Larcenists and Lambs

Prague, Czech Republic - February 28-2

The buzzing in the oval conference room jerked her out of her reverie. Helena realized that for a few moments she’d managed to block out the completely irrelevant presentation of the, momentarily magenta and somewhat agitated, Karel or Václav. Shortly thereafter, they adjourned for a coffee break and Karel or Václav rapidly departed the oval conference room. Helena’s mood took another plunge: after the break, it was her turn.

Not that she was afraid. She’d only been afraid once in her life, two years ago on vacation, when her husband couldn’t pry his eyes off of that blond bimbo by the pool. She was aware that being married to a s*x fiend was a relatively risky undertaking. But, at least until then, she’d considered Martin Stone to be a cross between two genetic abnormalities: a faithful s*x fiend. Nonetheless, that time at the pool she’d gotten that ugly, grinding feeling in her stomach, but just until Martin had assured her that her butt was much better than that bleached blond bimbo’s.

Now she was irked because she was going to have to start thinking strategically about what she was going to say at the meeting. Not that she didn’t know how to do that. It just wasn’t exactly Helena’s style. She made a point of thinking about what she was going to say only under duress and only at work. In private, she refused to say anything other than what was on the tip of her tongue. True, over the last ten years she’d polished the professional self-control act to a high luster. Still, to be honest, she knew she had a long way to go to perfection.

When Manfred Hermann, the Austrian board member and Helena’s direct superior, who she knew had a mad and secret crush on her, took the floor, she reminded herself once again to only speak about the subject at hand and only when asked.

Manfred coughed, then coughed again. Even though the bank was owned by Austrian capital, the business language of banking had always been English, even in an Austrian bank operating in the Czech Republic. The problem was that the ordinary employees, as well as their Austrian bosses, were, without exception, somewhat screwed in terms of English. In practice, that was apparent both in the lack of communication between both groups (or was it that bosses and subordinates just wouldn’t communicate much even without the language barrier? Helena wondered sometimes), and in the way everyone in the bank spoke very fast. It was easier to hide a thick German accent and to mask a hodge-podge of Czech-German-English words in phrases delivered at staccato speed.

“Frau Stone, our bank doesn’t have a pension fund in the second pillar of pension reform. Therefore, as an institution, we will not take part in the pension reform.” Manfred, taking great care with his enunciation, ventured a dramatic pause. Meanwhile, Helena was trying very hard not to move a muscle, even though she couldn’t figure out why, for heaven’s sake, Manfred was explaining this as if everyone in the room didn’t know it already. He might as well start explaining that they were, surprisingly, in the Czech Republic, which, surprisingly, was in Central Europe and was, surprisingly, a member of the European Union. She concluded that Manfred Hermann evidently liked to hear himself talk even more than she had heretofore suspected.

“However, because we wish to take an active part in actual social trends,” he continued, “we are offering a competitive product, which will enable our clients to save money for their senior years and, as a result, to enjoy a dignified old age.”

“For God’s sake, cut it short,” she moaned under her breath, or I will break out in hives. Even the love of one’s own voice had its limits.

“What was that, please, Frau Stone?”

Helena froze. Had she been thinking out loud? But that would mean that Manfred understood Czech much better than he had been pretending till now. Finally, she reassured herself that only a groan had escaped her.

“I … have an allergy … and sometimes I make noises … through my nose.”

“Aha. So, Frau Stone will now tell us how many client contracts for our product, Gold Horizons, have been signed in the first two months.”

“Two hundred and forty nine.”

“In what time frame? In the past week?”

“In the first two and a half months that the product has been in existence.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Helena took a deep breath so she would be able to articulate very clearly. “Two-hun-dred-and-for-ty-nine. In-two-and-a-half-months.” Even though she was looking Manfred straight in the eye, out of the corner of her eye she caught the half-woman from Controlling and the graying man from the back office cringing slightly, as if preparing for an explosion.

The explosion came: “In two and a half months…?”

“Yes. Two hundred forty nine.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Manfred turned beet-red. “Two hundred and forty nine contracts for a bank of our format? And where’s the mistake? Why aren’t we selling more? Bad Vermarktung? Oder schlechte Verkaufer?” Manfred always skipped from English to German when he was excited. Or tapdancing. Or alone with his assistant.

“Good marketing, good salesmen, miserable product.”

“A miserable WHAT?!”

“Product.”

Long pause. Manfred Hermann was letting it sink in. He had been wrong. This woman wasn’t worthy of his secret admiration. This b***h wasn’t right in the head. “Stocks are at a historical high. They’ve been rising since 2009. Gold Horizons enables our Czech clients to invest in euros in the soundest European stocks over ten years! It’s a magnificent product! Magnificent!”

