The Education of Santiago O'grady and Other Stories

By Michael J. Merry

This is a book of nine short stories and novellas. The title novella, The Education of Santiago OGrady, tells the story of a young man who learns about life and the philatelic business working at his countrys posts and telegraphs. In The Major, an ex-military officer meets a former subordinate. A British Army corporal barters bullets for gold in A Few Wont Do Any Harm, and in Very Professional, bank robbers use an unusual method to escape the police. A chaplain clashes with the colonels wife in The Chaplain, and Wrecked tells the story of two boys shipwrecked during a scuba outing. The Zone is a personal account of life in the Panama Canal Zone 1959/62. The Hand tells how a young man records the history of an indigenous people, and Across a Crowded Room tells of strangers meeting at an embassy reception.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Sep 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781463392536

Michael J. Merry

Michael J. Merry was educated at Royal Liberty School, Essex. United Kingdom. In 1959, while working with ITT, he was transferred to the Republic of Panama. On October 11, 1968, the Panama National Guard overthrew the elected government. Patrols searched for the president and his ministers but were thwarted when Merry, avoiding these heavily armed troops, drove them to safety in the Canal Zone. In 1987, he was named division vice president of a major US financial news operation covering the Caribbean and Latin America and traveled extensively throughout the region, reporting financial and political events. In 1995, he was writing two nationally televised financial programs weekly and editing a popular monthly financial report. These days, he works as an international relations consultant for a Florida telephone company. He has published three previous books. Mr. Merry and his wife live in Miami Shores, Florida.

Book preview

THE EDUCATION OF

SANTIAGO O’GRADY

Chapter I – Posts and Telegraphs

Dawn came early to the Republic. At around six o’clock in the morning, the sun would push an inquisitive eyebrow above the bay’s horizon and seeing little or nothing had changed from the previous day, gradually allow its shafts to run mischievously across the waves and tickle the ships that lay anchored awaiting their docking times. The two spires of the Cathedral were next to receive attention, the fun-loving rays striking the golden globes atop the spires, multiplying four-fold and illuminating the dark corners of the Plaza. Stealth was now abandoned as more of the orb appeared. Individual beams vanished to be replaced by a mantle of light that quickly illuminated all in its path.

With the light came the first sounds of a city awakening. These were the songs of the birds nesting in the Plaza’s trees calling to each other as they decided which route to take today to collect food for their recently born young. Then the scratching of shoes and boots of schoolchildren was heard, as they walked to their early classes. The garbage truck engine roared as the trash deposited into its gaping body cavity was compacted. Shutters scraped as general store merchants opened and prepared to sell their chorizos, ham and cheese to a hungry public. The smell of baking bread overwhelmed the sour garbage odor and small queue’s formed outside of the two local bakeries.

Then, at precisely seven thirty, the huge double doors guarding the Posts and Telegraph building were swung open by a uniformed guard and locked into place with floor bolts. The sun eagerly rushed into the marble lobby of the still impressive building revealing its mahogany cases filled with stamps in all their glorious colors.

The building had been commissioned in eighteen hundred seventy and finally completed five years later. Like many such buildings across the world, Posts and Telegraphs was designed to underscore the importance of the modern services it offered. Now, well over a hundred years later, it was showing its age. With the birth of the internet and the installation of microwave and satellite circuitry, there was now little telegraph traffic as such, except to the most remote areas of the republic still connected by copper wires. Of course, there was still regular mail; however, as the center of the city had moved outwards and hundreds of new districts now existed, the modern Postal Centers built in these areas had taken much of the mail delivery from the old City.

The Posts and Telegraph building looked tired these days. No longer were there two uniformed guards shooing would-be vendors from the entrance steps and the two smartly dressed concierges waiting inside the huge doors to direct customers to the service they required had disappeared. Instead, the one guard stood, or sat when he was tired, behind a small counter along with an elderly female employee who was available to answer questions and to point out the locations of the Money Order and Post Restante offices.

