Tretjak (2 page)

He took a new pair of underpants from his briefcase and proceeded to get dressed. A pair of synthetic navy trousers and a long-sleeved beige tee-shirt. He slipped his bare feet into his dark brown slippers. The room was perfumed by freshly-cut papaya, arranged on a flat dish on the table. Tretjak sat down again on the chair at the window and thought about how to start the meeting down in the restaurant. He must not lose the pace which he had set in the lobby, he must keep up the tension. Tretjak decided to go down a tad too late and to use as an excuse: ‘I just had your wife on the phone, Mr Schwarz, and... well, you know her.'

The success of the mission, he knew from experience, depended on the beginning of the conversation. In this case the matter seemed not to be terribly complicated. It was actually a fairly routine assignment. Tretjak had considered turning it down, since he was in no mood to be bored. But then his client, Melanie Schwarz, had uttered a sentence which had made him smile. And it was because of that sentence that in a few minutes he would taste the ‘Great Curry', the speciality of the New Oriental's restaurant. He had pre-ordered the meal so as not to waste any time studying the menu. The Great Curry, it had been explained to him, consisted of numerous small dishes of the most delicate vegetables, meat and fish and an assortment of sauces, which were all already hot and would elicit beads of perspiration from your forehead.

Melanie Schwarz felt trapped in a life from which she longed to escape but could not. A web of guilty feelings, responsibilities and a lack of courage were holding her back, as was the fear of failure in her new, her own, life. In her youth she had been a starlet with two songs on Top of the Pops: ‘You Are Alone Now' and ‘Truth Hurts'. But her career had been a short one and soon there was nothing going anymore. She had once reappeared in headlines reporting an alleged suicide attempt and then finally she had disappeared completely from the limelight. Then she met Peter Schwarz, who erected a secure castle around her made out of family and a high standard of living. In the meantime, their grown-up daughter had left home for London where she was studying Dance. Melanie and her husband lived in a fantastic penthouse overlooking the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin and owned a small, restored estate outside Potsdam with a stable attached. Melanie had loved riding even as a child. Peter Schwarz had fulfilled her dream. But now she had a new dream. At the end of their conversation she had stared at the piece of paper on which Tretjak had jotted down his notes and said: ‘I don't have any money of my own. I can't pay you.' Tretjak, who had been tempted to turn down the assignment, had pricked up his ears. He looked at her and observed how she gathered up all her courage to conclude: ‘you've got to make my husband pay you for your work.'

 

The lentils had been the hottest dish. Even Tretjak, used to hot food from childhood, felt his eyes fill with tears. Schwarz had tasted a morsel and then refused to touch the rest.

The waiter with the rhinoceros nose was busy cleaning the little dishes off the table. When he had finished, the only things left on the table were a glass carafe filled with mineral water, a scarcely touched bottle of
Haut-Médoc
and a few glasses.

‘Would the gentlemen like to order dessert?'

Tretjak looked at Schwarz enquiringly.

Schwarz shook his head. ‘Espresso. A double.'

Tretjak nodded to the waiter and motioned that he would have the same. Then he reached for his briefcase, which he had placed on the floor next to his chair, put it on his lap and took from it a single sheet of white paper and a dark blue ballpoint pen, placed both in front of him on the table, and returned the briefcase to the floor.

‘So she wants to start a new life,' Schwarz said, more to himself than to Tretjak. ‘But she can't tell me herself... she needs somebody like you to tell me. How did she find you?' He looked Tretjak in the eyes. ‘Are you sleeping with her?'

Tretjak did not bother answering that question and remained silent. He gave Schwarz time. Some people fell apart when they received bad news. Others needed to utter the words, needed to repeat them in order to comprehend. Schwarz belonged to the latter group. He was hurt, one could recognise that much from his face. His hands were shaking as he poured himself some water. The bull was swaying.