“Mister Hermann, our cleverly though ironically named product invests in stocks, in euros, for ten years. All of the above stinks like a three-day-old fish. If stocks are higher than they were in, let’s say 2010, but the world, economically speaking, is worse off than in 2010, then, Mister Hermann, then that means something. It means that something’s wrong. It means stocks have got to fall. It means that smart people are selling stocks and stupid ones are buying them. If the Czech economy is in the dumps and the Eurozone is in the double dumps, what do you think is going to happen? Something very unpleasant is going to happen: the Czech crown is going to rise against the euro. Maybe not immediately, but within the ten years that our clients have their money in that brilliant Gold Horizons of ours, it will most surely rise. And that means what? That means loss. For our clients. So our dear clients will suffer a loss on their stocks and a loss on the crown-euro rate. And one big loss plus another big loss equals one mega loss, or, better yet, a problem for my conscience. And therefore, all of our salesmen have absolutely clear instructions to explain that project of ours to every potential client very clearly. And, in the event that some moron still doesn’t get it, it serves him right and he deserves that Gold Horizons due to his stupidity. Hergot, I am such an idiot.”

The last sentence wasn’t spoken in English, but in Czech, and it wasn’t addressed to Manfred, but to herself. And then there was silence. Only two people were breathing a bit heavily. Helena. And Manfred. Manfred Hermann was scowling and trying to remember what the words “moron”, “hergot” and “conscience” meant. Then it occurred to him that the crabby face he was making could betray that he didn’t know what she’d been talking about and he made a face which he considered to be patronizing.

“So, Frau Stone, it will be necessary to change the sales plan. Our shareholders demand results. Our agents will continue to explain all of the advantages of our product clearly enough to increase results at least to a thousand contracts by year’s end. For starters. We have devoted large investments into this project.”

“Mister Hermann, we will not find that many morons among our clients. And even if we did find them, accidentally, I personally will make sure that they receive as basic an explanation as they need to comprehend what this lousy project is all about.”

“Are you saying…?”

“I am saying that, in addition to our profits, there is another thing at play: the human element. Our interests evidently are … ehm, or they should be, in contradiction to the interests of our shareholders. This product brings a loss to our clients. I can’t sign on to that.”

This time Manfred Hermann caught all the words, and he didn’t like them. Nobody in the oval conference room said a word. Ten pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the tabletop. One pair glared at Helena. And Helena stared out the window, off into the distance. Then, across the street, three floors down, her eyes caught a glimpse of some woman with a dog and a baby carriage. She watched them for a while. And then – for the first time since she’d put on her banker’s outfit ten years ago – her eyes got red and grew oddly moist.

The drawn-out silence in the room started to get somewhat oppressive.

____________

With a last triumphant click, Martin Stone finished the story and snapped his laptop shut. As a freelance investigative journalist specializing in economics, he could set his own schedule but he continued to keep the same office hours as he had back when he was still employed. His working hours began with his wife’s departure for work and ended with her return. To be sure, the mornings were a bit touch-and-go – sometimes it was like taming an angry beast – but the evenings and the weekends made up for it, even after fourteen years.

The decision to go freelance hadn’t been easy. He’d made extended graphs, listing all the pros and cons of being an employee versus being a freelancer, with points assigned to each. According to his analysis, freelance journalism could be a bit better than working as a journalist at a national daily, but the results weren’t unequivocal enough to enable him to make a decision. At least that was what he thought until Helena, in passing, happened to glance at his graph. Emitting a derisive little snort, she’d asked him what he would enjoy more. When he truthfully answered “freedom” she asked him what he was still doing at the newspaper, suggested that he bring her some champagne in the bathtub, and strolled toward the bathroom. He fetched the champagne and quit the next day.

That was probably the second most crucial decision of his life. The most crucial had occurred roughly fourteen years ago when, as a young man of nineteen, in the hallway of the Language Academy, he’d met a skinny, equally young girl with chestnut curls down to her waist, freckles on her nose and mesmerizing eyes. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she undeniably had something he lacked: a kind of animal energy and drive. First, she engaged him in a conversation about the English Conditional; then, she dragged him off to a nearby beer pub and finally, God knows how, they ended up at her place, a tiny apartment furnished with one mattress, one blanket, one pot, a pile of CDs and a laptop. After the first passionate night, which seemed more like mutual derangement of the senses than mere s*x, he made a fundamental life decision: to do everything in his power to ensure there would be another such night.

That had been relatively easy, thanks to the fact that the girl lived alone. During the day she toiled away at a part-time job to make money for rent, and at night she toiled away over English phrasal verbs. School she didn’t have to toil at, that came easy. The very same day he first stepped into her apartment, he moved in.

However, Helena’s past remained a mystery to him for a long time. Because he himself had been raised in a traditional family, or at least one he considered traditional, it took him a long time to come to terms with the fact that Helena didn’t talk about her family or her past in general. It took a lot of prying and convincing to find out that she’d basically run away from home on her 18th birthday. Life with a hysterical, spoiled sister and a bossy, aggressive and vulgar alcoholic mother was unbearable. From the day she’d left home with a single backpack and money saved up for the first month’s rent, nobody had come looking for her.