A Quiver Full of Arrows Page 5

  “And the ports problem?”

  “The port is totally congested. There are one hundred and seventy ships desperate to unload their cargo with a waiting time of anything up to six months. On top of that, there is a demurrage charge of five thousand dollars a day and only perishable foods are given any priority.”

  “But there’s always a way round that sort of problem,” said Eduardo, rubbing a thumb twice across the top of his fingers.

  “Bribery? It doesn’t work, Eduardo. How can you possibly jump the queue when all one hundred and seventy ships have already bribed the harbor master? And don’t imagine that fixing the rent on a flat for one of his mistresses would help either,” said Rodriguez, grinning. “With that man you will have to supply the mistress as well.”

  Eduardo held his breath but said nothing.

  “Come to think of it,” continued Rodriguez, “if the situation becomes any worse, the harbor master will be the one man in the country who is richer than you.”

  Eduardo laughed for the first time in three days.

  “I tell you, Eduardo, we could make a bigger profit building a salt mine in Siberia.”

  Eduardo laughed again and some of the Prentino and Rodriguez staff dining at other tables stared in disbelief at their masters.

  “You were in for the big one, the new city of Abuja?” said Manuel.

  “That’s right,” admitted Eduardo.

  “I have done everything in my power to make sure you were awarded that contract,” said the other quietly.

  “What?” said Eduardo in disbelief. “Why?”

  “I thought Abuja would give the Prentino empire more headaches than even you could cope with, Eduardo, and that might possibly leave the field wide open for me at home. Think about it. Every time there’s a cutback in Nigeria, what will be the first head to roll off the chopping block? ‘The unnecessary city,’ as the locals all call it.”

  “The unnecessary city?” repeated Eduardo.

  “Yes, and it doesn’t help when you say you won’t move without advance payment. You know as well as I do, you will need one hundred of your best men here full time to organize such a massive enterprise. They’ll need feeding, salaries, housing, perhaps even a school and a hospital. Once they are settled down here, you can’t just pull them off the job every two weeks because the government is running late clearing the checks. It’s not practical and you know it.” Rodriguez poured Eduardo de Silveira another glass of wine.

  “I had already taken that into consideration,” Eduardo said as he sipped the wine, “but I thought that with the support of the Head of State…”

  “The late Head of State—”

  “I take your point, Manuel.”

  “Maybe the next Head of State will also back you, but what about the one after that? Nigeria has had three coups in the past three years.”

  Eduardo remained silent for a moment.

  “Do you play backgammon?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I must make some money while I’m here.”

  Manuel laughed.

  “Why don’t you come to my room,” continued de Silveira. “Though I must warn you I always manage to beat my staff.”

  “Perhaps they always manage to lose,” said Manuel as he rose and grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine by its neck. Both men were laughing as they left the dining room.

  After that, the two chairmen had lunch and dinner together every day. Within a week, their staff were eating at the same tables. Eduardo could be seen in the dining room without a tie while Manuel wore a shirt for the first time in years. By the end of a fortnight, the two rivals had played each other at table tennis, backgammon and bridge with the stakes set at one hundred dollars a point. At the end of each day Eduardo always seemed to end up owing Manuel about a million dollars, which Manuel happily traded for the best bottle of wine left in the hotel’s cellar.

  Although Lieutenant Colonel Dimka had been sighted by about forty thousand Nigerians in about as many different places, he still remained resolutely uncaptured. As the new President had insisted, airports remained closed, but communications were opened, which at least allowed Eduardo to telephone and telex Brazil. His brothers and wife were sending replies by the hour imploring Eduardo to return home at any cost: decisions on major contracts throughout the world were being held up by his absence. But Eduardo’s message back to Brazil was always the same: as long as Dimka is on the loose, the airports will remain closed.

  It was on a Tuesday night during dinner that Eduardo took the trouble to explain to Manuel why Brazil had lost the World Cup in soccer. Manuel dismissed Eduardo’s outrageous claims as ill informed and prejudiced. It was the only subject on which they hadn’t agreed in the past three weeks.

  “I blame the whole fiasco on Zagalo,” said Eduardo.

  “No, no, you cannot blame the manager,” said Manuel. “The fault lies with our stupid selectors who know even less about the sport than you do. They should never have dropped Leao from goal and in any case we should have learned from the Argentinian defeat last year that our methods are now out of date. You must attack, attack, if you want to score goals.”

  “Rubbish. We still have the surest defense in the world.”

  “Which means the best result you can hope for is a 0-0 draw.”

  “Never…” began Eduardo.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  Eduardo looked up to see his private secretary standing by his side looking anxiously down at him.

  “Yes, what’s the problem?”

  “An urgent telex from Brazil, sir.”

  Eduardo read the first paragraph and then asked Manuel if he would be kind enough to excuse him for a few minutes. The latter nodded politely. Eduardo left the table and as he marched through the dining room seventeen other guests left unfinished meals and followed him quickly to his suite on the top floor, where the rest of his staff were already assembled. He sat down alone in the corner of the room. No one spoke as he read through the telex carefully, suddenly realizing how many days he had been imprisoned in Lagos.

