by Mari Reiza
What Alakrita wanted was for people to try and fail, a very feminine motif, which, when concentrated to the power of a million, made up Alakrita’s blood. And even when you were her master you were her slave. She did not read Tom’s emails – that was Tom M., our leader and supreme Messiah.
She did not stop at anything or anybody. Rumour had it that she had once had her new Katrantzou outfit splashed by a cement mixer on her way to the office (what the hell was she doing walking to the office!), and immediately called a couple of big construction clients to ensure that Enterprise won a project to take over the jerks who owned the damned mixer. ‘Damn the mixer, and the workers, and their mothers and their fathers and their whole miserable world!’ she had been heard shouting in the office that day.
I was certain Alakrita must have dreamt of being a taxidermist surrounded by thousands of creatures that she could skin alive and stuff into her favourite poses. Enterprise needed her, because we were safer having her on our side, and I was lucky that she had liked me at first sight as a cute little lap dog. I thought as long as I managed to fight the pornographic fantasies about her lips, I would be fine.
Nal, Trojan, Tobias, Alakrita, Vittal. We were just a bunch of virgin TOtIs high on DILAs, a criminal line-up. The philanthropic gentleman, the invertebrate schemer, Cruella de Vil, Dostoevsky's double, and me, the voyeur, the unraveller, the narrator. We were there and then, and we were the converted. We were going to change the world, and I was to be the winner of them all, whatever that meant.
Oh yes, it meant being up there with Peter-Moses.
Understanding our mission
In which Peter becomes Vittal’s mentor; Melchior bores; Vittal discovers PEN and works with Hammi; and he falls prey to Alakrita’s deadly charms.
We were the founders of our own profession as truth tellers and counsels of perfection. We had made it up, we had invented it, it was a flash of genius. In essence, it was preposterously romantic and sounded more like a religion than a business project. It was about refocusing on what really mattered, the human spirit, and carving a bigger life for the individual. And then it went further into shaping a better world, because one must learn to serve something higher than us all.
In practice, Enterprise’s mission came in two parts, Patient Salvation through Truth Solving (PS-tTS) and Developing Better Mankind (DBM), both concepts at the centre of our Bible and, as in all religions, we had to buy into our Bible.
PS-tTS was about globally diagnosing and disclosing misdeeds and bringing corporate patients back to health, saving them. Our vocation was corporate health and we were business doctors. We told our clients, who we called our patients, how to keep their corporations healthy, full of radiant happy people, the best people for them, all interrelating in the right ways to achieve the corporation’s goals efficiently.
It was difficult to measure the importance of people to organisations and only we could do it, benefiting businesses, governments, the environment and society at large to shape a healthier world. ‘Neither the artists nor the poets, but we Enterprisers are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind!’ Bev used to say.
The second concept, DBM, was the institutional means by which our elite could defend its interests and perpetuate and strengthen its existence for the good of humanity. It was basically the pre-eminent engine continuously churning out more people like us, Framework 5-compliant, supernatural, worshipable individuals who could in turn shape the world for the better, and would spread our truth with zeal and stretch the influence of Enterprise, as well as see their lives enhanced through a higher purpose.
Framework 5 churned out savvy elects who had learnt to become powerful mentors, nurturing inspirers, truth solvers, go-getters and gurus, and to respect the unique governing ethics of Enterprise. We would eventually keep the best of them within, and position the worse at the top of our patients’ companies to spread our tentacles further and facilitate our first mission of PS-tTS.
In essence, it seemed to me that DBM built a network like the Mormons, and I had nightmares of Enterprise leeches ringing at my very door one day, ‘Hello, my name is Trojan, and I would like to share with you the most amazing message deck today!’
The case against us and our mission was that we weren’t the doctor but the disease, incapable of self-criticism, confused rather than educated, rarely rising above common sense, and full of contradictions.
But, whatever you are thinking, you have to give it to us, to Enterprise, that our strategy was self-propelling and we had hatched an awesome plan to conquer the world...
Peter becomes Vittal’s mentor
It was before Christmas, 2000.
After my first vision of Peter-Moses, I had immediately pleaded with him to become my mentor. In flamboyant (yet unethical) Peter-Moses style, he had replied asking me to find an excuse to fly to his office in New York, piggybacking a lunch meeting to some patient project code. But I wanted to play things safe back then, so I scheduled a conference call instead. His assistant, Luz, as in the-light-that-takes-you-to-God, had rearranged the call four or five times, which was apparently the norm, until the fateful day came, and I could not wait to hear the undeniable voice of a prospective CEO.
There was a lot of noise in the background, as if Peter was walking under a loudspeaker at an airport. And after cutting my usual pleasantries short, as I was quickly coming to realise that these were unwelcome at Enterprise, I let him take centre stage.
‘Listen, kid,’ I heard over the telephone, ‘not sure what you wanna get from this call but my old man was a truck driver and I now drive a TVR.’ Pause. Maybe it was not exactly the voice of your average CEO but it unexpectedly said what I wanted to hear.
