Once they were seated, Claire moved to the side of the table. "Wo-Would you like something to drink?" she asked quietly, but at least loud enough that everyone could hear it.

"I'll have a coffee. It doesn't matter what kind. Strong, little milk, no sugar."

"I'll bring that to you right away. - And you, young sir?"

At that moment, the boy really noticed Claire's presence for the first time. He stared at her face for a conspicuously long time, then leaned forward to see her even better, as if he were short-sighted. "I'd like a fruity tea. You can leave out the sugar. I like sweet things, but it's enough that you serve it." he grinned at her.

In the wake of the flattery, Claire staggered backwards away from the table. After three steps, she turned around on the hook. "I understand." she mumbled, then walked away.

The boy looked after Claire. His chin lifted. He even turned his head. Everyone at the table could see it. If you were gracious, you might have thought he was just curious to know where the maid was going, but Reyji was very sure he just wanted to stare at her ass longer.

Calire disappeared inside through the gate. Usually she was not so quick.

With the gate closed, the boy lost all interest in the direction. Reyji leaned back inconspicuously and looked down the wall to the lower open area and at the hard stone tiles. ~Maybe I should throw him down?~ There was a saying that went: 'The things you regretted most were the things you didn't do.'.

Marah had paid no attention to anything and continued to ignore the boy.

"It worked out at short notice, because I figured they'd want an appointment, so I brought my vacation forward to this week."

"Then we're very sorry to disturb your vacation. I hope you can forgive us?"

"Oh, don't think anything of it. It makes no difference. Let's get down to the real issue. So I hear you're having a bit of trouble at the moment?"

"You're probably referring to the devaluation of the free currency, but you don't need to worry about that because we're not doing it either. The trade value is within the normal range of fluctuation and will rise again very soon. Even if we did nothing, it wouldn't cause any real problems."

"Do you think so? Hm, well, I have a bit of your money and that's why I'm here in my garden today, you must know. It's annoying when you think you have your vacation money in a supposedly safe currency, then there's a little drought in one country and a bit of war in another and suddenly people realize that they can't eat the coins and don't want them anymore. What should I do with them now? Should I melt them down? Maybe you should have issued your loans in cans instead? The free cans... Hmm... Could be misunderstood. Maybe a different name?"

"With respect, Mrs. Von Rosenberg, but we didn't come here to be taken for a ride."

"You didn't? Then why are you here? I had thought of so many jokes for today. After all, I can't get away without money."

"All right, then I'll come straight to our request. We would like to offer Baele, we would like to offer you to rejoin the currency union of the Free Banks. We would like Baele to exchange its currency for the Free Currency, remove all trade restrictions and open up to the world market. It would be a win-win for everyone and a major boost to your foreign trade. Baele is an exporting country, but has the problem that its own currency is too strong. As you have just mentioned, this would no longer be the case. We are talking about a profit increase for Baele of up to 24% in the first year. We have had this calculated by an external body." Mr. Jens pulled a black leather folder with gold corners out of his briefcase and placed it on the table. "In the folder here you will find the calculations with all the facts and figures." He pushed the folder across the middle of the table to Marah. "By joining the free banks, you would also finally have a realistic comparison of Baele's economic situation with other countries, which would of course be advantageous for a strong country like Baele, as I'm sure you know. Please take a look at our offer at your leisure. I'm sure it will convince you."

Marah pulled the folder the last bit towards her, but didn't open it yet. "We should join the world market. What immense benefits it would bring to our economy to have a common currency with others and unrestricted trade with the rest of the world. Do you know how many times I've heard that in recent years? I honestly don't know. I always switch off then." With the end of her sentence, she opened the folder. The pages were full of diagrams and figures. Every text was typed with a typewriter and everything else was neatly done with drawing utensils. It looked like a lot of work had gone into creating the folder.

While Marah skimmed the contents, Claire came back and started uncovering everything. She earned a casual nod from Mr. Jens for putting the coffee down, then she went to the boy.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"As you can see, joining our monetary union would bring jobs and prosperity to Baele."

"Have you informed yourself? We have full employment. Who else am I supposed to create work for? For the children? They don't have to work here-"

Suddenly Clair jumped and banged the table. The cups clinked. The fresh coffee sloshed over the edge and ran down the cup onto the underplate.

Mr. Jens looked annoyed at Claire, but managed to contain his anger.

Meanwhile, Claire was already hurrying back around the table to his side.

"I'm terribly sorry about that, Mr. Jens. I'll bring you a new cup right away."

Claire tried to reach for the plate, but Mr. Jens intervened and waved her away.

"No need."

Not knowing what else to do, Claire bowed in humility, then took her distance from the table.

