by Stan Mason
‘Sit down. Have either of you been to Russia?’ he asked, continuing his dissertation without waiting for either if them to reply. ‘It used to be the Soviet Union, the U.S.S.R. Ah those were the days with the KGB and a tight control of the state. There was no glasnost then. We referred to it as the land where the sun never sets. When you sat down at seven o’clock in Moscow, it was already midnight on Siberia’s Lake Baikal and five a.m in morning milking time on the Chukotsk Peninsula. Do you know it’s as far from Vladivostock to Moscow as the Equator is to the North Pole?’
‘That’s all very interesting,’ interjected Jack as the Russian paused for breath, ‘but it’s not what we’re here for. We have a proposition for you. A really good proposition.’
‘What are your names and who do you represent?’ he retorted sharply, his mood changing like the wind.
‘Our name’s Baker. I’m Jack Baker. This is my brother Dean. Our eldest brother’s a patent attorney and he’s come into possession of a great product.’
‘We make our own products in Russian,’ continued the Trade Minister undaunted. ‘We make our own cars, our own television sets, our own computers, our own... ’
‘I’m not talking of commodities like that,’ interrupted Jack swiftly. ‘This is something much bigger.’
Strongonoff looked peeved at being interrupted in his flow but he calmed down to listen. ‘Go ahead. I am listening to what you have to say.’
‘We have a project which will save your country trillions of roubles.’
The Russian looked at them coldly. ‘What sort of project?’ he demanded suspiciously.
Jack shifted uneasily in his seat before continuing.
‘It’s a process that can generate heat at a quarter of the present-day cost. It can cover everything from industry to vehicles.’
‘That sounds very encouraging. I presume you have all the test results of the process.’ The words sounded like a death knell to the brothers.
‘The theory is under test at the moment.’ returned Dean with his mouth becoming dry.
The Trade Minister stared at them fiercely for a few moments. ‘We have a saying in Russia. The promise of a bowl of hot soup warms the mind but it does nothing for the stomach.’
‘I don’t understand,’ responded Jack puzzled.
‘I’ll translate it for you,’ said the Russian. ‘In your language, it means a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You haven’t anything solid to show me that the process works. It may be worth nothing... it may be useless. So why are you here and what do you want from me?’
‘We’re in possession of some intelligent property,’ continued Jack calmly trying to take the reins. ‘In our opinion such information is worth a million pounds at this stage.’
Strogonoff burst into gales of ostensibly uncontrolled laughter as the faces of the two brothe3rs turned to dismay. It was becoming quite clear that they were completely out of their depth.
‘How do you come to that figure for an untested idea?’ he enquired breathing heavily before composing himself.
‘It seems reasonable for the savings its will make,’ uttered Dean, although his voice was weak and he didn’t sound absolutely certain.
‘Is this some sort of a joke!’ retorted the Russian becoming somewhat angry throwing his arms in the air. How he regretted the demise of the KGB where he could lock up such characters who were trying to rob his country,
‘I assure you we have all the details relating to this intellectual property,/ responded Jack stolidly.
Strongonoff glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I’m sorry. I have a meeting to attend. If you ever want to go to Russia, let me know. I will tell you the best places to visit.’ He stood us as if ready to leave.
The brothers did likewise but Jack decided to show some element of resistance.
‘You’re a fool to let this opportunity go!’ he spat. ‘As I said, your country would save a great deal of money with this process.’
‘If only it works,’ came the response. ‘Come back to me after it’s been tested and proved to work and we can talk then. Otherwise I see no point in continuing our discussion.’ He pressed a button located at the edge of his desk and, within a few seconds, a subordinate entered the room. ‘Take these two gentlemen to the exit,’ ordered Strogonoff sternly. ‘We’ve finished talking!’
A few minutes, the two brothers found themselves outside the embassy in the street.
‘That went well, I don’t think,’ complained Dean bitterly. ‘He wouldn’t even consider the idea.’
‘Maybe it’s our approach to these people,’ uttered Jack miserably. ‘They’re always suspicious of us from the start. I think that’s their problem.’
‘No,,,,I think it’s our problem,’ continued Dean despairingly. ‘What do we tell Alan when we get back? He’s going to be furious. We didn’t even get an offer this time.’
Jack’s voice showed his annoyance. ‘That’s what gets me. No one will listen. We have something worth a fortune and no one will listen. I reckon we should go back to the office and plan a new approach.’
‘The Indians and the Brazilians won’t be any different. You know that from the start. We need to be more positive, Perhaps we ought to tell them that the testing’s finished and it’s successful. Do you think they’ll fall for that?’‘
‘No... we can’t do that!’ countered the elder brother. ‘They’d skin us alive when they found out that we’d lied!’
‘By that time, we’d have pocketed the money and skipped the U.K. They’d never find us.’
Jack shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t be too sure of that. They’ve got agents everywhere. I don’t relish being hunted down and eliminated just for the sake of money.’
They wended their way back to the office wondering what to say to their brother. His response would be anything but pleasant. Indeed, when they told him what had happened, it was all he could do to hold his temper.