I was dumbstruck, like when Prada’s Devil Miranda tells Andrea that Emily is not the one going to the Paris show. Shameful happiness. Even if the cultivated charm I had seen in Peter’s looks was not coming across the line in the way I had expected. In fact, Peter sounded like a chav. Those clothes had been amazing at falsifying his pedigree. Long live high-end fashion! I had not thought he would be that straight to the point either. Where was that working class accent coming from? His dad, the truck driver? Was this a joke? Candid camera?
Peter hadn’t finished. ‘I came to Enterprise firstly, to make my fortune, and secondly, to double it,’ he added. ‘In life you needa be a double bagger,’ I heard, ‘doubling your net worth at every step. No. A triple bagger,’ he insisted. ‘Let's face it, for people like you and me, bro, tis the fastest way to happiness. The only way to happiness!’
People like you and me. Like he had sensed it too that we were the same kind of guy! My mind was understandably working double speed, high on his words as if they were cocaine. No, triple speed. A poem in the making. I would call it ‘The Telephone’: Gonna move from rag to riches show my bling to all ya bitches see me bro bring three bags full / triple bagger am so cool.
It was simple. I needed to read no more on the philosophy of happiness. No need for Plato’s three parts of the soul to be in balance, or Epicurus’s living everything at the right degree. No more worries over happiness being just an illusion, or over its relativity according to Montesquieu, who sustained that our wish was only to be happier than other people which was difficult, for we believe them to be happier than they are.
I could not restrain myself. The words kept coming: ‘Dad just a fuck’n truck driver, now I own a TVR, imported across the ocean, to make me a gentleman.’
Had I said to this man all I wanted in my life was to laugh and be loved, he would not have taken me seriously, he would have treated me as if I were a child. But if I started with a number, doubling or tripling, then he would be convinced. Is understanding life all about figures? What could I expect from a true world-shaper? This is why he was not just Peter, he was Peter-Moses.
I got my act together and politely replied to that damned telephone, ‘Peter, how do we start?’
And that may have been the precise moment when I looked into the voi
d, and the void may have looked back into me. It only takes a second.
You, the Reader, need to understand that Peter-Moses was Enterprise’s top saviour.
You need to savour what that really means. Peter could diagnose patients’ corporate health problems after hearing one good fact about an instruction, because at the second fact you had been cut off and, like the third one, it would in any case have been wrong. He could still see the problem crystal clear in front of him, by looking at the patient’s logo on their headed paper. Such was the sharpness of his mind, and he was not high on anything other than his own adrenaline. For his brilliance, he was rewarded with his Enterprise Olympus and everyone’s admiration. Someone would then need to find the details to back his assertions, but we all knew that he was right. There were always juniors thankful to deal with backing up the geniuses, to make lists, scan data, populate charts, correct exhibits, fill in timelines. But we would not be those juniors forever.
Peter’s story goes that he was a bright kid at school from the start. He had dreamt of speaking seven languages, though he had nothing interesting to say in any of them. He made it to university, seen as a miracle in itself by his acquaintances, given his background, as well as a waste of time. He chose the easiest degree he could find, something like modern languages, somewhere in Coventry, the armpit of the Midlands. Then he left university to become a trader in the City at a smallish outfit, which reminded him of selling fish in Billingsgate market, and, undeserving luck being a strong determinant in anybody’s career (isn’t luck undeserving by definition?), he then moved almost immediately to Goldman Sachs.
Why did Goldman Sachs keep coming up in my life? Was someone trying to rub it in, that they had rejected me?
Peter always said that he was amazed at what little intellect one needed to make shitloads of money. But the markets turned sour and he got fired shortly after joining Goldman. At Enterprise, an internship opportunity had come up in Paris for a support-ish function. Peter supposedly mastered French, and he was told by some well-connected ex-colleagues that Enterprise was loaded and the French office was an easy one. He only needed a few of his friends’ calls to land with Hammi il paraculato (the lucky one), who was born rich and protected his friends and the friends of his friends with shark teeth. From there, it took Peter very little time to be at the forefront of the respect and power he craved, and for doors to open for him all across the world.
Peter had definitely come up Enterprise the scenic route, no rubrics of any fucking kind!
And here he was now, a powerful Englishman in New York, for the reality was that he was a chameleon and could jump from bro to legal elegant at the flick of a switch, and turn into a man that walked and never ran and suffered ignorance with a smile. Top leaders in Enterprise thought that he was an a$$, but they were divided between arse and ace. Whatever they thought, they could not live without him.
At the bottom, he was adored by the climbing masses, and wannabe bankers like me failed miserably to emulate him. This worried Enterprise’s governing ethics committees but they had to live with it. He had the power, he had the juice. Though only in his mid-thirties when I joined, he was, unofficially, the highest-paid Father at Enterprise, soon to become Truth Leader. He had succeeded in the land where everything was possible. I was born to be a Peter too, surely.
So that is how it all started.
