Borderless Deceit (35 page)

In the café she made the conference characters come alive; she joked about grandstanding ministers and ambassadors and plots and
subplots hatching by the hour; she said she was up half the night before the day the conference ended with twelve OPEC ministers –
The Dirty Dozen
, she laughingly called them. I could picture Rachel at the centre of a table of fawning OPEC worthies, beguiling, convincing, and in the end simply outlasting them. The result? The cartel did not dissociate itself from the conference communique. Through Rachel's lens I saw the two weeks of diplomacy as amounting to boredom commingling with hilarity and political perfidy. She laughed at herself too. That's what made Rachel appealing: her dual vantage point, one high up in the sky, the other deep down in the trenches. I hung on her every word.

We were into a second coffee when a large, impeccably dressed man came in. He stopped a few tables away and peered in our direction, catching my attention. First he showed surprise, then I watched his face go black with condemnation. Rachel, following my look, stopped speaking, although nothing in her impassive gaze hinted at baggage from the past. She could have been looking at a fly on the ceiling. Their stares locked. He broke it off after a few seconds, going to another part of the café, taking a seat, his back towards us. We watched others of his type – arrogant, soulless men – gathering at that table.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“A banker I once had some dealings with,” Rachel explained.

It hit me. Nikko Krause! I should have known. Would Rachel talk about him? Images of them together stood chiselled in my imagination. “A banker? An IMF type? Was he at the conference?” I asked casually.

She looked down and shook her head. A rich coffee aroma steamed up into our noses. For a while as we jointly inhaled it she was lost in thought. I could see she was journeying back, and, oddly, I felt I was with her, a companion in reflection, as though my arm was wrapped around her, both of us on a unique lookout, neither speaking nor moving, but together surveying her Krause years.

The affair consisted of simple patterns – excursions in Krause's jet to all the continents plus Rachel's visits to Berlin. It had all the archetypal elements: small talk and informed discussion (one easing into the other, then back again), gourmet dining, exclusive tourism, sex
as a narcotic and as a tonic, sex in exotic places. They developed a professional partnership too, working up lists of projects for financing by Morsi's Foundation. Absent from their liaison were common friends and personal celebrations. That's how Rachel wanted it.

It suits me,
Rachel once wrote Anne-Marie,
this parallel living separated by distance. No fences. It's totally open
.

Anne-Marie knew from Rachel's messages that the affair was going well. Rachel enjoyed the efficient outings to distant places and the relationship's business-like underpinnings. But mostly she valued Nikko's Berlin apartment, a stage for opulent behaviour: champagne sipped in the jacuzzi, lovemaking afterwards in a flickering neon glow arriving through tall, uncurtained windows. The apartment's finest feature, however, was that the descent by private elevator took her from a silent penthouse to a boulevard where there was an unceasing flux of flamboyant people.

The flair down there, Anne-Marie, the vanity, the bravado! If only you could see it – each one here marches to a different drummer
.

The first few times in Berlin, Nikko showed her the sights, Rachel buying books as they went – a history of the city, a guide to the most interesting walks. The fourth or fifth time, Nikko excused himself. Bank business. Rachel didn't mind; she was out the door before he was.

On the streets with her books and maps, Rachel unravelled centuries of history. Prussian monuments, the landmarks of German empire, Nazi architecture, the sad and overwhelming legacy of the Second World War, East German totalitarianism, West German liberalism – methodically she ticked all this off. She marched kilometres along the line where the Wall once stood. She meandered through eastern boroughs to study communism's numerous, lingering pockmarks. In the west, sauntering past villas in verdant settings, she felt she was in a park. She stood on the spot – more or less – where Hitler had his bunker complex. She experienced horror in the places designated as suitable for ritualised killings by the Nazi and Communist dictatorships. In the Topography of Terror she reflected on the ease with which civilisation falls into barbarity and the toil of succeeding generations to overcome it.

