Sons of Fortune Read online

  “Mr. Davenport, you do like to give a girl a lot of notice, don’t you?”

  “What are you up to?” asked Su Ling as she leaned across to watch her husband checking over a column of figures on the financial pages of the Asian Business News.

  “Studying currency movements over the past year,” Nat replied.

  “Is that how Japan fits into the equation?” inquired Su Ling.

  “Sure is,” said Nat, “because the yen is the only major currency in the past ten years that has consistently risen in value against the dollar, and several economists are predicting that the trend will continue for the foreseeable future. They claim the yen is still massively undervalued. If the experts are correct, and you’re right about Japan’s expanding role in new technology, then I think I’ve identified a good investment in an uncertain world.”

  “Is this to be the subject of your business school thesis?”

  “No, however that’s not a bad idea,” said Nat. “I was thinking of making a small currency investment and if I prove to be right, I’ll notch it up a few dollars each month.”

  “A bit of a risk, isn’t it?”

  “If you hope to make a profit, there’s bound to be a certain amount of risk involved. The secret is to eliminate the elements that add to that risk.” Su Ling didn’t look convinced. “I’ll tell you what I have in mind,” said Nat. “I’m currently earning $400 a month as a captain in the army. If I sell those dollars a year in advance for yen at today’s rate, then convert them back in twelve months’ time, and if the dollar-yen exchange rate continues as it has done for the past seven years, I should make an annual profit of around $400 to $500.”

  “And if it goes the other way?” said Su Ling.

  “But it hasn’t for the past seven years.”

  “But if it did?”

  “I’d lose around $400, or a month’s salary.”

  “I’d rather have a guaranteed paycheck each month.”

  “You can never create capital on earned income,” said Nat. “Most people live well beyond their means, and their only form of savings ends up as life insurance or bonds, both of which can be decimated by inflation. Ask my father.”

  “But what do we need all this money for?” asked Su Ling.

  “For my lovers,” said Nat.

  “And where are all these lovers?”

  “Most of them are in Italy, but there are a few others hanging around in the world’s major capitals.”

  “So that’s why we’re going to Venice?”

  “And Florence, Milan and Rome. When I left them, many were in the nude, and one of the things I most liked about them is they don’t age, other than to crack a little if they’re exposed to too much sunlight.”

  “Lucky women,” said Su Ling. “And do you have a favorite?”

  “No, I’m fairly promiscuous, though if I were forced to choose, I confess there is a lady in Florence who resides in a small palace, whom I adore, and am longing to meet up with again.”

  “Is she a virgin, by any chance?” inquired Su Ling.

  “You’re bright,” said Nat.

  “Goes by the name of Maria?”

  “You’ve found me out, although there are a lot of Marias in Italy.”

  “The Adoration of the Magi, Tintoretto.”

  “No.”

  “Bellini, Mother and Child?”

  “No, they still reside at the Vatican.”

  Su Ling went silent for a moment as the stewardess asked them to fasten their seatbelts. “Caravaggio?”

  “Very good. I left her in the Pitti Palace on the right-hand wall of the third-floor gallery. She promised she would be faithful until I returned.”

  “And there she will remain, because such a lover would cost you more than $400 a month, and if you’re still hoping to go into politics, you won’t even be able to afford the frame.”

  “I won’t be going into politics until I can afford the whole gallery,” Nat assured his wife.

  Annie began to appreciate why the British could be so dismissive about American tourists who somehow managed to cover London, Oxford, Blenheim and Stratford in three days. It didn’t help when she observed busloads of tourists descending on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, take their seats, and then leave during the intermission, to be replaced by another busload of her countrymen. Annie wouldn’t have thought it possible, if she hadn’t returned after the intermission to find the two rows in front of her full of people with familiar accents whom she had never seen before. She wondered if those who attended the second act told those who watched the first act what had happened to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or was that busload already on its way back to London?

  Annie felt less guilty after they’d spent a leisurely ten days in Scotland. They enjoyed being in Edinburgh for the Festival, where they could choose between Marlowe and Mozart, or Pinter and Orton. However, for both of them, the highlight of the trip was the long drive up and down the two coastlines. The scenery was so breathtaking they thought there could be no more beautiful landscape on earth.

  In Edinburgh, they tried to trace the Gates and the Davenport lineage, but all they ended up with was a large colored chart of the clans, and a skirt made in the garish Davenport tartan, which Annie doubted she would ever wear again once they were back in the States.

  Fletcher fell asleep within minutes of their plane taking off from Edinburgh for New York. When he woke, the sun that he’d seen dip on one side of the cabin still hadn’t risen on the other. As they began their descent into JFK—Annie couldn’t get used to it not being called Idlewilde—all Annie could think about was being reunited with Lucy, while Fletcher anxiously looked forward to his first day with Alexander Dupont & Bell.

  When Nat and Su Ling returned from Rome, they were also exhausted, but the change of plans could not have been more worthwhile. Su Ling had relaxed more and more as each day passed; in fact during the second week, neither of them even mentioned Korea. They agreed on their flight home to tell Su Ling’s mother that they had honeymooned in Italy. Only Tom would be puzzled.

  While Su Ling slept, Nat once again studied the currency market in the International Herald Tribune and London’s Financial Times. The trend continued unabated, a dip, a slight recovery, followed by another dip, but the long-term graph was only going one way for the yen, and in the opposite direction from the dollar. This was also true for the yen against the mark, the pound and the lira, and Nat decided to continue researching which of the exchange rates had the greatest disparity. Just as soon as they were back in Boston he would talk to Tom’s father, and use the currency department at Russell’s Bank rather than reveal his ideas to someone he didn’t know.

  Nat glanced across at his sleeping wife, grateful for her suggestion that he make exchange rates the subject of his final-year thesis at business school. His time at Harvard would pass all too quickly, and he realized that he could not put off a decision that would affect both their futures. They had already discussed the three possible options: he could look for a job in Boston so that Su Ling could remain at Harvard, but as she had pointed out, that would limit his horizons. He could take up Mr. Russell’s offer and join Tom at a large bank in a small town, but that would seriously curtail his future prospects. Or he could apply for a job on Wall Street and find out if he could survive in the big league.

  Su Ling wasn’t in any doubt which of the three options he should pursue, and although they had some time to consider their future, she was already talking to her contacts at Columbia.

  25

  Looking back on his final year at Harvard, Nat had had few regrets.

  Only hours after touching down at Logan International, he’d phoned Tom’s father to share his currency ideas. Mr. Russell pointed out that the sums he wished to deal in were too small for any foreign exchange counter to handle. Nat was disappointed until Mr. Russell suggested that the bank put up a thousand-dollar loan, and asked that he and Tom might be allowed to invest a thousand dollars each.