Massimo Cereso - Provence Forever

I was brought up strictly Catholic as a child and can well remember that my father was extremely generous when going to church on Sundays for the respective collection of offerings and in contrast to the other churchgoers. Each coin made a thudding sound when it was put into the offering box, which to my great dismay was absent on special holidays, when my father was even more generous and put a bill into the box. For this and other reasons, at that time our priest regularly visited us at home and the subsequent dinner accompanied by the best wines always lasted several hours. Finally, our priest took leave of us with an additional "offering" for the needy humanity and additional stimulants from our factory at a late hour with thanks to God and the assurance that our family will receive a good place in paradise.

I would like to state with all clarity that I believe in a God and that this is therefore an important contribution of my life; assuming that our pastor was not lying, I can spend eternity in paradise after my earthly existence ends. At that time, however, life for me was anything but paradise. Despite the risk of having to spend the rest of my sentence behind bars after all, I wrote a letter to my wife Anushka and arranged to meet her in the open air. This letter was forwarded to my wife by a fellow prisoner after her release. Since I had to do various jobs on the farm independently and unsupervised, various opportunities arose to meet my Anuschka in an adjacent wooded area. My wife visited me every time and at any desired time at the greatest risk, and so I had enough cigarettes for the rest of my imprisonment and also had other small comforts that made life bearable under the given circumstances The time after my release, marked by my return to my parents, whose house also became our home for the next time, was a humiliation that I will never forget. My father could never get over this disgrace, and without the goodwill of my mother, who had demanded the utmost understanding from my father, a return to my parents would have been impossible. My wife Anuschka, who in the meantime had returned to work as an office worker, could no longer bear living together in this atmosphere and after a short time rented a smaller apartment. This new home was another new beginning and the renewed establishment of an existence. I was now thirty-six years old, penniless, and had an extremely precarious reputation for a lonely future.

To get out of this hopeless situation, superhuman forces had to be mobilized. The support, understanding and love of Anushka gave me the strength to shape my future positively and successfully. As a result of my previous business connections abroad, I was able to convince a business friend and owner of an important company to realize the long-standing plans for a branch office in Switzerland. Without knowing about my past, he hired me as managing director with a princely salary and additional success commissions. Nothing in this world could destroy me. For most other people who had suffered the same fate, this would have meant the certain end of a successful existence. Not so for me. My conscience, to which all ethics and morals were alien, allowed a life that basically only the mentally disturbed could lead.

A life based on the pretense of false facts or led under concealment of past machinations is a consummate self-deception and therefore always leads to certain disaster. My insatiable drive for recognition and the overriding need to succeed at any cost, even without regard for rules and laws, caused me to use all means at my disposal, whether legal or not. I was well aware of the consequences that could result from my actions, but at the same time I was convinced that I would never get into the situation of actually having to take responsibility for my actions. Since I always thought positively and was convinced of the success of an undertaking under certain conditions, I could not control my irresponsible actions. This boundless optimism then also caused my life to be heaven and hell at the same time, because the unbearable tensions and burdens were the consummate hell.

My iron will and my tireless efforts in the following two years finally led to the successful development of this company in Switzerland as well. Through hard work, I had once again secured a future-rich existence for myself, my above-average income and the harmony in my marriage to Anuschka formed the cornerstones for my continued success.

By participating in various trade fairs, especially in Eastern Europe, and further visits abroad to industrial companies, I was able to expand my business relationships. Despite my past, the thought of owning my own company was still in my mind, because this hidden and devil-possessed ghost never gives rest. A life as an employee was never my life, because it limited my freedom. Creating a fulfilled life was impossible for me as long as I was only a servant, even if I was well paid as such. I felt the daily orders and instructions of others, especially the superiors, as humiliation; I was neither slave nor serf and could not bear this condition in the long run. Doing something I didn't want to do every day was like blackmail; having to accept rules and conditions from my employers was torture. So, my inner turmoil was also no longer bearable and I had to restore my self-respect.

8

I pursued all the opportunities that arose to work independently again with an indescribable urge, so that I could once again live my life completely according to my ideas and in absolute independence. During the boom years, as a result of my good business relations with Eastern Europe, I had received a request from a major Swiss industrial company for the supply of large quantities of light metal castings. At that time, however, it was very costly and time-consuming to realize such projects with Eastern European countries, and there were also very large discrepancies as far as quality requirements were concerned. For these and other reasons, my employer was no longer interested in this matter, and so I began to make every effort to implement this business myself. After lengthy negotiations involving the Ministry of Foreign Trade, a Hungarian foundry company was finally found that was in a position to produce the aluminum castings at extremely favorable prices. I immediately realized that this was a million-dollar business; these aluminum castings had to be brought out from behind the then iron curtain under all circumstances and despite the difficult conditions. This venture had to succeed, because there was an immense demand for such castings, which could not be satisfied due to major delivery problems of the Swiss aluminum foundries. In addition, the Western foundry companies were selling their products to the industry at outrageously high prices. So what could be more obvious than to try to supply the market with larger quantities of cheaper products. My business trips to Hungary, of which my employer was of course unaware, were successful, for the long and highly complicated discussions at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and at the manufacturing plant finally paved the way for the planned cooperation. Completely convinced of this promising project and at the same time still working as an employee with a guaranteed income, I again founded my own trading company.

The sales prices at which I was able to offer the castings to my later major customers were far below the competitive prices of the time, although they were several times my purchase price and thus guaranteed me an almost outrageous profit. These prices and my interesting delivery conditions brought me a first trial order in the order of four hundred thousand francs, which was handed over to me personally at a final sales meeting. I remember inviting the purchasing director in charge to a princely lunch following this contract signing. I will never forget this conversation, because the follow-up orders that were promised to me after the perfect delivery of my aluminum castings in the required quality exceeded all my expectations and would have brought me the desired professional success. I was in a trance and could hardly believe my luck. On the way back, I suffered a fainting spell from sheer excitement, so that I had to stop my car immediately. I had to vomit up the sinfully expensive lunch that had cost me a small fortune. I lay down in a meadow off the road and lost consciousness for a brief moment; when I came to, I found that the excellent Bordeaux wine had also found its way out of my body and ended up as urine in my pants. The fulfillment of everything I had dreamed of up to that point had become reality; the emotions triggered by this had finally led to that collapse.