Without in any way wanting to admit defeat, Carlos Bopoulos, president of the fast-declining European Commission, had been forced to accept the invitation of the German Ambassador in Brussels to attend the garden party the latter was hosting to celebrate the success of the referendum on the European Federation.
The referendum had been held in all the nine, federating countries at the same day and information and communications leading up to that moment had also been streamlined in all countries. Release and happiness was all over when, above expectations, in most of the countries the Yes vote was around a ninety-five percent. The only meagre results came from Finland and the Netherlands with a Yes percentage of respectively fifty-two and fifty-four, but this could not temper the joy among the populations.
For Carlos Bopoulos and his attempts to put a bar in the wheel of the federating process, the outcome of the referendum had been a blow, although deep in his heart he had expected that the populations in the nine countries would favour the best way out of the Euro crisis.
Sitting at the back seat of the black Mercedes in which he was being driven to the German residence, Carlos was preparing himself for the many awkward questions he might receive from other attending Ambassadors and diplomats over the future of the European Union of twenty-seven, now that the most influential member states were pulling out to join a federation. Admitting defeat was one thing; going to a celebration party to make it public was something else. That Carlos Bopoulos accepted the invitation was not only to keep all balls in the air, but perhaps also to expose that he was a man who bear setbacks without bitterness. Never know how things might in the end favour him and by that he was not thinking of the gesture of the Spanish Prime Minister who offered him the Spanish nationality.
Come to think of it, the British Prime Minister had kept his distance from the moment Carlos reported that their agreed undermining actions to halt the participation of Spain and Italy in the Federation had not been successful. Albeit, the silence of the British Prime Minister was remarkable as he at least one day had hinted at having a stick: the affair with Clara. On the other hand, it was possible that the Prime Minister had some data over the fact that the whole Clara business had dissolved itself much more easily than expected. Carlos had simply refused to answer any of her phone calls, but at the same time he had twice transferred an amount of Euros to her account, and although she had never reacted he believed that his transfers had been recognized by her as the promised compensation.
Then there was the rest of the EU-27, that is to say, the eighteen mainly small and weak countries, who—with the exception of Britain—even before the referendum, had started in a pragmatic way to look into the consequences of the European Federation for their economies, and how not to be side-lined. Those who were in the Euro zone were mainly looking into the consequences of staying in the Euro zone without having any political control on the currency, more or less in a similar position to countries using the US dollar as their currency in other parts of the world.
Others, those not in the Euro zone, were working out possibilities to join with the Federation in a common market, considering that this would be the best option for continuing the economic advantages of the EU in the past, be it now in a far better structured way.
Of course, the British were hardly participating in any of these future projections of the rest of EU-27. London was back on the island and looking for a far greater alternative. As Carlos had seen on the BBC, a new round of heated debates had started over the British decision to join the EU, about staying out of the euro, about the priority of transatlantic partnership, and about the value of the loss of British influence on mainland Europe as a consequence of the Federation.
But, over and again, the British Prime Minister on the screen tried to calm things down by suggesting waiting and seeing since putting the idea of a federation into practise was not going to be easy, as history had proven. The mere fact that in the past ten years it had been almost impossible to agree among the member states on simple things like one pension age or on the same number of holidays per year in all EU countries was proof that making the federation work would be extremely difficult, not in the least with great, inflexible countries like France.
All these debates and developments were of utter importance for the president of the European Commission, who overnight had passed from being the political boss of EU-27 with quiet a number of globally influential countries, to being the PressCom of seventeen or eighteen mainly periphery countries excluded from the centre. So every time the naked truth of this reality crossed his mind, Carlos Bopoulos experienced problems with breathing. Even more, the dominance of the new European Federation changed the terms of any negotiation on the continent, and with the exception of Britain, the future for the seventeen excluded countries under his guidance would be one of adhesion to the proposals of the Federation and not vice verse.
* * *
When the black Mercedes arrived at the residence of the German Ambassador, a dark blue BMW quickly past and thereafter stopped in front of them. In the manoeuvre with far too much speed, the side mirror of the Mercedes was hit and with a bang fall apart in many pieces. Immediately after the hit, the four men involved: two drivers, Carlos Bopoulos, President of the European Commission, and the German, Joachim Steckman, Commissioner for Competition, approached the place with the broken mirror.
