A Birthday Celebration

A Birthday Celebration

November 19^th, 1997

Zurich

‘Not everyday one turns forty,’ Konrad thought miserably when he opened his eyes at dawn. 'What I can't understand is this stupid need to celebrate it. I have nothing to celebrate, and we already threw the party for the Xentrex takeover.'

He turned around in his bed and looked at his watch, abandoned on the bedside table. The golden Rolex shone gloomily as always. 'I should throw it away, but I still can't do it. It's a weakness I have to get rid of,' he thought but slid it over his wrist in a mechanical movement, averting his eyes to not read the inscription “Je t'aime, R” also engraved in his heart.

'Any kind of hesitations and it would have been my head on the pillory and not his,' he reminded himself as he rolled to one side of his large bed, lingering for a few minutes more, unable to find the courage to start his day. 'Ferdinand is right. I'm mad if I still long for the man who nearly killed me.

'Where could he be now? Snakes do know how to hide.

'I swear I will take my time with him.'

Well aware that he would not be able to catch his sleep again, he left the bed, throwing the covers aside, and walked towards the bathroom to take a shower. 'I'm one year older, I can let go of training with Holgersen for one day.'

He dressed but left his jacket on the chair, only putting his vest on. With energetic and precise moves, he combed his hair and noticed the few blond strands tangled in the comb. 'I'm losing hair. Great.' His mood worsened, he left his bedroom in a whirlwind.

As usual, Friederich was already in his private living room, setting the breakfast tray with measured moves. He wished him happy birthday with a kind and fatherly smile and Konrad only grunted a ‘thank you’, sitting on his chair to loudly unfold the Financial Times as he proceeded to ignore the older man.

“Will his Excellency dine here tonight?” Friederich asked as he finished settling the dish with assorted meat slices and the basket with different kinds of bread rolls.

“No, I'm staying at the Ritz with Stefania,” he barked as he folded the newspaper and defiantly held the furious stare he received from his former tutor. “Is that a problem?” he asked rudely.

“No, sir,” Friederich answered through clenched teeth.

“Good,” Konrad said, glad that he had been able to shut him up.

Friederich left the room to brush Konrad’s jacket once more, a good way to exorcise the need to hit his former pupil with the spoon to knock some sense into him. 'From one whore to the next. When will he grow up? Love is not having someone cater to all your whims. He's forty years old, not twenty! The age to mistake these things is well past. He should find someone and fulfil his duty to his bloodline. He must settle down and have children!'

“Ah,” the old man said casually when he returned to the living room, getting Konrad’s attention. “Should I ask Mrs. van der Leyden to buy a suitable present for your date, my Duke?” he asked innocently.

Konrad felt the fury creep from his interior at being reminded that, for all that he might pretend, he was celebrating his birthday with a call girl, but kept it under control. 'Never forget who he is, my son. Friederich may have chosen to live the life of a monk, but he's related to the Habsburgs. It was not his fault his family's lands were taken over by the communists.'

“I'll do it myself, thank you, Friederich,” he answered haughtily.

* * *

To top a very unsuccessful and slow morning, his lunch was cancelled because of a minor occurrence at the London office. Hungry and upset, he realised at two in the afternoon that he had no time to eat anything before his meeting with the technological company, due in five minutes.

He watched the slightly younger executive morosely explain his report and his gaze wandered over to the Pisarro hanging on the wall in front of him. 'Forty years old and no children. It's social death for a man of my position. In the end, that is the aristocrat’s job: to produce heirs. Without them, there is no reason for us. Ferdinand has already three; Albert, four and one more on the way; and Adolf, two baby girls.'

'Even Roger had a baby girl,' he remembered darkly.

'Forty years old and nothing so far.'

He noticed one mistake in the viewgraphs and quickly corrected it before he plunged back into his own private pool of misery.

'I should have.... What? Married Roger? No way! Married the zu Löwenstein boring cow he was always trying to hook to my neck and surround myself with idiotic children while I pounded him against the mattress?'

“Gentlemen, I thank you for your presentation, but I'm afraid I will decline your offer,” he said out loud when he calculated that the customary thirty minutes were over.

“The growth potential of the internet is unheard of. Once our company goes public, its shares will rise and be bigger than Netscape,” the speaker protested.

“I see no real growth substance behind this kind of companies,” Konrad answered flatly. “You could convince me of investing in something related to a distribution network like Amazon but not on contents for a webpage. There is nothing behind it. If you were here offering me a new processor, computer, phone, software or a distribution network, I would be the first person to invest in your company.”

“Internet is the future,” one of the executives said, astonished that the banker could be such a moron. Everybody knew it.

