Spilt Wine

25. Fair Business

Friday 11 April 1986

It was now two weeks since I read those two brief sentences in the paper reporting the wine theft, two weeks since Catherine told me that Louis and Murielle were missing, and two weeks since I realised that Catherine needed a focus to keep her mind off the terrible incidents. My excuse for the many hours recounting things from my past, things I had thought little about until now.

As we drove toward Saint-Jean-de-Losne to formally close the purchase, Catherine asked, "So, for your investment, for the five-year deposits – where did you learn how to do it? You must have studied finance or economics."

"I didn't. Don't you remember I told you I had dropped out of school?"

"So where did the knowledge come from?"

"From inside, I suppose. While most people were in panic over rising interest rates, I saw it as an opportunity, a wonderful opportunity. I had learned to listen to myself and to trust my instincts. Some call it risky and seat-of-the-pants; I simply call it living." I smiled to see her nodding in agreement.

"As the bank rate continued to climb, I sensed I needed to do something. In June, I resigned my naval commission and took severance pay and return of pension contributions. In July, I sold my house and put everything I could scrape together into term deposits. Some for two years at 19.5%, some for three years at 18.75% and one huge ten-year one at just over 17%. In August the bank rate peaked a little short of 23%. Then it steadily declined."

"What?" She shook her head in apparent shock. "Throwing away your naval career, your house, your stability. Those are very rash moves, aren't they?"

"I had peaked in the Navy. In each of my previous three postings, I had replaced a Lieutenant-Commander, and when I was posted onward, I was replaced by a Lieutenant-Commander. I was a Lieutenant with an after-the-fact high school diploma. Actually, a Captain for a while as dumb thinkers in Ottawa integrated the system too far, forcing Army ranks on the Air Force and Navy. During that mess, Admirals resigned, not wanting to be called Generals." I shook my head.

"Anyway, I got the clear message; I could go no further in the hierarchical system that demanded university diplomas and gave little value to innate intelligence or ability."

As I slowed for the stop sign at the D-996, Catherine pointed to l'Abbaye de Cîteaux. "That was such a splendid experience," she said with a sublime look on her face. "My whole being vibrates when I think of it ... But back to your story."

"Yes, it was sublime, wasn't it? Where was I? – Resigning my commission. I was being very well paid, but I made much more as a coin geek and a wine importer on the side. I realised I would likely go no further in the Navy, and it became increasingly obvious my commission was holding me back, restricting my free movement." I looked at her and shrugged.

"They offered to put me through university, but the prospect of surrendering my being to the system again – I had endured many months of high school make-up in 1967 and early '68. Not as bad as the first go through, but the thought of four more years of being crammed with others' ideas, my creativity being dismissed, my mind muddled with information and mired in concepts ..." I let out a deep sigh.

"My being, my soul demands that I know – not simply know about. The idea of being crammed with unknown thoughts, filled with foreign stuff, repulsed me. I couldn't do it."

Looking intensely into Catherine's eyes, as we paused for cross-traffic in Brazey-en-Plaine, I asked, "Do you know the source of the word education?"

"No, I've never thought of it."