The Mark and the Void Read Online Free PDF Page B

unfolding. Around the world, banks have been falling like ninepins, illustrious financial dynasties blown away like smoke. In the United States, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers are among the major casualties, while in Ireland the high-street banks are still trading only after a government bailout. That bailout, in turn, has triggered a catastrophic series of events: factories shutting down, homes repossessed, mass emigration – nearly four hundred thousand people from a country with a population less than half the size of the Paris metropolitan area. Every day on the news there is another horror story: the pensioner who’s been living on pigeons; the horses whose owners can no longer afford stable fees and have turned them loose to wander the byways, slowly starving to death. Nothing the politicians do seems to help; in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, public fury mounts, and revolution is in the air.
    Buy to the sound of cannons, sell to the sound of trumpets, the saying goes. If you have positioned yourself correctly, there is a lot of money to be made.
    At 4 a.m. I give up trying to sleep. I have a cup of coffee, then cross over to use the gym in the basement of Transaction House. Two traders on the Smith machines are anticipating how BOT strategy will change with the new CEO in charge – bragging about how much money they will make once they’re ‘off the chain’, how ruthlessly they will ‘fuck’ rivals from other banks.
    Upstairs, Thomas ‘Yuan’ McGregor and his Asian Markets team are already at their desks; I take advantage of the early start to read through the headlines, the latest prognostications of doom for Europe. The sun creeps through the window; faces appear in the lobby, still puffy with sleep. Slowly at first, then in a flurry, the day’s small rituals begin: the tray of coffees delivered by the rain-speckled intern; the baffling jokes in the inbox amid endless emails flagged URGENT, HIGH PRIORITY, READ IMMEDIATELY; the collective groan at the sight of the courier
with his package of amendments, redos, overnight changes of heart. As 8 a.m. approaches, the tension mounts. Positioning themselves for the market opening, traders call constantly, looking for updates, price-sensitive developments, anything that will give them the edge over the invisible hordes doing exactly the same thing, here and across the water. Soon the entire research floor is speaking intensely into phones, everyone completely oblivious to everyone else, eyes fixed instead on screens or on that empty point in mid-air where so much of life now takes place. It seems you can actually feel the market, straining like a dog on a leash for the moment trading begins.
    The first couple of hours pass in a blur; after that, things begin to relax a little. I have arranged to meet Paul at ten. Ish and Jurgen want to come downstairs with me, but I prevail upon them to stay where they are. ‘He wants to see my life as it is every day,’ I say. ‘Everything must be natural.’
    ‘All right,’ they say reluctantly, and slouch off in the direction of their desks.
    Riding down in the lift, I am surprised at how nervous I feel. It’s the same kind of anxiety that used to spring up years ago, as I made my way to a rendezvous with some girl I had fallen in love with, knowing that today was the day I had to make my feelings clear, knowing simultaneously that I wouldn’t do it. And when the lift doors open and I find the foyer empty, the lurch of despair is familiar too.
    I check my phone, but there is no word. Has he changed his mind? Was he merely having some fun at my expense? I hover by the doors, pretending I don’t notice the security guards glare at me from their desk. And then I see him, hurrying over the rainy plaza, and just as it did at the appearance of Sylvie or Valou or Aimée or the others, I feel my heart soar.
    He smiles at me brittlely, apologizes for being late; he looks almost as nervous as I am. I tell