“I have no doubts about it, but this frenzy about web contents is simply out of scale. A bubble about to burst. My answer is no,” Konrad said, even shocking Ferdinand with his answer, before he rose from the table to leave the room.

* * *

“Konrad, are you all right?” Ferdinand asked the minute he entered in his friend's office. “You just cancelled a three hundred million dollars project. Should I remind you of the figures of the estimated profits our own people made?”

“The world does not need another AOL, Ferdinand,” Konrad said tiredly. “I've spoken long with Dähler, and he's right. We should focus on other kinds of companies.”

“Goran Pavicevic brings one sailor from Bosnia and he becomes our advisor?” Ferdinand exploded.

“The sailor has a doctorate degree in Astrophysics from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Ferdinand. He understands much more than you and I about computers and he does not see any growth potential in them. Perhaps for one or two years more, but our possibilities of jumping ship once the storm breaks are minimal.”

“The only thing he did was catching Goran unaware and he gets a position? What's next? This new Russian that Oblomov sent us becomes CEO?”

'In a few years, perhaps. Antonov is the best diplomat and soldier I've ever met. It’s Repin's loss,' Konrad thought but preferred to change the topic. “Dähler has made a list of technological projects he believes may be interesting for us. Check it out with him and invest today's money there.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to see if he's as intelligent as I think he is.”

“A nerd with a boat makes decisions for us now?” Ferdinand couldn't help to say out loud.

“The future belongs to the nerds, my friend. Make friends with them. Something else?”

“Happy birthday,” Ferdinand grunted and left the room, still furious with his friend.

Konrad leaned against the backrest and opened his laptop to check his e-mails. He saw many labelled as “personal”, probably filled with anniversary greetings, and repressed a sigh as he marked them to forward the messages to Monika. 'What a waste of time. Nothing really changes with your birthday. You're not wiser, only older.'

He checked his watch and once more the image of Roger assaulted him.

“Monika, could you please find something suitable for Miss Barberini?” he asked through the intercom to escape from the mental image. “Call me at five and have the car ready to drive to the airport.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“Ah, and while you are at it, get me a new watch,” he said without knowing why. “Something handmade. Place an order for a Patek Philippe, a Tourbillon, too,” he finished the sentence.

“Would you like a Lange und Söhne, my Duke?” she asked a bit surprised. “A handmade watch might take a few months to be ready, sir. I saw a very nice piece at the jewellery shop I will visit today.”

“Yes, a Lange und Söhne will be perfect. Thank you, Monika.”

'Rolex is for children,' he thought. 'For newly arrived rookie traders. I'm forty years old now. Perhaps I should wear the Vacheron my father gave me on my twentieth-first anniversary. I had always thought it was for old men.

'I should act my age. I'm not thirty any longer.'

He felt empty, and for the first time, he knew that a tumble between the sheets with a woman he despised but needed would not quench the source of his uneasiness. 'My life is a piece of shit,' he thought darkly. 'And that's how it is going to be till I drop dead like my father did at sixty-five. Should be glad, it's only twenty-five years more from now.

'Stefania thinks I'm going to marry and have children with her. Foolish woman. I need a “girlfriend” to be not so obvious.

'At the moment, reading a book by the fire sounds more appealing than spending one night in a disco, fucking a woman that brings nothing to my life and sleeping in a hotel.'

“Monika,” he called over the intercom.

“Yes, sir?” her educated voice resounded in his empty office.

“Cancel my flight for tonight and offer my excuses to Miss Barberini, but please go for the watch you spoke about.”

“Very well, sir,” she answered with a merry voice, and Konrad wondered why. 'She can't be jealous of Stefania, but for some reason she simply hates her.'

“I'm going home. I'm not feeling well,” he said and wondered why he had done it. It was not his style to justify his acts. “Have the car ready in thirty minutes,” he added sharply.

* * *

He sat at the family dinning room and noticed that Hans and Dieter were serving the table tonight. 'Probably Friederich is still upset because of my “unbecoming” outburst this morning,' he thought but said or asked nothing as he watched how Hans poured the wine in his glass and Dieter placed the first course in front of him.

'Black truffle soup,' he thought. 'Small compensation for a miserable day.' He heard the butlers leave the room in silence, and once the door had closed, he relaxed his stiff back. Reading alone at his library had not provided him with the much needed peace of mind.

'I'm certainly getting old. I just dismissed one night of fun in favour of going to bed early and reading a book.

'Maybe I should find someone, marry, have children, go to cinema on weekends and suffer a Disney film or get an ice cream poured over my trousers in order to find happiness. Ferdinand is happy with his boys, even if he can't stand their mother.

'I could do it.

