Chapter 3
More Chinese Food and Old Acquaintances
Recently I mentioned my friend from Moscow, Judith. When I left Moscow for holiday in 1992 and didn’t know that a lot of irksome events would follow I left in Moscow a big part of my life with the friendship to her. I saw her only once after that, she was seeing off her colleagues at the airport and I was waiting for my successor to arrive.
More than three years went by. That time I was working in Veronica’s customs service and my job was to solve problems occurring with goods between our truck drivers and customs offices. I have got a phone call from her. She explained that following a long line of attempts to get a good job in vain she had got one with a Ukrainian private company in Budapest. She gave me her phone number and sometimes we called each other. Near the end of year 1995 she called me again and said that problems might be coming to her employer and she decided to leave the firm. After that time it became impossible to speak to her, the phone didn’t answer.
Some weeks passed and she called me and said that she had gone to America and informed me about her intention to stay there. I remembered her walkman with English lessons in Moscow. She spoke English rather well, but wanted to polish her skills. I also remembered her saying me that time that it was her dream to go to America and live there. So, it meant that she was successful in doing just that.
In March she called me again, but that time she was in her home town in the country and said she risked coming home to arrange some very important things. We agreed that I was going to visit her and I did so. It was very a short encounter, but we could discuss issues long due. She also introduced me to her mother living across the road in the childhood nest. I left her with the feeling that it was a reconciliation at last.
After that time we remained in very distant touch for some years. When I left my old company and again when my Tengiz job ran out I called her by phone. I sent her a fax from L’s office and made her familiar with my tasks. She was in a hard footing as she had to work hard for a salary tailored to foreigners and was going to buy a flat of her own to start a small business. As I understood she was working in more than one job from time to time.
She came home again around that time and we met in Budapest and, although it was fine and the sun shone, it was cold weather in early spring and we were walking in a recreation area and talking. I told her that I wasn’t already very content in my job because of the tight place remaining me between P. and L. He had gained back his influence on her and was doing as he liked. In a few months I would leave the food business and become again jobless, but then already in practice too, living on the very small sum it meant.
However, until that moment I had very big tasks to do. The first one involved customs clearance. Almost five years ago L. accepted an offer of a friend in Germany for a whole container of food, beverages and various driblets of Chinese origin. It became redundant for her friend and she gave it very cheap. However, it was import wares and had to be cleared. L. had an employee then who was skilled in that work and became a professional customs agent working for forwarders after she left her. L. remembered so that there was a minor problem with clearance, but her employee made it at last. She was looking up her thick files and found the papers of the case.
This topic surfaced, because the government was short on money and wanted to find all that can be collected. The premier of the right wing government was feeling the pressure – caused in a large part by him, when in opposition he did everything to stop austerity measures of the then governing party – and turned the screws. Dead cases of customs clearance were revived and liable clients found. From an official notice sent to L. it became clear that the above mentioned clearance had not been made to end. It was confirmed by papers L. gave me too. There remained two possibilities: to finish what have not been finished or do nothing and pray that customs authorities work slowly. Namely, there remained only about three months until the end of five years from the beginning and the case would be lapsed.
L. was of the opinion that doing nothing is risky. I went to my former colleagues and they filled in the proper forms. Together with the old ones I took them to the same customs office that wrote us the notice. At first it looked that the customs authority would not forgive us and our company would have to pay a large fine. But fate decided otherwise. As bureaucracy was working indeed very slowly, our case reached lapsing time.
The same bureau was causing another problem for us. Also with the same container of import goods. There were bottles of lichee wine in that container. Chinese taste is different from that of Europeans, but taste cannot be a matter of debate. Lichee wine is worse than any swill. But Chinese cannot live without it. The problem it caused sprang from the same root: need of funds for the government. A law had been passed about classifying certain types of wine as taxable. Its original aim was to tax so called dabbled beverages, while ordinary grape wine was not charged. A law is always as good as well it can be put into practice. That law was free to interpret as customs and tax authorities wanted. They decided lichee wine was taxable and the company would have to pay excise duty on its turnover beside fine for not reporting to the authorities in time. I tried to apply to turn the fine away – it was many times that of the value of the goods – and collect only excise duty. It was rejected and the customs office sued the company. However, I managed to solve the problem by taking a sample to the laboratory of the Agrarian University and had it analyze. By its ingredients it was no beverage liable to excise duty and we won the case.
Another big task was to deter a malicious person who wanted L. to move out of the property and let him give the rented area to another company. He was the elected representative of the condominium that owned the block of apartments. L’s place has always been a shop, during the time I was shuttling by thirty five years ago and so, there was a haberdasher’s shop in those rooms. Its location was excellent and the representative wanted to terminate L’s contract, because she hadn’t asked for his permission to apply at the electricity works for a higher performance main switch. To tell the truth I don’t remember how I could silence him, but I managed it.
With her cars and van L. had limited success. Although the Volvo was almost new and in a good condition, it was a big drain for her funds for the significant maintenances activity it needed. This car was necessary however for her, as she lived outside town and was driving also her children to school. The other car was known to me for a long time, as it was parked in front of the office, but I didn’t know that it was hers. It has never been in use. However, about three months after my starting the work there, there was a great bustle in the office as I arrived. L. was coming earlier and she saw the car open. Someone broke in and stole some parts from the engine compartment, including the alarm system. It was my job to organize repair and it cost a considerable sum. It was in vain as at the end of that year L’s son had an accident with it – nobody hurt – and we had to sell it as a wreck.
The van was stolen not much after that in the spring. Someone in the flat next to our office had seen the act of theft during the night, but he thought it was L’s crew and told us about it only when he heard news the next day. It has never been recovered and it was a complete loss as there was no insurance covering theft on it. L. wanted to buy another car with a station wagon back, but didn’t happen. It was again P’s influence. I wanted her to by a Polish pick-up made on a South-Korean licence, but he convinced her to ask for an offer from a dealer offering also misty benefits together with it. Of course it would cost twice as much as the Polish one. It couldn’t be bought, because L. didn’t have the means for it.
My last tasks with the company didn’t involve my professional knowledge I have been hired for. The problems of competitors, lack of funds, the true Chinese management style of L. and the unavoidable hitches brought by the aimless spiritual relationship between L. and P. (not unlike that between Rasputin and the last Russian tsarina) took the ground out from under the food business of this small firm. Only travel remained and it was dominated by Jenny, L’s co-manager.
Thirteen month after my joining her firm I asked L. to sit down and let’s speak about how much she needed my work. She looked relieved as she didn’t have the courage to initiate this step. I had a great “if” in my mind, i.e. if it were proper to tell her about the true nature of P. or weren’t. I decided not to inform her, but with the accounting firm I made an accord that if they were to feel it proper at any time, they would inform her about my efforts to clean the face of the company.