FLYING TO GIOTTO CH. 2
THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Read Chapter 1:
https://davidmatlock1.substack.com/p/flying-to-giotto-ch-1
Polina’s bed is heaped with blankets to keep a window open while she sleeps. Being Chief Financial Officer of PMG at thirty-six isn’t bad. If she were a man, it would have solved her problems with the opposite sex, but she’s not. Moscow is a bad place to be a plain woman even with money.
Coffee! She gets out of bed and fetches from the kitchen a cup brewed on a timer, brushes lace curtains to the side for the view across the street of six white columns below a pediment on a yellow façade . Neoclassicism helps her think. The view is one reason she bought the apartment despite it having no doorman. She places the cup on the bedside table, stacks pillows against the headboard, sinks in to them sitting up, and checks her email. It’s Wednesday, June 12 2013, a holiday.
Bad news: the auditor is going to give them a qualified opinion. If that weren’t enough, now they have this bizarre murder to deal with. She had thought the Donbas purchase would go smoothly. The foreign investors in PMG love the idea of refining rare earths in Ukraine for export to Europe and the US; the Yanukovich government in Kyiv does not object. But someone is against it—and those bastards have gotten dirty with their first move by assassinating PMG’s local representative. That’s going to complicate their placing debt on the international markets.
And now to top it all off, the PMG owner, Stepan Rogozov wants to send Alex Morozov to the Donbas to replace the dead man. You can’t make this stuff up. Alex is kind and cultured, not the man to take on cutthroats in a fight over a bankrupt refinery. What’s gotten into Stepan? Alex’s ancestors fled the Bolsheviks. That’s fine but it’s not going to help them in Ukraine.
She rises and draws lace back across the window blurring the yellow and white façade. It’s time to leave if she’s going to make it to the breakfast with Alex on foot. She dons jeans and a loose-fitting blue knit shirt with the English slogan “A Future of Certainty” (it makes her laugh) which she tucks in, and over it, a black leather jacket. June 12 is a holiday after all. She descends the steps from the third floor and pushes through a steel door onto the street. Her Constructivist apartment building and the Empire-style mansion across the street, built after Napoleon’s occupation and the torching of the city, seem unlikely friends staring at each other night and day.
The view to the Garden Ring Road is filled with facades set back at different distances: an ornate Italianate mansion, a Moscow Baroque Church with its wrought iron fence and branches of lilac, white cottonwood puff drifting in the hot air like fat snow. She reaches a bridge over a railway, an art nouveau confection that makes the Stalinist Empire building across from it look foolish, crosses the Garden Ring through an underpass onto the Pokrovka, with its backdrop of 19th-century neoclassical facades. Then a turn to the right on Chistiye Prudi and a long pond reflecting trees, sky, and the buildings on the boulevard that the water divides into two sides of car traffic going in opposite directions.
Alex is sitting at the Shatyor Restaurant where she expects him on the outdoor terrace under the tent that serves as a roof, right up against a wooden barrier that drops into the water. She sees him in profile in a button down white shirt; his gaze is fixed forward on nothing in particular as if he’s in thought. A tram’s brakes squeak on the boulevard. She turns off the pathway surrounding the pond onto a gangway to the outdoor portion of the restaurant.
#
“Alex, sorry to make you meet on a holiday.” Polina takes a seat opposite him in a plastic chair on the wooden deck. The branches and leaves of a linden tree reach them from the bank and ripple in the water breaking up white film from the cottonwoods. He seems to be in a daze. The walkway around the pond is screened from the road by a wrought iron fence; it is as if they are floating in the country except for the noise of an occasional car, blurred through the black lattice of the railing. “Stepan Rogozov has a crazy idea,” she says.
“Maybe we should order first?” Alex asks, gesturing at the waiter standing behind her.
“A double espresso, Eggs Benedict, and Borodinskiy bread,” she says.
“And for you the usual?” The waiter makes a tiny bow.
“Yes,” he says.
“Would you be willing to leave Moscow for a week or two on assignment for us?” Polina asks.
“Going where?” The daze leaves his eyes. He settles back in his chair.
“To Ukraine.” He doesn’t respond. “You would be acting as our representative,” she adds. He looks out over the water. Two ducks approach the wooden wall of the floating café looking for food but it’s as if he’s staring at something else. She lets him think.
“It’s on the way to Brenner and Italy,” he mutters, his gaze now on the ducks.
“What?” She leans forward and speaks slowly: “Stepan Rogozov needs someone on the ground during the privatization of RedkoZem, the rare earths refinery in the Donbas. It can be you. We’ll add to your salary while you’re there.”
