Larcenists and Lambs

Prague, Czech Republic - March 7-2

“You still haven’t said what it’s supposed to be about.”

“Yes, well, ehm. Ehm, our client is interested in an analysis of the European Banking Union and consumer protection inside the Banking Union. Presumably, we are looking for a positive assessment of the Banking Union. And, as follow-on, a series of articles stressing that today, in every European country, bank clients have substantial rights. That many people don’t even realize the extent to which the current European legislation protects clients from the often willful conduct of the banks.”

“I guess you don’t have many banks as clients, since you’re so hard on them,” Martin, who still couldn’t understand what this was all about, made a feeble attempt at a joke. In fact, he was only half-listening to Sýkora: he couldn’t tear his eyes away from that jiggling double chin.

“By no means,” Michal Sýkora, who obviously didn’t get the attempt at humor, assured him. But, presumably, he could not tell him the client’s name. After all, Martin knows how it goes in this business. Doesn’t he?

But of course, Martin assured him. He just didn’t understand why he (assuming the client is a man and not a woman, obviously) thinks that he, Martin, would be willing to write such drivel. After all, it isn’t exactly a riveting subject. So it would come at a cost. How much is the counterparty offering?

A figure was stated and Martin carried out a rapid analysis. Then he announced he would have to give it some thought and that he would let him know in a week. However, if he did agree to take it on, he would like to make clear that he would write the analysis with complete objectivity, in other words, according to his own best knowledge and conscience because he is a journalist and not some pencil-pushing flunky. At this point, he thought that for a fleeting moment he saw a sort of shadow pass over Michal Sýkora’s face, but he might have imagined it.

____________

The world outside the window was so cold. Led Zeppelin was playing Kashmir. Absently, she breathed a circle on the glass and drew a nine in it. Then she rubbed it out again. She felt like her brain was exploding. She swayed to the beat and stared out of the window in a trance. And then, thank God, Helena got that life-saving idea: call William. William almost always cheered her up. He’d cheer her up now too, she had no doubt about that. Quickly, she pulled out her cell phone.

William Stannard was the oddest guy Helena knew. In terms of looks, he was on the borderline between David Beckham (thanks to his manly 184 centimetre high frame) and Omar Sharif (the piercing eyes, constantly overgrown hair and striking elegance). (So instead of him, she picked a four-eyed kid with a constantly befuddled look on his mug.) Helena had always been attracted to slightly older men, and because Willian was six years older than she, he was a perfect match. (Which is why, shortly after she’d met him, she’d taken up with a guy the same age as she.) Aside from that, William, in spite of his somewhat non-British, black-haired exterior, was three-quarters English and, thanks to his maternal grandmother, one-quarter Scottish – and Helena had a definite weakness for Brits. (Which is why she’d found herself an unadulterated Czech.) William could have been an international poster boy for dry British humor. (Which is why she’d married an intellectual who was fit to be tied when one of his theories about who was in cahoots with whom came true.) And William was rich. Disgustingly rich. William was a very clever real estate speculator, who’d very cleverly managed to turn over the not inconsiderable sum of money he’d inherited from his parents. (Which is why she got hitched to a guy who was as poor as she was.) In any case, Helena had always had a thing for real estate speculators. (Which was why she’d found a guy who made a living as an investigative reporter.) And William had been in love with Helena for fourteen years. (Incidentally, to Helena’s Czech ear, the somewhat posh name “William” sounded incredibly sexy. Which is why she never degraded it to some diminutive form like Billy or Will.)

In spite of all that, William was everything but a smooth, aristocratic gentleman. Maybe it was due to his own private rebellion against his strict parents who, although they’d left him a sizeable inheritance, never smiled or cried when he was a child and scolded him for any similarly unacceptable expression of emotion. And the more they stifled him, the more the hidden rebel inside him grew.

