Chapter 43 Turtle with one wooden leg - 5

1969 was a decisive year for several reasons. First of all, Reber Klimrod bought a business in his own name during the year. The news is amazing.Setiniaz was stunned when he learned of this. "I could hardly believe my eyes and ears," he said. "You mean, for the first time in your life, you're the official owner of a business?" "You could say the same thing," Reber replied. He ate lunch with Setiniaz at a kebab restaurant on Via de la Repubblica.The main course was a large steak, "undercooked" in Brazilian terms, which means very tender.When it's time for dessert, Reber makes an unexpected suggestion.

Reber said, "If you don't mind, let's go to another place for sweets and coffee." He took the New York visitor two blocks to Hilario Govea.In front of a pastry shop, Setiniaz's heart almost stopped beating.I saw that the signboard was written in ten languages: "Reber's Food Store-Viennese and Tyrolean Specialty Pastries". The store was full of customers, but there was a table that was empty, obviously reserved on purpose.Reber casually picked up the list of pastry varieties without glancing at it. "What would you like to eat? How about Apfelstrudel? It's apple mille-feuille. Or Milchrahmstrudcl? It's a sandwich cake filled with curds, cream, and Greek raisins. How about Sachertorte? Chocolate cake with jelly. Quetschen—knodeln is delicious with ice-sugar almond dumplings. How about a 'monk's drunk'? These are small rolls with apricot jam and raisins cooked in wine. If If customers don’t order it themselves, Ischler-Tortchen will be recommended to you here, which is the famous Ischler patty, which is a well-known world-famous pastry.”

He looked at Setiniaz with the expression of a respectful waiter, but there was an uncontrollable smile in his pale eyes. Then at least six girls with blond braids and cute smiles came to their table.They are like the Trapp family in the American movie "The Sound of Music", the youngest of them kissed Klimrod on both cheeks, and also Kissed Niaz on the way. "They're my partners," Reber said. “We are considering expanding our business. We already have branches in Ipanema and the city center, and we are now planning to open another branch in São Paulo and Petropolis, a tourist resort north of Rio de Janeiro. Teresopolis is also considered by us The goal, that is a mountaineering spot with a very beautiful environment. Zita, Maria, and Regina want to engage in a joint venture system, but I haven't made up my mind yet. My shares only account for 40%, I didn't say it Forget it. Besides, it's risky. Maybe it's wiser to borrow money from the bank. What do you think about David? You're an industrialist."

Evidently, the king was in a very good mood now. As far as Setiniaz knew, it was the first sign that the arduous struggle that Reber had begun when he arrived in New York nineteen years earlier had come to an end. It was also in this year that Leiber began to tell his story.He doesn't tell it chronologically, but jumps to the past years when you are not prepared.He may open the chatterbox anytime and anywhere, but most of them are on the night flight of the plane.He'd snap off something that happened in his boyhood or early youth twenty or twenty-five years ago, and never explain why.

He has only two true confidants: George Taalas and David Setiniaz.It was many years before the two of them broke through the barrier that the king had created between them, and decided to exchange what they knew.They pieced together the bits and pieces of the past that Leiber told them separately, and added the stories told by other insiders, and finally gave Leiber's experience a true face. Also in 1969, Setienaz flew for three days in the large Sikorsky helicopter over Amazonia, traveling as far as the steppes of Colombia and the territory of Venezuela.Sikorsky flew at low altitude along the flow of the Guaviare and Orinoco rivers to the town of San Fernando in Atavapo.On this voyage, Leiber recalled in a slow and indifferent tone the course of that adventure expedition in 1947-48, talking about how he traveled upstream along the Orinoco River, how he crossed the Paseo River. Rima, how to meet the Guaríbo people, however, 1969 was decisive for Setiniaz because it was the year he finally knew what Reber had created in Amazonia cause.Before that, he had been surprised to hear that the scale of this project, which was no longer a blueprint, was so grand, and it took him a long time to come to his senses.He was still more amazed that, while Reb had begun and completed his undertaking, Setiniaz, who knew almost everything about the king's affairs, had not noticed anything.

Reber bought the estates on his own, without arousing any suspicion or opposition from the governments of any of the countries concerned.Setiniaz was not that naive. He could fully imagine that there would be malfeasance and fraud in the process.However, this is not enough to explain everything. "I'm building a nation," Reber said.Jorge Sokrates started buying land for Klimrod as early as 1954, and according to Sokrates, Emerson Coelho did it for Reber before him .At that time, the area of ​​those lands was 700,000 hectares. Judging from the deeds held by Setiniaz, the first land purchases were made in 1950, when Reber came out of the jungle for America.These lands were bought by Ubaldo Rocha with money from the sale of diamonds.Rosa said nothing about it.Although being tight-lipped is always a characteristic of all royal officials, but Luo Sha, a half-breed born in Mora, has maintained an unbreakable record in this regard.

But in 1950 Klimrod had not yet dreamed of a kingdom.He may have purchased these lands in the early years just to ensure that he and the Samatari could legitimately own part of the land in the area where they lived. Emme Coelho acted as agent in the second round of land transactions.The land purchased this time originally belonged to a legendary figure.He was a colonel in the Brazilian National Guard, an ex-rubber worker turned senator, and his name was José Julio Dolivera, though he was not related to Gómez Dolivera.From the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s, with exuberant energy and undeniable courage, this Colonel Julio built for himself a small empire on the north bank of the Amazon by means of violence and bribery.He later contracted leprosy and in 1948 sold his entire fortune to a consortium of Brazilian and Portuguese businessmen.Coelho (who died in 1966) bought some three million hectares from them for $2.2 million.These lands were bought in installments, so when Sokrates first took over the affairs in this area, he only knew that he had bought 700,000 hectares.Although this was the most important sale, it was not the only one: the São Paulo lawyer also bought land and plantations in this vast region of northern Brazil in the name of other companies (thirty-eight in all).

Beginning in 1956, Jaime Rochas, an Argentinian from Buenos Aires, also engaged in a similar business in Colombia and Venezuela, also Spanish-speaking neighbors.He bought almost 1.8 million hectares of land in batches. Jorge Socrates was already doing it by then.Nevertheless, his deals were mainly after 1956, when Reb Klimrod came out of the jungle again to launch his "second offensive."For example, the transaction of a large piece of land between the Negro River and the Blanco River was handled at this time. The deeds of this batch of land can be traced back to 1893, with an area of ​​2.6 million hectares.

Rochas bought nearly 1.8 million hectares of land in installments. In this way, the planning started in 1950 was almost completed by 1969.It will take another two years at most, and the merits and virtues of the 21-year-long patient conquest will be completed.The offices of Socrates and Rochas continued to handle land transactions, while the smaller ones were handled by a group in São Paulo, which had been weakened by the death of its chief, Coelho. The names of one hundred and eleven companies were used in land transactions, at least two-thirds of which were (or appeared to be) Brazilian companies; allowing a gap in the laws of Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and even international law. All the loopholes exploited were taken advantage of.The result was as expected: from the outsider's point of view, that is, from the point of view of anyone, these lands belonged not to one company, but to one hundred and eleven companies that had no connection with each other.The only connection is that all these lands are very close to each other...

There is really a tacit understanding between these buyers.But there is no law against them. In 1969 and later, Setniaz was convinced that Reb Klimrod, like his predecessor, Colonel Julio, had only one purpose, and that was to establish a private kingdom.All indications, including Leiber's own words, bear this out.