Marah had been watching everything. "Claire," she addressed her in a serious tone.

Claire stopped in her tracks as if she had a needle in her shoe. "Yes?" she asked anxiously.

"Don't embarrass me again."

"Of-Of course not, Mrs. Von Rosenberg."

Claire bowed again, then walked to the gate with her head bowed to stand by it.

As Claire took the final steps to the gate, Reyji leaned into Marah's ear. "The brat groped her." she whispered to her.

Marah heard it, but her gaze remained on the pages. "I don't care." she replied quietly in a way that made it clear it was the last thing she wanted to say.

"Regarding full employment, I know the official employment figures, but we all know that they are heavily sanitized by your labor department. In reality, you have millions of people who are only working part-time or even lower jobs with top-ups. They don't appear in the quota. People who are very old, people in further education, people in language courses, immigrants in integration programs - there is a lot that doesn't show up. If someone is ill during the calculation week, they are even excluded. That is window dressing. The real potential of the companies is hardly being utilized. Some of the factories here in Rosenberg close at lunchtime to prevent overproduction because they are not allowed to participate in the export business. It's not full employment if everyone only works part-time."

"Part-time?" Marah asked as if she had never heard the term before and stopped on the current page. "Explain that to my citizens. They don't even understand the concept. They always just say how much they want to work and if you don't accept that, well, they leave. They are all completely unmotivated. Don't be shocked, but they'd rather go out for an ice cream with their children in the afternoon than shovel coal into the night, even though they'd earn more. Maybe the education index isn't right? How do they manage to get your citizens to work until they die in order to live?" She stared at him and waited for an answer, but once his mouth indicated that there would indeed be one, she continued in time. "As you can see, my interest is limited. Do you have any other arguments for your offer?"

"Well, I think another relevant factor would be the reduction in bureaucracy and administrative costs that you currently incur. We would take over the branches of the state bank, their production facilities and most of the staff. We would also take care of the production and provision of cash ourselves. I would like to emphasize that our currency is much more counterfeit-proof than yours. There is a counterfeiting case almost every week, and that's just the ones that get caught. The real amount of counterfeit money is certainly even higher. In contrast, there were only two major cases involving free currency internationally last year."

"Yes, but why should you counterfeit the fee? It's not worth it. And as head of the country, perhaps I shouldn't say this, but creating a little money doesn't make any difference. If someone can counterfeit our coins so perfectly that even the state bank doesn't notice, then they're just taking production away from us. I would pay out wages, but so far no one has come forward. What can I do? Besides, there are so many cases here because it's immediately obvious that the coins are not genuine, whereas you don't even notice it with the fee because they are already dubious from the factory. The Fee is iron, copper and paper. The S-Mark is bronze, gold and fernium."

Marah took a sip from her cup and continued leafing through the pages. You could tell that she wasn't really interested in the offer. The boy noticed it too, but he didn't want to give up just yet. He put one elbow on the tabletop. He leaned forward confidently. His body language said, I've got this under control.

"When you move goods across the border, you pay a fee every time. When you exchange from one currency to another, you pay a fee every time. Currencies fluctuate all the time. We all know that. You have no planning security at all. It's time-consuming. It's nerve-wracking. I have to experience that myself all the time. But it doesn't have to be that way. With a common currency, all these problems would be a thing of the past. Surely people from Baele also like to go on vacation abroad?"

Once Mr. Jens understood what the boy was getting at, he turned his face away in shame.

The corners of Marah's mouth turned sharp. "And you want to stop that? I find that interesting. What good does that do me?" she asked with sparkling eyes.

The boy's face narrowed towards the center. It seemed as if he couldn't follow her at all.

"No, I want to make it easier, with a common free currency for Baele and the world."

"Boy, they're going abroad because they can buy a vacation home there."

The boy still seemed confused. "Yes, a vacation home with fees. They could be prevented." He stared into her eyes, pressed his lips together and nodded several times. "Mhm."

Reyji took another unobtrusive look at the stone tiles. Sayings didn't come from nothing...

"I'll keep it in mind," Marah said, while looking up at the clouds and shaking her head. Afterwards, her focus returned to the file.

With that, the boy leaned back and took a sip from his cup with relish, as if he had just made an important point.

It was shocking. The boy had enough self-confidence to interfere, even though he didn't understand even the simplest economic concepts. People vacationed abroad because Baele had a strong currency, which made vacations cheap. If Baele had the same currency, vacations would no longer be cheap. The boy apparently didn't know that. Besides, they were the free banks. The fees he seemed to want to abolish were one of the sources of income for their own daughter banks.

.../ End Part