Into the Lion's Den (14 page)

“Constantin, I can´t drop everything like that! We agreed that I would go in January!” I protested but
he's like a rock.

“You said that you wanted to come in January and I said that I would consider it. One of my men,
Mikhail Massaiev will pick you up in two days. Be ready or you can forget all what I told you. Remember what we
spoke about in October.”

“Be reasonable, Constantin! You know I'm very keen on you, but this is too much!”

“Guntram, I thought you loved me as you told me several times, but your refusal proves me that you're
not willing to commit yourself to me. Have I ever done something against your wishes? Did I ever do something to
betray your trust?”

“Constantin, it has nothing to do with you! I just need some time to organize the things here! You know I
want to try it!

“Then, come here with Mikhail. He will take care of everything.”

“I have a Macroeconomics test on the fifteenth!”

“You can use the sixteenth to pack and gather your papers. You take the plane on the seventeenth and
that's final Guntram.”

“Constantin…”

“Guntram, you're delaying things as usual. We said December and now you try to shift it to January.

Enough is enough. Why do you want to stay there?”

“All right, I'll come. You win,” I replied because I didn't want to answer his question.

“Angel, your indecision is a slow torture for me. One day you jump to my neck, tell hundreds of love
words and on the next you pour a bucket of cold water over my head. We agreed that we would be always truthful to
each other. If you don't love me any more or have second thoughts about us then, say it to me and we will continue as
friends. No ill regrets between us.”

“Constantin, you know it's not like that. I trust you with all my heart! You're the first decent person I've
met in my life…”

“Why do you always have an excuse?”

“I'm confused,” I confessed finally. “It's too big for me.”

“Why? It's only coming to London for the holidays and then, you go with Mikhail to Italy. I don't know if
I could be able to join you there. We will meet again in Paris, around the end of March. If you're afraid of the
intimacy, rest assured that the house is big enough so we can lead separate lives. Do you prefer to be in a hotel, my
angel?”

“No, it's not that! I like being with you! It's just…”

“Just?”

“I'm not sure that I would meet your expectations,” I blurted and a long silence was over the phone. I
held my breath because I had confessed what a dork I am.

“Guntram, stop reading books or asking your school friends for sexual advise, or at least, ask to those
who know,” he retorted very dryly. “My own experiences with you had been excellent so far.”

“How do you know it?” I asked mortified, well, dead of shame.

“Because I know you and I can well imagine the scene. You asking your best friend what he knows about
gay sex and he telling you that it's demeaning, that you're going to be permanently the passive subject; that you will
end your days performing oral sex to decrepit old men in public WC or that you'll catch AIDS and suffer a horrible
death.”

More or less what Fefo told me without the passive subject part.

“Let's do not forget the part when you start to speak like a woman, dress in funny costumes and attend
the gay parade and fight with a drag queen over a headpiece made of parrot feathers.”

I gulped. “I'm not going to wear feathers,” I said almost inaudibly.

“Dear, nothing is as they tell. There are many myths around. We both enjoyed our time together and why
shouldn't it be like that any longer?”

“I don't know.”

“Exactly, you don't know. Let me show it to you. If you don't like it, we stop. We both want to have a
good time together, right?”

“Yes, Constantin. You're right. I'll go.”

“Excellent. Mikhail Petrovich will see you on the fourteenth and accompany you to London. We'll see
each other on the 18th or 19th.”

Just like that, he hung up on me.

Exactly as announced, the famous Mikhail Petrovich was at my doorstep on the 14th at 10:30 in the
morning. He's not a bad guy. Very tall and big, square jaw and terribly serious. I think he might be around his fifties
or maybe more, but I'm not sure. Grey eyes and chestnut short hair, informally dressed, as he was coming to the
Pampas. First, I was intimidated by his presence and the fact that I only had some tea and cookies to offer. He said
nothing and drank it without making a single remark. He looks very aristocratic if you ask me. He wanted to know
about my education, beliefs, religion, the places I want to visit in Italy, if I speak another language besides Spanish,
English and French (I'm not a bloody parrot!)

Finally, he wanted to check on the things I was planning to take to London, while I wanted to get rid of
him so I could study some more. I think he realised and offered to leave me alone, as he “had seen me long enough to
know what was suitable for you” and he would see me again, on the sixteenth at 9 a.m. at his hotel; the Alvear Palace
as the good shops were nearby

Needless to say, I was at 9 a.m. on the sixteenth, at the hotel's lobby where he was already waiting for
me, dressed in a good summer suit when the outside temperature was announced to be over 30º C.

“You're punctual. That's a sign of good breeding. Did you have breakfast?”

“I drank some tea in the morning, sir,” I replied exactly as I was doing when the Headmaster was
around.

“We will take something light then. My table must be ready.”

I was glad to be dressed with the “job interview clothes” because here they will not appreciate the

“Public University student's look” and his face at seeing my llama decorated sweater was a good enough to convince
me to drop it for the time being. It was surprising to find so many silver cutlery around the table. The maître here
sucks if he can't distinguish breakfast from lunch and throws everything they have around a mountain of dishes piled
up in front of you. I did my best to hide my annoyance at such gap of etiquette. I mean, they charge you crazy prices
and can't they afford to pay some protocol lessons to the one in charge of the monkeys' army? I took what I needed
once the black bird served some omelette on a dish (on top of the other three) I noticed a brief smile from the Russian
and he made a discreet sign to one of the butlers, who quickly reorganized the table, this time properly.

“I understand you're part of the Guttenberg Sachsen family. Do you have any contact with them?”

