"Great," said Joe, "I like all of that. But I would need to have an additional person to take over some of my day-to-day duties. I wouldn't have the time to properly manage all of that, be involved in negotiations, and still deal with my current daily workload."
"Quite right, Joe, and you will get that person, I assure you. The cost will be nothing compared to the benefits. And at the same time, we may be upgrading your department. Your function is important enough. Maybe we'll have you report directly to the top instead of through Ron. But keep your hat on that one for the moment, Joe. I would like management to see some results from our activities first. And by the way, how would you feel about handling these supplier meetings yourself from now on? Starting tomorrow? Program it to fit in as far as your workload allows?”
"No problem, Peter. I'm enjoying it. Of course, I wouldn't necessarily be handling the meetings in your particular charming style, but I think I can be reasonably successful in my own way. It's a tough target you've set, but I've changed my thinking about it somewhat. In other words, I no longer view the target as an unachievable one."
"That's good to hear, Joe. So you'll be managing this from now on. And I wish you luck! As I think you already know, I'll be leaving toward the end of next week. And I won't be in tomorrow. But I think I shall be continuing on a kind of ad hoc basis for another year or two. That means that if you ever need to contact me or would like me to make an appearance, all you have to do is let me know. Email or mobile, it doesn't matter. In the meantime, we'll probably be seeing each other next week."
And so that was that. I went out to the car and smoked a cigarette. A reward cigarette, the purchasing initiative was properly under way. It was coming up to seven p.m.. I drove back to London and there were no cars following me. None that I could see anyway.
I went up to my room and checked my messages. Hey, a message from Céline! And about time too, I wonder what has been happening. Well, I wasn't due to find that out yet. I opened up the message and it read: Peter, I am very sorry not to have contacted you before. I have some complications in Rouen. I cannot come to London at this time. I will write to you again over the weekend. Céline. P.S. Your poem was great. The pupils loved it.
I am not an idiot. The message was clear. There were no erotic wishes, there were no mots romantiques, no loving à bientôt, no je t'aime, no je t'adore, just her name. One of life's big waves, no doubt about it, one with an undercurrent you can't fight against. I lay down on the bed and decided to be depressed. A common reaction for many when self-interest is knocked hard on the head. And self-interest it was. Céline was a very special girl and there is not much I wouldn't have done—O.K., within justifiable limits—to have been her guy, to see if it could work out. It doesn't happen very often, I mean that you find a girl who takes over your feelings so completely that you would refuse an offer from the Dream, the Crooked Smile and Little Miss Ugly all rolled into one. I mean, that was one hell of an effect that this Céline had had on me.
However, not being an idiot does not eliminate my potential for having idiotic thoughts. She had referred to 'complications'. That was not a very definitive statement. And she could not come to London 'at this time'. Which, while it doesn't have to mean that she will come at some other time, certainly implies the possibility—otherwise why write it?
My depression lasted for about five minutes. Like all true cynics, one has learned to deal with the waves, including the big ones, up on the swell and down the other side, wait for the currents to subside, check out what kind of waves are waiting up ahead, and observe each situation with regard to its significance within the overall cosmic perspective. Reality rules the cynics' world.
But it didn't stop me feeling sad, nothing to be done about that. I went down to the bar, ordered a single malt, checked the females, automatic pilot. But there were none of any interest, and even if there had been, I wouldn't have been interested.
And cosmic perspective or not, I didn't feel like eating. I went outside to smoke a cigarette, went back to my room, read Ellin's prodigious 'The Betrayers', and fell asleep.
DAY 15
I got up reasonably late. Overcast again, suited my mood. Had coffee in the breakfast room, still didn't feel like eating. I went for a walk to Park Lane and picked up my IHT on the way and then crossed over into Hyde Park. Lots of people around, plenty of women, dogs in abundance. How do these people earn their living, how come they can just be sauntering around a park mid-morning on a Friday? The conundrums of life on this planet. Well…not necessarily a conundrum regarding the women, a lot of them live on money provided by a man. Their money could be coming from hubby, sitting on his ass somewhere in an office or squashed immovably into an airplane seat. Or they've got a rich lover. Or they've inherited money from dear old dead under-the-turf Daddy. Or incinerated Daddy. Or from Grandad. Or from Auntie whoever, who inherited from Uncle whoever. Or they have had a divorce, another way of distilling money from the male brewery. Who can tell? Life on this planet is simply the way it is and there they all are.
I walked for a couple of hours, including some IHT reading time sitting against a tree trunk, and headed back toward the hotel. I was still sad after the walk but I had an appetite now. So I decided to have an early lunch before going to my meeting with Jeremy. There is an excellent restaurant in Piccadilly, used to be a bank in the old days, high ceilings and so forth, sits just along from the Ritz. The problem is that you can't get a table there unless you've reserved. Or unless you know the guy in charge, which I did. Not because I am a frequent visitor. On the contrary, I am an extremely infrequent visitor. But he plays chess in the En Passant, or tries to, and he remembers me from there. He also remembers my big tips, an investment I restrict to those few establishments in which I consider it to be useful to be known. And that doesn't work always either. But I was early enough today and it wasn't a problem he couldn't resolve.