On the second of the three floors of the building, along the marble walls, plywood booths and offices had been built beneath the large windows to house new services that had sprung up during the years. These had been painted a dark cream color in order not to clash with walls. Of course, as the structures had been built during different periods, the paint tones varied somewhat, creating a rather uneven look. However, seeing as though this was an area where the public seldom ventured, it was not a major problem.

What was a problem was the tangled mess of wires that hung everywhere. Inside, outside, up and down. Everywhere one looked there was a spaghetti-like web of ancient cables decorating the building. Seemingly, new wiring had been installed over and over again without the old ever having been removed. With every change of administration, they talked of cleaning up things. However, with old and new cables mixed, one could never be sure what worked and what didn’t, and so the mess, which really could be considered a fire hazard, stayed the same year after year.

What saved the Posts and Telegraphs building from suffering from the humiliation of old age so like of so many other buildings of its time were the mahogany and glass cases of brightly colored stamps that were mounted around the lobby walls. Protected by a special film and installed some five years previously, the cases housed complete sets of the more than five thousand stamps that had been issued by the Republic over the past hundred years.

These stamps had been taken from the storage area in the dark penthouse where they had been packed away for ages, and had being lovingly mounted in the new cases by a well-known international supplier of protective systems for paintings, documents and other fragile items that could be damaged by ultra violet exposure.

The mounting process had taken six months to complete but everyone agreed the wait and the high cost had been well worth it. Now collectors came from all over to view the incredible display in the sixty gleaming glass and steel cases.

The Republic was famous in philatelic circles as a ‘postage stamp’ country, a small sized country that issues stamps as a source of revenue and there were thousands of stamps of various shapes and sizes, colors, designs and printing variances to be seen. In 1890, the Republic had contracted with Nicholas Seebeck of the Hamilton Bank Note Company to produce their stamps without charge in return for the exclusive rights to market these stamps to collectors.

In the beginning, Seebeck had insisted that each issue would expire at the end of a twelve-month period, thus ensuring him of a continuing supply of remainders and reprint rights. Seebeck became so successful that in 1895 the Republic, alarmed that he was making huge sums of money from his sales while they made practically nothing, cancelled their agreement, demanded the return of all remainders and went into the collector market business for themselves. They had made a success of the venture and that success continued even today. Each year the Republic released about fifty new stamps, which were eagerly snapped up by collectors all over the world. Many of these had standing orders for blocks of the stamps upon issue.

This was the business that allowed Posts and Telegraphs to remain funded by the Government despite the closing or absorption of many outdated offices throughout the Republic. Well, perhaps we should really say the philatelic business and one other well-known but usually unmentioned activity that P&T supported. That activity was the provision of employment for many of the companions of Government Ministers, Heads of Agencies and Directors of Departments.

Of course, like everyone else, these ‘companions’ went through the usual process for employment at Posts and Telegraphs but with one small difference. Before making an application, their sponsors would quietly contact Dr. Oswaldo Prieto, the thirty-year veteran Director of the entity and make known their request. Dr. Prieto would meet with the official and ask a few questions. Providing these were answered in a manner that Prieto was sure would not cause embarrassment for the P&T or the official, he would then attach a small blue star to the folder of the prospective employee and within a few days, after an interview, a telephone call from the employment department would confirm their new status and tell them when to report for work. When the Government changed after its four years in office, or when an official tired of his companion, it was an unspoken rule that the blue star employee’s resigned without complaint.

These were good rules for they opened an employment opportunity for the companions of new officials appointed during the Government’s four-year tenure. Dr. Prieto, with his vast experience in handling such employees and his unrivaled understanding of philatelic matters was a trusted friend of all political parties and as such could relax in the certainty that his own employment would continue unchallenged for as long as wished to remain in his post.

Naturally, over the years, some exceptions had to be made to the unspoken rules. If Oswaldo Prieto was informed by his staff that an employee was giving problems he would discretely inform the sponsor and hopefully the problem could be rectified. If it was not, the sponsor was requested to advise the employee to resign forthwith or be dismissed.

