Calgary, November 2020
Osamela je cesta do raje.
Do pekla je cesta kratsi,
A proto staci
K dalsim se pridat,
Po ni se vydat,
Az tam kam te certi vtlaci.
(Lonely is the road to paradise
To hell the road is shorter
Therefore, it is sufficient
To join all the others
And start the journey
All the way to wherever the devil puts you)
The poem sounds better in Czech, but Josef liked it in both languages. It pretty well summarized his journey through life. He always wanted to reach paradise, but the journey was too lonely.
Josef was born in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, but in 1965, when he was four years old, the family emigrated to England. Josef’s father was a high official at the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing with business connections between England and Czechoslovakia. He knew the right people and in 1965 he got permission to take his family for a holiday in England. They never returned. Little Josef’s main language was English, but his parents made sure that he did not forget his native tongue.
Josef was a pleasant boy. He was polite to adults and wanted to play with children of his age, but Josef had a problem. He was fat and definitely not handsome. Some said he was outright ugly, and kids don’t want to play with someone who is ugly. At school it was the same, nobody wanted to do anything with him. The fact that he was a good student did not help, and they started to call him a “teacher’s pet”. But, being a good student, he finished High School with a Higher School Certificate (HSC), got an excellent final mark, and was planning to continue his studies at university.
What should a smart, fat and ugly youngster of 18 study? Certainly nothing where good looks or PR would play a role, so Josef decided on accounting. Numbers don’t lie. He did some research about the various options available to him and found out that accounting had changed significantly in the last few years. Computers started to play an important role. What normally took days to do, a machine could now finish in seconds. Obviously, computers were the way of the future. With this in mind, Josef registered at the University of London for the Business Administration program, with a minor in Computer Science.
At the University Josef continued to be as good a student as he was in high school. He had no problems with assignments or exams or anything else that was needed to graduate. His problem was his social life. Josef wanted a girlfriend; a woman he could hold in his arms and hug softly, but there was no chance of that. The few women who were taking his classes had a much better selection amongst other classmates. Occasionally Josef convinced a girl to have a coffee with him at the University cafeteria, but that was all. It never went any further. Soon Josef realized that if things would continue like that, he would stay a virgin for the rest of his life. To prevent such an undesirable outcome, he contacted one of many escort services that he found in the phone book, and payed for sex. It was not the same as loving somebody, but was better than nothing.
After graduation Josef easily found a job. There was great demand for accountants with computer experience. From the various job offers he received Josef selected the one from the company that was providing computer services. In the 1980s, before personal computers became mainstream, large mainframes were the only option available to customers. Companies contracted a service provider, did all of their computing on the provider’s machine via remotely connected terminals, and paid a monthly bills according to the resources used. Josef’s job was to verify and sign the individual invoices for each customer and create a summary of the total monthly billing. To do that he had access to the billing software and would report occasional errors to the computer operations manager. It was interesting work. Josef was happy doing it, but his main problem still remained unresolved. He wanted a girlfriend. After trying several dating services and after a few false starts, Josef found Emma, a woman who gave him some hope. They had dinners together, and Josef invited her to his apartment and finally had sex for which he did not have to pay. It looked promising; Emma showed a lot of interest in his work and also in his plans for the future, but after a while Josef started to be suspicious. Why was Emma always asking about his career prospects, his salary, and his plans for the future? Were those plans supposed to be future plans for marriage? When, finally, Josef confronted her with those questions, she snapped back,
“Why do you think I’m with you? For your good looks?”
That did it. If women have to be bought, then he would buy one, but for that he had to be rich. At that point Josef completely abandoned his lonely road to paradise. He decided to pursue the idea that was in the back of his mind, but which until now he was ashamed to admit even to himself. He was in charge of individual invoices as well as the monthly summary. Why not send the correct invoice to the customers, but decrease the customer’s charge in the monthly summary? That would create a difference which he could cash. The decrease had to be small to avoid suspicion, but with a lot of customers it could create a tidy sum.
The scheme worked like a charm until one day Wendy, the secretary of the head of the accounting department, called him.
“Hello Josef, the boss wants to see you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, just come up.”
When Josef came to the main office, Wendy told him:
“Actually, I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About the fraud you’re pulling with the accounting.”
“Fraud? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yes, you do. How about we meet after work, we can talk about it.”
After work Wendy waited for him. They went to the bar around the corner and Wendy said,
“You know Josef, my boyfriend happens to be an accountant in one of our customer’s companies and he is getting your invoices. I’m getting your monthly summaries to report to our boss, so one day, just for interest, I compared the two. And there was a difference. You’re the only one who could create that difference.”
“Ok, what are you going to do? Are you going to report me?”
“No, I want a cut.”
“A cut?”
“Yes, a cut. How about 50%? And remember, I have access to both the invoices and the summaries. You can’t cheat on me.”
What could Josef do? He had to agree, so every month he dutifully gave half of his loot to Wendy, but he was uneasy about the whole situation. Too many people knew about it and if the fraud would be discovered, that would be the end of his career. To play it safe, he found another job. Josef handed in his notice, enjoyed the farewell party that his colleagues organized for him, and gave an especially warm goodbye to Wendy.
“I’ll see you soon”, he promised.
When Josef settled into his new job and became friendly with his colleagues, he called Wendy and invited her for dinner in an expensive restaurant.
“So, how are you and how is your boyfriend?” was the first question Josef asked.
“I don’t have a boyfriend anymore. When the money stopped coming, he dropped me.”
“That’s too bad, but there is an easy remedy.”
“Yes, and what is that?”
“A new boyfriend. You would have no problem finding him. He is sitting right here.”
“You? You want to get involved with me? Why?”
“I don’t want to be alone. I want to have somebody to talk to, and when I am in bed, I want to feel a female body lying beside me and be able to hold her in my arms and hug.”
“And if I say “no”?”
“Then there is that fraud we did together. I can always spread rumours about it. You could try to blame it all on me, but I would deny everything. Besides, I am now working for another company and they like me there. They wouldn’t want to lose me.”
“Is this blackmail?”
“You can call it what you want but look at it from the positive side. I am a nice guy; I am pleasant to everybody and I will be nice to you. I have a good job, making good money, and being ugly also has its advantages. There is no danger whatsoever that I would ever cheat on you. And if my looks bother you so much, we can always turn off the lights in the bedroom. Think about it and let me know. “
Wendy thought about it and did let him know: “OK, I’ll go for it.”
There were more dinners in expensive restaurants, followed by invitations to Josef’s apartment, followed by sex for which Josef did not have to pay. Then Wendy moved in and Josef’s wish came true. When he woke up in the morning, there was a woman lying beside him, and he could hold her in his arms and hug her warm and soft body.
Evidently, Josef abandoned his lonely road to paradise. Was he on his way to hell? I don’t know, but if he was, it wasn’t such a bad road.