Both of them were acquainted with Vivien’s story though, Professor Frederic was at the centre while Professor Bourgh was not. Each of them tried his utmost to be the winner in the secret race against all other male members of the managing team whose intention and official task was to manage Vivien’s case. Professor Frederic very skilfully excluded his colleague from all meetings and decisions of the managing team by giving him some work to do each time such meetings took place. Thus Professor Bourgh was only formally a member of the managing team.
Early in the morning, all the members of the managing team assembled in the conference hall of the University Hospital to discuss the details in connection with the forthcoming interview. Each of them was an expert in a special field.
Ms Panther, for example, was a lawyer and her main field of activity was legal protection for children and adolescents. She was very tall, tough and wiry and already in her fifties. As she was always so terribly busy and under a lot of pressure she simply could not afford not to smoke. Although she smoked all day long she used her cigarette lighter only once – when she lit her first cigarette in the morning. Her voice was hoarse, and she seemed to be somewhat proud of that, because she was convinced that everybody took her more seriously because of her rough voice. Despite her remarkable career she was convinced that men were privileged. When she happened to speak about women’s rights she repeatedly used the word ‘alas’. She thought that she and all women were victims of natural injustice, because they were born as women, however she never thought of changing her sex; she couldn’t do that she says. Of course, she never gave a clear explanation as to why not, but she sometimes quite spontaneously said that she hated men. In spite of all that, she did whatever she could to bring her way of life as close as possible to that of men. She was convinced that she did that in her own very original way, and therefore she considered herself to be very creative. For instance, she only rarely wore a skirt, and if she did, then only an extremely short one. She preferred a pair of padded jeans that made her meagre bottom appear suspiciously round and bulging. Her favourite footwear was a pair of very long brightly-coloured high-heeled boots that made her look a sort of prairie maiden that lonesome cowboys dream and sing about. She, of course, had no idea that she looked like a prairie maiden. In fact, she considered cowboys and everything about them as very primitive and lacking even in basic culture. She regarded herself as a free spirit, a superb intellectual, a brilliant mind, much ahead of her time. She joined the managing team around Vivien as soon as it became known that Vivien was alive, because she was convinced that it would be a great mistake to miss the unique opportunity to help Vivien bridge the gap between her previous life she had just left behind and her new life she was just about to start.
Immediately after her sudden emerging, Vivien was put in quarantine in the University Hospital where she was protected from the curious public in general and from all sorts of paparazzi in particular. During those first few hours when Vivien was still in the police station, Ms Panther had the privilege of being the first woman to see her and to speak to her. She had never seen Vivien before, apart from her photos in the newspaper immediately after the tragic event had happened, but that was years before. When she saw Vivien at the police station she had been impressed, even more than that, she had been overwhelmed by her personality, especially by her resolution, she said. In the first moment she wanted to tell her to take a few weeks’ holiday, somewhere far away from all the fuss and to-do and enjoy the sun and the sea and have a good rest after the long time of tribulation. But she could not utter these words of advice, because she had immediately noticed that Vivien couldn’t be talked out of her ideas. After a long conversation with Vivien she realised that Vivien didn’t want to be hidden from the world against her will any longer.
“Vivien’s sense of mission is incredible,” Ms Panther repeated again and again. Her remark that Vivien’s unique energy should not be shielded from the world, for that would be an enormous loss for the reading public but, instead, properly channelled and managed was an important contribution to the discussion of the managing team.
Being serious professionals, all the members of the managing team had more or less the same ideas when it came to proper management of Vivien’s case. However, each of them had those same ideas in his own way.
Mr Corner, the country’s leading media advisor, for example, had a very clear plan of what should be done. He had hatched his plan in his large and luxurious office in his Media Agency. It was an impressive building in one of the most prestigious quarters of the town. The furniture in his office was of the finest quality, very modern and extremely expensive. All the doors and windows in his agency were made of chromium steel and bullet-proof glass. They were designed to radiate firmness and transparency and they were always impeccably polished and clean. He said on different occasions that his office was furnished to fit the taste and standard of his clients. His clients could feel that, of course, each time they had the privilege of paying the bills. They felt honoured because the amount of the bills strengthened their awareness of belonging to the first rank. Although he made no secret of being proud of his wealth he did not like to be regarded just as a rich man but as someone with a keen interest in art and culture. His adviser in business matters was also confidant. Mr Corner trusted his loyalty and his taste. Years earlier on his advice Mr Corner had started collecting works of modern art years earlier. Now his collection of modern art was second to none in the country, where – by the way – all well-off people buy works of art and try to have their own art collection. Even his office chair was a product of great artistic fantasy and craftsmanship. He bought it at an auction and paid a lot of money for it. It used to belong to an extravagant billionaire who had all the armchairs in his favourite night bar in one of his numerous villas covered with the skin of the penises of young whales. Those who were in a position to prevent him from doing that showed due understanding for his sophisticated appreciation of beauty and could not resist the temptation of accepting the opulent bribe he offered them. That billionaire had died a long time ago, however his unique armchairs, the witnesses of his sophisticated, extravagant artistic appreciation, were now all duly housed in offices and lounges of the people who have the same taste. One of the armchairs had found its way to Mr Corner’s office. It was a luxurious piece of furniture covered with extremely soft golden-yellow leather made of the skin taken from the most sensitive part of the body of an Atlantic whale killed for that purpose. The official justification for killing of whales was, of course, that the whales were inevitable for scientific purposes.
Mr Corner’s six-day long greying beard was always neatly trimmed. In every conversation he unfailingly pointed out the importance of being intellectually active. He did it especially when he spoke about the latest models of sports cars. In fact, sports cars were an inexhaustible topic of conversation for him. If you happened to get involved in a conversation with him and if you merely knew the names of different car makes without being acquainted with the different models of the same make, you certainly ran the risk of being considered by him a tragic ignoramus.
His sphere of activity was enormous and his service to society simply inestimable if one considers the fact that he was the adviser of the country’s leading employers as well as of the country’s leading trade unions. He advised at the same time the perpetrators of a crime as well as their victims. When he advised them he equally encouraged both sides to continue claiming the maximum, because he adored cockfights. The bleeding cocks themselves, although engaged in fierce fighting against each other, appreciated his urging support. His words of encouragement were a kind of soothing balm to their wounds. Being an excellent mediator he did a lot of useful official work for dictators and criminal governments of foreign countries as well as most dangerous individuals all round the world and helped them to be heard and accepted by the world community. He perfected the art of smoothing out even the gravest cases of embezzlement and making even the most obvious cases of corruption appear absolutely insignificant. Thus he seemed completely to call his work benevolent mediation. Therefore it is no wonder that he was thought of very highly in all social circles.
He was aware of his unique position and of his influence and, officially, it was only for that reason that he wanted