He looks at her, then stares out over the water and speaks quietly. “I was planning a trip to Italy in a light plane. I could travel via Ukraine and when the job is done, take a few days of vacation and continue on to Perugia.”
“You want to take a holiday?” That was the last thing she was expecting to hear.
“Yes, Anastasia authorised it but I can delay and do this trip first.”
She squints at him as she absorbs his words. “It’s strange she agreed. You’ve only just begun with us.”
“The presentations on the RedkoZem purchase and the 2012 Results are both finished. Now we just have to wait for the investment bankers to tell us when we can start marketing. That’s why I thought I could go.”
“You don’t take a vacation two months into a new job.” Then Polina relaxes as she realizes she’s talking to a person with little business experience. “I’ll speak to Stepan again. He needs to find someone else to go to the Donbas.” Alex’s translating is good but he’s not someone who gets things done. It’s not that his mind is elsewhere—the problem is that you push a button and there is no reaction as if the system of gears and pulleys required for action is missing. To be fair, he was hired to translate, not for action.
“I’d like to go. I can skip the trip to Italy or make it shorter. Three days after the Donbas stop should be enough.” Now it seems to be something he wants as if a new thought came into his head.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Polina says. She pats Alex’s hand to soften the blow when she sees that he’s upset. She almost says out loud that he should disguise his reactions better.
“I don’t want to insist, but what about the vacation?” He bites into a forkful cottage cheese dumplings covered with sour cream.
“You said Anastasia authorized it?” Polina shakes her head. It’s almost like dealing with a child. She’s there to discuss business and he reveals priorities that have nothing to do with her goals. It’s a strange way to behave with an employer.
“Yes, she said it’s fine with her, but to make sure you’re okay with it.” Alex sees the waiter and waves to him—“Please bring me honey for the dumplings,” he asks.
“Let me think about it,” Polina laughs at his lack of cunning.
After breakfast Alex rises first—the young leaves have not changed; the reflecting water is the same; the apartment buildings fronting the pond look like they did through a broken film of white cottonwood pollen—yet he seems to be in another galaxy. It’s as if his mind is on something else and even his face goes pale.
“You don’t look well. Let me walk you back to your apartment.” Polina takes his arm and they stroll together across the wooden bridge from the floating restaurant to land.
#
“Alex isn’t the right person for the job,” Polina says to her boss, Stepan Rogozov, the majority shareholder and CEO of PMG, who has taken the call on the first ring. She is standing outside Alex’s door after walking him home.
“Did he turn it down?” In a pleasant baritone, Rogozov enunciates each syllable clearly, a sign that he is annoyed.
“No, but he has no experience as a businessman.” She takes a breath to continue.
“It doesn’t matter. All he needs to do is be there and pass messages back and forth. No need to think for himself.” Rogozov’s manner is suddenly curt. “He didn’t say ‘no’?”
“I’m telling you it’s a bad idea.” She is the only person at PMG who dares to contradict Rogozov.
“Why?” he sighs.
“Because he’s from another world. He has no idea what’s happening around him.”
“That sounds perfect. How much does he want for this extra work?” With Polina, he oscillates between the curt manner that sends subordinates scurrying (which rarely works with her) and a polite tone appropriate for dealing with equals. Now he’s being curt.
She decides to stop arguing the case. The phone is not the place to have a discussion about the reasons to send the American, and her fears might be overdone.
“How much will you pay?” She echoes his curt tone in a way that makes clear her doubts remain.
“It doesn’t matter. Get it done. I have to go.” He hangs up.
Get it done. Why? She can’t ask on the phone. He now spends more time in the Alps than in Moscow, which makes managing the company difficult. She has to fly to Austria for the sensitive discussions.
Four years ago, when he recruited her to clean up corruption in the company he had just bought, they always spoke in person. Getting full operational control over PMG without wrecking it was difficult but less risky than it would have been ten years before. In the 1990’s, she could have been shot dead for ending kickbacks from German vendors of capital equipment and redesigning export channels, but by 2009 business murders were no longer tolerated. The old management scattered to Monaco, London, and New York, keeping most of what they had stolen and earning absolution from the Americans by becoming anti-Putin dissidents. Rogozov survived in control, so it’s best to assume he knows what he’s doing by insisting that Alex go to the Donbas.
The bakelite doorbell to Alex’s apartment has been there since the Constructivist building for military officers went up in the 1930s. Round and black. Probably pressed decades ago by NKVD officers coming to arrest an inhabitant, and now by the CFO of PMG. A trusting face opens the door. “Nice to see you again so soon,” he says.
“May I come in for a moment?” she asks.