Once, shortly after they’d met, Helena was witness to a relatively bloody fight. It had happened in Prague, in one of those establishments he used to take her to, the kind she’d never have been able to afford on her own. Some guy started making rude remarks at her expense and she made the mistake of translating them into English for William’s benefit. And then he started turning the joint upside-down. She’d emerged from the incident with a slightly bolstered self-image, William with a sprained wrist. Still, judging from what was left of the faces of the three thugs that stood up to him, he’d come out the winner, hands-down.

Surprisingly, this street-fighter overflowing with testosterone could – provided that he considered it to be to his advantage – behave like a polished English lord, the way he’d been taught.

Taken all around, it was a completely unlikely and highly suspicious combination of two perfect beings, like in a romance novel. It was so perfect that it was beyond her ability to fall in love with William the way he had with her. Moreover, he was the only person in the whole world who made her feel too ugly, too ordinary, and too stupid compared to himself. She liked being with him, but she couldn’t love him. Instead, a few weeks after she’d met that perfect British tourist in the streets below Prague castle, she fell totally in love with a guy who was as Czech as they got, and just as imperfect as she was.

Nevertheless, since then, she and William had been joined by a deep bond of friendship and trust. And mutual physical attraction. It was all the odder because there had never been anything physical between them. Not that he hadn’t wanted it but, for some reason, she didn’t. She had an old-fashioned, romantic notion that the strange attraction would disappear with the first intimacy. (Which was the only, though fundamental, point of contention between them, and had William permanently convinced that Helena was slightly wacky.) And what’s more, she was impossibly, old-fashionedly faithful to Martin.

At first Martin was none too thrilled to find out that somewhere on the British Isles lives an individual who caused women to swoon on a daily basis and who has long-term nefarious intentions upon his wife, but, out of spite he refused to go into it any further. Nonetheless, after convincing himself over and over that his wife was completely immune to the wiles of this individual, he came to accept William as a necessary evil.

All things considered, this dubious character did have his uses, because he was willing to pay for both of their regular vacations to Scotland. Granted, Martin would have preferred a vacation by the sea, meaning a warm sea, but you don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth, right? And because time is kind, after a few years, both men, with minor exceptions, managed to become friends of sorts. Especially since Helena was still steadfastly immune to William’s charms.

Nonetheless, nothing is perfect. Perfection is a myth. Of this, Helena was deeply convinced and it continually nagged at her brain. And she was determined to figure it out even though she’d been trying for fourteen years, and still hadn’t uncovered anything. But had not abandoned her investigative efforts.

And now she had an intense need to hear his soothing voice.

“Hello, Lassie.”

She retorted that she was the wrong age for him to be calling her “lassie,” but she secretly hoped William would not take her at her word. And then, strictly for the sake of conversation, she asked how things were going in the world of real estate. Then, not even waiting for an answer, she steered the conversation to herself. She told him the past week had been lousy and that she was very sad and that she was going to have to start looking for a new car and all that. And that at the moment she saw only one positive thing about her life: not having to get up for work in the morning. Other than that, everywhere she looked, she only saw grayness and falsehood and media lies. As if the whole world were made up of those repulsive and stupid reality shows and talent contests on TV, ads for an elusive better life, and homogeneity in all things. And that everything made her sick. Her orgy of self-pity lasted for roughly twenty minutes. William listened very patiently.

Then he went into deep contemplation. During the pause in conversation, Helena realized how much she almost loved William for being willing to listen to her whenever about whatever, no matter how inane it was. Then Mr. Perfect asked Helena what one thing she wanted most in the world. Whereupon Helena, after thinking for a second, said she wished that what had happened three weeks ago hadn’t happened.

“Wrong answer. I didn’t ask you why you were feeling sorry for yourself, or what you don’t like about your past. I asked you what you wanted to happen now.”

Helena thought for two seconds. “I would want to get drunk as a swine. Not know where I am, or who I am.”