“I believe my grandmother was named Guttenberg Sachsen and that's my second last name. I generally
don't use it as I know no one from that family.”

“Yes, if I were a de Lisle, I wouldn't bother to use it. It's enough to carry six hundred years of French
history on my shoulders. Your grandfather was the Vicomte de Marignac, wasn't he?”

My father never said anything about my family at all. He only spoke about my mother and all this
aristocratic jumble seems very far fetched for me. I mean, for some unexplainable reason people love to hear that you
were born with “blue blood”. “I don't think so, sir. My father never mentioned anything in that sense. I was very
young when he passed away and I had no other living relatives left according to my legal tutor.”

“Very well, have you decided what you would like to visit in Italy? I will be your mentor there.”

Mentor? He looks like an elegant tank, not like a professor. I stared at him.

“Mr. Repin showed me part of your work and told me about your interests in Renaissance painting. I
suggest that we stay in the north part of the country.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“You may call me by my first name, Guntram. We are going to travel together. My family was also living
in France for a long time after the Revolution. My mother was a good friend of Mr. Repin's mother and she helped us
when my father died in the Indochina War and I was a small child. I made career in the French Army and in the
Foreign Service, stationed in Moscow till I quit after the fall of communism. Since then, I work for Mr. Repin.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. It was a long time ago,” he said affably. “We will take a British Airways flight, tomorrow at
3:00. It arrives early in the morning. I have noticed that you're not well prepared for the cold weather. We need to get
something for you today before you catch your death in Heathrow.”

“I have a jacket, sir. Mikhail, I mean.”

“It's very light in my opinion. There are some stores around.”

“I'm afraid I cannot afford them.”

“It's an advance from your scholarship, Guntram. I'm afraid that what you were wearing yesterday is
fine for here but totally inadequate for Kensington or Belgravia. I understand that Mr. Repin wants to introduce you
to several Art dealers. There's one very interested in that series of nudes painted on newspapers. He has several
customers for them and offers £6,500 for the whole lot.”

“Excuse me? Those were for the trash!”

“I admit that your choice of support material is eccentric, but after they were well framed, they looked
very well in the gallery and arose some interest. In my opinion, £6,500 is a low price considering that you're only
obtaining £250 per each painting and I've heard the marchand is offering them for £500 a piece, and he has sold
several.”

“I can't believe it,” I whispered and he smiled at me.

“That's the reaction Mr. Repin told me to expect from you Guntram. They're very nice and the sanguine
is difficult to master properly, contrary to popular belief.”

“It's the cheapest, sir.”

“Who was the model?”

“No one I know. A dancer in Plaza Francia. I sketched her from live on the newspaper I had that day
and later made the drawings at home. Mr. Repin bought the box in which they were in for 50 pesos. He should keep
the money because it's his.”

“All right, we will not speak about it any more. We will get you something more appropriate for the first
week on that money. Mr. Repin still jokes that if he would have known that he was going to make money so easily with
you, he would have forced you to go into his plane with a gun,” Mikhail told me very seriously and I laughed at the
ludicrous idea.

After breakfast he took me to “Rhodes”, the shop where Federico's father buys, well known for
importing fancy things from Armani, Hermès or Burberry's. The salesman had already ready a set of clothes, from
underwear to jacket and shoes in my size and the only thing I could do was decide if I liked it or not. I nearly had a
heart attack when I saw the tag in one of the morning tweed jackets allegedly “on sale” A lot of people could eat with
that. I got a monstrous coat and I tried to protest that it was too thick, but Mikhail showed with one look that several
years at an embassy didn't cure him from his military years. He ordered very sharply the salesman to make the
adjustments for the three trousers, two jackets and coat and send everything to his hotel to have it cleaned for
tomorrow. Surprisingly, he didn't complain at all and promised to have everything ready at 4:00.

“A tailor would be much better but we have no time for that. We will see in London.”

“Now, Mikhail, tell us. How's he?” A big Russian asked, dying to know.

“Is he worth it? Yuri told me he's over 2.7 millions.”

“It's seems our midwives are drinking together, are you comfortable, girls?” Massaiev joked as he took a chair around the big table in the pristine kitchen. “Give me a shot at least. I was out in the snow, baby sitting a child and then, putting him in his room. Iosef, don't make another remark like that ever again. Boss will kill you outright if he hears you,” Massaiev said, taking his small vodka glass and emptying in one go. “Do you think I could get a coffee?”

“I'm not your maid!”

“All right. You wait and see for yourself,” the deep growl Iosef let out made Massaiev realise that he had won the battle and that they truly interested in hearing what he had to say. A cup of black coffee appeared in front of him and the two men sat around the table, his gazes fixed upon him.

“You're quite the gossip girls, are you not?” he purred the words out, determined to enjoy the moment as much as he could. “He's off limits for all of you, so what is your problem now?”

“Spit it out!”

“He's very young; nineteen years old, just turned in October, blond, very harmonious facial features and body, exactly what the boss likes. Baby blue eyes, shy, nothing scandalous like the many we have seen, seems to be intelligent although he's very naïve. During the whole trip from the airport he was looking through the window in awe.

He's nice to speak with and has a natural elegance around him. A real aristocrat from the old times. Perfect for our boss. I could have never taught that to the boys; that's something you're born with. He's glad to see the boss and that already saves me a lot of work. I have to dress him with something better before Mr. Repin has a heart attack if he sees him with those mall clothes. I'll take him to Harvey and Nick's in the afternoon. A tailor might be too much for the moment. He's truly shy and doesn't want to spend the boss' money.”