Part 5 (2/2)
”British.”
”Then why do you speak French like a pied-noir?”
”I was brought up in Equatorial Africa. My father was an engineer,” I retorted stiffly, not stooping to comment on his opinion of my French. ”Who are you, anyway?”
”I am from Besanc_on. I am a French provincial notary with a modest practice in certain technical spheres of international jurisprudence. I am qualified in French and Swiss taxation law. I have an appointment at Besancon University where I lecture on the charms of offsh.o.r.e companies. I am engaged as the sole lawyer to a certain anonymous syndicate. Does that satisfy you?”
Disarmed by such expansiveness, I would gladly have corrected my earlier fict.i.tious version of myself, but caution prevailed. ”But if your practice is so modest, how come you have landed such an important commission?” I enquired.
”Because I am pure, I am respectable, I am academic, I deal only in civil law. I do not represent drug-dealers or criminals. Interpol has never heard of me. I operate solely within the margins of my expertise. Do you wish to create a holding company in Martinique registered in Switzerland and owned by an anonymous Liechtenstein foundation which is owned by you?”
I laughed regretfully.
”Do you wish to suffer a painless bankruptcy at the expense of the French taxpayer?”
Again I shook my head.
”Then maybe you can at least explain to me how to operate this accursed Anglo-Saxon computer. First they forbid me to bring my laptop. Then they give me a laptop with no handbook, no accents, no logic, no The list of omissions becoming too lengthy, he gave a Gallic shrug of despair.
”But what are you working on that keeps you up all night?” I asked, noting the piles of paper and empty coffee cups strewn around him.
With a sigh, his long meagre body flopped back into his card-player's chair. ”Concessions. Cowardly concessions at different hours of the night. ”Why do you give way to these brigands?” I ask them. ”Why do you not tell them to go to h.e.l.l?”
Ask whom? I marvelled silently. But I knew I must tread warily lest I interrupt the flow.
' ”Jasper,” they say to me. ”We cannot afford to lose this vital contract. Time is precious. We are not the only horse in the race.”
”So you're drafting the contract?” I exclaimed, recalling that Maxie had declared a contract to be the purpose of the present exercise. ”My goodness. Well, that's quite a responsibility, I must say. Is it a complicated affair? I suppose it must be.”
My question, though designed to flatter, evinced a sneer of contempt.
”It is not complicated because I have drafted it with lucidity. It is academic and it is unenforceable.”
”How many parties are there?”
”Three. We do not know who they are, but the parties know. The contract is no-name, it is a contract of unspecified hypothetical eventualities. If something happens, then maybe something else will happen. If not' Another Gallic shrug.
Cautiously, I ventured to challenge him.
”But if a contract is no-name, and the hypothetical eventualities aren't specified, and it is anyway unenforceable, how can it be a contract at all?”
A smirk of superiority suffused his skull-like features.
”Because this contract is not only hypothetical, it is agricultural.”
” Hypothetically agricultural?”
The smirk acknowledged that this was so.
”How can that be? A contract is either agricultural, surely, or it's hypothetical. You can't have a hypothetical cow well, can you?”
Shooting bolt upright in his chair, Monsieur Jasper set his hands flat on the green baize and favoured me with the kind of contemptuous glower that lawyers preserve for their least wealthy clients.
”Then answer me this, please,” he suggested. ”If a contract concerns human beings but refers to those human beings not as human beings but as cows is the contract hypothetical, or is it agricultural?”
I was wise enough to concede his point. ”So what hypothesis are we actually talking about in this case, for instance?”
”The hypothesis is an event.”
”What sort of event?”
”Unspecified. Maybe it is a death.” A bony forefinger warned me against precipitating the tragedy. ”Maybe it is a flood, or a marriage, or an act of G.o.d or man. Maybe it is the compliance or the non-compliance of another party. It is not depicted.” He had the floor and n.o.body, least of all myself, was going to take it from him. ”What is known is that, in the event of this unspecified event occurring, certain agricultural terms and conditions will become effective, certain agricultural materials will be bought and sold, certain agricultural rights will be a.s.signed, and certain hypothetical percentages of certain agricultural profits will accrue to certain unnamed persons. But only in the event of that event.”
”But how did the anonymous Syndicate ever get to you?” I protested. ”There you are with this extraordinary expertise, tucked away in Besancon, hiding your light under a bushel'
He needed no further encouragement. ”A year ago I negotiated many time share chalets in Valence. I performed superbly, the deal was the summit of my career. The chalets were not built, but delivery was not my responsibility. My client was an offsh.o.r.e property company, now bankrupt, registered in the Channel Islands.”
I made one of my lightning connections. Timeshares in Valence. Was this not the scandal that had projected Lord Brinkley onto the front pages of Penelope's newspaper? It was. peer's EL DORADO WAS PIE IN SKY.
”And this same company is back in business?” I asked.
”I personally had the honour of liquidating it. The company no longer exists.”
”But the company's directors exist.”
His expression of smug superiority, if it had ever left him, returned in full bloom. ”They do not exist, because they have no name. If they have names, they exist. If they have none, they are abstract concepts.” But either he had become bored with our conversation, or he had decided that we were overstepping the bounds of legal propriety, for he pa.s.sed a hand over his unshaven face, then peered at me as if he had never set eyes on me before. ”Who are you? What are you doing in this s.h.i.+t-hole?”
”I'm the conference interpreter.”
”In which languages?”
”Swahili, French and English,” I replied reluctantly, as the waterline once more engulfed my diving mask.
”How much are they paying you?”
”I don't think I'm supposed to tell you.” But vanity got the better of me, which it sometimes does. The man had been lording it over me long enough. It was time I revealed my true worth. ”Five thousand dollars,” I said casually.
His head, which had been temporarily resting in his hands, lifted abruptly. ”Five?”
”That's right. Five. Why?”
”Not pounds?”
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