‘Spread her wings one more time, well, well... were those Melanie's words, or did you make them up? A peaceful divorce... a small flat... just a small sum for a fresh start... What kind of start? And is that what we are now going to talk about? What do you hope to gain from all this, if I may ask?'

The coffee arrived and both men, facing each other, let it grow cold in the cups. The whole restaurant was now empty except for one table in the back corner. The elderly lady sitting there was engrossed in a book. There was a faint clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen, a sound common to every restaurant all over the world at the end of a long day.

Tretjak was satisfied. Now he only had to clearly explain the rules to this man sitting opposite him in a restaurant in Sri Lanka, who was soon going to disappear from his life again.

He had to make it clear that there was not going to be any contact with his wife for the time being. That his wife was on holiday and only he, Tretjak, knew where she was. That she would only return when everything had been arranged the way she wanted. One more hour, that was Tretjak's estimate, and he would step out onto the terrace and beckon the driver.

At this moment the hotel's receptionist came to the table. And it was this moment which Tretjak would go over in his mind later, again and again. He had caught sight of the man from the corner of his eye as the man had briskly crossed the lobby, stopped briefly when he reached the restaurant, looked around and then determinedly headed towards them. Tretjak was even convinced that he had seen him hang up the phone at the reception desk before setting off. With hindsight Tretjak knew full well that he had been annoyed at what was bound to be an unnecessary interruption.

‘Mr Tretjak, there was a call for you,' said the receptionist.

The human brain is a decision-making machine. It continuously processes a huge amount of data, literally every second, to make decisions in a flash and for one purpose only: to secure survival.

‘A call? For me? Are you sure?'

‘Yes, no doubt about it. The caller said he had an important message for Gabriel Tretjak. He didn't leave a name.' He looked at the piece of paper in his hand. ‘“Winner in the fourth race, horse number six, Nu Pagadi.” That's the message.'

Even when crossing the street the human brain performs a massive achievement. It estimates the distance to the other side and calculates the time needed to cross, including stepping down and mounting the curb. It estimates the distance and the speed of the approaching car and calculates the time needed until it reaches the brain's position, also considering the condition of the ground in the calculation and the two cyclists approaching from the right and then decides: to walk or not to walk? If only one of these calculations is incorrect it would mean the end and this particular human being's brain would be splattered as grey matter all over the asphalt.

In the New Oriental in Sri Lanka, Gabriel Tretjak decided, in this very moment, that this call did not signify any danger, that it must have been a mistake. Nobody knew where Tretjak was at this point in time. And he had never in his life attended a race.

‘Thank you,' Tretjak said, waiting until the receptionist had left before taking up his pen again and leaning forwards to break the silence between himself and Schwarz.

‘Now listen carefully, Mr Schwarz,' he began, ‘I know that you are planning to fly to Mumbai the day after tomorrow. There you want to close a cooperation deal between your company and a chip manufacturer.' He paused for a second. ‘I also know that this deal involves a conspiracy in your own executive board. The cooperative deal will not happen and the supervisory board has already made up its mind that the failure will cost you your job as chief executive.'

Across the table from Tretjak Schwarz looked at a complete loss. Three hours ago his life had been orderly, easily comprehensible, well-lit to the smallest corner – a good life on the horizon without any major problems. On 11 May he had taken a little boat ride, with a guide of course, upstream in a canoe all the way into the interior of the country. He had walked on a small island full of mango trees and had seen alligators on the riverbank. He had sent a text message to his daughter in London from the canoe. She had given him the stay at the New Oriental as his birthday present. She had stayed there on her way to a trip to Sri Lanka, and when she had heard that her father was going to India on business, she had decreed that this was the perfect opportunity for a mini-break. ‘Something else, Dad, not the usual fully-air-conditioned anonymous hotels. Something new, something just for you for a change.' That evening he had returned to the hotel in high spirits.

