The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (14 page)

‘Mr Rigby. A Mr Arne has just rung to welcome you to Bologna. He apologises for not having rung before but said that he has been out of town. He will send someone to collect you in the morning at 10.15.’

I thanked her for passing the message on and thought that Arne must have said on the phone something such as, ‘Arne here. Would you pass on this message to Mr Rigby.’ She would have immediately assumed that Arne was his surname, and thus the Mr Arne. It was curious that he never used another name. His reluctance to do so, and his one name device, intrigued me. One day, I decided, when I knew him better, I would ask him his reasons. Did it lend an air of mystery to him as a man? Was it just an early habit that endured? Was it all an unintentional accident of his later, professional years? I resolved that one day I should find out.

And so, as the diarist Pepys would have said, I went to bed.

The weather was brilliant. When I went to breakfast, the sun outside was shining. The Square was brightly, cheerfully, lit. The crazy towers reflected, even at that time in the morning, a warm reddish glow. I looked out on to the piazza and watched people coming and going. As so often in Italian, or French, towns and villages, early in the morning fresh loaves of bread were being carried back to neighbouring houses. On the pavements outside cafés old men sat at tables and chatted. One or two business people had cups of coffee,
capuccini,
which they sipped until the froth had gone, and then into which they dipped pieces of bread. I imagined that it was a late breakfast for them. Perhaps the young man I was watching had hurriedly left his mistress in bed, rushed out to reach his workplace on time, and had just called in to satisfy his hunger, sharpened by his night of lovemaking. He put down his newspaper and stretched backwards: again, I thought, he was easing his stomach muscles exercised too much by the demands of his lover. I let my fantasies go and concentrated on my own coffee, a strong brew that I poured and added a little milk to.

An elegant, beautiful young woman, with long blonde hair, severely cut at the back across the top of her shoulders, came to a table in front of me. At the distance of a few yards she smelled good, perfumed with something rich and slightly sharp: I could not place it. She had recently come from her shower and make-up session. As she went to sit down she looked around her and caught my eye. She knew I was looking at her and our eyes met. I smiled and she immediately smiled back. I could not think of anything to say and I let the moment pass.

After breakfast, I prepared myself for the day, collected my briefcase, and went to wait in the hotel vestibule for Arne or one of his menials to pick me up. There, I saw another girl waiting. She was wearing, rather inappropriately I thought, the sort of hat Scandinavians or Estonians wear, a pointed hat knitted in heavy wool in Fair Isle patterns with ear flaps hanging down and plaited cords to tie under the chin. I had been in strange basement caves in the centre of Tallinn where old women sold such things to tourists. It was hardly the hat for the weather outside. She wore it because she looked good in it. A young man hurried in through the hotel doors. She said to him in English, ‘Mike, if Milly’s upstairs, tell her I’m waiting.’ He said he would do so. A moment or two later, she disappeared downstairs to the basement where the lavatories were. A moment after that, the beautiful girl who had caught my eye at breakfast came out of the lift and looked around. I calculated that she had to be Milly. I said, ‘Are you Milly by any chance?’ She replied in an educated, Oxford English voice, smooth, modulated and extremely attractive, that she was.

‘How did you know my name?’ She added rather reproachfully, ‘We hardly spoke at breakfast.’

I explained I had overheard the conversation between her friend and the young man who had been going upstairs, and that her friend in the Estonian hat had gone down to the WCs. She thanked me and followed her friend downstairs. A little later they both re-emerged and came across to where I was standing.

The girl in the Fair Isle hat said, ‘Thanks for keeping us in touch with each other. We might have missed.’

‘Not at all. A great pleasure to be of service. I love your hat. Where did you get it? Is it Scandinavian? Norwegian, perhaps.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she replied.  ‘It’s Peruvian. I got it over there last year.’

I flattered her. ‘I like it. It certainly suits you. It’s odd, though, that hats in the Baltic and in South America are so similar. There must be a cultural explanation for it, but I don’t know what it is.’

My smart breakfast companion said, ‘Well, I certainly can’t enlighten you. You must be right. We’ll have to look into it; but lovely to meet you. We must rush. No doubt we’ll see you later if you are staying here for a few days.’

