29. THE WOLLENDORFS
THE WOLLENDORFS
Andhra Pradesh, India
The Wollendorf brothers, Franz and Heinrich, had noses like sniffer dogs.
For diamonds, naturally. They owned the Wollendorf Consortium out of South Africa, the newly found diamond hub that was yielding more diamonds than India ever had.
The Consortium had expanded with astonishing speed, and the Wollendorfs, the serpents of diamond mining, wanted it all, including the Mawrs’ share of the business.
The Wollendorfs had already acquired the diamond-rich regions in Brazil, and, rumor had it, made a deal with the Russians.
Now they’d set their sights on India.
No one knew how and when, but the rumor about the Crimson Tear spread across the oceans.
The King of Spain wanted to see it. The Queen of England had sent the Mawr brothers a letter.
The jewelers exchanged theories. The richest lords and ladies in Europe sent inquiries.
And the British Gazette did a front-page article about Mawr Diamond Industries, this time giving more attention to Drasko Mawr.
He used to be a homeless child , it said, adopted by one of the Mawr brothers .
Perhaps an illegitimate son , one of the European newspapers suggested. The only heir to the fortune!
A lot of those rumors came from Alfred’s drunk blabbering during business trips and official events.
Uriah didn’t care. He had planned on it.
And now the rumors brought the Wollendorfs to India.
“They are young and fearless. They think they can disregard the traditions and connections we have built for decades,” Uriah told Drasko as they hosted the Wollendorfs. “Nothing is more important than decades of knowledge.”
Drasko did not agree but was intrigued. Two days of the subtle game of business seduction, and they were yet to discuss what the Wollendorfs had come here for.
Uriah was in his forties now. His hair had a few grays, he had lost weight, and his gaze had acquired razor-sharpness.
Alfred, though the younger of the two, looked a decade older than his brother, heavier, bitterer, and permanently reeked of alcohol.
It was Drasko, everyone knew, who would be the successor to Mawr Diamond Industries. The older men in the business resented him. The wise ones foretold his brilliant future. The envious spread more rumors.
Naturally, the Wollendorfs were polite with the Mawr brothers and overly friendly with young Drasko, who, they hoped, would be easier to manipulate.
It was 1883. Drasko was twenty, more knowledgeable in the diamond business than the Mawr brothers had ever been, and Uriah let him take the reins, carefully guiding him and watching his every move.
Drasko had a woman now, Yamuna. He had a villa built just for the two of them and felt like his life finally had meaning.
“The diamond trade,” Yamuna said to him once, “it’s dangerous. It’s cruel. It hardens your heart. And it will make you just like them.”
Them , the Mawr brothers. After all, Drasko’s legal last name was the same.
Elias Bayne, his dear friend, now sailed his own ship. He was visiting at the same time as the Wollendorfs.
“There is that air of superiority about them,” he said, observing the Wollendorfs. “They are younger than the Mawr brothers. Hungrier. You watch them. They will try to destroy you.”
The next day, Drasko learned what they had in mind.
“We offer to buy out your land,” Franz Wollendorf said as the Wollendorfs and the Mawrs gathered in the office for the much-anticipated business discussion.
“For a much larger sum than what it is worth, considering business predictions for the next decade and all. You can keep part of the shares. But with the potential of the resources, the Wollendorf Consortium will overrun Mawr Industries in no time. You understand. It’s in your best interest.”
Alfred’s eyes lit up with a greedy shine as he turned toward his brother.
Uriah didn’t respond, only checked the diamond watch in his hand.
Drasko observed everyone with the odd sense that a war was about to begin.
The Mawrs had expected a few proposals, including a merger that could—would have—made all of them more powerful than any such enterprise before. Such a merger would have let them buy out the Russians, explore Australia and other parts of Africa.
But the young Wollendorf brothers turned out to be greedy. Ambitious, too.
Drasko, the youngest of the men in the room, understood it all as the Wollendorfs talked. He saw through Alfred’s greed and laziness. Tensed at Uriah’s quietness that was an ominous sign. The proposal was an insult to the Mawrs on their own soil. Diplomatic but an insult, nevertheless.
Uriah stayed silent.
Drasko waited.
The Wollendorfs exchanged expectant looks.
The room was quiet as a cemetery until Alfred spoke. “That’s a great proposal. And the capital?—”
“Quiet!” Uriah shut him up in a clipped tone, then shifted his eyes to the Wollendorf brothers and said the five words that sealed the Mawrs’ future, “You have overstayed your welcome.”
That night, Drasko stood in the courtyard of the Mawr villa, leaning against a wooden column, and smoked. The scent of blooming flowers calmed him as the sound of the two brothers fighting echoed through the house and spilled into the courtyard.
“We can wash our hands of the business and never have to come back to India!” Alfred shouted.
“You are a fool and a drunk,” came Uriah’s clipped reply. “You want to throw away everything we have built.”
“Who are you building this for? For your imaginary heirs? For your precious Drasko?” Drunken laughter followed.
“I shall buy you out,” Uriah offered. “Take your money and run. Go soak your sorrows around the world.”