Standing alongside the Mercedes, Steckman instantly started scolding the driver of Bopoulos while totally neglecting the President of the European Commission who actually was his superior. It took Carlos Bopoulos by surprise. Who would have thought that the arrogance would pop up so quickly just hours after the success of the referendum?
“Hey, hey, Steckman, the crash was caused by your driver and you know it. And wouldn’t it be better to leave the matter for the two drivers to solve?” a highly irritated Carlos screamed. But instead of answering, Steckman almost demonstratively turned his back on Carlos Bopoulos and instructed his driver in German to make sure that no form was filled with any accusation in it, before he strolled away in the direction of the garden, leaving Bopoulos gasping for air.
“Monsieur le Président de la Commission, soyez le bienvenu.” Unclear if the German Ambassador had observed the incident, but he was advancing amicably over the lawn in the direction of Carlos.
Bopoulos tried to put bad memory aside as he rushed towards the German exclaiming, “Toutes mes felicitations for the outcome of the referendum. This was the most successful German-French initiative in modern history!”
As they met, they embraced warmly and during the act the German Ambassador murmured close to the ears of Bopoulos that his secretary had been calling for him already twice; it was urgent.
The first reaction of Carlos was to search for—but not find—his Blackberry he probably left it in his office. Consequently he accepted the invitation of the Ambassador to use the phone in the library, and it was there that Carlos Bopoulos got the information that a police inspector was waiting for him in the office and that things were too important to wait for tomorrow. So he had no other choice than a quick farewell, promising he would eventually return and be driven back to his office. Truth be told, he was happy to be able to prematurely leave the party of the federation triumphs.
* * *
On his way back to the office, he was naturally praying that neither his wife nor his daughters were involved in an accident because this is what people usually think when a police inspector is waiting for them.
Accordingly, back in the Rue de la Loi he rushed to his office on the third floor, to find a large female police inspector in the forties waiting in the corridor. However, with her sleazy blonde hair, red apple cheeks under small watery blue eyes, and her uniform spanning tight over her belly, she looked more like a big mama than a keeper of law and order.
“Inspector Leni Boor, Brussels Police,” she said pulling a plump hand in his direction.
“Brussels police,” Carlos repeated, “Carlos Boloulos, sorry that I kept you waiting. Can I be of any help?”
Inspector Boor was looking straight in the eyes of Carlos as she suggested that they would close the door first and then sat down on the comfortable sofa across his desk. Carlos automatically obeyed but while he was following her orders he was only trying to read any bad news from her eyes.
“Mr. Bopoulos, I will be frank with you, it is about Clara Polar.”
“What about her?” he said, and he first felt relieved that his daughters were okay before his mind started fighting with images of Clara in a car accident.
“So, can I conclude that you admit knowing Clara Polar?”
“I am sorry, is she okay? What is this all about?”
“Clara Polar is okay under the circumstances. Any chance the two of you had a sexual relation Mr. Bopoulos?”
“Inspector, I will give an answer to that, but then you will first have to explain to me what is going on.”
“Clara Polar has filled a serious allegation against you at the police station in Brussels North this morning.”
At the last words of the inspector, Carlos gasped and his mind was racing in all directions ending with a vile vision of Clara handing a written accusation over his presumed abuse of her, probably with the help of friends.
“Inspector, can you tell me what allegation?” Carlos tried biting back as frowns collected his forehead.
“Of course Mr. Bopoulos, that is why I am here.”
Inspector Boor was now taking out some papers from a brown bag on her laps, and with her eyes moving by turn from his face to a paper in her hands she started, “According to Clara Polar, the two of you till recently had a sexual relation and over a period of four months. After you suddenly rejected further contact, she had a routine medical control a week ago and the results, presented to her two days after the check-up, shockingly diagnosed her HIV-positive. As she had no other sexual relation, neither before, nor after the love affair with you, the AIDS infection could only have come from you.”
“Utterly nonsense!
“Moreover, Clara Polar is convinced that you knew that you were having AIDS and deliberately infected her. Mr. Bopoulos, this is a very serious allegation for which you could be arrested immediately, as we would have to make sure that you could not make more victims in the time between the investigations and court ruling.”