  The telex was from his brother Carlos and the contents concerned the Pan-American road project through the Amazonian jungle. Prentinos had tendered for the section that ran through the middle of the Amazon jungle and had to have the bank guarantees signed and certified by midday tomorrow, Tuesday. Eduardo had quite forgotten which Tuesday it was and the document he was committed to sign by the following day’s deadline.

  “What’s the problem?” Eduardo asked his private secretary. “The Banco do Brasil have already agreed with Alfredo to act as guarantors. What’s stopping Carlos from signing the agreement in my absence?”

  “The Mexicans are now demanding that responsibility for the contract be shared because of the insurance problems: Lloyd’s of London will not cover the entire risk if only one company is involved. The details are all on page seven of the telex.”

  Eduardo flicked quickly through the pages. He read that his brothers had already tried to put pressure on Lloyd’s, but to no avail. That’s like trying to bribe a maiden aunt into taking part in a public orgy, thought Eduardo, and he would have told them as much if he had been back in Brazil. The Mexican government was therefore insisting that the contract be shared with an international construction company acceptable to Lloyd’s if the legal documents were to be signed by the midday deadline the following day.

  “Stay put,” said Eduardo to his staff, and he returned to the dining room alone, trailing the long telex behind him. Rodriguez watched him as he scurried back to their table.

  “You look like a man with a problem.”

  “I am,” said Eduardo. “Read that.”

  Manuel’s experienced eye ran down the telex, picking out the salient points. He had tendered for the Amazon road project himself and could still recall the details. At Eduardo’s insistence, he re-read page seven.

  “Mexican bandits,” he said as he returned the telex to Eduardo. “Who do they think they are,
telling Eduardo de Silveira how he must conduct his business. Telex them back immediately and inform them you’re chairman of the greatest construction company in the world and they can roast in hell before you will agree to their pathetic terms. You know it’s far too late for them to go out to tender again with every other section of the highway ready to begin work. They would lose millions. Call their bluff, Eduardo.”

  “I think you may be right, Manuel, but any hold-up now can only waste my time and money, so I intend to agree to their demand and look for a partner.”

  “You’ll never find one at such short notice.”

  “I will.”

  “Who?”

  Eduardo de Silveira hesitated only for a second. “You, Manuel. I want to offer Rodriguez International S.A. fifty percent of the Amazon road contract.”

  Manuel Rodriguez looked up at Eduardo. It was the first time that he had not anticipated his old rival’s next move. “I suppose it might help cover the millions you owe me in table tennis debts.”

  The two men laughed; then Rodriguez stood up and they shook hands gravely. De Silveira left the dining room on the run and wrote out a telex for his manager to transmit.

  “Sign, accept terms, fifty percent partner will be Rodriguez International Construction S.A., Brazil.”

  “If I telex that message, sir, you do realize that it’s legally binding?”

  “Send it,” said Eduardo.

  Eduardo returned once again to the dining room, where Manuel had ordered the finest bottle of champagne in the hotel. Just as they were calling for a second bottle, and singing a spirited version of “Esta Cheganda a hora,” Eduardo’s private secretary appeared by his side again, this time with two telexes, one from the President of the Banco do Brasil and a second from his brother Carlos. Both wanted confirmation of the agreed partner for the Amazon road project. Eduardo uncorked the second bottle of champagne without looking up at his private secretary.

  “Confirm Rodriguez International Construction to the President of the bank and my brother,” he said as he filled Manuel’s empty glass. “And don’t bother me again tonight.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the private secretary, and left without another word.

  Neither man could recall what time he climbed into bed that night, but de Silveira was abruptly awakened from a deep sleep by his secretary early the next morning. Eduardo took a few minutes to digest the news. Lieutenant Colonel Dimka had been caught in Kano at three o’clock that morning and all the airports were now open again. Eduardo picked up the phone and dialed three digits.

  “Manuel, you’ve heard the news?… Good.… Then you must fly back with me in my 707 or it may be days before you get out.… One hour’s time in the lobby … See you then.”

  At eight forty-five there was a quiet knock on the door and Eduardo’s secretary opened it to find Colonel Usman standing to attention, just as he had done in the days before the coup. He held a note in his hand. Eduardo tore open the envelope to find an invitation to lunch that day with the new Head of State, General Obasanjo.

  “Please convey my apologies to your President,” said Eduardo, “and be kind enough to explain that I have pressing commitments to attend to in my own country.”

  The colonel retired reluctantly. Eduardo dressed in the suit, shirt and tie he had worn on his first day in Nigeria and took the lift downstairs to the lobby, where he joined Manuel, who was once more wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The two chairmen left the hotel and climbed into the back of the leading Mercedes and the motorcade of six began its journey to the airport. The colonel, who now sat in front with the driver, did not venture to speak to either of the distinguished Brazilians for the entire journey. The two men, he would be able to tell the new President later, seemed to be preoccupied with a discussion on an Amazon road project and how the responsibility should be divided between their two companies.