I ordered some fish. A certain religion—for reasons I do not comprehend—strongly recommends that you eat fish on Fridays. Apparently, this ritual activity enhances your chances of entering the musical profession (you can learn to play the harp for free). As said, I do not understand why this should be so and maybe it isn’t so, just another of their many rituals. Whatever, I ordered fish because I felt like eating fish and because in a restaurant such as this one you know the fish is going to be good. I ordered a Riesling to go with it and I finished off reading about the most recent human slaughtering and the Giro d'Italia and the cricket news while I ate.
Lord Mancroft’s views on cricket are not shared by everybody. I noted an article in the cricket news which quoted William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, who said (in 1925) that he personally had always looked upon cricket as organized loafing.
I took a cab to Haymarket and then another one up and around to Marble Arch. I didn't notice anything or anyone. I waited until another cab came along and hopped into that, back down to the bottom of Park Lane, and then walked along into the Ritz. Five minutes to two.
The Ritz, like all hotels of its class, has fully trained employees, the customer is king, and there is not much they won't do for you providing it is legal. I even had the feeling they might have provided me with a golf cart to get me to Jeremy's conference room, had I so wished. But I didn't need a golf-cart and I was escorted there in the normal manner by a courteous employee who gave me the impression that he might have cleaned my shoes en route had I asked him to. The sensation I get in hotels like these is that I am a fantastic, superior, wonderful person, to be taken care of as only someone of my station and worth in life could possibly merit. The ego boost is worth every penny.
"Nice to see you again, Peter," said Jeremy. "Punctual as usual. Please take a seat, everything is on the table."
"Glad to see you looking happier than the last time we met, Jeremy," I said. "Not a very joyful topic, was it?"
"No, Peter, it wasn't. I performed a significant amount of additional research on your hatred for each other and your killing habits, befo
re completing and transmitting my thesis' draft text on this aspect. It makes for some sickly reading and I am afraid we will need to have a discussion on that later on. But first, we should go ahead with today's subject if you don't mind. By the way, any problems on your way here?"
"No problems. I'm fairly sure that nobody followed my first two cabs and I'm absolutely certain about the last one."
I paused. I needed to adapt myself to alien mode again, send firm instructions to my neurons that we were indeed meeting with somebody unacquainted with our planet.
"Jeremy, today's subject is ‘Social and Organizational Characteristics’. This is truly a vast theme and we could probably sit here for a weeks and still not cover everything. Even if I were knowledgeable enough on everything. Which, by the way, I am not. Not by a long way."
He smiled his warm smile. His round face really did look like the man in the moon, but a much friendlier-looking one than the one illuminated for us by our star.
"Peter, the same comment as before. Just choose what seem to you to be the most important items, and we'll see how far we can get."
What a way to earn money. No stress in these meetings at all. Apart from the subject matter which is negative all round. But that affects him more than it affects me. I just accept the way things are, have done for as long as I can remember. Certainly there were more pleasant things I could be doing with my time. But feeding his delusions was a small price to pay, no problem. For this kind of money, no problem at all.
"Then I'll start," I said, "by outlining our species’ organization. First of all, through wars and so on, we have divided up our planet into 197 separate countries, give or take a couple and depending on how you define a country. Some countries are huge. The largest one measures 17 million km2. And some are tiny. The smallest one measures all of 3 km2. Not very logical, but then you wouldn't expect that from us, would you? And most of them are not even reasonably divided by straight lines. They are just illogical shapes and squiggly frontiers and some frontiers are still changing, and some are being argued about, and new countries tend to sprout on a regular basis."
"How strange," said Jeremy. "May I ask why have you divided up your planet in this way? And why you are still arguing and changing things?"
"Basically, Jeremy, because we human beings don't get on with each other. We have never been able to get on with each other. We just can't do it and, for all the religious chanting and pleas to the various deities and the throwing of white doves into the air, annually or otherwise, we never will. It's just the way we are. I think our last meeting made that clear. And we are indeed still changing everything. We continue to chop everything up, we continue to create new countries. We no longer have the Soviet Union, we no longer have Yugoslavia, we have lots of different countries instead, all because of the fact that their inhabitants are incapable of living together in a single country. We need to be separated by frontiers and passports. Somalia has lost its northern territory to something calling itself Somalialand, but this, similar to the something else calling itself Kurdistan, has not been internationally recognized by those who have determined they have the prerogative to do so. Recently, even Sudan split; there is now a country called South Sudan. But they are also killing each other in South Sudan now, another battle for power, we'll wait and see what happens. And Ukraine and the Crimea. We'll wait and see what happens there also."
I paused. Jeremy was typing something into his laptop. He was frowning and he didn't look up. I poured myself some coffee and continued.
"The number of countries on the planet may have changed again this morning for all I know. And in my part of the world, the Scots wish to split from the English, the Belgians want to divide themselves into a Flemish-speaking country and a French-speaking one, the Spanish want at least three countries, Spain, Catalonia and the Basque country, and there are stirrings from Andalusia, Galicia and Asturias as well. Corsica wants to be a brand new country, it doesn't want to continue being part of France. And so on around the globe. It never stops and it never will."
