In pursuit of women and money
Book 5 – Fleeting Moments
Copyright 20011 Walter Gordon Fischer.
Walter Gordon Fischer has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Paradise was elusive on Corsica; so was my on-off affair with the Marquise de Balleroy
Armenia’s Poisonous Dwarf has a laugh at my expense as I am duped into a wild goose chase in Russia
Building sand castles with the World Bank’s money
Viable venture capital projects in Uzbekistan are sometimes like mirages in the desert
Fresh air, sex, gossip and, occasionally, skiing at the Eagle Club in Gstaad
Paradise was elusive on Corsica; so was my on-off affair with the Marquise de Balleroy
Early in the morning of a warm and humid June day, I left Bologna, where I had been studying for nearly six months at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), an outpost of the Johns Hopkins University in Italy. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be late to catch the mid-day car ferry at Livorno (also known in English as Leghorn), on the west coast of Italy, just north of the island of Elba, where Napoleon was initially incarcerated.
With barely an hour to spare I arrived at the Livorno depot in my Volkswagen. As I approached the ticket office, I caught a glimpse of the dark blue Mediterranean, which glistened in the sun. I bought my ticket from Livorno to Bastia, a commercial port on Corsica’s northeastern coast. Since I didn’t know how long I would be staying on the French-owned, mountainous island with my old girl friend, Myriam de Balleroy, I decided not to book my return voyage to the Italian mainland. Myriam was now living on the other end of the island in Ajaccio, a port in the southwest, diagonally across from Bastia.
I hadn’t seen Myriam in over a year. While I was stationed with the US Army in Salzburg, Austria, I had visited her in Paris at least once every other month. I managed to stretch a three-day pass into another couple of extra days. When I was in Bologna, we had exchanged correspondence regularly. At the end of May, she invited me to visit her as soon as my spring term at SAIS ended. Before setting off for Corsica, I called her to reconfirm my travel plans. She said she couldn’t wait to see me. I fully reciprocated her sentiments.
We were both determined to rekindle our love affair that had begun five years earlier, in the summer of 1951, and had continued in the summer of 1952 after I graduated from Yale. It simmered on during the summer of 1953 while I was at Harvard Business School and had a summer job at J P Morgan et Cie. in Paris. Even after I was drafted into the US Army and stationed in Salzburg, we used to see each other regularly. I had stayed many times at her family’s chateau in Normandy. I had often met her dour, gaunt father, the Marquis de Balleroy, whom I later discovered had been addicted to opium since his days in Saigon, and her enigmatic stepmother, a Norwegian princess. I had also stayed frequently at Myriam’s flat in Paris, and was on good terms with her mother, Countess Marie de l’Aigle. Myriam and I usually went off to the Bordeaux area to stay at her mother’s villa, which overlooked the Bay of Arcachon. During the hot summer months, we occasionally sailed in the regattas, taking full advantage of the westerly breezes from the Atlantic Ocean.
But even in those halcyon days, I doubted whether we were compatible in anything besides having an intense sexual relationship. She would be annoyed, if I didn’t compliment her endlessly about how beautiful she looked. At times, I thought she was narcissistic in the extreme and, despite external appearances, was painfully insecure. But in those days, I wasn’t giving top priority to intellectual discussions about literature, music or the arts, subjects that now fascinate me so much. Our interests were rather more down to earth and can be summed up in one word: lust.
In making a sea voyage, even for short distances, I’ve always had a sense of anticipation. I recalled my overnight passage from Stockholm to Helsinki in a sparsely filled Swedish car ferry during the dead of winter. It was bitter cold, and most of this northeastern corner of the Baltic required icebreakers to clear away a path. The excitement was almost palpable. The dangers were real. If there were an accident, the ferry would plunge to the bottom; the likelihood of any of the passengers surviving in the icy waters was nil. Surely, it was not a routine voyage, where passengers can relax and take everything for granted.
As a passenger on an Italian car ferry, ploughing a furrow in the smooth surface of the shimmering Mediterranean for a voyage of eight hours or so in broad daylight from Livorno to Corsica, I strolled around the decks, smelled the mild saltiness of the sea air and felt the warmth of the broiling sun overhead on my back. I was instantly transformed into a euphoric daze that made me think: It’s great to be alive! This trip was special and would be a wholly new experience for me. I had never been to Corsica, Napoleon’s birthplace. Above all, I would have the opportunity to have a long-awaited reunion with my beloved Myriam under the most auspicious and romantic circumstances.
This time, I would have the entire summer to spend with Myriam, until I returned to the USA in September, to complete my Master of Arts degree at the Washington, DC outpost of SAIS. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting back to Yale on time for the opening of the fall term, or returning to Harvard, reluctantly, to continue my agonizing programme at the business school, which I loathed, or getting back to my unit at the Adjutant General’s Corps in Salzburg, without being flagrantly AWOL.
