The Human Pool (28 page)

ZURICH

KREBS AGREED TO A
preliminary one-on-one to see the colour of our money, in a car park on the shore of a small lakeside town, after dark. I got delegated once it had been established that he spoke English. Everything was going undercover again, and I didn't like it.

It was squally over the lake. I had done my best to see I wasn't followed, but I was no expert. Krebs turned out to be not the wired skinny guy I had been expecting but a bulky man who looked more like he belonged in the Vesco security programme.

We stayed in our cars and talked with the windows down. First he wanted to make sure I had the money, then proceeded to lecture me on pharmaceuticals. Krebs had a bore's voice. ‘Billions of profit,' he said, and lit a Pall Mall.

He explained that Vesco's trick was to control everything. Through carefully screened outlets it offloaded surplus requirements while guaranteeing maximum tax write-offs, including dumping old drugs into the charity market. ‘Example,' said Krebs. ‘Vesco wanted to donate a large supply of an influenza vaccine to the Philippines, but was told it was the wrong strain for the local population. It ended up there anyway, via another route and a different set of charities. Vesco had known it would be useless, but got its tax write-off.'

He moved on to generic drugs, explaining that he wasn't talking about copies of market drugs produced legally after a patent had lapsed. He meant those being produced illegally in violation of the patent. These, and the large sales of substandard and counterfeit drugs packaged to look like the real thing, accounted for a tenth of the world market, maybe more. The big companies spent fortunes hiring people to chase and close them down, but Vesco took the line, if you can't beat them, join them.

‘Are you saying Vesco operates its own black market?' I asked.

Krebs chain-lit another Pall Mall. ‘Oral contraceptives. There's a repackaging exercise. Nearly a million lookalike sachets produced for a test run. The pills inside are useless. What happens? They “get stolen,” in quotes, before they can be destroyed, and end up on the black market in South America and, hey, lots of unexpected babies. That was one of van Boogaert's operations. Go to Tijuana, and you will find Vesco Méjico, except it doesn't call itself that. It's a handful of people in a tin hut repackaging drugs past their expire date, pushing the date on a couple of years. It's all profit, man.' Krebs looked at his watch. ‘Time for the money.'

‘Tell me about Viessmann.'

‘Ask van der Valden.'

‘How do I get to speak to van der Valden?'

‘Go to Budapest. He'll only do face to face.' Krebs grunted out a laugh. ‘Missionary position. If he's in town he's at the Astoria. If he's not there he's out of town, but usually he is a couple of days a week.'

I handed him the money and said others wanted to talk to him. Krebs counted the notes carefully before folding them away. ‘Okay. Saturday. Hotel Baur. Book a conference room for eight o'clock
P
.
M
. We meet in the lobby. I want to see who I am talking to. If I don't like them I turn around and walk out. Tell Kiss to e-mail details of everyone who will be there, no more than three, and bring the rest of the money.'

It took me a while to work out that Kiss must be Abe's tag.

 

It was late when I got to Betty Monroe's because I had stopped off at a bar for whisky relief and not called Hoover as promised. He answered the door as angry as an anxious parent, wanting to know where I had been. I told him he had an attitude problem. We were joined by Beate, dressed but sleepy. Propriety led her to explain that she had fallen asleep upstairs in her mother's study.

‘Not giving the old man a poke?' I asked sourly.

Hoover hit me. Hit me hard enough to knock me over when I had been expecting a hero's welcome.

Hoover nursed his knuckles. I should have apologised. (I could hear Dora's voice telling me not to.) Tension ripped through the room. I knew I ought to back down. Instead I accused Beate of holding back information on just about everybody and Hoover of being too besotted to see.

Hoover warned, ‘Watch your mouth, nephew.'

Beate looked disdainful. ‘Are you accusing me of being involved in all of this?'

‘The opposite.'

‘Meaning?' snapped Hoover, coming to her defence.

‘Meaning neutral and complicit. Isn't that the Swiss way?'

She went very quiet, so I asked, ‘Hey, did we hit the target?'