Rachel made friends too, with owners of small Turkish bistros, whimsical jewellery emporia, and back-alley art galleries. Whenever in
the city, she made a point of dropping in on them to improve the German she had acquired in Vienna and laughed with them when they pointed out her clangers.

Other times, Krause on business travelled through Geneva where she would join him. Several times a year in different locations they met up with Morsi Abou-Ghazi to review programs sponsored by his Foundation. Occasionally they visited Foundation projects – in Nepal, Sudan, and Costa Rica. Rachel was in her element then, embracing children, encouraging village leaders, cajoling the local reps of inter-national donors to align their work with the objectives of the Foundation. She drew up reporting and evaluation mechanisms to detect flaws in the projects. Flaws were inevitable in developmental work, she argued. You have to catch the problems early on. In the jet cabin, meticulously reviewing stacks of project dossiers, she worked as hard as Nikko. Occasionally she wondered whether progress was as smooth as the documentation implied. How realistic were the financial flows? The projects were in remote regions. Could it really be that everything always went as scheduled? Was there never a hiccup? She mentioned her misgivings to Nikko. The disbursement patterns, she pointed out, were perfect. Always perfect. Too perfect. He seemed surprised. An accountant would look at it, he said. Something was done, because not long afterwards project reports began to include references to problems of design and delays in implementation.

The affair continued calm and steady, no storms or doldrums, no problems brewing below deck. Nikko sometimes remarked that he and his wife were becoming estranged. Rachel wondered if this fore-shadowed a change in course, but she picked up no signs. A minor statement, she thought, factual, no different than some item mentioned in one of his bank's shareholder reports.

Actually, there were signs of transformation, but they were subtle and so slow in coming that Rachel didn't immediately sense that an unravelling was on. A slight increase in Nikko's assertiveness was the first faint indication. Instead of asking Rachel if she would be free to join him on a business trip, he suggested he'd like her to come. A similar shift occurred for weekends in Berlin. The desire that she come was politely expressed, with charm, almost as a wish. Initially nothing much could be read into it. But the insistence grew. Several times, one
after the other, he declared he counted on her coming. A formal event, he explained, suitable for being accompanied by a partner. Rachel declined. She had enough formality in Geneva, she countered. Nikko backed off, though within weeks the pressure was back. In reaction, Rachel's schedule in Geneva became more crowded. I have the patience of a saint, he sighed on the phone when Rachel made light of the fact that they both seemed very busy now.

The final scene was in the apartment. She had placed her bag in the foyer and had scarcely taken off her coat when Nikko suggested she sit down. In the salon, in low chairs, they eyed each other across a coffee table. Daylight filtered grey by a joyless Berlin drizzle subdued the colour in the room. He went into attack mode. Rachel recognized it. His face was set no different than when he ripped through the bank's paperwork. In a voice borrowed from his board meetings – clipped, icy, a prelude to decisions that heads should roll because there had been under-performance – Nikko itemised his views. His summation fixed on their compatibility. This was the essential issue. In a voice that threatened with its flatness and in the idiom of a banker, he stated, “We have proved we have it. Compatibility is our advantage. It creates synergies. One nurtures that. One does not undermine it.”

Rachel's turn. She had been preparing too. She recalled the contract agreed to at the beginning.
No presents. No mementoes. No flowers for St. Valentine's. None of that kind of thing
. Implicit in this was an undertaking that the liaison would create no rights and no commitments. And it had worked. They had successfully avoided the burden of being beholden. That, Rachel pointed out, was the basis for their compatibility. Create rights, she said, and compatibility is gone. In their case, she argued, compatibility was a secondary matter. They should really be discussing only the primary one, that is, keeping things open, not forcing the future. She spoke calmly, in understatement, with slight inflections, the way she did when she charmed compromises out of UN committees.

Nikko lost it then. Eyes flashing, resentment skewing his face, he leaned forward. With a finger jabbing the table top, in a barren tone, he went through the accommodations he had made to his schedule so that they would have time together. “I considered you had a right to that and I accorded it to you.” Anyway, he decreed, talk of rights was
beside the point. The issue was one of emotions. It's abnormal to spend so much time together, having so much quality companionship, giving and taking pleasure, sharing the best things life has to offer, and yet remain emotionally unaffected. He slapped his palm down hard on the table. “Damn it. We are not robots, Rachel. We are humans.”