When the car ferry arrived in Bastia, I decided that it was too late to travel on to Ajaccio. Since the tortuous roads in Corsica were reportedly poor along the mountainous high plateau, I called Myriam in Ajaccio, to advise her that I had decided to spend the night in Bastia. She said she was disappointed, but understood. Myriam said that I would enjoy the trip overland from Bastia to Ajaccio much more during the daylight. She added that it would be a delightful experience; in many places, the savage mountainous terrain offered spectacular views. So instead of seeing each other on the day of my landing in Bastia, she agreed, however reluctantly, to postpone our reunion in Ajaccio until the morrow.
In the afternoon of the following day, as soon as I arrived in Ajaccio, I called her. In a rather nervous, hesitant voice, she agreed to meet at the Hotel Eden Roc, a well-known local rendezvous. I was thrilled. The meeting that we had both been looking forward to for so long would become, within only a few minutes, a reality. We would be together again, at last!
I arrived first, by only a couple of minutes. When I spotted her driving up to the hotel in a top-down convertible with her brunette hair blowing in the wind, I thought: she looked great! She still had a beautiful face and a figure to die for. I was so happy that I could barely restrain my sense of anticipation.
As we embraced, I wanted to kiss her on the lips. But for the first time ever in our relationship, she turned her head and leaned away from me. Then she bent over and whispered into my ear, ‘Gordon, it’s wonderful to see you again. But I really must ask you to leave.’
‘What?’ I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I had heard.
‘Yes, leave, immediately. If you don’t get out of town, my lover has promised me he will kill you. So, darling, you know I wouldn’t ever want that to happen to you. You must leave, NOW! Adieu, Gordon.’
I left Ajaccio immediately and have never since returned to Corsica. Bye bye, Corsica!
Years later I learned that Myriam’s father and mother had died; the chateau in Normandy had been sold to the publisher Malcolm Forbes who used it for hot air balloon festivals; and Myriam was now living in Chile. Married with children? I didn’t have any idea. Since my ridiculous trip to see her in Corsica, she has never tried to call me. I wasn’t surprised. Nor have I been inclined to try to trace her though our mutual friends in Paris on the many occasions that I have breezed in and out of Paris.
Adieu, Myriam! I guess we weren’t made for each other after all.
After travelling from Lima to Brazil, South Africa and Argentina, I felt like Jason chasing the Golden Fleece
When the political and economic conditions in Peru went from bad to worse, I thought I had at least one winning card to play. There was nothing I could do to stem the daily outrages that the sendero luminoso (Read: shining path) guerrillas committed to undermine the economy and the democratic political system. The economy was in tatters and there was an almost total absence of internal or foreign investment in the country. In retrospect, I suppose it was a wild card and the odds were strongly against me. Nevertheless, I thought it was at least work a try. Eventually, I thought that I had succeeded. But, in fact, I had failed.
There were two major hurdles to overcome:
The first was to get an exclusive mandate from Peru’s largest producer and distributor of fertilizers, a state-owned company called Fertica, to raise the financing. After lengthy discussions about the unfortunate timing of the expansion project, the chairman of Fertica confirmed to me that he wanted to embark on the $90 million import substitution project without any further delays. He had his reasons, all of which were valid: the project would make the country largely self-sufficient in the production of fertilizers; it would save Peru substantial foreign exchange; and, it would alleviate unemployment by creating perhaps a thousand new jobs.
A critical ingredient of the proposed financing would be the guarantee from the Ministry of Finance. So, I spoke to the deputy minister of finance. He assured me that although the IMF in Washington had imposed various restrictions on any additional external government borrowing, in the case of Fertica’s high priority, import substitution project, a Peruvian government guarantee would be forthcoming.
The second hurdle was to find a country that could not only manufacture machinery and equipment for Fertica’s expansion plan, but could also provide long term, supplier’s credits based on a Peruvian government guarantee. I was aware that the US Export Import bank had no more room for any further Peruvian government risk. That was also true for all the major exporting countries in the world: Japan, Britain, Germany and France, to name a few. They were all up to their eyeballs with Peruvian government paper. They definitively didn’t want to take on any more Peruvian risk
Later, when I met with the Brazilian ambassador in Lima, he said his country would definitely welcome the opportunity to sell, on a turn-key basis, $90 million of machinery and equipment to Fertica, providing the guarantee of the Peruvian government was available. I also met both the South African and the Argentinean ambassadors in Lima. After checking with their home office (or, at least, that’s what they told me), they glibly assured me that Fertica could not only buy the right equipment in those countries, but would also be eligible for long financing, providing that the guarantee of the Peruvian government would be forthcoming. On the basis of that flimsy information, even though it was never committed to me in writing, I decided that it would be worthwhile to fly to Brazil, South Africa and Argentina, to try to negotiate a USD 90 million supplier credit package for Fertica.