After my look into the void was taken as an admission that I was game, Peter’s voice over the telephone went on to explain that we were passionate about taking on immense challenges for our patients at Enterprise. ‘They will tell ya that ya need to diagnose wrongdoings and advise on redemption switches,’ Enterprise’s words sounded crooked in Peter’s mouth. ‘But the reality is,’ I heard over the cracking line, ‘I take decisions that can make you broke, and you needa can blame another bro. You know what’m sayin’?’
Being paid an unreasonable amount of money to be someone else’s instigator and a scapegoat. I told myself that I could have probably done that without a university degree, but so be it.
‘We’re also to equip the patient with capabilities to make our truth stick.’ Peter suggested it would ensure our growth into eternity.
It sounded like a horror movie, The Exorcist II, except we were putting something in, rather than taking it out.
‘Don’t worry bro,’ he assured me. ‘For most of the time it’s not even that exciting. Y’all sit at your patient terminal like a drone, setting meetings to fill top diaries with reassuring appointments, and creating slick stories of clever strategy words that we will feed the patient.’
I listened with intent.
‘We’re fucking great at finding the top issues and working our patients into situations.’
I nodded.
‘We suck at working to the bottom of the issues and guiding them out of situations.’
He didn’t beat around the bush.
‘So honest, bro, try to keep to the first.’
It sounded like perfectly good advice from the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.
After reiterating that Enterprise served all of the world’s most admired CEOs or any other management senior enough to require a vision, Peter advised against the special mission hub we had built to volunteer opinions to public and social sector organisations. Apparently, I needed to get involved with one or two real fat corporate client accounts (were they clients or patients now?) that made money (the dirty word!). It was a priority.
I told him how Bev back in London often said that she was inspired by how Enterprise was bringing the best of its resources to address the hundreds of millions of poor people around the world. But we were not bringing Peter.
‘Bev should be canonised like mother Teresa and get the fuck out of Enterprise,’ he suggested back to me.
Soon our time was over and I couldn’t but thank this man for making me finally feel purposeful and noble at this firm, even as he was handing me down to the regular care of one of his minions. I had been empowered.
Melchior bores
Melchior in London would forever be known by everyone at Enterprise as The Beginner...
‘Should we grab a coffee downstairs?’ I suggested when we met, gagging for a visit to Coffee Plantation.
‘I have booked a Father’s office for the occasion,’ he was quick to reply.
Damn!
‘We don’t want to be overheard in a public place,’ he said, as if we could have leaked some corporate secrets neither of us were senior enough to have.
I followed him into the room and we sat down at a partner’s desk, which was as clean as if nobody had never worked there. Company policy of course!
‘All our instructions start with a Patient’s Invitation gained by senior patient-ready Enterprisers,’ Melchior commenced straight away, eyes glued to his notes, claiming he was extremely busy and had limited time for me, ‘which leads to an Imparter’s Proposition detailing the scope of the potential instruction.’
The level of elaboration in his opening remark was scary. He was really starting from the very beginning.
‘The whole thing,’ he added next with the breathing pattern of a dog about to mate, ‘is supposed to be a PI-IP.’
I cannot understand to this day why certain acronyms gave Enterprisers orgasms. I preferred the real thing.
‘You are, of course, not a patient-ready Enterpriser yet,’ he pointed out with unhidden joy, ‘and will take a number of years to go anywhere near a PI.’
I had to hold my laugh at how ridiculous this guy sounded.
‘But you will have to get involved with IPs,’ he puffed. ‘As you may know, the IP is made of a page-pull record of old, preferably relevant, material accompanied by case studies and accomplishment lists. It is like creating a poker hand with any cards you want.’
Did this nerd play poker? Unthinkable.
‘IPs are primarily built by juniors outside standard workload hours,’ Melchior added.
I stupidly asked for clarification.
I knew immediately that I should not be curious because boasting (of his virtually inexistent career lead over me?) and scaring gave this individual a pleasure I preferred not to gift him.
It was next explained that IP creation was usually chaotic and incorporated feedback from over twenty seniors in short email bursts of genius and, depending on the weight of the instruction, there was a special battle team at hand to help co-ordinate the PI-IP.
‘Are they called the PI-IP soldiers?’ I couldn’t stop myself. I could laugh at him too. But Melchior dismissed my interruption.
‘Winning instructions is widely celebrated. Losing them is unheard of.’
He wanted to scare me again.
‘Although we lose some,’ he added very, very hesitantly but claimed we didn’t keep a spreadsheet because not all data is helpful.
I wasn’t sure whether he did have a sense of humour after all or was repeating what he had heard from someone more senior with a sense of humour, like Peter himself perhaps, believing every word. I glanced at his notes and realised the exact sentence had been there: ‘Although we lose some.’
‘Once we have secured an instruction,’ Melchior continued, ‘leaders will rally the best of Enterprise to ensure delivery, if they really care.’
The unexpected irony again… Perhaps he wanted to point out that senior Enterprisers were so cool they didn’t need to care if they didn’t want to. Perhaps he was using Peter notes, but Peter was too clever to ever put such a thing in writing. Perhaps Melchior secretly recorded and transcribed some of Peter’s words to spice up his lengthy speeches without understanding those words could only work from Peter’s mouth.