“Inspector Boor, I am shocked. This woman is a criminal. This is her revenge for me breaking up with her. She is crazy. To think that I would deliberately infect her makes me a criminal. And why would the police believe her? We have not had any contact for the last months so she could have been infected by someone else.”
“Mr. Bopoulos, there are two things playing against you in this case. First, you seem to have been telling Clara Polar by repetition about an affair you had in Goa, India, about a year ago with a twenty-six-year-old woman who at one stage in her life had been exposed to risky sexual activity.”
“No Inspector, Clara is making things up. Yes, I have told her about a relation in Goa, but it was a simple affair of two people attracted to each other, and I swear, the Indian women had no such thing as risky sexual activity. Clara’s accusations are based on revenge, lies, and fantasy, perhaps hatred. All I hear you reporting are pathetic lies and utterly nonsense from a dangerous charlatan.”
“Perhaps Mr. Bopoulos, for God’s sake, you should let me continue with the clarification of the allegations. I have it here on paper. These are words of Clara Polar. You will have to falsify her accusation by proving the opposite. I can assure you, the statement is rather consistent and I have personally been taking a great risk by not summoning you to the police station. But as I am a very humane person I have come to your office to give you the opportunity to give me another perspective on the case before I take any of the steps I am supposed to take as a police officer. I am hired to put the justice machinery and the victim protection procedures into working without getting involved. So are you willing to cooperate?”
An even more bewildered Carlos Bopoulos lifted himself from the sofa, loosened his tie, opened the collar of his shirt to be able to inhale some more air, and walked around the room. In reaction to Inspector Boor’s advice that he should cooperate, he was nervously gesturing with his hands that he was willing to do so, as he seemed to have lost his voice.
The inspector continued, “Am I right if I say that you just confirmed, Mr. Bopoulos, that you had a sexual affair with an Indian woman in Goa almost a year ago, right?”
Carlos confirmed by nodding his head. He felt bilious.
Inspector Boor sustained, “It was a simple vendor in a small shop of handicrafts near the hotel in which you were staying with your wife and your two adolescent daughters. You need to know that according to Clara Polar—and she has given a detailed description of things as you seemed to have told her the experience more than once—from the moment you entered the shop, you were attracted by the Indian women with her beautiful, deep, velvet eyes looking mysteriously at you while you started telling her in a humoristic way about the daily life in Brussels. She had never left Goa and as very few people came into her shop, your visits and your entertaining stories were most welcome. While your wife and children were on the beach, believing that you were reading a book in the garden of the hotel, you would pass up to two hours with the vendor in her shop. Already at the first day you noted that the vendor was melting down like butter in the sun for your anecdotes; her dark eyes in laughter were following every movement of your lips, as she was leaning towards you over the counter. Next you became aware that you were almost hypnotizing her with your words as she was slightly opening her lips, and you could see her eyes glazed with a covert desire.
By the second day, it was in the air that you would end up making love with her, but it happened on the third day. It happened just after she had told you her own life history. Starting with her arranged marriage at the age of sixteen and her repudiation at the age of twenty-four as she seemed infertile, she had explained, looking shy, that she had been thrown out of the house by her mother in law after her husband had announced her repudiation to Allah. Thereafter, she wandered in the streets of Goa for many days before an older woman offered her shelter. In exchange, she cleaned the place and cooked, but after three weeks she was invited to accompany her benefactress to a bar, to find out that around six women more or less of her age were all supposed to entertain the guests physically. For three nights she was forced to do so and the fourth night she finally managed to run away and found refuge in a Catholic nunnery in the centre of Goa. The sisters helped her to start her handicraft shop some months later. So, after three days, you passionately made love to her on an old sofa behind the counter and, from then onwards, every day, till you and your family left for Brussels six days later. Ten months later, according to Clara Polar, you must have found out having been infected with AIDS, which made you so enraged that you started looking for a victim. And so you infected her, Clara Polar.”
“Inspector Boor, stop it please; these are, at best, half-truths, I can assure you.” Carlos recovered his voice, although his eyes were looking thoroughly frightened.
“Mr. Bopoulos, I am almost there, please let me finish. I have seen the test results of Clara Polar. No doubt, she is HIV-positive. So tell me Sir, have you at any time in the past year submitted yourself to a medical check-up and would you be able to show me the results?