"Fascinating. But nauseous and pathetic in a way," said Jeremy. "One dominant species, one undivided planet, is all I have ever come across before. I have seen none of the strife, mistrust, aversion, antipathy, aggressiveness, hate and brutality or whatever else it is that causes your species to separate itself, if you will forgive me, in such a ludicrous and ridiculous fashion."
"Of course I forgive you," I said, "and both of your chosen adjectives are entirely appropriate. They are the very words my friend Steve used to describe the split of Czechoslovakia."
"Czechoslovakia?"
"Yes. That was one of the repressed countries forming part of the Soviet-dominated European empire. And when that empire fell apart, as empires tend to do, the Czechoslovaks spent the first few days celebrating their freedom from the Soviet yoke, and the next few days saying 'Ah…but wait a minute…oh dear, oh dear…we can't live together…we don't even like each other, we have to split into two countries, we’ll call them the Czech Republic and Slovakia and be separated by frontiers and passports'".
"That is the second time you have mentioned 'separated by frontiers and passports', Peter. What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Well…we…that is the human race…have decided that we should not be allowed to wander around our own planet without authorization from our birdbrains, those weird and wonderful creatures voted into power by the masses. Authorization by our birdbrains, or rather their minions, at both ends of the journey, by the way. And in many cases, passports are not enough, we need to go to the trouble of asking those minions for visas as well—and they, of course, are not always granted."
"Do I understand that, not only are you not allowed to live where you want to on your relatively small planet, but you are not even allowed to travel around on it unless other members of your species allow you to?"
"Yes, Jeremy. Astounding, I know. But yes. Precisely so."
"Hmm…a most extraordinary species."
"And while we are on the subject of travel," I continued, "we can't do that without killing ourselves either. There are 380,000 travel deaths per year; planes, trains, ships, road vehicles. That is over 1,000 deaths per day. Every day. Non-stop. And far more injured, far more maimed for life."
"You mean that your intelligence has not yet reached a level…let me put that a different way. You haven't yet found out how to travel around your own planet without killing yourselves, and what's more, at the rate of over 1,000 per day? 1,000 humans for each single spin of your planet on its axis?"
"That is correct, Jeremy. That is the way it is. We still haven't figured out how to travel without killing ourselves."
"But you consider yourselves to be intelligent."
"Oh yes, we do, we do indeed. Very intelligent"
"Then that in turn denotes a colossal amount of arrogance. Which is also the cause of your inability to self-evaluate. Which in turn prevents you from classifying yourselves as stupid."
"Yes."
"Well…please continue."
"Yes, well, as I was saying, we, as a species, cannot tolerate each other—within or without the innumerable boundaries we have created for ourselves. Consequently we use about 100 million human beings as military personnel, soldiers, sailors and airmen. Their job is either to attack and kill other humans, or to defend against other humans trying to attack and kill them, or to represent a threat which enables us to impose our own interests on others, or to defend against others who are threatening to impose their interests on us. Of course, not all of these military forces are successful. But usually, on this planet, the strongest military force wins."
"And these are the sole purposes for creating such forces?"
"Yes, Jeremy, and being the way we are, they are very necessary ones too. But they are not enough. Military forces are used mainly, although not always, to resolve cross-border altercations between different members of our species. Within our borders, however, we have the same issues and we ne
ed something else. We call them police forces. An additional estimated 15 million human beings are employed all over our planet as policemen. Without them, the human species would descend immediately, rapidly and unchecked into total anarchy. This way we maintain a controlled, partial form of anarchy.”
“None of those religious leaders,” I continued, “who have been recommending peace for a few millennia by praying and praying and praying, and regularly releasing small white birds into the air, would be able to prevent it. Listen to this, Jeremy, even with the police, the situation on this planet is a horrendous one. In addition to the murders I told you about—don't forget, one murder per minute according to the U.N. statistics—there are 8 million rapes of women each year, including gang rapes. That is nearly 1,000 rapes per hour. And then there are huge numbers of other crimes—simple theft, armed robbery, corruption, kidnapping, child molestation, fraud and a whole host of others, you name it, you’ve got it. All over the planet, and not confined to any specific region.
"So you need policemen as well."
"Yes…and as I said, we need millions of them to prevent the descent into a terrifying, lawless, barbaric abyss. Airports, railway stations, Jewish and similar ethnic and religious establishments all need to be watched 7/24 in many countries.”
“Because of…?
“Because of terrorists or because of simple criminals, many of them imported. The bad news is, however, that even the combined military and police forces are not sufficient. We need secret police in addition: the CIA, the NSA, the KGB as it used to be called, MI5 and all the others. It's just the way we are, we cannot exist in any other form."
"It is absolutely impossible to classify you humans as a benevolent species."
"Quite."
"And despite this massive deployment of various constraint organizations, you still don't seem to be able to adequately control yourselves."
"Nothing could be truer, Jeremy. We certainly try, but an average 7% of the human race is constantly behind bars, in prison. The ones we have caught and punished, that is. That means around 500 million human beings."
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