Borderless Deceit (24 page)

Samson joins in. He has his version of the question. Why isn't Rachel a politician? The art of the possible. She's been dispensing it all week.

Rachel shrugs. “The art of the possible? Or of veiling the truth? Don't politicians set out to make ordinary people feel bewildered?”

Samson continues grinning and Nikko lifts a playful eyebrow. Rachel sees they're joining forces. Come on, they seem to say, be honest. Nikko puts it into words. “If not a banker or a politician, then why a diplomat?” Samson nods.

Rachel when she replies is playful too. “Maybe to get bankers and finance ministers to think.” She raises a glass. “Here's to you.” The banker bows politely; an elated finance minister raps the table with a
knuckle. Good one! Glasses clink. A bogus toast. Such fun.

Nikko persists. He really does want to know how she got to be so good at twisting the UN around her little finger and tickling the pride of rooms filled with delegates. Rachel sketches her route: Oak Lake, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Vienna, the last two years here in Geneva. She shrugs again. “I know what you're thinking. It sounds banal.”

The protest is immediate. Banal? Not at all! So she's from Oak Lake. Everyone has to come from somewhere.

Take me, says Samson.

He herded cattle when he was little. He remembers having one meal a day – milk mixed with cow's blood in a gourd. Highly nutritious. He always wanted to go to school, which was not at all a Masai-like idea. Normally he would be planning to turn into a warrior credited with at least one lion-kill. But missionaries in the Great Rift Valley provided an opportunity. And so he walked two hours twice a day for years on end back and forth along a track – which occasionally showed signs of lions nearby – between the boma and an open-air school. The missionaries then helped land him a scholarship to New York, where he also walked two hours twice a day, to and from Columbia University. On that walk the dangers were worse than lions. He admits that hanging around Harlem and picking up the local accent was like arming himself with a spear. After graduation, back in Kenya, he acquired a position in the District Commissioner's Office in Narok. Politics seeped into his blood. Fifteen years later he was in the Kenyan cabinet.

Now Rachel has a question. Why politics? Why didn't he become…say…a teacher, or even a missionary?

Samson thinks a moment then says it was to make his mother happy. Teachers are important, sure, but they only teach one small group a year, whereas missionaries solve only little local problems.

“I see. Your mother wanted you to tackle Kenya's bigger problems. What are they?”

Samson casually lists a few: corruption, tribalism, disease, too many babies, a collective incapacity to worry which undermines responsibility. He could go on.

Nikko's turn.

He's from somewhere too, from north Germany, near the border with Denmark. His father, a meticulous middle-class doctor, ensured the family adhered to rules. After studying at the university in Kiel – a somewhat suffocating place, rather like his family – he sought freedom in London. Three years at the LSE. There he discovered international finance, an elaborate game which he thought he would like. An opening with a bank in Frankfurt came along. “It really was a game. Very few rules. I liked that. The main one – you find it everywhere – is that the fittest survive.” He acquired a wife, then children. They live in luxury in a modest castle in the scenic hills just north of Frankfurt. After the Berlin Wall fell he received an offer to go there to run a big bank. Now he commutes back to Frankfurt on the weekends. He has arranged the day-to-day management at the bank so it's easy for him to be away. “And that means I'm free to play new games. Building a better world is one. It's true. I came to Geneva for this committee because, well, it isn't fair that only diplomats have moral fun.”

Samson likes that. Moral fun! He knows it exists. He's seen it up close. His country is flooded with
wazungu
– people from the outside wanting to do good – and moral fun is mostly why they came. But Samson is interested in Germany – the land of the once great
Wirtschaftswunder
now reputedly growing stale – what passes for moral fun there? Or, for that matter, does anyone still have fun?

