up of tensions in the Ukraine. Russian interests in Cyprus, an EU country, had continued to grow and the very thought of Russian air bases on the island was enough to send leaders in Berlin, London or Paris into a fit of shivers.

  The Hotel Colombia had started out as the Colonial. It was built in 1937 by a Peruvian architect Leonardo Villanueva together with Viktor Tejeira. Villanueva, it is said, was inspired by a visit he made to Seville in 1925, designing the edifice in an extravagant mixture Neocolonial and Andalusian styles.

  At the time it opened it was certainly the best hotel in Casco Viejo, the historic centre of Panama City, though in more recent times it fell into a state of serious neglect and disrepair before it being finally renovated and transformed into private apartments.

  The Casco Viejo was undergoing a vast renovation programme with most of its historic monuments and buildings being restored to their past glory and its fine homes transformed in luxury apartments or hotels. In spite of that, a good number of ancient appartment houses, for lack of money, remained grim slums: homes for the very poor.

  What surprised Barton on his arrival in the old town were the many façades and their barred windows looking onto empty weed strewn plots, the interiors razed, waiting for investors. He guessed Panama’s Casco Viejo was ten or more years behind Cartagena de los Indias in its transformation into a tourist centre.

  On the days cruise ship docked at Colon, day-trippers flooded into the old town on flash tours. ‘We did Panama’ with brief pauses at the city’s splendid colonial churches and history museum. It seemed to Barton few visitors bothered to spend more than fifteen minutes or half and hour at what was as extraordinarily rich and interesting presentation of Central American history and Spain’s Colonial Empire.

  But who was he to judge, his interests were different, he had more time, as had many, often more cultivated individual travellers. Day-trippers had just sufficient time for a perusary glance, lunch and a few photos to mark their passage.

  From his appartment Barton had no further to go for dinner than the elegant Casablanca, which had nothing in common with the Moroccan city in style or cuisine, apart from the shared Spanish name. It was situated on one corner of the Hotel Colombia, facing the cathedral on the opposite side of Plaza Bolivar. The Casablanca was a first class restaurant with a valet parking service for those who drove in from their skyscraper condos in Punta Patilla or Boca La Caja.

  It took a little time for Barton to put his finger on that something which was missing in Casco Viejo: ambiance. It had no soul … yet. Everything was new. The recently restored buildings of the old town, some dating back centuries, that housed hotels, boutiques, coffee shops, apartments and museums, were owned, rented or staffed by strangers to the old town..

  The poor had been evicted, or were hidden out of sight in the Old Town’s more dismal side streets. They were so poor and shunned it was difficult to comprehend how they had been forgotten in the flurry of restoration. They represented the worst face of Central American capitalism, beyond the pale, beyond Thomas Piketty’s reckoning.

  After four hundred years of colonisation and one hundred years of North American domination, the Panama’s economic and social system resembled to a certain degree those of its Central American neighbours, with wealth and power held by a privileged few. Leaders such as Castro, Chavez and Morales had started out with the intention of reforming their countries, by turning to socialism, others had chosen an authoritarian path, but neither had produced notable material improvement for the very poor.

  Viejo Casco, the old town, was much smaller than Cartagena’s Casco Antiguo. In fact it was just one tenth of Cartagena’s three thousand five hectares and its population proportionally even smaller. After Barton’s calculation its monuments, hotels, restaurants and shops would always be second to Colombian city as a tourist attraction.

  PANAMA

  It was late the same evening when Pat arrived in Panama. His presence had become more urgent given Barton’s sudden disappearance. What was Barton’s role in the City & Colonial takeover? Was there something that he should know?

  He had spent most of his time on the London to Miami leg pouring over the old maps of Central America he had bought on Charing Cross Road and reading the history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. From Miami he slept a little and as the flight approached Panama City he awoke feeling refreshed, in spite of the long journey. Whatever the comforts offered by first class travel, flying was tiring and Pat was always pleased to escape the confinement of the airport on arrival.

  Jose Laborda, head of the law firm that managed INI’s business in Panama, met Kennedy and accompanied him to the Intercontinental, situated in the down-town area of the city on avenida Balboa overlooking Panama Bay and the Pacific. A flurry of flunkies guided them to Kennedy’s suite high up in the hotel. There, Laborda pointed to the west and Casco Viejo, the old town, though suggesting Pat put off any visit he planned until the next day, tactfully warning him of the dangers of getting lost in Panama City in the late evening.

  Laborda wished Kennedy a good evening when Pat excused himself, feigning fatigue and confirming their meeting the next morning at the lawyer’s offices.

  As soon he arranged his affairs and took a shower Kennedy descended to explore the hotel’s immediate surroundings. His memories of Mexico and the Caribbean fifteen years earlier made him a little wary. A quick reconnaissance confirmed his initial impression of Panama, that is one of s
urprise, in a certain manner of speaking the skyline was not that different to that of Hong Kong’s or Shanghai’s. The people on the streets were in a manner of speaking not unlike to those of Canton, though fewer, nothing could beat China’s multitudes, except for India he had been told, a country he had assiduously avoided though he had pleasant memories of nearby Sri Lanka..

  Where did the money come from? Kennedy asked himself. It was not as if he did not know, but he couldn’t help marvelling at the result. Panama and places like it were the end recipients of a constant flow of money from every corner of the planet, that is anywhere where where money was to be made: money that passed through the net escaping all forms of governmental control and taxation.

  Channelling money to offshore financial centres was an integral part of INI’s business, and others like it, twenty four hours a day, every day, year in year out. Kennedy was attracted by the idea that anyone with a bit of money could escape what the Panamanians called the frivolities of British or European governments in matters of taxation. Investors, if that’s what they could be called, could even obtain a Panamanian citizenship, and those with substantially more money at their disposition, as in his own specific case, could if they wished live like a legendary South American dictator.

  When it came to money Pat was not immoral he was simply amoral. Moral considerations simply did not exist in his universe, though it was wise to avoid the sanctions of the law, as he had already learnt. Beyond that it was as the Romans put it pecunia non olet.

  *

  At the same precisely the same moment Pat Kennedy disembarked at Tocumen International Airport, thirty kilometres to the west, Liam Clancy arrived at the Albrook Bus Terminal in Panama City. Kennedy had travelled Champagne class from London, some ten thousand kilometres distant, whilst Liam, with his newly found girlfriend, spent about the same time to cover the distance from Bocas, about three hundred kilometres to the west of Panama City. The difference was the young couple had made the journey in the cramped back seat of a bus, above the motor with the heat and noise that went with it. Luckily for them they were spared the odours of the toilet, an arm’s length from Liam: it was locked … Fuera de Servicio … Out of Order.