She wept with as much restraint as she did everything else; elegant, snot-free crying. She made a pretty picture. I was being a heel, but saw a growing ambiguity in Hoover, who perhaps privately relished seeing Beate humiliated. This made neither of us nice people. I had watched him do the same to Frau Schmidt; the sorcerer's apprentice.

We blew Bob Ballard out of the water first. Bob Ballard was a safety switch. I didn't get it until Hoover explained that Betty would have had a contact procedure, even though everything was closed down, in case any unfinished business made a late appearance. ‘Me turning up, I suspect,' he said. ‘What happened? Betty left you a set of instructions? What to do if one or any of the following happens? Contact this number?'

‘Post a letter,' said Beate. ‘I never saw what was in it.'

‘And, hey, Bob Ballard turns up. Do a little checking, do a little fire-fighting, run through the records and make sure everything is tucked up.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Beate. ‘I wanted to trust you.'

‘Well,' said Hoover. ‘It's a long time since I placed a whole bunch of hope in
that
direction.'

Beate stalled on Carswell, saying she had not had any contact for years. ‘We live in different worlds,' she said.

I continued to give her a hard time. Hoover shared my suspicion, I could see, but he was a perverse old bird because he started sticking up for her. ‘Leave her out of this,' he said. ‘The equation is complicated enough already.'

‘But I want to help,' she said.

I replied, with more sarcasm than intended, that this was indeed an historical moment, and Hoover told me to stop being a pain in the arse.

Beate looked at me with a clear calm gaze. Turning to Hoover, she said, ‘There is a website on the internet about the camp for refugee children where Konrad works.'

I told her we'd know about it already through Abe.

‘Why should you?' she wanted to know. ‘It's a private charity. Konrad's name is not connected with it, but that's where he is.'

It took all she had to say that. When she had finished she was trembling. Hoover took her by the shoulders. She flinched then relaxed. ‘Thank you,' he said. Hoover, knight errant, consoler of damsels, gave me a look that said I wasn't worth shit on a shoe.

ZURICH

WHERE THERE SHOULD HAVE
been humiliation there was, to my surprise, clarity, even gratitude to Vaughan. My life has been spent avoiding confrontation, or the nightmare of being singled out—except in the case of professional excellence. I was ridiculed by Vaughan. He detests what I stand for. I suspect in the end we are alike. We both lead lives of subterfuge, and he is drawn to disorder where I take refuge in its opposite.

A hanged man is not a sight that is easily accommodated. (See? My preference is always for understatement.) The irony is Mother was one of Dr Jung's groupies—as she would be called today—and it has taken dozens of his disciples to try and mend the broken pieces of my life. I am promiscuous when it comes to analysts. My fees are paid not so that I may seek understanding. I move on as soon as there is any sign of analytical penetration. Yes, I am aware of the implications. I use analysis as a substitute for intimacy, just as I use masturbation. For fear of knowing others, I have chosen to know myself.

I have gone out of my way to avoid my mother's élan and recklessness. I should detest her for what she did to Father, but he remains the ostensible object of my hatred, for his silent endurance of her rampant indiscretions, and for the way he let me find him. I suspect he had intended Mother to discover him, but I came home from school after complaining of feeling ill, drawn to him by what felt like telepathy. Many psychiatrists have since wanted me to confront the idea that I might have wished him dead all along, but I am too clever to go down that route.

Nobody talked about it afterwards, especially Mother, who would talk about everything else. Revenge on her took the form of obedience and duty, of being my father's daughter, uncomplaining and risk-free. I was like one of Mother's spies, except I was spying on nobody and for no one. My marriage to Dominic was based on her approval rather than any conviction of mine, other than knowing he would make me unhappy. I was in rebellion against the insulation I wrapped around myself for protection. I wanted to be exposed raw.

What I sought through Dominic was an introduction into Mother's world. I understood the attraction of action and irresponsibility over passivity and virtue. I had read my De Sade (courtesy of Dominic). Mother had, in her own crude phrase, road-tested him to her satisfaction. Even this, when Dominic told me, failed to dent my admiration for her, which is indicative of a strong level of repression and low self-esteem—successfully hidden by patrician good manners and my imposing height.

