Virginity Despoiled

by Charles Brett

  Soledad dismissed the idea that she be coordinator for the insurance claims. As a non-participant in the insurance she felt disqualified. Instead she recommended Enrique and Lili, as the original catalysts for POPIC, assume the task of compiling the claims. Neither Enrique nor Lili evinced enthusiasm. Nevertheless, they accepted. Soledad asked Enrique what would be required. Enrique deferred to Lili.

  Taking her cue, Lili said she'd already prepared spreadsheets for their own insurance claims. She could email blank versions to those who wanted one. If they filled these in, she would aggregate the claims and supervise submission as one claim. This generated approval, with requests for her spreadsheets. A grim humour suffused the gathering. Although not much loved, everyone remembered Lili's renegotiation of Enrique's father's debts. Her bludgeoning of rapacious bankers had become a local legend. If anyone could negotiate with faceless financiers, she could.

  In contrast Lili was miserable. She knew what they did not, about her excesses in the re-insurance underwriting. But she had introduced Inma and Ana. Lili retained a responsibility she couldn't ignore. Enrique lent over. With a single touch he encouraged her. It wasn't enough but was better than nothing.

  With this resolved, Soledad moved on to consider how to obtain support from the Comarca, the province and even central government. More people participated in this discussion, though there was a notable lack of enthusiasm for taking any lead. The price of dealing with bureaucrats was well known as being endless lost effort. When the discussion wound down, two growers volunteered Soledad. After all, they argued, she was well connected and with her grandson and his new wife starting to run her estate she must have the time. As with Lili, Soledad's sense of obligation to her fellows forced her hand, which brought an impromptu tribute from someone she knew liked her least. She was touched.

  The third agenda item took longest. Ideas for cleaning up were not in short supply. The inhibitor would be the cost, first of people to do the work removing all olives so no pests could survive the winter, and second of chemicals to spray the trees. An irritant emerged when Enrique pointed out it would not have the desired effect if other producers failed to do the same. José Luis was deputed to liaise with the Comarca to draw up a plan all would adopt. José Luis sought Soledad's help for when he talked to the so-called authorities. She acquiesced.

  When Soledad raised the last item, several looked anxious to leave. She upped the pace by demanding to know how such a massive infestation could materialise out of nowhere. Did anyone have ideas? Those who had started to depart retook their seats.

  There was no consensus. Some suggested sloppy olive clearing, others Egyptian-scale bad luck. Most had no clue. Bactrocera oleae was a normal business hazard, which in normal times was readily, if expensively, contained.

  Soledad closed the gathering. She reminded everyone that they had work to do. She ended by repeating her question about how the plague could happen in Úbeda and Antequera and further afield. She implored them, if they heard anything whatsoever, to bring it to their attention as a group. For her part she was dumbfounded they could be hit so hard. It was even worse this this had occurred in a season that had once promised so much.

  Tuesday: Madrid

  Try and retry, Ana couldn't reach Toomas. Was he avoiding her like she was with him? The question was unanswerable. It tortured her.

  After she'd last returned from Tallinn she'd raised concerns about Toomas, Reelika and their investment group with Inma. There was something fishy. Inma had questioned her in detail. Ana had nothing tangible as evidence and their discussion produced the truth about her frolics with Toomas, as Inma referred to them.

  The one upside to her confession surprised Ana. Inma remained unfussed about her breach of Inma's client and personal separation principles. Ana wasn't able to tell if it was due to genuine unconcern, a change of heart or her prodding of a deeper fear within Inma.

  Unable to contact Toomas, Ana recorded a couple of voicemails as well as sent emails. These sparked no response. Nor could she reach Reelika whose mobile number rolled over instantly to voicemail. Their office number rang on, unanswered.

