Gustav climbed up to the tower where he had his favorite view of the "forest waves" and gazed into the twilight – the green crowns of the trees had taken shape, showing all the relatively strong wind blowing. If you looked at the tops of the trees in the distance, you would feel as if you alone knew how that tree felt, and even better than it did. You see how and what influences it, in what direction it will swing now, and what awaits it after that. All this was only knowledge, not influence – in the case of trees it didn't matter, but in the case of people, such knowledge gave real power. If you showed a man that you were interesting, he'd grow ears. It was only necessary to feed him a couple of good advice or just the right words, and he became your friend, forgetting that only another person and no one else can be his most dangerous enemy. If you approved of this friendship, he would open up, giving you undeserved opportunities for his own destruction. And most of all Gustav was surprised by two absolutely opposite features of the man: on the one hand his foolish naivety and trust, and, on the other hand, his ruthless cruelty and hypocrisy. These two qualities seemed to be recruiting each of them to the team of the surrounding reality, and the characteristics of such selection, whether in a single individual or in an entire civilization, could change with astonishing speed and eagerness, going from one extreme to another.
***
Vincent, a recent friend of Gustav's with whom they had occasionally discussed things that were in the back of every man's mind, was due to visit him that afternoon. They usually talked, looking out at the darkness of the forest from the second floor of the mansion.
"Vin, what would you say are the main distinguishing features of the current stage of humanity? Well, for society, for people as a society," Gustav asked.
Vincent, apparently not quite expecting a question about something general rather than about a person as a person, didn't even show any sign of being uncomfortable with such questions, but thought, "You know, you can't really tell. Maybe latency? Striving for balance. The ancient peoples didn't have that. Neither did the Middle Ages. No one thought about any kind of measure – they just took the maximum always. And it always ended badly. As time went on, there was less of this greed. And now, apparently, there is something that suppresses this greed. Latency. Apparently, both society and the state have it. It's just that they all have it to different degrees.
– That's a good point. It used to be really about making the most of things. At least in the example of colonies. In the ancient world, colonies were just part of a state with a special status based mainly on remoteness. In Modern times, it came to the point that a colony could even have its own conventional king, and that the order at the same time in different colonies of the same metropolis could be different. And when the colonial system ended, the system of global lending and investment came into being. Softer and softer, then only to hold on tighter. – Yes, I didn't really think of that… Although what you said about lending is, of course, brilliantly done. It's been working for more than half a century, since the U.S. started implementing the Marshall Plan – loans to those who would renounce communism. Here is a loan for you, but spend it wherever we want, on a factory that will produce what we need and sell it to us at a price we tell ourselves. And the loan itself – "How much do we owe? 2 billion? No money? Pay 2 and a half next year. No money again? Pay next year 3 and a half." Then someone comes to power who doesn't want to do as they say, and they tell him: "Pay now". The country has a crisis, defaults, then a new government. The new government turns out to be "smarter", and they also allow them not to pay their debts on time, just increasing them every year, until someone new and uncooperative comes in. I think it's very simple. And ingenious.
Gustav smiled. He liked this approach to things. Always liked it – whether someone suited you or not, always look at how they do something. Learn, not envy. It's much more useful and productive.
"You say that about Americans. – said Gustav, turning his eyes with interest from the treetops to his interlocutor. – As if you were counseling them on these matters."
The Spaniard smiled, his swarthy features gleaming slightly, yet retaining a certain masculine roughness; he was certainly popular with the women: black hair, almost as black as the earth, tactful manners, strikingly precise and quick in character, and very successful, giving no doubt about the legality of his illegal income.
"Gustav, you remember what I do… My father did the same thing for Franco – the dictator always had problems with his neighbors and with everyone around him, especially after he was the only tyrant in Western Europe, and he'd cooperated with the Nazis before that, not everyone was sure they'd want him in his place… But you had to survive…" Vincent waggled his eyebrow, as if trying to confirm his thought with more than just words, and then continued: "You can't survive without oil in the modern world, you know, and it's a very fast commodity, a tradable commodity – the livelier the economy, the faster it eats it up, nobody ever thought about the population… So that's what I'm getting at. From the outside, it looks very vague that you can hold on to some left transportation for a long and stable time, but it is not so. And it's everywhere "not so" – any thing, any process, seemingly impermanent, can actually become so. And, believe me, in time, when you work out and adjust everything, smuggling is much easier and faster than crowding and fiddling with filling out declarations and going through customs inspections. And the best example is the flow of drugs from Latin America to the United States. It seems that they catch it in containers along the whole route and strangle it at the production sites, but it does not become less… Actually, what I am saying. Americans. They're hated all over the planet, I guess. It's like they behave defiantly, live at the expense of others. Well, that's true, of course, but it didn't just fall out of the sky. It all came from their system. System, that's what I'm saying. It's all done "scientifically", let's say. Like the Roman Empire used to be. Like McDonald's now. It's very simple, very clear, very well practiced. And, most importantly, there are general rules that have to be observed. For example, in the U.S. system of government, such a system is called "checks and balances" – one body does not let the other go beyond its limits, and the entire state apparatus is permeated in this way. And so is the legal system, and so are elections. Of course, everything is not perfect, but no one has ever thought of anything better. "Worthy," Gustav nodded. His interlocutor's monologue clearly satisfied him in the part of the answer, and it was evident that this answer had long been formed, thought over, corrected, but perhaps submitted to someone for evaluation for the first time.
"So, my father, when he started smuggling crude oil for Franco, had also heard enough that his volumes would accomplish nothing, because only large-scale government volumes, possible only by open means, made sense, and he said that anything systemic mattered. And he turned out to be right… Of course, his achievements did not cover all the needs, but it was enough to survive in those conditions, especially when his methods were applied in different directions". This time the Irishman said nothing. It was clear that he agreed. He only nodded – his interlocutor had given him some thoughts about what was missing from the whole. Just that systematicity. I mean, it was there, of course, on some level, but it was all grounded and developed empirically, after a number of mistakes and misconceptions. There was no doubting Gustav's skill and ability to manipulate people and provoke the right situations, but it worked on a case-bycase basis – there was no common goal or connection in all this… And it was worth doing.