 

I drove to the clinic and sat with Mother. She appears frailer and in the process of slipping away. Faraway eyes. I wondered what they were seeing, and whether she has any sense of where she is going. She made me think of men being shot into space; such a long journey.

I have always preferred departure to arrival. Rooms are for leaving. One of the rare times I have laughed out loud recently was when I found myself intently studying a magazine article on euthanasia.

This is Mother's last room. Her mind has already gone. Has her brain been damaged from the strain of keeping so many secrets? Have the complexities of all the different strands in her life caused it to short-circuit?

In her great beauty Mother had a feline quality, a predatory grace, and she still moves through my dreams like that. Somewhere in the outer reaches of my psyche an unbridled liberty runs counter to a life of respectable increment and percentage.

In my own looks I see only Mother's missing beauty, which allowed her the life denied to me. ‘It is my turn for adventure now,' I told her. At that her eyes seemed to focus, followed by what looked like a smile of approval, or was it a more knowing grin to say she didn't believe I had it in me? What she didn't know was that after today she will not see me again. One last time that afternoon, to say goodbye, then abandonment. Duty done.

 

I phoned Dominic from the clinic to tell him about Mother. I have his number, of course. Whatever our differences, there still exists a complicity. This is a matter of background and association, of common social attitudes and, dare I say, breeding. We possess sufficient reserves to have overcome our difficulties. Where others see Dominic as English, I understand the Swiss in him. We also shared a disastrous wedding night, which I have perhaps overdramatised, seeing it in terms of his aggression rather than our sexual incompatibility. I was not at all my mother's daughter in the bedroom.

Dominic has always remained devoted to her and has visited whenever he can. He detects in her an affection never displayed by his own mother, one which was, of course, withheld from me by mine. Dominic and I have become more like brother and sister, he the son Mother never had. My tolerance is that of one who understands. Our public lives intersect in the institutional, diplomatic, and social receptions of the upper end of Swiss society. We move in the same orbit, and through some of the same rooms.

Recently we met again, introduced by my errant husband, Adam, of all people. Adam wished to draw to my attention the fact that Dominic was involved in the latest developments in security systems adapted for what Adam pretentiously described as curated spaces, and he wanted me to introduce my contacts in the museum world to Dominic.

Adam, about whom no one thinks to ask, is a banker. I would never dream of asking him if he manages Dominic's Swiss affairs, but it would make perfect sense if he did. I know Adam takes care of Uncle Konny because it was how we met, just as it was through Uncle Konny that Dominic met me.

I am trying to make something clear that Hoover does not fully understand because he is not one of us, which is that most things can be traced back to an introduction and worked out from there. In the end it all comes down to meetings, and doorways and the rooms in which those meetings take place.

Adam and I no longer live together. Our separation is cloaked by his constant travel. For years now he has been on free air miles. My marriage is both a carbon and a reversal of my parents'. I have taken on the role of my father—one of hurt, reserve, and withdrawal—while Adam, like Mother and Dominic, is expansive and predatory.

Dominic arrived at the clinic with flowers, an exquisite bunch that must have cost him an absurd amount. Dominic is careless with money, not Swiss at all. I needn't add what my own habits are.

Mother's condition makes him sad, nearly tearful. Like many cruel men, he is sentimental. When Mother starts to drool he tenderly dries her mouth.

We sat lost in our own thoughts, Mother most of all. When I made my deal with him, he seemed surprised. I am pleased. It takes a lot to surprise Dominic. My side is that I will ensure he gets the museums contract for his security system. He asked me what I will get in return, and I answered, ‘My freedom.' He kissed me, more than his usual fraternal peck, and said it's what I deserve.

‘I'll call him, and sort it out,' he said as he walked out of the room.

 

Hoover came to say goodbye to Mother in the afternoon.