“Better than rotting in this place. And no, brother. I am done with your game. Done swallowing your orders and my pride.”
“Pride? What pride do you talk of? Humor me, Alfred.”
“Done!” roared Alfred. “Everything! Always! Happens! As! You! Wish! I am done with you! And you know what? You are not getting my share. Noooooo. Oh, nooooo. I am selling my part of the company to the Wollendorfs. Yes! I have decided! My choice, not yours!”
An eerie feeling made the hair on the back of Drasko’s neck stand up. Something had just been decided, but it wasn’t up to Alfred.
Alfred stormed out, stomped through the courtyard, noticed Drasko smoking, and halted. His bloodshot eyes for once weren’t spiteful but awfully sad.
“I know I lost the bet. Years ago,” he said in a shaky voice, slowly approaching Drasko. “I know you know about that bet too, and I am glad for the way you turned out. Truly am. Despite the many wrongs I did to you.”
Alfred nodded, drunkenly studying Drasko as if searching for his next thought.
“Me? I should never have married Clara. I should never have let him take my daughter. He is sick with an obsession for power. Infected with vanity. Riddled with loneliness. And he sees to it that everyone always ends up like him. Alone. Full of anger and hate. But if you want a life, Drasko”—Alfred suddenly walked up to him and halted, face-to-face, so close that Drasko could get drunk off the pungent stench of alcohol—“any life besides this desert of existence”—he motioned around—“then you need to run. Far far away. So far that no one can find you.” His expression darkened.
“Because if they do— he will too. And unlike anyone else, you, you…” His voice suddenly acquired a venomous bite.
“He thinks you are his property. And Uriah never gives up what is his.”
Alfred stumbled off.
A nasty feeling gathered in Drasko’s chest. He left the house but didn’t go home to Yamuna, who was so good at calming his storms. No, she didn’t deserve yet another storm.
He went to see Elias, who didn’t care for the diamond trade but cared for his best friend.
“Tell me, brother,” Elias said as they sat on the veranda that overlooked the luscious gardens and the mango trees that obscured the starry skies.
“Do you suppose a great man ever says, ‘Stop’ to himself? If he is at the very top and all? Does he look at his kingdom one day and say, ‘I have enough’?”
Drasko didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t at the top, didn’t have it all.
“I was thinking…” he finally said, taking a drag off a cigar and a sip of whisky.
Elias chuckled. “That’s already a good sign.”
Drasko smiled. For a while, he had felt a change in himself, brought by Yamuna. “Now that I have Yamuna, I wonder if I always thought wrong about the future.”
“Elaborate?”
“I don’t want to be like them.” He meant the Mawrs and the Wollendorfs.
This thought had nothing to do with Drasko’s future ambitions but rather with the subtle sense of what the men represented—a constant battle for power, a rat race, vicious and blood-thirsty.
“I want children and a home and a family and peace. But I don’t want Yamuna to choose. ”
“Choose what?”
“Between prosperity and happiness.”
Drasko thought of Uriah. Now that he understood Uriah’s ruthless carelessness about the people who surrounded him, Drasko had a feeling that Uriah would never let him have what he truly wanted. Instead, Drasko would follow in his steps, lonely and hateful.
Alfred was right.
After hours of talking, when the night grew late, Elias patted Drasko on the shoulder and said, “You shall figure it out. Perhaps, you don’t need to be a king. Perhaps, you don’t need a kingdom at all. Why would you if you can have the whole world?”
Elias, the dashing and fearless captain who owned oceans, laughed then, the low warm sound of it briefly putting Drasko at ease. Unlike him, Elias came from a loving family, knew the value of love, whereas Drasko was only now finding out how important it was. Thanks to Yamuna.
“Something is about to happen,” Drasko said grimly.
“You know what they say about Mawr Industries in the West? They say that Mawr Industries sells many hues of the best quality diamonds. But all of them are tarnished with blood.”
Drasko nodded.
“Come away with me, brother,” Elias asked. “Take Yamuna and come with me. Tomorrow. The day after. Anywhere. Just leave this place and him. You have to, mate. You need to break away from him.”
That night, as Drasko walked home, his mind hazy, his heart heavy, he saw two figures in the distance. The figures headed for the cliff on the hill. The muffled voices sounded familiar, and Drasko wondered whether Uriah and Alfred had finally made peace.
The next day, he woke up to the maid’s urgent knocking at the door.
“It’s one of the masters,” she said. “They found the body of Master Alfred, down below the cliff. He must’ve stumbled off the edge in the dark.”
Drasko understood then what Uriah was. Despite his wealth and power, he lacked the only thing that wasn’t dependent on either—affection.
Uriah tried to control the ones closest to him in the hope of being the center of their universe.
And when he failed, he tossed them out of his life, squished them mercilessly so as not to witness his own failure.
Clara Lewis. Dr. Lewis. Little jaan . Alfred Mawr.
Uriah had only one person left, the one reared to his liking, proving fate wrong—Drasko.
Run, the thought pounded in Drasko’s mind. But he refused to.
He had never been afraid. Nor was he now. He also knew that Elias was wrong—Drasko would never be able to run far enough.
So, from now on, he had to watch his back.