‘Surely. I look forward to that,’ I said, and I hope I said it not too enthusiastically, although I felt that old familiar frisson of expectation and keenness. They went out into the sunlit square and left me feeling pleased with myself that I should have made contact with a pair of such attractive young women. I wondered optimistically what might lie in store. At that moment, a young man, no more than about twenty-five or -six, came into the hotel, looked at me and asked if I were Mr Pelham Rigby. He was undoubtedly American and looked as though he were spending a year doing voluntary service overseas. He should have been at Harvard or Yale in his button-down-collar cotton Oxford shirt and boat shoe loafers.

‘Yes, I am,’ I said. ‘Are you from Arne?’

‘I am. I’m Paul,’ He introduced himself. ‘He intended to come for you himself but someone rang from Estonia just as he was about to set out. So he asked me to stand in and escort you to the conference. It’s better for us to walk. It isn’t far and it’s a great morning. The sun’s shining and the air is still fresh.’

‘A very good idea,’ I responded. He seemed a nice guy, self-assured, civilised, clearly wanting to be friends at the outset. He was typical of many East Coast Americans, pleasant, easy-mannered, polite, and he made you want to get to know him just by his considerate, accommodating behaviour. He adopted the manner of someone who is a friend of long acquaintance.

We walked out into the Piazza Maggiore. I avoided the leaning tower. We strolled into the Via Portanova and went towards the Malpighi district and the Piazza San Francesco. From thereon, I became a little confused and lost my bearings. We were in the outer reaches of the old city bordering on the ugly, utilitarian modern industrial development of the new. We did pass the Bologna Centre of the Washington School of Advanced International Studies. My guide and companion pointed it out to me. He said he was an alumnus. When he had studied for his Master’s degree in International Relations and Economics, he had spent the first year in Bologna and the second back in Washington. It was a modern building with concrete facing and recessed windows on four floors. He indicated where the extensive library was, the refectory, and the teaching rooms. As I had noticed on a previous visit to the city the flat roof was thick with sprouting radio and television antennae, and about a dozen satellite dishes. I suspected that SAIS Bologna was not as innocent as it would like to seem. It registered with me as a CIA communications and listening post. No doubt many who attended the Master’s programmes were CIA personnel, and, additionally, many SAIS students probably ended up as agency operatives.

After a few more minutes of relaxed walking and easy conversation, we reached a low building that Paul said was the conference centre where our meeting was to convene. The gardens that surrounded the centre were immaculate, well-tended, watered, verdant and full of flowering shrubs. As we arrived, there were at least half a dozen gardeners casually at work on lawns and borders. Big business is no niggard in spending to maintain appearances. Paul ushered me in through revolving doors where I was greeted by a uniformed girl who asked my name and company. Paul took over. He introduced me as Mr Pelham Rigby of Myrex. That was a surprise: I had temporarily forgotten my association with the corporation. The girl sorted through some information packs laid out on a table and gave me one together with a name badge which she asked me to wear whenever I was in the building. I thanked her and said to Paul, ‘You probably know I’m a journalist. Why shouldn’t I be labelled from the
London Journal
?’

He said, ‘No journalists are invited. You have to have a cover. Arne thought that the easiest thing was for Myrex to assimilate you. Others here would not like a press presence. You shouldn’t talk about your newspaper connection.’ I thought to myself, ironically, that I should not reveal either, my connection to Willly; but that, of course, went without saying. Paul showed me towards a reception room where coffee was being served. There were forty or fifty people standing around drinking coffee and talking in groups. Men outnumbered women by about three to one. I glanced at the various groups to see if there was anyone I recognised, failed, but noticed the familiar fair, floppy hair of Arne in a group standing by a window. He was slightly taller than the other people and so he was at once noticeable. I mentioned to Paul where Arne was, and he suggested we went over to join him.

As we approached the small group, Arne broke away.

‘Good morning, Pelham,’ he said in that peculiar precise English of his. ‘I am so sorry not to have met you myself. I had hoped to do so but I was held up by some Estonian business.’

‘Please don’t worry. Paul here has been an excellent escort. I’ve been looked after very well indeed.’

‘I hope you were comfortable in the hotel and slept well. Make yourself at home here. We have a plenary session at half past eleven. A professor of economics at Bologna University is giving a keynote address. He also teaches at SAIS in Washington and is close to the present presidential administration. He should be interesting and useful. There will be a short discussion afterwards and then lunch. Paul is acting as my, what shall we say,
aide de camp
. If you can’t find me, Paul will take care of you.’