Often at check-ups doctors also ask for testing on sexually transmitted diseases.”
“No, inspector, I have not. I am only controlling my blood pressure.”
“Okay, before anything else, Mr. Bopoulos, I want you to go for a check on sexual transmitted diseases. Tomorrow, ultimately the day after tomorrow, and if you are cleared, you are a free man. If not, your misery will start. I probably will have to arrest you. You will have to inform your wife, putting your marriage at risk. You will have to appear in court. And on top of that, with your status, media will hunt you down.”
Lamely, Bopoulos returned to the sofa, and speaking now as a broken man he murmured,
“Inspector Boor, don’t you see that Clara Polar is trying to break me, my family, and my career?”
“Mr. Bopoulos, first you do the test for eventual falsification of the allegations. If disappointing, you will have to find yourself a good lawyer. And for now, I want you to sign this document for me. It states that I had a first interrogation and granted you forty-eight hours to deliver a medical test report.”
After a quick glance at the document, Carlos exclaimed, “I cannot, it states that I made love to the Indian women more than once. False, it was only once.”
“Mr. Bopoulos, I am not convinced and it looks like you will have a hard time convincing any judge. It is common knowledge that adultery occurs, but what is still expected from all of us is that we protect those we love or make love to. They must be able to trust us for that, Mr. Bopoulos. You were, be it indirect, told beforehand in Goa that there was a risk, and nevertheless you broke the code towards your wife and Clara Polar alike. It is possible that a verdict will be built on the fact that with your behaviour you proved to be selfish and never more trustable. But I have trusted you coming to your office, so please sign here. This does not imply that you agree with the allegations of Clara Polar, but only that I have informed you on the content.”
* * *
To make things worse, Inspector Boor hardly entered the elevator at the third floor on her way out when Carlos who was rushing back to his office after letting her out heard his Blackberry ringing on his desk. It was a call from the British Prime Minister.
“Hello Carlos, I have not heard from you in a while, I hope everything is well.”
“Yes, I’m fine, and how can I help you?” was the cold answer of Bopoulos.
“Feel like you are running away, my friend. Is not it time for us to talk about the future of the excluding federation?”
“What is there to say Prime Minister? The referendum has been successful and things will develop independently of you and me.”
“I do not believe so. For me the future of the federation is very gloomy. It is practically impossible that these nine countries may change into one single state. In fact many others have made similar attempts in history and as far as I know, no one has succeeded, at times also with a little help from outside. And believe me Bopoulos … you are in an excellent position to support the failure. Think of Italy and Spain; these two Prime Ministers could easily be persuaded by you. I have no doubts whatsoever on your skills to intrigue.”
“I would not know what to say,” Carlos mumbled while his face was turning red. This really was not his day, but he instantly felt that he should bounce back adding, “Sorry my friend, I am not convinced, and I cannot promise you anything. Maybe you should first give things a second thought.”
“Do not give me that, Bopoulos. If you fail in your endeavour to positively correct the trajectory of Europe, a tsunami may reach Britain but also Algarve,” was the enigmatic answer of the British Prime Minister.
Apparently the conundrum was rapidly understood as Carlos, with a clear warning in his voice replied, “For some time already, I had, by references and history, some idea of how you played politics, but I would never have imagined that you would in the twenty-first century play it on the man. I don’t care what information you think you can blackmail me with, but I think you are in a mistake. Do not touch my family as I will pursue you till the end of the world. Hope I have been clear.” At his last words, he promptly hung up the telephone in the ears of the Brit, well aware that for the first time he firmly protected his family. It seemed that he was able to freely breathe again.
* * *
That night, Carlos did not sleep. He stayed awake for the full, eight hours even after drinking a sleeping pill. Luckily, when he had arrived home from the office at 8:30 pm, he found his wife and daughters away for the cinema, so he had decided to go to bed as soon as possible, thus avoiding having to look the three women he adored into their eyes. He left a note at the table in the living room, left a copy in the dining room, explaining that he was dog-tired and therefore had decided to sleep in the guest room at the third floor, as to make sure that he would not be disturbed by their home coming.