“If you’ll ignore the mess!” The room is well-lit with large windows, just like the stairwell. The architects cared about light. He has maps on the floor and battered antiques for furniture that no doubt came with the rental. A photograph of a young woman in uniform with a single gold bar for an epaulet is propped up on a bureau next to a middle-aged couple on a shore holding a smiling infant. A black and white portrait of a spaniel. A fourth photograph in a wooden frame shocks her.
“Is that Anastasia Vorontsova?” She avoids the maps on the floor as crosses the room and picks it up.
“Yes.”
“She gave it to you?” Polina turns it over in her hands as if some secret can be discerned on the backside of the frame.
“No, I took it for the contrast between her yellow dress and the outside view.” The explanation sounds silly.
“You do know she’s engaged to Stepan Rogozov?” She turns the photograph right side up and examines him silently.
“I’ve heard the rumors. Are they true?”
“Oh yes, so I wouldn’t advise falling for her.” She looks down at the photograph than back at him. “People might find it strange that you have her picture up with your family. Maybe you should be more discreet?”
“I normally put it in a drawer when people come over. You caught me by surprise.”
“Are you in love with her?” She smiles at his ingenuousness but observes him closely.
“I like the photo. I caught some aspect of her most people don’t see.”
Polina examines the color portrait again. “You caught her laughing. She’s usually so serious trying to prove she’s not just a beautiful face. She hates being known as an ex photo model.”
“Well, that has little to do with her job now.”
“I think it has a great deal to do with her,” Polina says, putting the photograph back in its place. “One lunch with her and the male portfolio manager buys our equity. Does she know?”
“Does she know what?”
“That you have her portrait.”
“I showed her the photograph when I took it, didn’t tell her I would print it and get it framed. I want to give it to her as a present but I haven’t had a chance.” He stands on the other side of the maps with his hands at his sides. He reminds her of a dog being interrogated for something he might have done wrong. He seems spontaneous and innocent.
“This other woman is your sister?” She points at the photograph of a young woman in a U.S. Army officer’s uniform. Young, brunette; the likeness to Alex is clear.
“Yes.”
“I think she was the reason Security took so long to agree to your appointment. What does she analyze for the government?”
“Arms control,” Alex says. “I’ll make coffee.” He steps into the kitchen alcove. Polina sits on a worn leather sofa beyond the maps. His net worth must be close to zero. It’s amazing how people avoid taking responsibility or having serious careers. They live with vitality in reserve, either out of laziness or because they aren’t willing to become a cog in a business machine at any price.
“Do you enjoy working for us, or would you rather be reading poetry or flying somewhere exotic?” she asks to his back as he pours brewed coffee into a china pot and puts it, two large cups and a creamer, all decorated with red and green roosters, on a tarnished silver tray. He has good posture and a well-defined butt.
He looks over his shoulder to answer. “I like translating presentations, even prospectuses. I’ve learned things I never would have otherwise.”
“I see. Why are these maps on the floor?” She points down.
“For flight planning. It’s the trip I mentioned. A fellow has a light plane that he wants me to reposition to Italy. The destination is near Assisi, so after I’d finished the job I was going to look at Giotto’s frescoes.”
“Will you take me with you?” Polina blurts out, surprising herself. She is used to subordinates whose imaginations serve only business goals. You give them a task and whoosh, off they go, desperate to prove their worth. Alex is placid. You throw a rock in the pool and there’s barely a ripple. It would be nice to dive into the water, relax in the deep, and see his strange thoughts. She is surprised at her own lack of irritation. It takes some balls to be so lackadaisical about a new job by asking for a vacation two months in. It’s not something she would have tolerated from anyone else.
“Are you telling me I can go?” He steps around the maps and places the splotchy tarnished tray with the coffee service on a marble-top table with a sphinx for a supporting column, placed so it can be reached from the leather sofa.
This man does not belong in the Donbas. Maybe she should go in his place. He pours her a cup. She nods assent to his offer of cream. He sits at the other end of the sofa and they drink in silence. When she says nothing, he adds, “Depending on the weather, it will take two to three days to reach Perugia. You might hate it.”
“Listen Alex, I spoke to Rogozov. He wants you to go to the Donbas. I’m under orders to offer you the job, but I think it’s a terrible idea and advise you to say ‘no’.”
“I’d love to go!”
She places the cup on its saucer on the marble top and leans forward with her hands on her knees. “In Moscow, you’re protected. The security is good; there’s almost no crime. Ukraine is a different case. It’s as if they never left the 1990’s. You’ll be replacing a man who was assassinated. The old management stole the company blind. They’re still there and need to be replaced.”