Rachel absorbed this. “We agreed at the beginning there would be no obligations,” she repeated. “Obligations would have stopped us. They would have prevented our experiences. I'm glad they happened. I'll always treasure them. If now things can't continue as before, we have no choice but to let go. That's being human too – living with regret and moving on.”

Nikko shook his head with bitterness. “It is abnormal for humans who gratify each other not to deepen their involvement. It's clear to me now. You want pleasure, but not its consequences. You love humanity, but you're not capable of loving its members. You take, but you can't give. Giving threatens your perfection. And so you exile yourself…”

And so I left. The first departing flight was to Paris, where here in the railway station waiting for the train to Geneva I have time to write
.

I haven't counted all of Nikko's accusations, dear Anne-Marie, but I understand his perspective. Still, if it's normal to make a commitment, is it abnormal if one doesn't?

I knew from the beginning it would end, even if for a long time there was no end in sight. Why then, when tensions set in, didn't I start the conversation? Why did I wait? Something to think about
.

It's interesting to look back. With Nikko, things remained uncomplicated for what seemed like an age. He was witty and urbane. He knew a lot. We laughed frequently. What I saw of him on the surface I liked. But much of him stayed hidden. I glimpsed enough of it to know that it was best if it remained that way. I willfully ignored large parts of him. Why?

Maybe he was right. Perhaps I took but didn't give. Quite possibly I am an exile. I like to think, though, that it's not my destiny to remain one. But for the moment,
Anne-Marie, I feel no regret. I'm relieved it's over and can again do with my time as I please
.

“No,” Rachel said, breaking the coffee-shop reverie, “not an IMF type. Just another banker. Shall we get going? Feel like strolling? Let's make our way to the Reichstag, and from there to the museums.” In this way Nikko Krause was dispensed with.

It wasn't a stroll we set out on – forced march was more like it. Years before I'd seen Rachel was a strong skier and now she showed she was no less a walker. We started in what had once been West Berlin, pushed our way along a canal, then veered north towards the central park. I had no difficulty keeping up. But I had an advantage, because Rachel used her breath not just to maintain a fast pace. She also did the talking. When and why the German army dug this canal through the middle of the city – to keep soldiers busy when there was no war; how the central park,
Tiergarten
, with its quacking ducks on little lakes, came by its name – from when it was a game park outside the city limits. There was the Victory Column, the statue of Bismarck, the Avenue of the 17th of June, and a welter of other landmarks all prompting historical anecdotes. Rachel made Berlin's history come alive. But more than the words it was Rachel's voice, cheerful and melodic, that bewitched me. Striding beside her through intriguing surroundings under a sun that inspired, I could have been on a magic carpet slipping through space not caring about time. That voice! Every few minutes it courted my name.

The interesting thing about the Victory Column, Carson, is those gilded ornaments ringing the four levels. See them? They're cannon barrels captured by the Prussians in their wars with the Danes, Austrians and French. When Berlin was occupied after the last war the French wanted all that taken down and destroyed. The British said no and, this part of the city being their zone, they rubbed French noses in Prussian history and loved it…

When at last we stood before the Reichstag, I blurted from within my magical capsule that the scene was fantastic. She asked if I agreed it was a somewhat squat, slightly forbidding, and over-designed building. I replied I needed to look at it a bit longer.
And what's your
opinion of the cupola, Carson?
I said I liked it, sort of a German version of a minaret.
I don't think it fits. The building is heavy. The cupola is ephemeral. But that's Berlin. Motley, mischievous, fun
.

We spent an hour in and around the Reichstag, that symbol of one hundred years of German history in total disarray. Next came the museums on the island and a fast tour of Alexanderplatz, a showpiece of urban planning in the communist style.