But the strength and reputation of the big pyramid schemes grew fast. They advertised in the newspapers and on State television. The word ‘Holding’ which the largest firm VEFA added to its name, exerted a magic power. The Albanian economy was entering the great global market, and now had its very own ‘Holdings’.
But after a while, people noticed that Mimi was becoming dilatory in paying interest on request.
Mimi’s swift collapse was caused by the growth of the big pyramids. These wonder-working firms increased their interest rates. Anyone who owned a small apartment could sell it for $10,000, invest the money, and within a year buy another apartment twice the size. People flocked to them to deposit their money.
Mimi became increasingly behind in paying back the money that his depositors had invested, and now wanted to withdraw. At first he paid only the interest, but then had to suspend these payments too. A strange psychological phenomenon was apparent among the majority of people who asked for their money but were sent away empty-handed. In the beginning, they did not argue or even question the reason for this delay. They seemed scared to look beneath the surface. They were frightened of waking from their dream.
Bad news:
Soon afterwards, bad news spread through the family circle. A relative returned from a visit to Slovenia with the information that Albanians there knew Luli as a prodigious gambler who spent his days in the casinos of Ljubljana, and that the mulatto was not his wife but his current mistress.
However, the family decided not to believe this report, instead ostracizing their cousin and accusing of him of jealousy because his own business venture had failed.
The same mentality was at work in the case of the big pyramids. The more the word “pyramid” was used to describe these unstable financial schemes, the more people sought evidence to convince themselves that they were not fraudulent. They liked to be called ‘creditors’ and hated the word ‘debt’. And anyway, who was in ‘debt’ to whom? Some said that the long-standing depositors were in debt to the recent ones, and all the depositors were simply debtors and creditors to one another.
Others disagreed: No, it couldn’t be true. They were not merely taking the money of those who deposited it later. The interest they withdrew came from the investment of their money, or perhaps from some other source. After a time, to counter these ominous rumours, word spread that these firms were in fact laundering money. Apparently, the state was aware of this and was even abetting the laundering of money because high-level politicians had also deposited their cash. These allegations of state support had, it seemed, persuaded some people who had resisted the temptation to lodge their money with Mimi, to transfer it to the big pyramids of VEFA, Kamberi,
Xhaferri, and Sudja.
The Sugar Boat rumour is born:
Finally Mimi could no longer palm off his creditors with extensions and postponements. He told all those who came to withdraw their cash that their money was invested in a huge boat laden with sugar that Luli had bought and was bringing to Albania. He assured them that Luli had traded very successfully in sugar and this boat would bring all his profits. He put off everybody who asked for money with the story of the Sugar Boat, which now circulated amongst the investors as a sign of hope.
The elections approach:
As the democratic elections drew near, the ruling party boasted that the economy was strong and successful. The opposition, fearful of losing votes, said not a word against the pyramid schemes, even though people had started to grumble about them. Mimi himself lambasted the big pyramids, but his voice was not a public one.
The ruling party won the elections with the help of the pyramid schemes. The election campaign was adorned with the logos of finance houses such as Gjallica and VEFA Holdings.
The Dutch cheque:
One creditor, who has already become a daily visitor to Mimi’s house, came back with the news that a part of the boat’s cargo had been sold and Mimi had received a cheque from Luli for several million dollars in order to pay his accumulated debts.
The creditors’ spirits revived. Those who had doubted the honesty of Mimi and Luli experienced a pleasurable thrill of guilt. How could they have imagined that Luli and Mimi, boys from a good family, could ever sink so low as to swindle money from their own relatives? The keenest investors promptly started counting up their money and their virtual profits for the entire period.
Mimi and Vera run away:
Their disillusionment was swift. Mimi told some of his relatives, who came to withdraw their money, that he was setting off for Holland because a problem had cropped up and the cheque was being held at a bank there.
Shortly afterwards Vera was discovered to have left with him. Some people still hoped for his return with their money and even said that Mimi and Luli had joined the Sugar Boat, which was on his way to Albania.
But the hopes of even the most optimistic crumbled when the first big pyramids fell. Mimi had been a swindler. Even the Sugar Boat had been a fraud. Mimi had used his reputation and the good name of his family to deceive them. Rumour had it that he had not even been a good husband. The woman who had thrown acid in his face now seemed to have had justice on her side. He had been recruited by the state security service long ago. His defenders said that he was a victim of his brother,. Luli was the real fraudster who had exploited his family’s reputation and the prestige of the West.
***
Qorri read his notes so far. He had already imagined the novel’s denouement, in which creditors would attack Mimi’s house after he had escaped without trace. The creditors who had claimed to have deposited more than $200,000 with him would announce that the house belonged to them, and a deadly quarrel would break out among them, with some drawing guns and ready to kill rather than surrender the property.
But what was happening around him went beyond anything in Qorri’s notes. Reality beggared the writer’s imagination. The more eventful life is, the less room there is for creativity, he thought. Perhaps Balzac was right; that a novel lived through is one less novel written. Where history begins, fiction stops short. In this novel, he had found in the ‘Sugar Boat’ a metaphor that organized the narrative and lent wings to his imagination, but the events that he was living through, so tangible and unpredictable, seemed to have demolished the edifice his imagination had constructed.
Chapter II
At Noel’s
Qorri often spent the evening at Noel’s bar in the hope of finding a friend for a chat before he went home to Kindergarten Nr. 19. As usual, on that cold evening in January 1997, he tied his bicycle’s front wheel to the railings at the entrance to the bar and plunged into the semi-darkness of the staircase leading to the basement. But even as the noise of conversation and the odours of cooking emerged from the doorway, he could not rid himself of the worry that Noel’s had lost its usual easy and hospitable warmth over the last few days.
Noel’s was one of the few bars without the aluminium, plate glass, and perspex with which the Albanians, in their frenetic desire to catch up with the times, filled their first post-communist, private cafes. The counter was constructed of the standard red bricks commonly used in communist buildings. The tables and chairs were wooden, with red baize tablecloths. On the walls were racks for utensils like in Ottoman houses, and on these were placed a couple of traditional musical instruments - a çifteli and a lahutë, some radios dating back to the war, an ancient Singer sewing