Alex sags back on the sofa but holds his cup so that coffee not splatter his pants. “Assassinated! For what?”
“Someone doesn’t want us to win the auction for RedkoZem.”
“Why are you sending me?”
“Rogozov is insisting.” She maintains her pose and looks into his guileless eyes. What is her boss thinking? There has to be more to this story than she knows. It’s hard to believe that he would send Alex there without iron-clad protection. Maybe she should do as she has been told.
“Do we know who did it?” he asks, his coffee cup still suspended in his surprise.
“Probably the Donetsk mafia but there was no warning from them. It’s not their style so maybe not. We can’t figure it out.”
“It’s flattering that he wants to send me.” Alex sips from the cup. His nonchalance is impressive. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m going to tell you one last time not to go.” She sees that he lacks fear. She looks down at the maps and her eyes track a pencil line leading from Moscow to the West. Somewhere over Czechoslovakia the line divides but the two routes end at the same point in Italy. Then she looks back up at him. There is something strange about the maps.
“I want to. It sounds exciting!” He smiles broadly.
Should she have put up more of a fight with Rogozov? She picks up her rooster coffee cup and sips from it. He looks happy. She looks down at the maps again and understands what is off.
“They show the USSR! How can you use them for flight planning?” She shakes her head. Is the man mad?
“They’re twenty-three years out of date. I like them because you can piece them together to cover a huge area. The whole route is visible. I’ll use a computer to file the actual plan.”
“Your idea is to fly to Donetsk and continue on to Italy to look at Giotto’s frescoes?” She looks about the room: the photograph of Anastasia’s yellow dress looks dreamt; the old maps on the floor are strange; and his desire to visit Giotto surreal. Her gaze swivels back to Alex’s calm hazel eyes. These are the sort of things that happen in a dream but she knows she is not asleep.
“If you give me permission that’s my plan.” He sounds cheerful.
“You’re not worried about dying?”
“The Alps might be a challenge but I’ll transit them only on a good-weather day.”
“I wasn’t referring to the Alps. Ukraine is overrun with mafia and they’ve already killed your predecessor.” Is he being dangled like bait to get a monster to bite again—only this time, under observation? “Boris Tseitlin, the current CEO, ran the company into the ground and he may not want new owners poking into the books.”
“I’ll do it.” He sips his coffee nonchalantly, as if they are discussing something as neutral as the weather.
“My conscience will bother me if you get killed.” She places her cup on the table and stands. “If Rogozov wants someone to go, it will have to be me.”
“I could use the extra money. How much will you pay?” Alex gestures that she should sit back down.
“Five hundred dollars a day, say fifteen thousand rubles,” she makes up the figure on the spot. Rogozov won’t care. Maybe there’s more to Alex than she suspected. His gaze is confident.
“I’ll take it.” He reaches for the coffee pot and refills her cup, then adds a stream of cream. She continues to stand while he remains on the sofa. Why not submit to his yes? She sits. It’s nice to feel the spark of masculinity in a man. Nice biceps. He seems genial and ineffective, but there might be a warrior hiding amid the collection of battered antiques he does not own and the silver tray he hasn’t polished. Perhaps sending him into the mess that is the Donbas is what he needs.
#
The next morning Polina retraces the route she took to the breakfast with Alex—the PMG offices are in a modern glass box across the pond from the floating café. The office is quiet because people have taken two days off after the holiday but she needs to prepare the presentation for investors.
The auditors are demanding the consolidation of PMG’s trading entity for the International Financial Reporting Standards statement of accounts required for their issuance of a bond on the international markets, but they can’t do it because General Petrov, who owns a share in the private Swiss trading company, doesn’t want his role disclosed. This means the auditors will provide them with a qualified opinion right before their placement with investors. That’s going to cost them at least half a percentage point year in coupon on a $ 600 Million placement, or about $ 15 Million over the 5 year term of the bond.
The investors’ call is tomorrow. Rogozov will have to duck the questions that come about the qualified opinion. In the end, greed will overcome caution, and for good reason. The company is solid. It will be strange to be dealing with both equity and debt investors on the same call. Who is tougher? Probably the debt guys. They’ll ask where the cash flow to service the debt will come from. The equity investors love the idea of buying and reconstructing RedkoZem to refine rare earths. The debt guys will have to put up the money. They’ll most definitely use the qualified opinion to stick it to PMG on the pricing.
They don’t know about the murder of the Ukrainian PMG representative, Igor Linkov. The press hasn’t picked up the story. What do we say when the news comes out? That Ukraine is caught in the 1990s? Perhaps PMG should say the killing had nothing to do with us; that we already have another man in place.