On the other hand, if Prieto was told that an employee was doing an outstanding job then he would inform the person who had requested the placement and at the end of the present Government’s term, request that the employee be retained if that was their wish. It must be said that rarely occurred.

All in all it was a comfortable solution to an age-old problem and even the occasional reference to P&T as "La Putaria" (the whorehouse) could be laughed off. As the girls involved were mostly very good looking, Dr. Prieto made sure that most were assigned to work in his office. After all, a little decoration for his penthouse suite was always welcome.

Chapter II – Licenciada Isabela Gomez

Señorita Gomez had arrived at the entity, as had many before her, after her ‘sponsor’ the Finance Minister at that time, had the usual discrete conversation with Dr. Prieto. However, unlike many of the ‘companions’ Isabella was a work-in-progress for the Minister. She was the daughter of a senior accountant in his Ministry and had just graduated from the Ladies Academy. Her mother had taken her to see the Minister in the hope he could help her with employment. Instantly struck with her undeniable beauty, he made a call to Dr. Prieto, feeling sure that once the girl knew that he was responsible for getting her the job, she would be willing to show her appreciation. After all, hadn’t things been done that way in the Republic for years and years?

In a short time Isabella, working in the Philatelic Department, knew how her job had come about and who should thank for it. But Isabella was not about to give up her virginity easily. She had been to dinner with the Minister twice and found it relatively easy to deflect his advances on the first occasion but a little more difficult on the second when he bestowed a very pretty gold necklace upon her. The necklace was accepted but the minister’s busy hands were not. Thinking that it was only a matter of time and that he had all the cards, he was willing to wait. Unfortunately, for him he did not have to wait very long. As Robert Burns said in 1786 ‘The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’ and once again, these words turned out to be prophetic. A month after Isabella started work, the Minister, a man of many excesses, consumed fifteen rum and cokes, ate seven greasy empanadas, attended a cockfight and passed away at the relatively young age of fifty-two. He was buried the following day with full honors befitting a member of the Government

The following Friday, Isabella was told to report to Dr. Prieto’s third floor office at nine o’clock Monday morning. She arrived at eight thirty that day, anxious not to be late. The Plaza was well awake at that time and the P&T building already busy. The Cathedral to its left, with its twin spires and huge mahogany doors, stood ready to welcome any worshipper bold enough to brave the pigeon population guarding the twenty-two steps from the square to the portal, demanding tribute in the form of a crust or hard corner of an empanada. The sun had now ceased its daily assault on the front of the P&T building and was attacking the southwestern side at this hour. The lobby, as usual, remained cool; Isabella was greeted by Prieto’s secretary and for the second time, noticed how luxurious his office was. Located in the small penthouse of the building it faced the square. It had obviously been added after construction of the other three floors maintaining an elegant but newer look than its supporting base.

Isabella, being an astute young woman, knew what the meeting would be about and had prepared accordingly. Prieto, courteous as usual with his greeting, sat before Isabella’s file, marked of course, with a small blue star, which had been placed on his desk earlier. As Isabella seated herself he quietly explained that the Minister’s death meant that he would probably have to find a place for a new employee and that Isabella would have to resign to make that possible.

Isabella smiled at Dr. Prieto and to his everlasting surprise, asked him if he was aware of the Minister’s replacement? Prieto hesitated. These meetings didn’t usually go this way. Confused, he admitted he didn’t know as yet.

Then Isabella played her trump card. She told Prieto about her mother’s work at the Finance Ministry and how her mother knew just who would be the new chief there. When Prieto heard the name he sat back in his upholstered leather chair and shook his head. He asked Isabella if she was sure and her look told him that she was. Prieto then dismissed her and told her he would look into the matter and would take no action until he had done so.

Prieto did look into the matter and the name Isabella’s mother had mentioned to her as the new Minister was confirmed. It turned out to be the wife of the Vice President of the Republic, a CPA. Prieto felt sure he wouldn’t be receiving a request for a confidential meeting from the sixty year old, mother of five and after confirming with Isabella’s Department Head that she was working well, called her back to his office a few days later, removed the blue star from her file and advised her she might stay at the P&T if she so wished.