The banker spreads his hands. What country likes becoming poorer? Germany's problem, he states casually, as if he wants to dismiss it, is an infinite capacity for worry. Germans are convinced the future will be foul, so they develop rules, endless rules, to minimize the impact of impending disasters. Risks are not tolerated. And since the political process is in stalemate – nothing happening except through compromise, one compromise after another, the weakest compromises you can find – the rules become more numerous, more labyrinthine, more suffocating. Germany is now like his own upbringing near Kiel when each breath he took was planned. And so the country has become all tangled up. The political elites have argued themselves limp. The energy is gone, none left, not for fun, nor for morals, not for anything. German politics, he claims, needs Viagra, so that once in a while it can pop again.

Samson claps his hands. First moral fun. Now political Viagra. His delight is infectious. Rachel starts snickering, then Nikko joins in, and soon all three look like kids at a birthday party. Samson collects himself. He desperately wants to know about Rachel's country. Does it also need political Viagra?

She purses her lips and says in deadpan, “I don't think so. It performs well enough. If there is a problem, it is a lack of style, I mean, in the political foreplay.”

The laughter of the banker and the finance minister is unrestrained. It feeds on itself. Other tables look up with irritation. Tears dribble down Samson's cheeks; Nikko holds his shaking head. Three glasses clink once more. To national problems and to the absence of solutions.

Rachel's committee completes its work the next day. Journalists show up from the international papers. An impromptu press conference in the corridor has the chair and her two friends aligned on a deep sofa. A triad. The reporters quiz the finance minister from Africa, but he's too veiled, not coming up with the right spin. Questions to the banker don't produce much beyond platitudes either. In the end Rachel directs media attention to the historic nature and the far-reaching implications of the new global investment guidelines. The journalists are captivated by the light mix of blame for past neglect, explanations of the issues, and praise for the finance ministers and bankers who intend to deliver. Each answer triggers more questions. Reporters' pages get flipped, are covered with notes, and frantically get flipped again. The results of the committee's work and the long-term implications become more than a four or five column-inch story. It's going to require a few full-length features at least.

Over a final drink that evening Samson says the week has been his best. Stirling work, good laughs, new friends. He would like Rachel and Nikko to visit him in Kenya so he can take them to Narok, introduce them to the town council, show them his boma. Rachel's response is immediate. A wonderful idea! She'd love to go. Nikko confirms he's in too and, since he has the bank's jet at his disposal, he and Rachel could fly down any time. Digging out their diaries, they identify some dates.

The next day Rachel goes strolling along the lake to digest the week gone by. She slips into a café and finds a table looking out over the water. Sipping coffee and enjoying a pastry she stares at passing pleasure boats. Silently she pursues a conversation with herself. The week's result was good, better than expected. Plus, Samson and Nikko brought an extra dimension, a vitality, a social contour, a respite from the UN's normal, shapeless blur. But how would the week have worked had only Samson been there, without Nikko, or only Nikko but no Samson? Without Nikko, probably she would have sat through just another predictable committee. But without Samson? Only she and Nikko? What decisions would she have had to make? She suspects Samson's presence functioned like a fence.

I need to feel you're here and that we're chatting,
begins her scribble to Anne-Marie on a small note pad.
Yes, I feel you're also at this quiet table. We are unhurried. As always you graciously let me blow my own horn. If I can't do it with you, then with whom? Last week's work, The Guidelines (Did you read about them in the paper?), are a watershed. They really are and I'm proud. Imagine keeping bankers and ministers attentive for a week. At times I had to act like a head mistress. They simply don't know how to sit still, not in a working committee. I know men their age have prostate problems, but the wandering off to the washrooms – it was non-stop
.

All the same I got along well with them, especially with a banker from Germany and the finance minister from Kenya. Wish you could have met them. The banker has an imposing presence, regal, slightly menacing, but poised and cultivated. The finance minister is a charming, fun-loving Masai. We were a neat little group. It was up to us to get the meeting to produce a good result, though we amused ourselves in the process. Therefore we've decided to get together again – in Kenya – a visit to Masailand
.

And today, sitting here thinking, it struck me that I've been totally absorbed in work the last few years and haven't
noticed I've made no friends in Geneva. Maybe it's the place, a pretty town, though a bit up-tight. Different from Vienna. You know how in Vienna I met people who were unafraid of there being some spice in life
.

