‘Mr Rosnovski?’
What can I do for you, Mr Kane?’ asked a very calm, lightly accented voice.
William looked down at the written notes on the pad in front of him. He could hear his heart beating.
‘I’m a little concerned about your holdings in Lester’s Bank, Mr Rosnovski,’ he said, ‘and also about the strong position you’ve taken in one of the companies we represent. I thought perhaps the time had come for us to meet and discuss your intentions. There is also a personal matter I should like to make known to you.’ Word perfect.
Another long silence. Had he been cut off?
‘There are no conditions on which I’d agree to hold a meeting with you Kane. I know enough about you already without wanting to hear your excuses for the way you treated Davis Leroy. My advice to you is to keep your eyes open night and day; that way you’ll discover soon enough what my intentions are, and they differ greatly from those you’ll find in the Book of Genesis. One day you’re going to want to jump out of the seventeenth-floor window of your bank, because you’ll be in so much trouble with your own board. Don’t ever forget, Kane, that I only need two per cent more of the bank’s stock to invoke Article Seven, and we both know the consequences of that, don’t we?’
William didn’t respond.
‘Perhaps then you’ll finally appreciate how Davis Leroy felt, wondering what the bank might do about his future. Now you can sit and wonder what I’m going to do with yours once I’m in possession of eight per cent of Lester’s stock.’
Rosnovski’s words chilled William, but he forced himself to respond calmly. ‘I can understand how you feel, Mr Rosnovski, but I still think it might be worthwhile for us to get together and talk about our differences. There are one or two things you clearly aren’t aware of.’
‘Like the way you swindled Henry Osborne out of five hundred thousand dollars, Mr Kane?’
William was momentarily speechless, but once again he managed to control his temper.
‘No, Mr Rosnovski. What I wanted to discuss with you has nothing to do with Mr Osborne. It’s a personal matter, and involves only you. However, I can assure you that I have never swindled Henry Osborne out of one red cent.’
‘That’s not what he tells me. He says you were responsible for the death of your own mother, just so you wouldn’t have to honour your debt to him. After your treatment of Davis Leroy, I find that only too easy to believe.’
William had never had to fight harder to control his emotions - who the hell did this man think he was? - and it took him several seconds to manage a reply. ‘May I suggest we clear this whole misunderstanding up by meeting at a neutral place of your choice, where no one would recognize us?’
‘There’s only one place where no one would recognize you, Mr Kane.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Heaven,’ said Abel, and placed the phone back on the hook.
45
‘GET ME Henry Osborne at once,’ Abel said to his secretary.
He drummed his fingers on the desk while the girl took nearly fifteen minutes to find Congressman Osborne, who it turned out had been showing some of his constituents around the Capitol building.
‘What can I do for you, Abel?’
‘I thought you’d want to be the first to hear that Kane knows everything. So now the battle is out in the open.’
‘What do you mean, knows everything? Does he know I’m involved?’ Osborne asked anxiously.
‘He sure does. He also knows about my holdings in Lester’s Bank and Interstate Airways.’
‘How could he possibly know that? Only you and I know about it.’
‘You and I and Curtis Fenton,’ said Abel, interrupting him.
‘Right. But he’d never tell Kane.’
‘He must have. There’s no other way he could have found out. Don’t forget that Kane dealt directly with Fenton when I bought the Richmond Group from his bank. They must have maintained some sort of contact.’
‘Oh hell!’
‘You sound worried, Henry.’
‘If Kane knows everything, it’s a different ball game. I’m warning you, Abel, he’s not in the habit of losing.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Abel. ‘William Kane doesn’t frighten me, not while I have all the aces in my hand. So where do we stand with Parfitt?’
‘He’s come down to $600,000 so I could close the deal now, if you wanted me to.’