I am determined to be honest. So we embarked on that awkward conversation I have been running away from since reading Mother's papers. (Not entirely honest; I had removed Dominic's flowers before Hoover's arrival.) There are many things I have not been able to tell him, I began, because of my loyalty to Mother. With my feelings for him, I now want that to change. We have talked enough about his and my lives. What I wish most is for us to go away, to leave immediately and drive south to Italy. There was a villa where we could stay. I know there isn't long left (I know about his condition), and I want us—how strange and unused the word sounded coming off my tongue—to spend as much time as we can learning about each other.

Hoover looked surprised and, I think, gratified. ‘Are you sure?' he asked. I told him yes, even though the superstitious in me was fearful of breaking silence. Mother sat between us mute, silent judge or dumb witness, maintaining her right to silence.

‘It's time we shared your secrets, Mutti,' I said. She had always hated being called that. I told her how her legacy had forced me to lie to Hoover, a gentleman with whom I wished only to have an honest relationship. I was tired of years of circumspection and the polite sham of my marriage. (That I am taking on a man of limited lease is not lost on me. I might be jumping in feet first, but it will not be for long. Afterwards I might be inconsolable, but better that than more years of polite swallowing.)

Jealousy has played its part. Among Mother's scribbling in her private diaries I read that she had sampled Hoover and pronounced him ‘highly sexed'. After a lifetime of avoiding the subject, it was not easy to mention this to Hoover. Given this overcoming of reserve, I expected my honesty to be matched by his. Why I thought it would be so straightforward, after so much prevarication on my part, I don't know.

Hoover issued a flat denial, declared that there had been nothing between them. We looked at Mother. She wasn't saying anything; Mother the Sphinx.

We wore ourselves down arguing. Mother's written testimony versus Hoover's verbal denial. Why should Mother lie over such a thing? He had no reason to, either, he said. Unless it complicated his feelings towards me, I ventured. He answered that he was too old to want to hide anything.

‘This is how it was,' he said. He and Mother had always had a flirtatious relationship. Mother was like that with most men. It was her currency. She had indicated to Hoover that she wished to take things further. ‘It never happened,' he said. ‘So I can only conclude there was a level of sexual fantasy to her diary.'

‘Why?' I asked.

‘Your mother was a very sensual woman,' he said. The sentence hung between us like a reproach. Mother's inert presence mocked him, and my desires. The taste of dust, even in that clinical environment: Mother's past turning into the graveyard of hope and expectation.

I was jealous of the current that had existed between them and knew my jealousy would not go away unless I destroyed his illusion. ‘It nearly happened, didn't it?'

He looked at me carefully. ‘What do you mean?' He was slowly realising I knew more than he did.

‘Strasbourg, the Hotel Maison Rouge in March 1945. Mother summoned you.'

Hoover shrugged. ‘We already talked about it.'

Mother's throat rattled in apparent protest, and her eyes flicked from side to side. Hoover said, ‘I think she understands.'

‘Let her,' I said. ‘It's time someone else had their say. The Maison Rouge where you were to meet Mother, I was there last week.'

He looked surprised. ‘Why?'

‘I was doing some detective work. Mother was always a progressive woman, weren't you?' My mother's eyes continued their frantic dance. ‘Even after her marriage she retained her original name. The Maison Rouge is an exemplary keeper of records.'

‘What are you saying?' His voice was hoarse.

‘Mother was at the Maison Rouge that night, registered under her married name.'

Hoover thought, then said in a whisper, ‘It was she and Willi all along.'

His surprise was mine. I believed she had been writing about Hoover in Istanbul when it had been Willi. Willi had boasted of being Mother's lover, but Hoover had chosen not to believe him. What he never could have guessed was the extent of their complicity.

He addressed Mother with something like admiration. ‘I never got even close to working it out, even the next morning when I ran into you in the lobby and you made out you had just arrived. I never made the connection, even when you had used Willi as your messenger.' He looked at me as though the discovery were too much. ‘What did they decide between them, that Willi should survive the war with a change of identity, and they had the bright idea that my body would serve for his? R.I.P. But there was no corpse. It was just Betty's word Willi was dead, and mine. I didn't think anyone could have survived that. Oh, Betty, you really had me fooled for a lifetime.'