'… And ruin my life like my father did.' He left the spoon over the porcelain dish and looked at the soup in disgust. 'It's sour or the truffles are old.

'No, the soup is perfect. You are the one who is old and sour,' his inner voice told him. 'What kind of woman would be so crazy as to marry you? Only one who looks at your bank accounts or one so stupid that she thinks your wooing is true. You don't like women at all, and you want to marry one?'

Furious and frustrated with himself, he threw his yellow damascene napkin over the polished table and rose from his chair. “Tell the cook I'm not hungry tonight,” he barked at the two surprised butlers waiting outside for his orders.

Dieter and Hans could only gape at the retreating man, walking through the long corridor towards the library.

“At least, no one was fired tonight,” Hans mumbled as he turned around to clean the table. Dieter could only nod at his superior. 'Good thing we already left his cognac at the library. In his mood, he's bound to find a piece of cork inside the bottle.'

* * *

Konrad burst into his library and saw the silver tray with his Rémy Martin bottle. He poured the amber liquid in a glass and sat in his favourite sofa to read in peace.

The words, however, made no sense, and he put the book aside, feeling frustration once more grip his heart.

Old.

Empty.

He saw nothing but a futureless future unfold in front of him.

Accumulating just more power and money for the Order.

'God chose you for this position. Your duty is to answer to Him and do His will upon this Earth, Konrad,' his father had told him when he was no more than eight years old. 'We did not ask for it, but we will do His bidding. We are rulers, not ordinary people.'

'Yes, that's the way. My child is the Order. I'm only a tool for our Lord.'

He rose from the sofa and paced like a caged lion inside his library. 'My duty is to increase our Church's power and defend it from its enemies. Nothing else.'

But the thought gave him no comfort. He felt trapped.

Without thinking, he jerked the door open and walked towards the entrance where he was intercepted by a flushed Dieter. “My coat,” Konrad growled, and the servant ran to fetch it.

“Should I ask for the car, Your Excellency?” the butler asked as he helped him into his overcoat.

“No, I'm going for a walk. Alone.”

Konrad stormed out of the house and crossed the inner courtyard to take the path that led to the forest. He felt one of the bodyguards running after him. “Do I look like a man who needs a babysitter?” Konrad roared to the Serb quietly following him at a short distance. “I'm going for a walk!”

“Yes, sir,” the man answered slightly stuttering, surprised by his superior's outburst. “The dogs...”

“Put them on a leash or replace them if I shoot one dead!” Konrad exploded and continued to walk away from the suffocating castle, leaving the bewildered bodyguard behind.

At last he reached the pond he would sometimes visit in the summer, the same where he used to play with his brother and friends when he was a child. The place had always given him peace of mind, something he desperately needed to have now.

“Hello, Hubertus. You must be Hubertus the XVI,” he joked with the toad impassibly looking at him from the pond, perhaps a bit curious at the late intrusion. “I caught many of your ancestors,” Konrad added and wondered why he had done it.

The toad kept staring at him, and the man leaned his weight on the railing and chortled. “Do you want to know a secret? My life sucks and I'm asking for advice to an ugly toad. I might be well getting insane.”

The toad jumped back into the water.

“My, we are all sensible tonight,” Konrad muttered, slightly upset that his ‘confidant’ had preferred an almost frozen pond to him. 'What is it doing here? Shouldn't it be hibernating or something?' he pondered.

His blue gaze got lost in the scantly lightened pond, and the loneliness of the place at long last brought him the much sought after peace. 'I'm burned out. I had no idea how tired I was till tonight. Perhaps I should take it easier from now onwards.'

'The minute you're not working, you are dead, Konrad,' the voice of his father came back from the past to remind him of his duties.

'You didn't have it any easier, did you, sir?' he thought compassionately. 'Perhaps Friederich gave you some comfort in the end, but I believe this was not what you wanted. Maybe you loved him but never knew how to tell him, or maybe he loved you back but never dared to break his vows to Christ.

'Where could I find someone like Friederich? He gives everything and asks for nothing in return. Perhaps having him as friend was God's reward to my father after the many tests he passed.

'No, no friend can touch your life the way your soul mate can.

'If I were to find a woman like Roger, I would marry her instantly.

'Why the hell do I still long for him, when I only want to kill him for ruining my life?

'Why did I ever love him? He was very attractive, but there are hundreds like him. He was beautiful, but selfish and weak.

'Why did I fall for him? Am I so pathetic that one single display of tenderness and compassion made me threw my life away? One single caress and a few well chosen words and I almost gave my life for him?'

‘“Don't worry, I'm beside you,” he told me, and I was the greatest idiot to believe him.

'Idiot!'