So started the career of Señorita Isabella Gomez. At first she merely catalogued the new stamps and updated the lists of the known subscribers to new issues. Such work had been neglected in the past and when the progress was eventually bought to the attention of Department Director, Licenciado Tomás Benoit, a long serving, trusted employee and a personal friend of Dr. Prieto, he felt most pleased. He marked her down as an employee who should be watched and given an opportunity for advancement when the opportunity arose. Promotions were slow at P&T but the ambitious Isabella Gomez, after attending three years of after-work classes at the University and a specialized course in English, became Licenciada Isabela Gomez and received a promotion to a supervisory position. Then, following the retirement of Benoit’s long serving assistant, Licenciada Gomez took over that job.

Benoit was, at that time the ultimate authority as far as the Philatelic Department was concerned. It was always Benoit who made the decisions regarding new issues and sales strategies for them. He was a most conservative administrator and his Department had seen little change over the past quarter century.

He was a believer in the old adage ‘If it’s not broken don’t fix it’. He smiled at everyone, did not make controversial decisions and kept a very low profile. Licenciado Benoit however did have one secret. Each January his bank in the Cayman Islands received a wire transfer of ten thousand dollars for deposit in his offshore account. This came from a company called De Salle who happened to design and print every stamp issued by the Republic.

Isabella became aware of this secret in a most peculiar manner. The yearly visit by the De Salle Vice President was an ongoing January event. He would arrive on a Monday afternoon, visit Dr. Prieto and Licenciado Benoit and take them to dinner that evening. The next day at P&T he would meet with Benoit and present the designs for the coming year. Benoit would run the designs by Prieto and on the Wednesday, Prieto would get the Minister’s permission to proceed on Thursday and on Friday, armed with a letter authorizing the transaction, the Vice President would return to his office in Chicago with the guarantee of a business profit of about one hundred thousand dollars. The paltry ten thousand yearly that Benoit would receive a week or so later insured that there would be no problems with the order.

In January, after a year in her new position, Isabella received a summons to Benoit’s office. There, for the first time, she met Jonas Barnes, the Vice President of De Salle. She knew about him of course. Over the past year she had become a valuable help to Benoit and handled much of his correspondence. She spoke English well, having learned it at her Academy and taken a special advanced course also and so was able to write most of the international letters, make telephone calls and send e-mails in that language.

Although Prieto spoke excellent English, Benoit did not have the same fluency. He could communicate of course, but struggled at times with the technical aspects of conversations concerning the production of the stamps. This was why he had summoned Isabella. Benoit explained that as Prieto was hospitalized for a minor procedure and unable to attend the usual dinner, he would like her to accompany Barnes and himself that evening. She would of course, assist with the translation of any of the terms that Benoit had difficulty understanding.

The evening turned out to be most rewarding. Barnes, a fifty-year-old husband and father of three, seemed much taken with Isabella. After the meal had terminated Benoit agreed that Isabella should stay for a little to look at the details of the upcoming agreement and have everything ready for signatures by the next morning.

Once Benoit had left Isabella found it easy to deflect Barnes’ amateurish attempts to seduce her. However, sensing there might be something to be learned from him, asked him to tell her all about himself. No man can refuse to beat his own drum before a beautiful woman and Isabella was certainly that. After Barnes had downed a couple of brandies and Isabella had demurred in favor of spritzers, he bared his soul about his boring marriage and dull spouse. After two more brandy’s he told her that he was in love with her and at that point passed out with his head collapsed on his hands on the table.

With the help of two waiters, Isabella pushed Barnes into a taxi and took him to his hotel. There, she gave five dollars to the bellboy who opened the taxi door and helped her walk Barnes to his ground floor room. After they had deposited him on his bed and the bellboy had left, Isabella went to the bathroom to repair her make-up. Applying her lipstick she noticed his dressing gown hanging on the back of the door.