‘I don’t understand it,’ he bleated. ‘We have the most wonderful invention to hit the world in two decades and you’re telling me that no one’s interested. That’s hard to believe, Jack. What did you say to them?’
His brother wilted under the criticism. ‘It’s the fact that the process is untested. That’s why they’re all so suspicious. And who can blame them, Alan? We’re trying to sell them an idea that might be worthless in the end.’
‘And it might be the most valuable thing on this planet!’ retorted the patent attorney.
‘Let’s go back to square one,’ suggested Dean quietly. ‘We have a good business going here. We shouldn’t seek to exploit it for personal gain.’
‘It’s an opportunity that won’t come round again in our lifetime,’ rebuked the elder brother angrily. ‘If we don’t take advantage of it, we lose it.’
‘I’m inclined to go with Dean,’ intervened Jack with an element of annoyance in his voice. ‘We could go to all the embassies in the world only to get the same answer each time. No one will deal with us until they know absolutely that the process works. That’s all there is to it!’
The patent attorney sat back in his chair musing over the situation. It was totally against all his wishes to submit to failure even though his brothers were turning tail at the first obstacle. He was reluctant to allow the idea to pass out of his hands but it seemed that there was no alternative. It was indeed an opportunity that would never pass his way again but it was about to slip through his fingers through the inability of his brothers to negotiate properly. He would always nurse the blame to be on their shoulders. All he could do was to submit the patent in the normal way so that its authority could be preserved by Universal Energy Inc. He sat back in his executive chair in deep thought. There had to be another way! He would find it eventually because it was such a powerful process. It was far too good to let go!
***
Don shuffled slowly through the narrow streets of Limehouse in the district of Poplar near the East End of London holding a business card with the address of a Dr. Sinclair, 18, Fortune Street, Limehouse tightly in his hand. It was a slum area with a miscellany of terraced houses having been built well over a hundred-and-fifty years earlier. The streets were littered with bags of rubbish that had not been cleared for weeks and an awful stench pervaded the area. It was inhabited mainly by immigrant Chinese, having gained the nickname of ‘Chinatown’, some of whom worked in local restaurants and many of whom slept most of the day as a result of the smoking of imported opium. The latter spent much of their lives dreaming wonderful scenarios due to the intake of the drug which caused them to die most painfully at an early age.
As he walked along the dusty dirty streets, he could smell the aroma of strange pungent spices which permeated the area almost to the point of nausea but he kept moving on until reaching his destination.
‘Dr. Sinclair,’ he mused. ‘What kind of doctor practised in such a place?’ He had to have been struck off the medical register for one injudicial act or another. One could only speculate on what that might have been but it needed to be serious for such adverse action to be taken against him. Don wondered what he was really getting into on this journey. After all, he knew nothing about Jake and even less about Dr. Sinclair.
He soon arrived at a ramshackle building with its outer bricks crumbling through age and he faced an old scarred wooden door which showed signs that it had once been battered down. He opened it carefully to go inside and walked up a set of uncarpeted stairs to come to a large room which was cluttered with all kinds of paraphernalia. He screwed up his face at the stench of an odd unpleasant stale odour. The scientist almost changed his mind and turned tail at the last moment but, as he was about to do so, the doctor emerged from another room and greeted him.
‘Ah, Mr. Wise,’ I presume. Take a seat. I’ll be with you in just a moment.’
He was a small man, a little past middle-age, with a bald head and a grey goatee beard. His clothes were of very poor quality, and his shoes were very dirty. The scientist recalled a comment once made by his mother that anyone with dirty shoes had a dirty, lazy mind and was a ne’er-do-well. Don felt that she may have been right for., apart from the man’s shabbiness, the room was in a terrible mess.
Dr. Sinclair sat at a very old weather-beaten desk to face him. He clenched his hands in front of him and stared hard at the visitor.
‘You come to me for a reconstruction, reshaping and a mind change,’ he began, although Don wasn’t sure what the man really meant.
‘I want to look d... different to the way I d... do now,’ he responded slowly. ‘I want to be a m... man of the world and become int... interesting to women.’
‘That’s what I said,’ returned the surgeon bluntly. ‘A reconstruction, reshaping and a mind change. How serious are you about this? I want to know that from the start.’
‘Very s... serious. I’ve wanted s... someone to help me all my life. People just laugh at m... me and m... make fun. I want it to stop. And I want to find a woman who’ll love m... me and m... marry me.’
The doctor was reasonably impressed with the answer although he wasn’t certain about the end part of the request. He had been a General Practitioner for many years and then progressed to become a surgeon. In this case, he was employed to change the physical nature of the subject so that he would became much more presentable in social circles. There was nothing in his remit with regard to romance or the psychological side of the operation.
‘Tell me,’ he went on ‘How much do you weigh?’
‘Eighteen-and-a-half stone.’
‘That’s two hundred-and-sixty pounds. It’s far too much for a man of your height which is... ’ He paused to wait for a reply,
‘Five foot nine.’
‘Five foot nine.’ The doctor picked up a hand calculator and punched in the keys. ‘You need to lose seventy pounds. Can you visualise seventy bags of sugar, each weighing one pound, piled high in a corner of this room. A monstrous thought, isn’t it? Well that’s what you need to lose.’
