Читать книгу The Geese That Lay The Golden Eggs - Nicola Maria Vitola - Страница 15

Strange the coincidences in life, because Mary’s story also has links with Ivory Coast. And quite by chance, Michael needs to go precisely to Abidjan to clinch a deal. He intends to leave the marines and plans to set up a diamond import-export business with his severance pay.

A million carats worth of diamonds a year are extracted in Ivory Coast. So, Michael, who is planning his future business and success, has an appointment with a manager from the mines who will suggest the right quantities of precious stones to export, the purchase prices and the sales prices on the European markets.

The forecast is for huge profits, so the Marine has ploughed all his savings into getting together the sum to be paid in advance to start his export business to Europe. He has a lot of money set aside because he earns more than eight thousand dollars a month. Then he’ll pay the manager of the mines the contractual balance with his military service severance pay.

Mind you! The most exciting part of the plan, as told by Michael, is that he’ll start his journey towards Europe with Italy, Rome, where he’ll stop off to embrace Mary, and plan their future together; to crown their dream of a happy union and looking ahead - why not - even get married.

After another week of online chat, with Michael’s usual loving attentions, the anticipated time of departure for the Ivory Coast comes around.

He calls her as soon as he gets to Abidjan and tells her he’s had a good journey. They’ll talk again online the following day.

Instead three long days go by with no sign of Michael. Mary starts to worry, she doesn’t know what to put this silence down to. She’s anxious. Then she finally receives a call from Ivory Coast. The person contacting her is a doctor in a clinic who tells her that Michael is seriously ill. He was taken to hospital after being attacked by three criminals. He’s having an operation on his spleen. It was Michael himself who begged the doctor to contact her, because before going under the knife (he’s very seriously injured the poor man) he thought about Mary knowing she’d be worried and asked them (we imagine in a faint whisper) to contact his woman.

The doctor talks at length to Mary (almost as though he hasn’t got much else to do) and ends the telephone call by informing her that the following day Michael himself will probably be able to call her.

Worried out of her mind Mary sends him messages, without any result. Then the following day she sees a photo of him, sent to her smartphone. His face is swollen, it looks painful. The operation has gone well he explains, speaking softly and painfully. They’ve removed his spleen. He must rest until he recovers.

He tells her that his attackers stole 90 thousand dollars off him. He has nothing now until he’s paid his severance money. He hasn’t even got the money to pay the clinic. What’s more he’s signed the contract with the manager of the mines and he must cover the cheque he paid as a guarantee. He wouldn’t want to ask her for help for anything in the world, but he’s desperate!

Mary can’t really understand why he went around with so much cash on him and she asks him. Michael explains that he was going to deposit it at the bank in Abidjan, to cover the cheque for 50 thousand dollars he paid as an advance on the diamond shipment agreement. Upset, he explains his position to her, tormenting himself because he knows it isn’t normal to turn to her to ask for help. He’d rather die, but he’s deeply distressed! He’s got to find a solution because if he doesn’t cover the cheque the deal will fall through, and he’ll also have to pay a fine.

The rest of the story unfortunately, as you can imagine, is an impoverishment of poor Mary in favour of the crook, who is not called Michael, but is a young African and part of a gang specialised in romance scams.