I looked at Paul and he smiled back at me. We were, I decided, on the same wavelength. What was his relationship to Arne and Myrex? Given a little time, I reckoned I had better find out. Paul said he would try to keep me in his sights, and that if I needed to be introduced to anyone, he was always ready to oblige. It was clearly a huge advantage for Arne to have that attractive, personable, polite young American as his personal assistant.

The Bologna academic, Professor Caracci, was fascinating. He had analysed the rates of inward investment into the three Baltic countries over the last five years, predicted trends for the next fiscal year, and highlighted the companies that were most heavily involved in commercial and industrial development. By comparison with some big American and British companies, Myrex was a small player in the field but Caracci emphasised, it was expanding rapidly. He spoke enthusiastically about the imminent entry of the Baltic trio into the European Union. The discussion that followed his lecture was diverse and lively. I noted that Arne took no part.

At lunch, Arne sat next to someone who had identified himself during the discussion as the chief executive officer of a small oil exploration company. Paul took my arm and led me to a table where I sat between him and a woman, British, late middle-aged and rather too well fed for her own comfort, who was part of a team from an Anglo–Dutch pharmaceutical company. After a frosty ten minutes or so, she relaxed and revealed that she had worked in Moscow for five years, spoke Russian fluently and was totally aware of what was then happening in that country. I made a mental note to ask Willy about her. She would almost certainly be on his records. If she was not, then she needed to be checked out and possibly recruited. Her contacts in Russia sounded to me invaluable.

Paul was charming. He had a youthful freshness and displayed an eagerness to listen to me talk as though he knew he could benefit from my experience. That quality in someone slightly older might have made it seem that he had been trained to massage my ego. With Paul, it was obvious that he was sincere; and it was very pleasing, naturally so.

Conversation with Paul had little to do with the central concerns of the conference. It was similar to talking with Mark, except, because I hardly knew Paul, there was a long way to go before fundamental matters to do with deep personal feelings, philosophy and religion, could be touched upon. Yet we discussed books and films. He was interested in subjects I was interested in. He had recently seen a vogue Mexican film, a debut by a young director, that I had heard Woody Allen recommend in a radio interview. I had watched it on DVD and discussed it with Mark back in London. Paul thought it brilliant if a little violent; but the complex circular structure of the way the plot was worked out, the broad compass of society within a Mexican city that was captured, and the film’s humanity and humour, he admired immensely. I agreed with him entirely. We were on common ground. I felt him to be a soul mate.

Towards the end of lunch, Paul explained to me how the afternoon sessions would go. The conference was to break down into groups for discussions on different topics. He suggested I choose one and attach myself to the group. I really had no idea which one to choose and asked his advice. He thought the most interesting would be one looking at the pros and cons of Turkey, a Muslim country, joining the EU. It was a fraught subject. Turkey was eager to become one of the Community, but many eminent European politicians opposed its membership. High level, old-style, patrician French politicians, such as Giscard d’Estaing, and influential Germans, Edmund Stoiber among them, advised that it would lead to the break-up of political Europe. Politics aside, I wanted to hear what businessmen thought. I told Paul I thought my attendance a good idea and that I would see him at the tea break. I asked him what he would do.

‘I have some paper work to do for Arne. That won’t take me long. Then I think I’ll look in on your group. Maybe after refreshments, you will have had enough for today. Perhaps you’d like to see a bit of Bologna.’

‘A splendid idea. I’d enjoy that. Apart from walking here with you this morning, I’ve seen nothing except the view from my hotel window. I can talk to more people here at dinner.’

I knew from experience that the way to survive conferences is to escape their crippling parochialism from time to time. A walk around Bologna would do well to vary the talk agenda. We agreed to meet at the afternoon break.

My discussion group reflected the state of Europe itself. Opinion was divided. Some saw huge business opportunities in Turkey that would open out eastwards into Asia and the Far East. Others detected danger from Islamic fundamentalism and thought that Western Europe was simply courting trouble that should best be avoided: politics affected business. There was no satisfactory conclusion. Opinion remained divided. One important view emerged: some representatives from multinational corporations fervently put forward views that politicians should be answerable to business. The argument that the military, and other executive power wielders, should be subject to political will, was dismissed out of hand. Their argument was that business provided the money on which everything else was based: therefore it should have the dominant voice in proceedings. I came away feeling rather gloomy that there are business people with such views taking part in the forums of discussion in important places such as Bologna. But then I reflected, and asked myself what did I expect? Democracy must always be on its guard. At least Bologna had been a cradle of Italian socialism. It was infinitely refreshing to talk to Paul.