  Ana's discomfort would magnify once she informed Inma. The 'Estonian Syndicate', as Inma and Ana called that group of investment managers, had arranged good references along with sufficient deposits in order to obtain substantial premiums for underwriting tranches of olive oil harvest re-insurance. If claimed losses did not exceed the re-insurance thresholds, no re-insurance would be invoked. If Inma's fears about the scale of the Jaén olive harvest failure proved valid, the cedants would call upon the re-insurers, like Lili and the 'Estonian Syndicate', to cover their excess losses. If the re-insurers didn't cough up, the insurers would have problems, leading to questions from regulators. For Ana there were enough 'ifs' here to start a migraine.

  Re-insurance was complex and risky. Ana's head appreciated this. Her stomach was catching up as the probable impact started to bite. It must be the same for Inma who was not her normal, bouncy, disciplined self. Having a large disaster happen in Ana's first year as a partner would be a ferocious baptism.

  Lili and Enrique's silence continued, no doubt explained by the olive fruit flies' impact, along with an increasing local and national press involvement. Now popularly labelled 'the pestilence', daily and weekly pest-density diagrams, plus supporting pest pundits, bred like their flies. These charts were pretty. The press promulgated them as revealing deep truths. They illuminated no one.

  Inma remained adamant. Ana must not initiate any contact with Lili and Enrique, not even to find out what was happening. Inma was waiting for POPIC to make the first move.

  Although frustrated with her gagging, Ana pictured Enrique fighting the pests. He would be up to his eyeballs defending his fruit. Ana specifically wanted to hear about the Super High Density trellises. If infected, Enrique would be heartbroken, as she would be for him. His initiative fascinated her for no explicable reason. No amount of scratching diminished the itch. She was desperate to know more. Inma was not. Ana must wait.

  After Ana had updated the tranche exposures she reviewed the implications. Most POPIC members, those she felt sympathy for, had refused involvement in re-insurance. Two had taken 'tasters' as an experiment for future years. They would hurt if obliged to pay out but not horribly. The exception was Lili.

  What had she been thinking? If Inma's worst scenario played out, Lili and Enrique would have nothing. They would need to sell all, even the Super High Density grove and the pueblo. Even then Ana guessed bankruptcy was possible. Rough moments lay ahead between Lili and Enrique, the sort that destroyed relationships. The more Ana contemplated Lili and Enrique's predicament, the more her sympathies lay with Enrique.

  The only escape she could imagine was if the flies miraculously disappeared, if a St Francis or a Pied Piper of Hamelin appeared to conduct the flies to a new land. This being an outlandish and improbable solution, disaster seemed inevitable.

  Ana forced her mind away from Lili and Enrique's troubles to think about herself. The previous week she had retained a lawyer recommended by Davide. The lawyer had acted on Davide's behalf after his own father's death.

  Abogado Delafuente was elderly, as Ana expected, but she found him an interested and sympathetic lawyer. That he knew Tío Toño, referring to him as a 'young rake in his day', was a mixed blessing. No doubt this was inevitable in the small world of advocates. With no little trepidation she'd handed over a copy of La Abuela's papers.

  To her surprise he declined a fee to begin with. He would read the papers, undertake some initial research and present her with options. This open, ungreedy attitude enchanted her, this being in stark contrast to how Inma was behaving. She bestowed on him a hug and kiss before departing. These had clearly made his day, judging by his huge smile of pleasure.

  What would he find? What would he recommend? She frowned at her weakness. Probably there was nothing and she should just forget it. Except there was La Abuela's passbook. If La Abuela
had wished her to forget, why did she write that note?

  Unless La Abuela was exploiting Ana? Maybe she was La Abuela's proxy to pursue ancient grievances from the grave? Davide was convinced otherwise. Ana wasn't so sure. In this specific context Davide revealed his more forgiving English heritage, rather than his Spanish one with its more vindictive streak. Ana had learnt from her grandmother how difficult La Abuela's generation found it to forget, and impossible to forgive.

  Wednesday: Tallinn

  Andrei's face was alight with good humour. He'd enjoyed the last ten days. His world looked better than it had for a decade.

  First, there were his gym successes. Over a period of a week he proved he was not yet old, by improving and twice more improving his personal bests in three weight categories. One new PB was good. Two was outstanding. Three left him wordless in self-congratulation, even if the satisfaction was for him alone. For Andrei all competition was against himself and nobody else. He guessed it must be the same for long-jumpers or pole-vaulters. There was the sandpit or the bar. No one else was involved in the distance you managed to jump or the height you attained.

