Axelmann lay at the side of the pool lazily contemplating their return to Paris and the conclusions to be drawn from their eventful trip to Bandjarmasin. It was Friday morning just after breakfast. He was taking advantage of the few hours remaining to give his suntan a final touch.
They were booked on an early afternoon flight to Singapore, so that they would have time to call on a couple of Axelmann’s banking friends, and then have Saturday free for shopping.
The weekend in Jakarta had few distractions for those businessmen stuck in their hotels and who had no means of escape to the islands or the mountains. In any case Axelmann had more than enough with their adventure in Kalimantan, he was looking forward to going home.
Axelmann would be back in Paris early Sunday morning and anticipated a quite day with his friends and a decent restaurant; he was already imagining a steak, tender and extremely rare, and exceptionally accompanied by a glass of good Bordeaux to celebrate his return to civilisation.
He glanced around and saw that were already a few hotel guests relaxing in the sun. There was an airline crew and a little further on couple of local girls, whom he seemed to recognise as regulars from the Hotman, wearing revealing high cut bikinis. He made a mental note not to swim too close to them in the pool; he did not want to return home with anything compromising.
He then saw John Ennis at the pool reception, who signed in and picked up a towel surveying the lines of parasols. Axelmann made him a sign; he strolled over taking a chaise longue and flopped down next to him.
As they sunned themselves they discussed the outline of the strategy that was beginning to emerge. In order to finance the promotion of the project, they would require a substantial budget to cover the cost of the forestry inventory, to quantify the availability of the right kind of wood, to carry out technical studies and the search for a marketing partner who could distribute and sell the mill products.
As agreed prior to their departure from Paris they prepared a fax to be to addressed Brodzski in Paris who was organising a round table the following week with Philippe de Berne and a group of industrialists with whom Brodzski had worked successfully in the recent past. Their fax message was to carry an optimistic message resulting from their meetings in Jakarta and investigations in Kalimantan.
Papcon’s vocation, the promotion and development of industrial projects, had been a profitable business over many years for Brodzski. The business implied a certain number of risks, but unless they dangled a sufficiently attractive carrot to their would be partners, the project would remain stillborn for lack of the funds necessary for its promotional phase.
Brodzski was a master at producing a suitable message at the psychologically right moment for his business partners, extolling the desire of some overseas government organisation to work with him. He never hesitated to invoke the name of a minister or high-ranking official, who had given him the exclusivity, or, a license to develop an important project.
Their message was to be in very clear terms. A copy of it would end up without any doubt in one of the services of BAKIN, the Indonesian Intelligence Agency, who would hopefully transmit it to all of those departments and persons concerned. Thus it would serve two purposes, it would inspire the French and it would comfort the Indonesians on the seriousness of the French developers.
To Monsieur Antoine Brodzski;
On site investigation has confirmed that raw material resources exist in Kalimantan Seletan for a pulp mill with a production capacity of 350,000 tons/year. The timber rights are negotiable and support is assured from the Ministry of Forests which will require an inventory of the standing resources. A state enterprise is proposed as joint-venture partner. The total estimated investment is one billion dollars.
The fax was deliberately composed in a telegraphic style on headed stationary from Office of the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia, thanks to Sigit, and complete with an official seal. The English was part of Brodzski’s many ploys, providing him endless scope for interpretation, in the knowledge the English of his partners was often less good than they pretended.
Ennis took the paper to the hotel business centre where he had it stamped ‘Urgent and Confidential’ and in his presence ensured it was immediately faxed to Paris. That accomplished he returned to the pool and settled down to the more serious business of ensuring that those parts of his anatomy, which had not been exposed to the sun in Borneo, would be suitable bronzed for his return to Paris.
The morning passed agreeably as they discussed the paradoxes of Indonesia, a country where it was impossible to undertake large-scale industrial projects without a backer in top government circles.
‘It’s not so different to any country of the world, it’s necessary to lobby political power brokers,’ said Axelmann. ‘The system may look different and it may work in another manner, but it’s the same, somebody, somewhere, receives a kickback, or more politely if you like, a commission.’
‘The difference here is that it’s practically always the same pockets, that’s not very democratic,’ Ennis said with a laugh, pleased with his own cynicism. ‘A very tight circle surrounding the President and his family. Very few important projects pass without being vetted by them. Projects that fit in with their plans and satisfy commission needs are distributed as rewards to their favourites.’
‘Right, the President’s wife, and their children control almost everything.’
‘Even the taxi drivers are well informed of the details,’ he said scornfully.
‘Not forgetting Lim Sio Liong and Bob Hassan.’
