Бруно Травен - Aslan Norval

To his great surprise, Beckford had been named general manager upon Aslan’s recommendation. Three months ago, he had been nobody. Not even a student at the Technical Institute. He had been living off his veteran’s pension, which barely kept him alive and had been about to run out. And still he did not know what Aslan really wanted from him, and for what purpose she wanted to use him. He would have understood the situation if she had made him her lover. But it seemed an affair was further from her mind than ever.

In the world of finance, everyone knew that Aslan was an incredibly rich woman. In a country in which women outright owned or controlled through shares fifty-six percent of the entire national wealth and where more than one hundred women were bank presidents, it was hardly noteworthy that a woman, especially one as rich as Aslan, was the president of a company that had billions of dollars in capital.

Aslan had become a celebrity when she inherited twenty-eight million dollars at the age of eleven. Her name made the front page again a few years later when she inherited an additional nine million dollars. Up until the day she met Holved, she had received six inheritances and none of them had been contested. In the coming years, she could hope for further inheritances, since she belonged to one of the oldest and richest families in the country.

Only a few close friends knew that she had married Holved, since she had kept her maiden name, which was an advantage in the business world. Everyone knew that her unimaginable wealth was administered by the strongest and most reputable bank in America. It was only natural for venture capitalists to be interested in what her new company intended to do. It was certainly going to be something big. No wonder, then, that the shares of the APTC sold like hotcakes.

The company rented an entire floor in an office building in lower Manhattan. Beckford remained in his offices as president of his own company, where he was to await orders from above. And it was in Beckford’s office where Aslan was now studying a map of the Panama Canal, which she had found spread out on the table, likely because Beckford had been studying it for lack of anything better to do.

“You know, ma’am,” he said, standing at the table and pointing to the map, “I found out something very interesting today.”

“And what is that?”

“Although the Panama Canal is a hundred meters wide, wide enough to allow two or even three ships to pass simultaneously, large passenger ships like the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary cannot use the canal.”

“And why not?”

“Because of the locks. When they built the canal, they apparently did not think that there might be ships like the Queen Elizabeth , with a length of three hundred forty-four meters and a width of thirty-seven meters. The locks of the Panama Canal only have a length of three hundred thirty meters and a width of thirty-four meters. There are even oil tankers that are forty-two meters wide.”

“That’s news to me,” said Aslan, “but it proves that we have to build our canal so that two boats like the Queen Elizabeth can pass each other without scratching their paint.”

“It will be expensive, ma’am.”

“Forget the costs! We will leave the calculation of the costs to our accountants. We will begin the work as soon as we have the permit. Once we have started, none of the shareholders will want to lose money. Therefore, they will get the money necessary to continue the project one way or another.”

She glanced at another map. “The canal seems to cross lakes here.”

“That’s right,” affirmed Beckford, “those are lakes indeed.”

“Lakes can definitely make the construction of a canal easier and cheaper, don’t you think?”

“I’m not so sure about that. A lake or a swamp might pose more problems for the engineers than dry land or mountains.”

Aslan thoughtfully rolled up the maps. For a while she said nothing. Then she said: “We need data. Massive amounts of exact and convincing data. Numbers. Numbers that have anything to do at all with our canal. Numbers whose correctness can be verified, and that you are able to cite quickly and convincingly. Get going, Mr. Beckford, study as hard as you can. Accurate numbers! Memorize them. Recite a row of numbers as if you were being held responsible for all the sins of the world.”

“Ma’am, I am sorry, but I am not an actor,” interrupted Beckford.

“If you aren’t one yet, then try to become one. Get going, memorize as many numbers as you can.”

Aslan took her gloves, and then her purse, and left the office through the door that led directly into the hallway. Since she had come in that way, Amy could not know that Aslan had even visited the office. Amy probably did not even know whether Beckford was in his office. As long as he did not call her, politeness stopped her from bothering him in any way. Since there was still no business, she was bored to death during business hours.

After Aslan’s departure, Beckford did not know what to do with himself. While Aslan’s elegant perfume was still wafting around the room like an ephemeral cloud, he did not feel like memorizing numbers to recite at opportune moments, like a circus clown. The memorizing could wait until it was urgent, especially since if he started now, by then he would have forgotten the numbers, which did not interest him at all. He would then be forced to start all over with cramming or whatever Aslan called it.

He pulled out a hand mirror to brush his hair.

Then he studied his face, turning it from left to right. Then he lifted and lowered his nose. When that did not satisfy him, he pulled out a smaller mirror and held it at an angle toward the bigger one. He studied his profile intently.

He looked at his watch and, admiring himself in the mirror one last time, he said to himself: “Four thirty. What should I do?”

He pulled himself together and entered the front office where Amy was engrossed in her True Confessions .

Amy didn’t notice that Beckford had entered the office. At that moment, she was busy thinking about the rather delicate situation of a very young, very pretty, very innocent and inexperienced salesgirl who’d found herself in a large warehouse. This pitiful victim of brutal capitalist greed had received an ominous order to help the company’s interior decorator create a lovely, yet sexy bedroom for newlyweds in the display room. It was eleven at night and the salesgirl was alone with the brawny decorator in the spooky warehouse.

Beckford cleared his throat fairly loudly. With a start, Amy apologized while trying to slide the magazine under the table. She managed to do so without Beckford noticing, at least so she thought. She blushed terribly, on the one hand because of what she was just about to read: the incorrigible decorator was going to consummate the bridal bed with the pretty salesgirl. On the other hand, she blushed because it was now the sixth time that her boss had caught her reading erotica instead of sitting up straight behind her desk, waiting for his beck and call.

“Outrageous! You’re reading immoral love stories during the hours I pay you, and I pay you very well, I might add. Amy, I should really tan your hide, don’t you think?”

“If you seriously believe I deserve that, Mr. Beckford, then please be my guest.”

Her willingness changed the course of Beckford’s intentions. He had meant to say that since there was nothing in particular to do, she should go home and that she was to bring him all newspapers she could get ahold of the next day. From Aslan he had gathered that the first propaganda campaign of the new company would probably launch in the next few hours.