“Wrong again,” he assured her. “That’s really not what you want. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and acting like the victim of an unjust fate. Just say what you really want right now.”

This time Helena didn’t think about it. Honestly, she blurted out, what she wanted most was a baby. Which actually surprised her very much because it was the first time she’d actually said it out loud to anybody, including herself.

So William posed a follow-up question: how were she and Martin doing, and was told excellently, thanks for asking. So he told her that, sorry, he didn’t see things quite as pessimistically as she did. Because, first, Helena had her priorities completely straight, and second, she had the ideal conditions to work on her priorities. And, if one knows what one’s priority is and one has the means to work on it, the battle’s half won.

For the first time in several days, Helena had a good laugh, told William that she knew he’d once again give her excellent advice. Then she quickly hung up because she heard Martin’s keys rattling in the door.

Before he’d even had a chance to take off his coat, she explained how things would be and added that she’d changed her mind about playing the stock market and that she now had somewhat different priorities than making money. And she asked him if he would like to immediately take a break from work and work on her priorities for a while.

But Martin, contrary to all of his former tendencies, hesitated: “I just… the doctors say you’re supposed to wait at least three months… I wouldn’t want to hurt something.”

Helena shot him the kind of glance parents give their naughty offspring when they catch them slamming other kids over the head with a bucket in the sandbox.

“Doctors can take their theories and stuff them. Good thing they’ve got it figured out theoretically. Once they get it figured out psychologically, and when their hormones are as out of control as those of the people they’re trying to advise, I might give their theories some thought. Although that doesn’t mean I’m actually going to listen to them,” she stomped her foot angrily. “So, do you want to take a break?”

Martin did. And the thought crossed his mind that that crazy Englishman was full of surprises. Against all odds, he could even prove to be useful.

____________

An hour later, as they lay lazily stretched out on the bed, listening to Light my Fire by The Doors and munching apples – because Helena always claimed certain activities gave her a bad case of the munchies – Martin told her about his meeting with the lobbyist. Now that he’d had time to think, he knew even less what to make of it.

On the one hand, it was a chance to make 200 000 crowns relatively quickly. That sum wasn’t especially high for such expert analyses, provided they were only a few pages long, like this one was supposed to be. When he factored in the time and effort it would take him to do the work and, on top of that, the fact that he’d have to turn away other work because the analysis would occupy him 150 percent, the reward was adequate. Nevertheless, something about it didn’t sit right, but what? Was it Michal Sýkora himself? But even in his case Martin couldn’t put his finger on what was off about him.

This time Helena didn’t know what to tell him. Truth told, now that they didn’t have her income anymore, it went somewhat against her grain to turn down assignments due to some weird distaste or a jiggling double chin, as Martin called it. After all, if Martin wrote it independently, if he just assembled all the facts about the European Union and put all the pros and cons down on paper, it might even turn out to be a good deed, right? And if a good deed is paid for, all the better, right?

Martin didn’t answer – he was busy thinking. When he finally spoke, what he didn’t like about this assignment suddenly became very clear.

“You know, I’m not so sure they want me to write all the pros and cons. I can’t get rid of the feeling that they only want the pros. They’re just pussyfooting around it. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why someone would be willing to have someone else, meaning me, write some paean to the European Banking Union. It’d be just as easy for them to take some texts produced by the clerks in Brussels and translate them. They’ll get exactly what they need at a much lower cost. There are oceans of texts like that. Nothing easier than a net search. That’s what strikes me as odd. Why should I write something that exists already? And not knowing what it’s going to be used for gives me a weird feeling.”

“In other words, you think it stinks,” Helena explained. “Of course you still have the option of doing two things at once. First, you can up the price from two to let’s say, three hundred thousand. That’ll offset the smell. And second you can explain very clearly that you’re only willing to write it independently and objectively and they can take it or leave it.”

That sounded like a pretty good idea to Martin. He asked his wife if she would like to continue working on her priorities.