From the top pocket she could see an envelope protruding. It had a wonderfully colored stamp depicting cyclists adorning it. Taking a quick look in the bedroom she made sure that Barnes was still snoring. Back in the bathroom she slipped the letter from the pocket of the gown and turned it face up, interested to see where the stamp was from. It was a Cayman Islands stamp issued commemorating the Olympic Games and Isabella recalled that the Republic had issued a similar set at the time. As she went to return the envelope to the gown’s pocket she noticed it was unsealed. After another quick look to check on Barnes she slipped out the letter from the envelope and started to read its contents.

It stated that the 1st Bank of the Cayman Islands confirmed receiving a wire transfer from Mr. Jonas Barnes of De Salle Company in Chicago, Illinois, in the amount of ten thousand dollars, which was to be deposited to the account of Licenciado Tomás Benoit at the bank.

Isabella read the letter again. She was amazed at its contents. Benoit of all people! The unassuming Licenciado Tomás Benoit. What a turn up for the books! She put the letter back into its envelope and returned it to the pocket of the dressing gown. At that point an idea flashed into her head and she paused. The letter could be a great deal of help to the ambitious Isabella.

Removing the envelope she went into the bedroom, where Barnes still snored, and located the room key. Taking the key she exited the room and walked quickly down to the Hotel’s business center, found the copy machine and made two duplicates. Back in the room she put the original back where she had found it, placed the copies in her hand bag, returned the room key to the night table and left the hotel in a taxi, arriving home at midnight.

Isabella was at work early next morning and prepared the paperwork for the new stamp issues for Benoit to sign. Barnes turned up at the office a little after ten o’clock looking much the worst for wear. He obviously remembered little of the previous evening and after apologizing to Isabella for falling asleep at the restaurant, he left her cubicle to see Benoit and finish his business. Isabella didn’t see him again, but the signed agreement did come across her desk to be filed a few days later. She smiled as she put the papers in their appropriate jackets; she now knew how she would proceed.

When the first proofs arrived via courier in March Isabella took them to Benoit’s office. She spread the stamps out on his desk and they both admired the series of naval vessels that made up the series. There were twelve of them and each ship was decorated with the flag of a different nation, adding a splash of color to the gray vessels. Benoit was pleased with the submission and after spending some time examining the stamps with a magnifying glass and assuring that they were unflawed, he told Isabella to contact Barnes at De Salle and confirm that P&T would accept them.

This gave Isabella her opening. For the past two months she had been very busy setting up her presentation. Now, with the door to his office securely closed Isabella told Benoit what she wanted to do.

Her suggestion was remarkably simple. The Republic’s stamps were printed in the United States by De Salle. This arrangement had gone on for as long as anyone could remember. She told Benoit that she had contacted five other reputable firms around the world and all five had replied saying they could do the design and marketing for a much lower cost. If Benoit would agree, she would ask representatives of these companies to visit the Republic and provide a concrete price for a turnkey offer. Isabella showed Benoit how much could be saved on the printing and what some of the companies were willing to do to secure the contract. Benoit, fearing for his yearly deposit, scowled and told her that she had gone far beyond her authority by speaking with the other companies and that he was very unhappy about her behavior. Hearing this, Isabella smiled at him, took a copy of the Cayman Bank’s letter from her jacket pocket and laid it in front of him on his desk.

Director Benoit’s dark face seemed to turn three shades lighter as he perused the paper. He looked up and Isabella could see in his eyes that here was a beaten man. He asked her what she wanted, and she laid out her demands very simply. Henceforth she would be the negotiator with any new supplier that P&T decided to contract. Benoit would get a ten percent cut of the kickback that Isabella would negotiate and he would allow her to handle the business.