He wished them a happy goodnight and signed by writing, Love you all very much, Carlos. Hereafter, he googled HIV testing places and selected two with results in twenty-four hours, deleted the history of his search, and finally took the stairs up to the guestroom.
* * *
Lying awake and constantly turning from one side into the other, he could think of nothing else than the test, it’s possible results, and the consequences. I know I am not infected, he said to himself, and yet it was possible. He was painfully aware of the fact that many exercises of humiliation might be awaiting him and that he would have to show to his children how sorry and ashamed he was about the very bad things he had been doing. He thought of confession and repentance in the cathedral at Grand Place, but actually being an orthodox, this exercise was far from him. If tested positive, would he inform his wife? And would she inform her parents? What would papers head when he was arrested?
* * *
He managed to hide his identity at the clinic by: 1) paying cash and agreeing that he would personally collect the results at the end of the next day, 2) by twisting the information on the form he had to fill in to clarify where he thought he could have been infected, and 3) by selecting a clinic seventy-eight kilometres south of Brussels in a so-called sleeping suburb.
* * *
The two days he spent waiting for the results became days of constantly distorting information and communications towards his family and in his office, and this exhausted him completely.
Combined with more than thirty-six hours of sleeplessness and growing fears over what was lying ahead of him, he had started losing concentration, loosing calm, and even loosing memory. The man who in other—not faraway—times had been warm and lively, sympathetic, and highly entertaining with a remarkable capacity to speak and joke in several languages, that man had in little time changed into an extremely nervous, bad tempered, manic depressed, and sometimes rude person. This was in brief the state of mind of Carlos Bopoulos, at the moment when he finally collected the test results.
Positive… He did reread the word three times, but it did not disappear from the paper. Killingly, it stared at him… he had tested HIV-positive. It could have been in Goa or by Clara, who would know? What mattered most was that he thereafter might have infected his wife and that he had definitely blown his career, even if the latter had already reached troubled waters with the Federation.
Things now definitely turned uphill for him and sitting in his car with the test results in his hands and, his hands leaning at the steering wheel, he was confused and he could only think of a trip to nowhere, to an unknown place in Asia or Latin America, thousand miles away from home.
The nurse who gave him the test results had repeatedly explained that HIV infection had long time ago turned into a disease not causing death. Not in Europe, perhaps in Goa. Clara would survive, be it drinking medicine for the rest of her life financed via her health insurance, similarly to persons with diabetics drinking their medicine three times a day, the rest of their lives. He would have to do the same. So would his wife.
Alas, he was caught progressively in a terrible cobweb of shame and fear. He felt deeply depressed and completely deserted. Clearly, no one would believe that he had made love to the sympathetic Goa youngster mainly to help her to restore her self-esteem. Similarly, no-one would believe that not a single hair on his head had ever thought of infecting Clara with such a stigmatizing disease, and even more, he had always been a family man with deep warm feelings for his wife and daughters, and certainly he had never been interested in the life of a womanizer or a bachelor always on the hunt.
Nevertheless he was trapped in a disgraceful and unsolvable problem, in a labyrinth without exit. The wish to disappear forever before having to face any of his victims seemed to be the only way out for him, the only solution.
* * *
At 11:00 pm, in a breaking news flash on TV and radio all over Europe, the public was informed that the President of the European Commission, Carlos Bopoulos, had tragically died in a car accident on the E-19 highway from Brussels to Namur. Showing the wreckage of a black Mercedes, the newsreaders explained in the many languages that, around 10:15, pm the car hit a light mast in full speed at the E-19. The highway police considered it likely that the sixty-two-years-old PresCom fell asleep behind the wheel and confirmed that no alcohol was found at autopsy. Carlos Boloulos left behind a widow and two daughters. A number of Cabinet Ministers and Prime Ministers in the European Union Capitals were expressing grieve on TV and their sympathy for the wife and children of the deceased President of the European Commission.
* * *
The funeral of Carlos Bopoulos was solemn. In the Catholic Cathedral of Brussels, a morning mass was held. In attendance were his entire family, from Greek and the Portuguese side, and many Prime Ministers and Chief of States. The British Prime Minister was one of the speakers, as was the German Chancellor. Amid the saddened eulogies, the Brit added that the late Bopoulos was the only person who could have averted the European Union’s demolition. Indeed a great loss.