  At one time, he supposed, it was the same for Oleg as a long-distance runner. That impression lasted until Oleg's race against Kjersti in Benidorm. This demonstrated a very different form of person-to-person competition. Team sports were different again. Until recently Andrei had thought fresh PBs were behind him. Not quite yet, for he was now at the peak of personal fitness. Luckily it was just in time.

  The previous weekend he'd flown to Oslo, camouflaging it as a business trip, which would take him on to Tallinn and back to Frankfurt. As promised, he alerted Helga. She had sounded dubious until Freja agreed to join. Her attitude had changed.

  They'd agreed to meet at Andrei's hotel on the Friday night. The weekend was now lost in a glorious haze of excess. Helga and Freja started with a tour of the fun side of Oslo, funded by Andrei's credit cards. There were drinks, a sumptuous slow dinner before one night club was followed by a second. From the start they'd played an unspoken game. The loser would be whoever caved in first. They flirted and egged each other on with abandon and salacious suggestions. His new heights of fitness helped, unlike that sorry time in the puti club in Murcia. By constraining his alcohol intake he remained delightfully expectant. Helga and Freja followed suit.

  The inevitable finally occurred when Freja caved in, demanding they find somewhere for gratification. Helga and Andrei grinned at each other. Back at his hotel room he and Helga undressed Freja at a pace slower than a snail, with her begging, all the while commenting on what would happen next. Andrei and Helga insisted to Freja they must reach the same naked state. He undressed Helga before she did the same for him. The stripping was as leisurely for them as for Freja. This produced such screams of frustration from Freja that they decided to hurry before any busybody hotel manager interrupted with unwanted questions.

  The results had been so good the weekend was spent playing with each other. On Sunday evening Andrei departed to catch his plane to Tallinn, leaving two exhausted ladies barely able to suggest a return match. What fun it had been! Satisfying sex in ample quantity mixed with spiced variations.

  But the best should be tonight when he would meet Oleg at the Telegraaf's Tchaikovski. Already he'd consulted his business bank accounts. As good as his word Oleg had transferred all he'd promised and more. At last, Andrei was ahead on Oleg's fly scheme. Except that his money existed now in a legal account where he could access it wherever and whenever he wanted. Dirty dollars in hundred-dollar bills recycled into whitewashed, infinitely flexible Euros deposited in a bank where their provenance was beyond question represented perfection.

  It was time to start what he'd dreamt of for years, going straight and living the rest of his days in some agreeable location without fears that anything might catch up with him. Costa Rica or Peru appealed. Both were warm. Could he entice Helga and Freja to visit him? Possibly once. Twice would be excessive.

  Inside the Tchaikovski Andrei joined Oleg at the bar. Oleg already had his soda water. Andrei noted the good-humoured smirk. Oleg beckoned to a waiter to lead them to their table.

  "Thank you, Oleg. I'm over the moon."

  "You keep a beady eye on your bank accounts?"

  "Not normally. I've alerts set for when anything over 10,000 euros comes in or goes out. You set that off many times with those transfers. Beep, beep, beep, beep and more beeps. Clever of you to vary the amounts and sources."

  Oleg relaxed enough to preen, which produced a hideous expression. Andrei laughed. Oleg's expression spewed offence. Andrei tried to explain. He failed, which pissed Oleg off further. Was one casual moment about to ruin the evening before it started? Andrei played the abject. It helped that Oleg was desperate to highlight his cleverness.

  With Oleg happy again, Andrei splashed out on the largest tin available of the extortionately expensive Beluga, followed by a filling Borscht. They celebrated though Andrei, watching his companion eating caviar without chilled vodka, thought Oleg committed a mortal sin.

  Eventually Oleg, after wolfing down his first three blinis, began.

  "Have you seen the Spanish newspapers?"

  "No. Why?"