‘No, I can wait,’ said Abel. ‘There’s no hurry. Parfitt and Kane aren’t exactly bosom pals so he won’t be selling his two per cent to him. For the time being, we’ll allow Kane to wonder what we’re up to. After my phone conversation with him this morning, I can assure you that, to use a gentleman’s expression, he’s perspiring. But I’ll let you in on a secret, Henry: I’m not sweating, because I have no intention of making a move until I’m good and ready.’
‘Fine,’ said Osborne. ‘I’ll let you know if anything comes up that we should be worried about.’
‘You must get it into your head, Henry, that there’s nothing for us to worry about. We have your friend Mr Kane by the balls, and I now intend to squeeze them very slowly.’
‘I’ll enjoy watching that,’ said Osborne, sounding a little happier.
‘Sometimes I think you hate Kane more than I do.’
Osborne laughed nervously. ‘Have a good trip to Europe.’
Abel put the phone back on the hook and sat staring into space as he considered his next move, his fingers still tapping noisily on the desk. Then he picked up the phone again.
‘Get Mr Curtis Fenton at Continental Trust Bank.’ His fingers continued to tap. A few moments later the phone rang.
‘Fenton?’
‘Good morning, Mr Rosnovski. How are you?’
‘I want to close all my accounts with your bank.’
There was no reply.
‘Did you hear me, Fenton?’
‘Yes,’ said the stupefied banker. ‘May I ask why, Mr Ros-novski?’
‘Because Judas never was my favourite apostle, Fenton, that’s why. As of this moment, you are no longer on the board of the Baron Group. You will shortly receive written confirmation of this conversation, and instructions about which bank my accounts should be transferred to.’
‘But I don’t understand, Mr Rosnovski. What have I done?’
Abel hung up as his daughter walked into the office.
‘That didn’t sound very pleasant, Daddy.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be, but it’s nothing to concern yourself with, darling,’ said Abel, his tone changing immediately. ‘Did you manage to find all the clothes you’ll need for the trip?’
‘Yes, thank you, Daddy, but I’m not sure what they’re wearing in London and Paris. I just hope I’ve got it right. I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘You’ll stick out, all right, my darling - anyone would with your style. You’ll be the most beautiful thing Europe’s seen in years. They’ll know your clothes didn’t come out of a ration book. Those young men will be falling over themselves to get at you, but they’ll find me standing in their way.’ Florentyna laughed. ‘Now, let’s go and have some lunch and discuss what we’re going to do while we’re in London.’
Ten days later, after Florentyna had spent a long weekend with her mother in Chicago, father and daughter flew from Idlewild to Heathrow. The flight took nearly fourteen hours, and when they arrived at Claridge’s, the only thing they wanted to do was have a long sleep.
Abel was making the trip for three reasons: first, to confirm the sites of new Baron hotels in London, Paris and possibly Rome; second, to accompany Florentyna on her first visit to Europe before she went to Radcliffe to study modern languages; and third, and most important, to visit his castle in Poland and find out if there was even an outside chance of proving his ownership.
London turned out to be a success for both of them. Abel’s advisors had found a site on Hyde Park Corner, and he instructed his solicitors to begin negotiations im
mediately for the land and the permits that would be needed before England’s capital could boast a Baron.
Florentyna found the austerity of post-war London somewhat forbidding compared to the freedom of her own life, but Londoners seemed to be undaunted by their war-damaged city, still believing themselves to be a world power. She was invited to lunches, dinners and balls, and her father was proved right about the effect she would have on the gentlemen of England. She returned each night with sparkling eyes and stories of new conquests - most forgotten by the following morning, but not all: she couldn’t make up her mind between an Etonian lieutenant serving with the Grenadier Guards, or a member of the House of Lords who was in-waiting to the King. She wasn’t quite sure what ‘in-waiting’ meant, but he certainly didn’t hang about whenever she appeared.
In Paris the pace didn’t slacken. They both spoke excellent French, and got along as well with the Parisians as they had with the Londoners. Abel and Florentyna walked down the Champs Elysees hand in hand, which reminded him of when he marched down the centre of the road with the free French. He tried to think why Paris looked so different from London. It was Florentyna who pointed out that the Germans hadn’t bombed the city.
