Heads You Win

“We are all aware that first impressions tend to linger, so I should not have been surprised when, after I had been back in my homeland for only a few hours, some of Russia’s problems were brought home to me. I was standing on a street corner trying to get a taxi, and I couldn’t help noticing that while there was no shortage of BMWs, Mercedes, and Jaguars, there was almost no sign of a Ford Fiesta or a VW Polo. The disparity between rich and poor is starker in Russia than in any other nation on earth. Two percent of Russians own ninety-eight percent of the national wealth, so who can blame ordinary citizens for rejecting capitalism and wanting to return to what they now regard as the good old days of Communism? If Western values are to prevail, what Russia most needs is a middle class who, through hard work and diligence, can benefit from their country’s staggering wealth and natural resources.

“This doesn’t mean that there aren’t great opportunities to do business in Russia. Of course there are. However, if you’re thinking of going east, young man, be warned—it’s not for the faint-hearted.

“Mr. Schwab told you that Lowell’s had closed a deal that made my bank a thousand percent profit in a year. But what he didn’t tell you was that we also signed three other contracts where we lost every penny of our investment, and in one case even before the ink was dry on the paper. So the golden rule for any company considering opening a branch in Russia is to choose your partner wisely. When there’s the potential for a thousand percent profit in a year, the stupid, the greedy, and the downright dishonest will appear like cockroaches from under the floorboards. And should your partner breach a contract, don’t bother to sue, because the judge will almost certainly be on their payroll.

“Could this all change for the better? Yes. In the year 2000, the Russian people will go to the polls to choose a new president. We can safely assume they won’t reelect Boris Yeltsin, who by now would have been impeached in Washington and banished to the Tower in London.”

Laughter followed, humor often emphasizing the truth. Alex turned a page.

“The Communist Party, which appeared to be dead and buried a decade ago, has once again raised its head, and is now comfortably ahead in the polls. But if a candidate were to stand for president whose first interest was in democracy, and not in lining their own pockets, who knows what could be achieved?

“You see before you a Russian who escaped to America some thirty years ago, but who in recent years has regularly returned to his homeland, because Lowell’s Bank takes the long view. I hope that in a hundred years’ time, America will still be Russia’s greatest rival. Not on the battlefield, but in the boardroom. Not in the nuclear arms race, but in the race to cure disease. Not on the streets, but in the classrooms. But that can only be achieved if every Russian vote is of equal weight.”

A long round of applause followed, as Alex turned another page.

“Two hundred years ago, America was at war with Britain. In the past century, the two nations have twice united to fight a common enemy. Why shouldn’t America and Russia have a similar aim?” Alex lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “I hope there are those among you who will join me, and try to make that ideal possible by building bridges and not destroying them, and by believing, as any civilized society should, that all men and women are born equal, whatever country they are born in. I can only hope that the next generation of Russians will, like the next generation of Americans, take that for granted.”

An audience that had decided to wait and hear Alex’s words before they passed judgment rose as one, and caused him to wonder, not for the first time, if he should have taken Lawrence’s place not in the boardroom, but in the political arena.

“You were magnificent, my darling,” said Anna when he walked off the stage. “But I don’t remember those last couple of paragraphs when you were rehearsing your speech in the bathroom this morning.”

Alex didn’t comment. And it didn’t help, during the next couple of days that whenever he was stopped in the conference hall, in his hotel, in the street, and even at the airport, that delegates suggested, “Perhaps you are the man who should be standing for president in your country?” And they didn’t mean America.

*   *   *

“You did what?” said Doug Ackroyd.

“I sold one percent of my shares in Lowell’s for twenty million dollars,” said Evelyn proudly.

“Why would you do something as stupid as that?”

“Because by letting go of one percent for twenty million, I established that the true value of my fifty percent was a billion dollars.”

“While at the same time you handed over control of the bank to Karpenko,” said Ackroyd, spitting out the words. “They now have fifty-one percent of the company, while you only have forty-nine.”

“No,” protested Evelyn, “I didn’t sell my one percent to the bank.”

“Then to whom, dare I ask?”