His fist smashed the railing as he remembered the heated nights spent together. 'It was only good sex with a very expensive tag attached.

'I was an idiot to fall in love with a whore. They only want things from you, and when you say no, they finish you off.

'But it doesn't change the fact that I loved him like I never loved anybody else. I would give everything I have to have it back. That feeling of being part of something larger than myself. That feeling of being loved no matter how ugly or nasty you are.

'Did Roger ever felt for me like that? I'm sure I did for him.

'Did I?'

He snorted when he remembered Jerôme de Lisle's serious face offering his own son to ‘replace’ Roger: “In a few years you could have all what you lost today, my Griffin,” the lawyer had told him.

'How old is the boy now? Fourteen, fifteen?' he thought and let a dry laugh out. 'A smelly teenager, unable to string two sentences together, playing a blaring stereo, rebellious, impolite, vainer than a peacock... and only asking for money.

'Exactly what I need in my life.

'Where could he be? That rat never really told us, and honestly, I didn't give a damn about the boy. The truth is that if we would have found him, we would have sent him to the Guttenberg Sachsen's. As they had no contact with Jerôme de Lisle since 1983, it's very unlikely he would have left the child with them.

'Nevertheless, Guntram was a nice baby,' he remembered dreamingly. 'A child like him would have been good to have around.'

“He inherited his mother's sweet and peaceful nature,” Jerôme's words resounded once more through the mist of dazed memories. 'He would have to inherit the entirety of the Peace Corps caring nature to counteract the de Lisles' hunger for power,' he snorted sarcastically. 'Nothing but the throne of France would have sufficed for them.

'Who am I kidding? Me? Surrounded by children? Impossible!'

The face of Roger once more danced in front of his eyes and he shut them close. 'He's like a drug. Once you leave it, it's forever.'

“Someone with his face but without our family's meddling. Someone young you can control better than my brother.”

'Someone sweet tempered who would love me for myself and not for my position,' the Duke sighed but frowned immediately.

'Grow up, Konrad. Fairies do not exist and, even if they did, they certainly don't grant wishes for free. Nasty and selfish creatures, that's what they are. Petty demons that hide behind a lovely face.

'Just as Roger.

'Be honest with yourself, Konrad. If someone, looking like Roger yet with Friederich's caring personality were to come into your life, you would throw yourself at his or her feet. You never learn,' his inner voice told him.

Before he could find an explanation for it, an idea formed in his brain. It was utterly stupid and childish, but even he could leave everything behind for a few minutes. 'Why not? It's not the Trevi Fountain, but it's almost like one,' his mind encouraged him. 'You’ve never asked anything for yourself. Don't get people wishes for their birthdays? It can't get worse than it is.'

“I wish I could find someone who would love me for myself and allow me to have children. Three or four would be a nice number,” he said out loud even as he chuckled like a child, strangely feeling better once he did.

His laugh died out when he heard something moving among the big round leaves on the pond, and his hand went to the weapon he carried with him. His stance relaxed when he saw it was just the toad retaking its place.

“So you are back. I knew you couldn't resist my charming company,” he joked with the toad, once more sitting on his water lily throne. “Answer me one question, and I promise not to tell the children I will never have where your kind hides in this pond.”

The toad ignored him and Konrad sighed. 'Yes, I'm really going crazy, but having a toad as confidant is a hundred times better than a psychiatrist or a lover.'

“Should I marry a fifteen-year-old boy I've have not seen since he was a few months old and have children?” he asked, almost unable to control his laughter. “One croak for ‘no’ and two for ‘yes’.”

The toad croaked twice in the silence of the night.

Konrad looked in its direction, feeling a bit shocked, but he shook his head dismissing the ridiculous thought. 'Should have asked about that mess with Thermofusion. One excellent opportunity to get good advice for free gone to waste.'

“You are right about something. I should move on. Lamenting over Roger's betrayal solves nothing. Here, take a gold token for your services,” he said as he unclasped the golden watch from his wrist. Calculating so as to not to hurt the animal, Konrad threw the piece into the water, watching how it quickly sunk to the muddy bottom. “I hope gold is a good enough payment for a toad's magical services,” he joked again.

The toad croaked twice.

Konrad stared at the amphibian, and his security net, based on well-learned logics, threatened to crumble down.

'That's the only thing it can do: croak twice to everything I say. Let's make a ridiculous question.'

“Should I marry Stefania? I know no other woman greedy and stupid enough as to suffer me. I have more than enough money as to pay her tab.”

A single croak was all that was heard.

Konrad's soul was invaded by dread, and he took two steps away from the railing.

'Nah! It's impossible!' he thought before he turned around to return to the safety of his well-organised, logic and sterile life.