But maybe it's me. Maybe I've become too obsessed with work. And now suddenly this change. Suddenly two friends, both older, married, successful and ready to enjoy themselves. Too much of a good thing?

If you were here, Anne-Marie, one glance in my eyes would convince you it's the truth when I say it's all been absolutely wholesome, although the banker, Nikko, isn't easy to read
.

I'm careful not to over-interpret any of this. Still, I'm looking forward to Kenya…

Departure day, mid-morning. Rachel is at the airport when the jet from Berlin touches down. As it takes on fuel, the banker crosses a stretch of tarmac towards the private departures lounge. Rachel, dressed in a safari suit and desert boots and carrying a small travel bag slung from a shoulder, comes out. Her step is eager and light, as if she's still in her girlhood and every new venture is a delight. Airy kisses are sent streaming past each other's cheeks. Nikko takes her bag. “You look ready.”

“I'm excited. I see you're set too.” He's wearing a floppy canvas hat.

Walking towards the plane Rachel asks about the journey: How many hours of flying? Will they land in between? What's the arrival time in Nairobi? Nikko grins and suggests she ask the pilot, the uniformed figure nonchalantly leaning against the plane. As they come up the co-pilot emerges from the cabin with a thermos and a stack of cups. On the tarmac as coffee is poured, Nikko does introductions. Rachel can't contain herself. She wants to know about flight clearances, how navigation works, the plane's flying range, and does the weather forecast call for a head- or a tailwind? Each new insight delights her.
Fascinating! Always wondered about that
.

The plane hasn't left Geneva yet, but Rachel's wonder at what lies
ahead, her sense of epic exploration, infects the others. Even the pilot, a seasoned dweller of the sky used to spending life at more than half the speed of sound, livens up and turns chatty.

Ten minutes later, the cabin door sealed, the engines start their whine. Not long into the flight, Nikko pulls out a second broad-brimmed hat.
Yours
. Rachel tries it on, mischief glinting in her eyes.
Always wanted one of these
. The hat stays on. Even when at altitude the co-pilot comes out of the cockpit, opens cabinets, passes bottles around and digs out trays of food, Rachel studies the activity from deep beneath the brim.

In the padded cabin, crossing Italy, then Greece, Rachel and Nikko initiate another exploration. Work, friends, vacations, books, films, preferences for this or that – warm-up topics. There's time for them. Twice there's a telephone interruption from Berlin; both times, Rachel observes the banker's eyes emptying, warmth draining out and a shark-like brutality flooding in. Hard-edged instructions are sent back to the bank. She picks up some of the German. A company seems to be going bankrupt and the bank is pulling the plug. No mercy. Kill or be killed. She also observes that once the commands are gone one slow eye-blink disperses the barbarity and the chatty fellow traveller reappears.

Well into the flight Nikko says, “You know, you have a gift.”

Rachel has been describing ambassador types and mimicking their pomp, vanity and garrulousness. Enjoying her own show she puts a hand on Nikko's wrist. “A gift? For what? Being a clown?”

“No. For making people feel at ease. They like to tell you about themselves. That's a gift. It's not your only gift. You'd be a formidable chairman of the board too. I told you that in Geneva.”

Rachel studies him from within the shadow cast by her shielding canvas brim. “Does altitude affect you?”

The banker smirks. He reclines his seat until it's nearly horizontal. “My first day off in weeks. Yes, I'm on a high.”

“The work is non-stop?”

“Sure.”

“You said the bank runs itself.”

“It does. There are other things.”

“You mean building a better world?”

“Partly that.”

“Tell me about it.”

A hazy look filters into Nikko's eyes. Building a better world merits a contemplative mien. With eyebrows knotted he flips through humanitarian causes, international charities and famous people he supports. Quite a list: AIDS, tropical diseases, boy soldiers, child sex slaves, the stateless and the homeless, the mass traumas after genocides. Truly, the human race is a mess and solutions for the many ailments, Rachel knows, are elusive. But the banker's understatement hints at confidence. He seems assured that he, or maybe his network, is getting on with the right things.