  "Your flies are running riot. Millions, perhaps billions, according to the charts. Your breeding plus your dispensers have done the trick. The big payback's imminent."

  "What do you mean? I thought the repayments came from the flies, horrible, ugly little things that they are."

  "Nooo! Not directly."

  For the rest of dinner Oleg drew Andrei further into some of the secrets of his wider olive oil activities. He astounded Andrei. Even better than the laundered riches already deposited were those yet to arrive. They communed together in a mutual bubble of pleasure, of work well performed and rewards to come.

  Friday: Madrid

  Inma summoned her courage. An email had arrived from Lili, with an attached spreadsheet, requesting Inma to call when convenient. It was formal in tone. Uneasy, Inma opened the email.

  Ten minutes later she caught her breath. Across the POPIC group alone, as gathered together by Lili, the expected losses staggered Inma. This was no longer a case of a harmed harvest. It was a lost year. She had not been wrong in describing it thus to Ana. The amounts Lili reported, their starting point for claims, exceeded the threshold for the insurers to make claims on the re-insurers. The latter would have to pay out. That would include Lili and Enrique, as Lili knew after their meeting weeks earlier.

  For a moment Inma considered deferring the requested telephone call. That was a cop-out, good for a day or two, not longer. She selected Lili's mobile number and waited. It rang for no more than two chirps.

  "Inma? How are you?"

  "More to the point, how are you and Enrique?"

  "You've absorbed the spreadsheets? They make for horrible reading, no?"

  "You understate it, especially for you and Enrique."

  "I know. Part of me wants to accuse you of leading me down the path to oblivion. Don't worry, I don't. My common sense does occasionally kick in. Plus I've heard my banking job's now 'indefinitely postponed'. Code in that bank for it'll never happen this side of purgatory."

  "The bad news must seem like endless waves crashing in."

  "Oh yes, you're right there. I might even have to sell the apartment in London, the one asset that brings in an income. I'm not sure it could be worse. I paste on a brave face each day for Enrique's sake, but I'm slowly bending and must soon crack."

  Inma heard pure dejection yet she couldn't think of anything practical to do. Offering platitudes was pointless with Lili. They irritated, not consoled.

  "Does Enrique understand?"

  "I didn't have to explain. In fact, he's the one highlight in this mess. When I showed him the re-insurance implications, he comprehended in an instant. He didn't blame me. He said I'd only lost my own investments in Olivos Ramos y Tremblay."

  "That was considerate."

  "In
a fashion. Granting me absolution over something we'll no longer possess? Great!"

  Inma ached to help. Instead she asked an inane question.

  "Is there any positive news?"

  "Actually, yes. Two pieces, though whether either will make a difference, I don't know."

  "Tell me."

  "We've an unseasonal heatwave."

  "Why should that be good? Doesn't that reduce the size of the olives?"

  "There're few enough olives to worry about that effect. We estimate 20 to 30 per cent so far have the wretched fly but nobody knows of a fast, economical way to sort the good olives from the fly-ridden and process them fast enough to produce good EVOO. Many are giving time to find an answer, but nothing in sight is workable as yet."

  "And the heatwave?"

  "Sorry. My thoughts travel in many directions these days. The flies slow in the heat, like us. The females don't infect so many olives. If the heat holds up, we may substantially curtail the seeding of new eggs. If it lasts a fortnight or more, which is improbable, we may place a natural cap on the degree of additional infestation. But its extent is already two orders of magnitude greater than anything anyone can recall."

  "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. And the other good aspect?"

  "The Super High Density grove is, so far, unaffected."

  "How so?"

  "Enrique sprayed the trellises with a magic mix, a clay film that makes the olives unattractive to the female olive fruit fly without harming the olives' growth. Why he sprayed he can't explain. He doesn't know. We might make some oil yet. What we don't know is how good it'll be from our first harvest off the trellises."

  "Sounds promising."

  "Sort of. More for the buyers, probably the Italians, when we have to sell all."

  "But you'll receive enough money."

  "Yes, but that'll go straight to covering our re-insurance commitments. How stupid I was!"