Abel was normally bored by the end of the second week of any vacation, and would start counting the days until he could get back to work. But not while he had Florentyna as his companion. She had become the centre of his life as well as the heir to his fortune.
When the time came to leave Paris, neither of them wanted to go. They stayed on a few extra days, using the excuse that Abel was negotiating to buy a famous, but somewhat run-down, hotel on the Boulevard Raspail. He did not inform the owner, a M. Neuffe, who looked, if it were possible, even more run-down than the hotel, that he planned to demolish the building and start again from scratch. No sooner had M. Neuffe signed the papers than Abel ordered the building to be razed to the ground. With no more excuses for remaining in Paris, he and Florentyna reluctantly departed for Rome.
After the confidence of the English and the gaiety of the French, the sullen and dilapidated Eternal City dampened their spirits. The Romans felt they had nothing to celebrate, many feeling they had backed the wrong side, while others refused to admit defeat. In Rome, Abel found only an overpowering sense of financial instability, and decided to shelve his plans to build a Baron there. Florentyna sensed his growing impatience to see his castle in Poland once again, so she suggested they leave Rome a few days early.
Abel had found it more difficult to obtain a visa for Florentyna and himself to cross the border into an Iron Curtain country than a permit to build a new 500-room hotel in London. A less persistent man would have given up, but with the appropriate visas firmly stamped in their passports, Abel hired a car and the two of them set off for Slonim. Once they reached the border they were kept waiting for several hours, helped only by the fact that Abel was fluent in the language. Had the guards known why his Polish was so good, they would doubtless have thought twice about allowing him to cross the border. He changed $500 into zlotys - that at least seemed to please the Poles - and drove on. With every mile, Florentyna became more aware of how much the journey meant to her father.
‘Daddy, I can’t remember you ever being so excited about anything.’
‘This is where I was born,’ Abel explained. ‘After such a long time in America, where things change every day, it’s almost unreal to be back in a place where it looks as if nothing’s changed in thirty years.’
As they drew nearer to Slonim, Abel’s senses heightened in anticipation of seeing his birthplace once again. Across nearly forty years he heard his childish voice ask the Baron whether the hour of the submerged peoples of Europe had arrived, and if he would be able to play his part. Tears came to his eyes at the thought of how short that hour had been, and what an insignificant part he had played.
At last they rounded the final bend before the long approach to the Baron’s estate. When Abel saw the great iron gates that led to the castle, he laughed aloud in excitement and brought the car to a halt.
‘It’s all just as I remember it,’ he declared. ‘Nothing’s changed. Let’s go and see the cottage where I spent the first five years of my life - I don’t expect anyone’s living there now. Then we’ll go and visit my castle.’
Florentyna followed as he marched confidently down a small track into a forest of moss-covered birches and oaks that hadn’t changed in a hundred years. After about twenty minutes they came to a small clearing, and there in front of them was the trapper’s cottage. Abel stood and stared. He had forgotten how tiny his first home was; could nine people really have lived there? The thatched roof was now in disrepair, the stone walls dilapidated and the windows broken. The once tidy vegetable garden had disappeared in the matted undergrowth. Was the cottage still occupied?
Florentyna took her father by the arm and led him slowly to the front door. He stood there, unable to move, so she knocked. They waited in silence. She knocked again, this time a little louder, and they heard someone moving inside.
‘All right, all right,’ said a querulous voice in Polish, and a few moments later the door inched open, revealing an old woman, bent and thin, dressed entirely in black. Wisps of untidy snow-white hair escaped from her headscarf, and her tired grey eyes looked vacantly at the visitors.
‘It’s not possible,’ Abel said softly in English.
‘What do you want?’ asked the old woman suspiciously. She had no teeth, and the line of her nose, mouth and chin formed a perfect concave arc.