‘They’re both Chinese, they’ve been his pals for decades. I saw a thing the other day in the Far East Economic Review saying that Lim was amongst the ten richest men in the world.’
The political backer for the Barito Project was Idris Hendra, who pulled strings in the background, out of public view. He of course would be attributed a fitting percentage for his troubles. There was also his close friend the Minister of Forests, Wihartjo, and a multitude of other lesser personalities, who would also collect their rewards, proportional to their degree of importance and involvement.
‘They need all the investment and development they can get, when you consider the size of the populations, and its growing by the hour.’
Axelmann grinned, bunching his fists at waist level in front of himself and rocking his hips backwards and forwards, ‘It’s not surprising!’
Ennis grinned and continued, ‘It’s as big as western Europe, thirteen thousand islands! Luckily for them, they’ve plenty of resources, oil and gas, as well as timber, palm oil, spices, rubber, minerals and the seas are full of fish.’
‘The only trouble is they can’t be transformed into income at the same rate as the population grows,’ said Axelmann, and insisting on his pleasantry added; ‘That’s what they get for all that screwing.’
‘Your trouble is that you’re fuckin vulgar, you can’t take anything seriously,’ said Ennis testily.
‘You’re dead right there,’ he laughed, ‘I think I’ll order a drink.’
‘When you think that there’s eighty million living in Java alone that makes it the mostly densely inhabited place in the world!’ he said looking around, as though he expected to find the teeming millions at the poolside.
‘And they’re all earning a dollar a day.’
‘Fuck their luck!’ He then paused and looking serious for a moment added; ‘Except Sigit Budiman his one of the privileged class, he’s what you really call a fixer.’
‘I heard his money comes almost exclusively from favours and commissions, I’d guess at three hundred thousand dollars a year, a lot of money here, but he’s not really rich and there’s no continuity guaranteed.’
‘When you think that his gardener, cook or driver earn about four of five hundred dollars a year with food and lodging, then he’s fabulously rich and they’re privileged compared to the other poor bastards.’
The waiter brought the drinks, offering them on a tray with his outstretched arm, holding his elbow with the other hand in a sign of deference.
‘The real rich are the merchant class and industrialists, Chinese, like Lim, who’ve made vast fortunes with the blessing of the President.’
‘You’re right there, but in a way it’s not as selfish as it would first appear.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘No I’m not,’ said Axelmann looking a little hurt. ‘Listen, he and his partners are all engaged in a gigantic, but not totally selfish, effort aimed at the creation of wealth and their own modern capitalistic society. When you compare it to some socialist models such as Burma or Cambodia, they’re not doing too badly.’
‘It’s been the policy of the West over the last forty years to encourage them, capital and loans, a barrier against communism. They’re one of the World Bank’s most important borrowers. Sure their economy has grown without paying too much attention to wealth distribution, or the development social equality. On the whole you’ve got to admit the results have been fairly positive. Their future is definitely better than a lot of the other less fortunate third world countries.’
‘I suppose you’re right, looking around at all the sky scrapers and shopping plazas springing up all over the place, it can’t be denied that there’s a solid middle class developing.’
In Singapore that same evening, they were joined for drinks in the bar of their hotel, the luxurious Shangri-La, by two of Axelmann’s expatriate friends, representatives of the French Indo-China Bank. It was one of the most international of French banks and had been successfully established in Asia for over a century.
It was part of Axelmann’s information campaign to prepare the ground for the entry of the major French banks into the project’s financing structure. He emphasised the confidentiality of their business in Indonesia, in the sure knowledge that the news would spread quickly, giving a new aura to Papcon.
They had the pleasure of name dropping, talking of Philippe de Berne, it gave them a big boost and they clearly detected the envy of the executives of the bigger but more conventional bank. Another degree of interest and attention was given to their words. Ennis sensed that Axelmann’s friends could not wait to get to their fax machines to inform Paris.
The bankers responded enthusiastically, inviting them to a flashy Chinese nightclub, the Golden Dragon, where they dined and danced with the attractive hostesses introduced by the club’s Mama San.
The evening was a blur, they had no idea of what they had eaten or drunk at the Golden Dragon, that had been the least of their interests. What was much more important was the considerable progress they made in the Southern Chinese dialects of their new friends, who gladly returned with them to the Shangri-La, where the two travellers passed the rest of the night in a detailed exploration of the mysteries of the East.
Saturday morning having regretfully hurried their exotic friends discreetly on their way, they proceeded on their shopping expedition in the vast modern day emporium that Singapore had become, as they exchanged notes on the nights experiences.
Late that evening seated in the Galaxy class of the Air France Boeing, fourteen hours away from Paris, they settled down to a long night.