‘Seventy pounds!’ gasped the scientist. ‘How do I do that?’ came the question, as he looked at the medical man bleakly.
‘We have ways to do that but it takes a little time. We can’t simply use lipisuction to remove it from you like pounds of lard. You’ll need to follow my advice rigidly and go on a very strict diet. The meals will be mainly salads with very few potatoes and little bread. What do you normally eat and drink every day?
Don thought for a moment. He had never considered ever regulating his food intake or even plan out his next meal. It had always been fatty foods with chips every day of the week.
‘I eat chicken, beef, pork and lamb... usually with a pile of chips for dinner followed by a suet pudding or spotted dick or a whole lemon cheesecake. I have five eggs, five slices of bacon and four sausages with hash browns for breakfast and cover it with tomato sauce. In the evenings, I usually go out for about four beef burgers... and I have eggs and chips for lunch or a pile of sandwiches followed by a couple of beers and a few bars of chocolate. I don’t drink a lot. About half a bottle of wine at night and, as I said, a few pints of beer every day.’
‘All that will have to stop. You realise that. Bacon and sausages cause you to put on weight while chips will be out of the question. An excess of potatoes and bread as well as beef burgers are anathema to weight loss. I’ll prepare a diet menu for you which you’ll need to adhere to exactly... to the very letter. It’ll consist mainly of salads. Is that understood?’
‘I h.hear what you’re s... saying but how will I s... survive if I have to rely on salads? My body won’t stand for it!’
‘That’s just it. The benefit is that your body will improve not only your shape but also your health. You don’t realise the damage you’re doing to yourself, I believe that if you continued in the same vein you would shorten your life by at least fifteen years., I’m sure you don’t want to do that. Now... you’re relatively young... what kind of exercise do you do?’
The scientist looked at the other man blankly. ‘Exercise?’ he muttered. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Running, jogging, going to a gymnasium... something physical.’
‘I don’t do any of that,’ came the reply. ‘Is it important?’
‘My God, man!’ exclaimed Dr. Sinclair with surprise. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a couch potato!’
‘What’s that?’
The doctor failed to reply and stood up to walk around the desk. He took hold of the scientist’s face and pressed his hand on the other man’s cheeks and forehead, pulling his lower lip down before stepping back.
‘Hm!’ he uttered thoughtfully. ‘You’ll need a great degree of cosmetic surgery. A new nose, thinner lips, higher cheek bones... ’
‘Higher cheek bones! How can you do that?’
‘By removing your back teeth,’ came the stern reply. ‘The effect is quite amazing. In addition, there’s a need for the removal of all the excess skin on your face and body. It’s going to be quite a job.’
‘Will it hurt much?’ asked Don. ‘I don’t think I c... could stand much ph... physical pain.’
‘Not a lot but you will have a great deal of discomfort. You’ll have to keep telling yourself that the end result will be to your benefit.’ He went back behind his desk and sat down again. ‘The rest of it is up to Mai Wan.’
‘Mai Wan? What’s that?’ asked the scientist thinking that it was a form of martial arts. ‘Is it like k... ung fu?’
‘Mai Wan is a woman of Chinese extraction. She’s an excellent psychotherapist. She’ll teach you how to think, how to stand, how to walk, how to talk and what to say. You see I’ve had a full report from Jake as to what’s required and she’ll handle the other sid
e of the operation together with Hywel Griffiths but you’ll find out more about it as we go along.’
‘Where do I have to go to meet her?’
‘As it happens, she practises in the house next door. You’ll be required to see her every evening starting from tomorrow. Do you understand? Every single evening! You may have to schedule some time off from your work when the cosmetic operations take place but well meet that as we go along. It shouldn’t be too disruptive. The main thing is for you to start losing weight before we proceed any further.’
Don was filled with trepidation at having to face a woman every night of the week in order to establish his new identity. More doubts began to fill his mind. Why was a trained psychologist working in a place like this? It was so downmarket here... so unprofessional! He was also concerned at Sinclair’s comment that the Chinese woman would change the way he thought. What did that mean? Did she intend to do something to his brain? Suddenly he considered that taking up Jake’s offer to change him wasn’t such a good idea after all.
‘When do I meet this woman?’ he managed to say,.
‘I’ll take you to her now. Then, after you’ve discussed the matter with her, you must come back to me for the diet sheet.’ He paused for a moment to reflect before continuing. ‘I have to say that you can opt out of this arrangement any time you want. It’s your prerogative to do so but if you wish to be reconstructed and reshaped, you will need to show commitment. I mean it... I demand total commitment.’
Don pressed his lips together in thought. ‘How long will all this re... reconstruction... take.’
‘If you comply with everything we ask you to do, I suggest it could take just over six months... but you’ll have to adhere to our advice every single day.’
‘You have my promise on that,’ returned the scientist sincerely. ‘I’m so fed up with my way of life and the way I look. I want to be handsome and desired by women.’
‘I can deal with the first part but, as I told you before, romantic situations are not in my line. Come!’ He stood up and went towards the door. I’ll take you to Mai Wan.’