Abel answered in Polish, ‘May we come in and talk to you?’
Her eyes looked fearfully from one to the other. ‘Old Helena hasn’t done anything wrong,’ she said in a whine.
‘I know,’ said Abel gently. ‘I have brought good news for you.’
With some reluctance she pulled open the door and allowed them to enter the bare, cold room, but she didn’t offer them a seat. The room hadn’t changed - two chairs, one table and a reminder that until he had left the cottage Abel hadn’t known what a carpet was. Florentyna shivered.
‘I can’t get the fire going,’ wheezed the old woman, prodding the faintly glowing log in the grate with her stick. She scrabbled ineffectually in her pocket. ‘I need paper.’ She looked at Abel, showing a spark of interest for the first time. ‘Do you have any paper?’
Abel looked at her steadily. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know you.’
‘You do, Helena. My name is - Wladek.’
‘You knew my little Wladek?’
‘I am Wladek.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said with sad and distant finality. ‘He was too good for me - the mark of God was upon him. The Baron took him away to be an angel. Yes, he took away Matka’s littlest one …’
Her old voice cracked and died away. She sat down, but the ancient, lined hands were fidgeting in her lap.
‘I have returned,’ said Abel, kneeling in front of her. The old woman paid him no attention, simply muttering on as though she were quite alone in the room.
‘They killed my husband, my Jasio, and all my lovely children were taken to the camps except little Sophia. I hid her and they went away.’ Her voice was even and resigned.
‘What happened to little Sophia?’ asked Abel.
‘The Russians stole her in the next war,’ she said dully. Abel shuddered. The old woman roused herself from her memories. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’
‘I wanted you to meet my daughter, Florentyna.’
‘I had a daughter called Florentyna once, but now there’s only me.’
‘But I …’ began Abel, starting to unbutton his shirt.
Florentyna stopped him. ‘We know,’ she said, smiling at the old woman.
‘How can you possibly know? It was all long before you were even born.’
‘They told us in the village,’ said Florentyna.
‘Have you any paper with you?’
the old woman asked. ‘I need paper for the fire.’
Abel looked at his foster mother helplessly. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t bring any with us.’
‘Then what do you want?’ repeated the old woman, once again hostile.
‘Nothing,’ said Abel, now resigned to the impossibility that she would remember him. ‘We just wanted to say hello.’ He took out his wallet, removed all the zloty notes he had obtained at the border and handed them to her.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said as she took each note, her old eyes watering with pleasure.
Abel bent over to kiss her, but she backed away.
Florentyna took her father’s arm, and led him out of the cottage and back down the forest track in the direction of their car.
The old woman watched from the window until she was sure they were out of sight. Then she took the banknotes, crumpled each one into a little ball and laid them carefully in the grate. They kindled immediately. She placed twigs and small logs on top of the blazing zlotys and sat down by her fire, the best in weeks, rubbing her hands together, enjoying the warmth.
Abel did not speak again until the iron gates came into sight. Then he promised Florentyna, trying his best to forget the little cottage and the women who had made it possible for him to live, ‘You are about to see the most beautiful castle in the world.’
‘You must stop exaggerating, Daddy.’
‘In the world,’ he repeated quietly.
Florentyna laughed. ‘I’ll let you know how it compares with Versailles.’
They climbed back into the car and Abel drove through the gates, remembering the first vehicle he’d ever ridden in when he was being escorted the other way. As they bumped slowly up the winding, potholed drive, more memories came flooding back: happy days as a child with the Baron and Leon, unhappy days in the dungeon under the Germans, and the worst day of his life when he was taken away from his beloved castle by the Russians, thinking he would never see his home again. But now he, Wladek Koskiewicz, was returning - returning to claim what was rightfully his.
When they rounded the final bend, Florentyna saw her father’s birthright for the first time. Abel brought the car to a halt and gazed at his castle. Neither of them spoke. What was there to say? They stared in shock and disbelief at the remains of the bombed-out shell of his dream.