And now he was sitting across the table from a stranger who had just announced to him that his wife wanted to leave him – in fact, had already left him – and that he was about to lose his job. The company he worked for as the CEO manufactured cooling units. The deal with Union Carry concerned electronic conveyor chips, which would make the cooling units compatible worldwide. At least that was what his experts had told him and had backed up with a very impressive presentation. In the past there had been a board member who dealt with international cooperation deals like this one. In the course of some cost-saving and streamlining of operations, which had been extended to the executive level to make a point, that responsibility was now assigned to the CEO, who in turn had to rely on his experts. What did this Tretjak know about cooling units?

‘In my bag I have some files which will prove to you what I say is true,' Tretjak explained. ‘Emails, minutes of meetings and telephone conversations, proof of secret conferences. I will leave them here for you to study carefully at your leisure later. Not an easy read. I am now going to propose a clear deal to you, Mr Schwarz.'

Tretjak folded back the tablecloth, put the piece of paper on the hard surface of the wood and drew a line on it, from top to bottom, exactly in the middle. ‘On the left side of the paper, we will write down what
you
have to do,' he said. ‘On the right side we will write what I have to do. Let's start with your tasks.'

Tretjak now spoke quite urgently, taking short pauses between sentences and never letting his opponent out of his sight. When he had finished explaining a part, he jotted down a few notes on the paper.

‘Your wife is from Heidelberg, and that is where she wants to return to. You are going to open a little bookshop for her there, with an esoteric focus. This shop is probably never going to be economically viable, but you are going to support your wife and make sure she has a modest income. That and a small flat in the centre of town, two rooms and a balcony, that is all she wants. You will also talk to your daughter and tell her that her parents are splitting up, but that everything is OK, and that there was no bad blood. Her lawyers are going to draft the divorce papers and you are going to write your wife a letter. In it you will assure her that you are not angry, not even because of the method she chose to make her decision known to you. You will write to her that she has a friend for life in you. You will sell the two horses in Potsdam, but find them a good home where your wife can visit them; you know how attached she is to the animals. You will talk to Melanie's parents and you will speak to your own parents. You will start now with the preparations for a family Christmas. Maybe in the beautiful country house at the Schaalsee your wife loves so much. Everybody will come and celebrate Christmas there together and everybody will get along. Call me if you think there are any problems with any of those tasks which I haven't anticipated.'

The left side of the paper was now full of notes, carefully written on straight lines with little dashes at the beginning. Tretjak again leant down and took out of his briefcase a dark, brown file held together by a leather string and placed it on the table. ‘Those are the papers I spoke about to you,' he said and again picked up his pen.

‘My part of the agreement: I will save your job. I will make sure that your two opponents on the board will leave the company. That the advisory board reunites behind you. All this, of course, will work only if you do exactly as I tell you.'

He wrote on the right side of the paper:
eliminate enemies
. And below that, new dash:
turn Board of Directors
. And then he added a third dash below:
double annual bonus
.

 

‘You should have a little more money in your account at the end. Not least because you will have to pay me.'

Tretjak was sitting in the back of the Peugeot, on his way back to Colombo. In the dark the trip was even more nerve-wracking, but the diminutive, silent driver gave the impression that he knew what he was doing. It was just before midnight, and he calculated the time difference with Europe: there it was only afternoon. He picked up his phone and dialled the number of a hotel on the Parhijuese Atlantic Coast near Sintra. It was called Palacia de Seteais and was a little castle which had been turned into a hotel, beautifully placed on a hill in the middle of ancient trees with a view of the sea. Melanie Schwarz was not in her room, so he left her a message:
Made good progress on the way towards your bookshop.
T.

Later on, in the plane, LH2017, first class, first row, he thought back to this Peter Schwarz fellow, who by now must have read the papers. He kind of liked the guy, even if one of his working principles was not to think in these categories. ‘You once were an excellent squash player, Mr Schwarz,' he had said at the end of their conversation. ‘You know, in other words, that you have to capture the centre of the court, and should not let go of it again.'