She told him that his percentage would probably bring in more than he was presently receiving so he shouldn’t be worried. All he had to do was leave things to her and not make waves. She explained that she had another copy of the letter hidden away and providing Benoit went along with her ideas, it would stay hidden forever. Benoit had no other choice but to agree to her demands. Of course, Isabella made sure, in a private meeting with Dr. Prieto that he understood he himself would benefit from thirty percent of the kickback from the new contract and it went without saying that Prieto in turn would take care of those to whom he owed his exalted position.

So started Isabella’s rise to the top. It was not a fast process. However her first effort, which provided the opportunity for new companies to bid for the contract, bought her talents to the forefront and installed her as a rising star in the institution. Offers and benefits from the new bidders were so much more valuable than what the incumbent was offering that Benoit, Dr. Prieto and even Isabella, were amazed.

P&T doubled its issuance of new stamps over the years and Isabella, and to a lesser extent, Benoit, became quite wealthy. Licenciado Tomás Benoit eventually passed away while sitting at his desk. Like everything he had done over the years, he was very quiet about it and his body was not discovered until the end of the working day. After discussions with the President, Dr. Oswaldo Prieto named Licenciada Isabella Gomez as Director of the Philatelic Department. This merely confirmed her in the job that she had been doing for the past ten years.

Chapter III – The Education of Santiago O’Grady

At P&T almost everyone knew young Santiago O’Grady. After all, his mother had been the night cleaner in the Posts and Telegraph building for almost forty years. As a child Santiago would take his mother her evening meal from their nearby house. His father, John O’Grady, was an Irish schoolteacher who had emigrated to the Republic after WWII when they were looking for educators. John would prepare the dinner and then, when he, Santiago and the two elder brothers had eaten, Santiago would cross to the P&T building, approach the guard stationed at the magnificent mahogany double doors, and would be allowed to slip through the portal after making a brief report on his process at school that day to the doorkeeper, a trusted family friend.

He would enter the main lobby around six in the afternoon and would usually find his mother mopping the white marble floor. Many employees were still working because although the building had closed an hour earlier, there were accounts to balance and letters to be passed to the mailbox department for stamping and delivery. Señora O’Grady would greet him with a hug, take the metal container, and they would sit on one of the out of the way carved benches while she spooned the rice and beans into her mouth. Once finished she would walk with Santiago to the water fountain at the rear or the lobby and they would both slake their thirst.

If his father was busy marking school papers Santiago would stay for a few hours or so with his mother, refilling her bucket for her from the storage room whenever more water was needed and helping her unlock the various offices before dusting and applying the mop. He would then wander out to look at the incredible collection of stamps issued over the years by the Republic.

He would walk around examining the displayed stamps, all securely locked away in their glass cases lining the main lobby of the building. Señora O’Grady would always encourage this practice. She told young Santiago that the whole history of the Republic could be seen in the pictures on the stamps and that it was an excellent way to learn of his heritage. So, over his formative years he got to hear many stories about the stamps and what they represented. Along the way, he also happened to pick up a good deal of information about the philatelic business. It was this knowledge that lead to his request for employment at the P&T on his eighteenth birthday.

Dr. Prieto knew his mother well. After all, they had both worked for the entity for a long time and during Santiago’s frequent visits to take his mother’s dinner to her, he would often see the Director as he left the office after his day’s labors. He would greet Santiago in the lobby and enquire, as did most of the employee’s that Santiago knew, about his process in school and sports and Santiago would always reply in a most respectful manner.

One day when Santiago was twelve years old, Prieto, who was working late one evening, saw him studying the stamp cabinets and asked him if he was a collector himself. Santiago admitted he had a small album of foreign stamps but they could not match the magnificence of the examples displayed on the marble walls. Prieto then told him he would lend him a book on the Republic’s stamps, which he himself had published and would help him understand the stories behind the issues in more detail. In due course Santiago received the book and immediately became even more engrossed with the history of the Republic as told by the stamps.

His interest in philately and his father’s tutoring helped Santiago in his schooling and by the time he was almost eighteen he passed out of his Academy with excellent marks and a slight Irish accent that could be noticed when he spoke to his father in English. As was the custom with all new applicants at the PT&T, Dr. Oswaldo