  Customs were bypassed as neither man had anything he wanted to take out of the country other than himself, and the fleet of cars came to a halt at the side of Eduardo’s blue and silver 707. The staff of both companies climbed aboard the rear section of the aircraft, also engrossed in discussion on the Amazon road project.

  A corporal jumped out of the lead car and opened the back door to allow the two chairmen to walk straight up the steps and board the front section of the aircraft.

  As Eduardo stepped out of the Mercedes, the Nigerian driver saluted smartly. “Goodbye, sir,” he said, revealing the large set of white teeth once again.

  Eduardo said nothing.

  “I hope,” said the corporal politely, “you made very big deal while you were in Nigeria.”

  OLD LOVE

  Some people, it is said, fall in love at first sight, but that was not what happened to William Hatchard and Philippa Jameson. They hated each other from the moment they met. This mutual loathing commenced at the first tutorial of their freshman terms. Both had come up in the early thirties with major scholarships to read English language and literature, William to Merton, Philippa to Somerville. Each had been reliably assured by their schoolteachers that they would be the star pupil of their year.

  Their tutor, Simon Jakes of New College, was both bemused and amused by the ferocious competition that so quickly developed between his two brightest pupils, and he used their enmity skillfully to bring out the best in both of them without ever allowing either to indulge in outright abuse. Philippa, an attractive, slim redhead with a rather high-pitched voice, was the same height as William, so she conducted as many of her arguments as possible standing in newly acquired high-heeled shoes, while William, whose deep voice had an air of authority, would always try to expound his opinions from a sitting position. The more intense their rivalry became, the harder the one tried to outdo the other. By the end of their first year they were far ahead of their contemporaries while remaining neck and neck with each other. Simon Jakes told the Merton Professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies that he had never had a brighter pair up in the same year and that it wouldn’t be long before they were holding their own with him.

  During the long vacation both worked to a grueling time-table, always imagining the other would be doing a little more. They stripped bare Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and only went to bed with Keats. When they returned for the second year, they found that absence had made the heart grow even more hostile; and when they were both awarded alpha plus for their essays on Beowulf, it didn’t help. Simon Jakes remarked at New College high table one night that if Philippa Jameson had been born a boy some of his tutorials would undoubtedly have ended in blows.

  “Why don’t you separate them?” asked the Dean, sleepily.

  “What, and double my work-load?” said Jakes. “They teach each other most of the time: I merely act as referee.”

  Occasionally the adversaries would seek his adjudication as to who was ahead of whom, and so confident was each of being the favored pupil that one would always ask in the other’s hearing. Jakes was far too canny to be drawn; instead he would remind them that the examiners would be the final arbiters. So they began their own subterfuge by referring to each other, just in earshot, as “that silly woman,” and “that arrogant man.” By the end of their second year they were almost unable to remain in the same room together.

  In the long vacation William took a passing interest in Al Jolson and a girl called Ruby while Philippa flirted with the Charleston and a young naval lieutenant from Dartmouth. But when term started in earnest these interludes were never admitted and soon forgotten.

  At the beginning of their third year they both, on Simon Jakes’ advice, entered for the Charles Oldham Shakespeare prize along with every other student in the year who was considered likely to gain a First. The Charles Oldham was awarded for an essay on a set aspect of Shakespeare’s work, and Philippa and William both realized that this would be the only time in their academic lives that they would be tested against each other in closed competition. Surreptitiously, they worked their separate ways through
the entire Shakespearean canon, from Henry VI to Henry VIII, and kept Jakes well over his appointed tutorial hours, demanding more and more refined discussion of more and more obscure points.

  The chosen theme for the prize essay that year was “Satire in Shakespeare.” Troilus and Cressida clearly called for the most attention, but both found there were nuances in virtually every one of the bard’s thirty-seven plays. “Not to mention a gross of sonnets,” wrote Philippa home to her father in a rare moment of self-doubt. As the year drew to a close it became obvious to all concerned that either William or Philippa had to win the prize while the other would undoubtedly come in second. Nevertheless no one was willing to venture an opinion as to who the victor would be. The New College porter, an expert in these matters, opening his usual book for the Charles Oldham, made them both evens, ten to one the rest of the field.

  Before the prize essay submission date was due, they both had to sit their final degree examinations. Philippa and William confronted the examination papers every morning and afternoon for two weeks with an appetite that bordered on the vulgar. It came as no surprise to anyone that they both achieved first class degrees in the final honors school. Rumor spread around the University that the two rivals had been awarded alphas in every one of their nine papers.

  “I am willing to believe that is the case,” Philippa told William. “But I feel I must point out to you that there is a considerable difference between an alpha plus and an alpha minus.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said William. “And when you discover who has won the Charles Oldham, you will know who was awarded less.”

  With only three weeks left before the prize essay had to be handed in they both worked twelve hours a day, falling asleep over open textbooks, dreaming that the other was still beavering away. When the appointed hour came they met in the marble-floored entrance hall of the Examination Schools, somber in subfusc.

  “Good morning, William, I do hope your efforts will manage to secure a place in the first six.”