‘Of course,’ said Richard.
‘Have you ever experienced a real Polish feast, my boy?’
‘Every Christmas for the past eleven years,’ Richard replied.
Abel laughed, then talked of the future and how he saw the progress of his group. ‘We ought to have one of your shops in every hotel,’ he told Florentyna.
She agreed.
Abel had only one other request of Florentyna: that she and Richard would accompany him on his journey to Warsaw in nine months’ time for the opening of the latest Baron. Richard assured him both of them would be there.
During the following months, Abel was reunited with his daughter and quickly grew to respect his son-in-law. George had been right about the boy all along. Why had he been so stubborn?
He confided in Richard that he wanted her return to Poland to be one Florentyna would never forget. Abel had asked his daughter to open the Warsaw Baron, but she had insisted that only the president of the Group could perform such a task, although she was anxious about her father’s health.
Every week Florentyna and her father would read together the progress report that came from Warsaw on the new hotel. As the time drew nearer for the opening, the old man even practiced his speech in front of her.
The whole family traveled to Warsaw together. They inspected the first Western hotel to be built behind the Iron Curtain and were reassured that it was everything Abel had promised.
The opening ceremony took place in the massive gardens in front of the hotel. The Polish Minister of Tourism made the opening speech welcoming his guests. He then called upon the president of the Baron Group to say a few words before performing the opening ceremony.
Abel’s speech was delivered exactly as he had written it and at its conclusion the thousand guests on the lawn rose and cheered.
The Minister of Tourism then handed a large pair of scissors to the president of the Baron Group. Florentyna cut the ribbon that ran across the entrance of the hotel and said, ‘I declare the Warsaw Baron open.’
Florentyna traveled to Slonim to scatter the ashes of her father in his birthplace before returning to America. As she stood on the land where her father had been born she vowed never to forget her origins.
Richard tried to comfort her; in the short time he had come to know his father-in-law he had recognized the many qualities he had passed on to his daughter.
Florentyna realized that she could never come to terms with their short reconciliation. She still had so much to tell her father and even more to learn from him. She continually thanked George for the time they had been allowed to share as a family, knowing the loss was every bit as deep for him.
The last Baron Rosnovski was left on his native soil while his only child and oldest friend returned to America.
The Present
1968–1982
Chapter twenty-three
Florentyna Kane’s appointment as chairman of the Baron Group was confirmed at the board meeting the day she returned from Warsaw. Richard’s first piece of advice was that she transfer the head office of Florentyna’s from San Francisco to New York. A few days later the Kane family flew back to stay in their little home on Nob Hill for the last time. They spent the next four weeks in California making the necessary arrangements for their move, which included leaving the West Coast operation in the competent hands of their senior manager and putting Nancy Ching in overall charge of the two shops in San Francisco. When it came to saying goodbye to Bella and Claude, Florentyna assured her closest friends that she would be flying back to the Coast on a regular basis.
‘Going as suddenly as you came,’ said Bella.
It was only the second time she had seen Bella cry.
Once they had settled down in New York, Richard recommended that Florentyna make the shops a subsidiary of the Baron Group so that the companies could be consolidated for tax purposes. Florentyna agreed and made George Novak president for life on his sixty-fifth birthday, giving him a salary that even Abel would have considered generous. Florentyna became chairman of the Group and Richard its chief executive.
Richard found them a magnificent new home on East Sixty-fourth Street. They decided to live on the forty-second floor of the New York Baron while their new home was being decorated. William was enrolled at the fashionable Buckley school like his father before him, while Annabel went to Spence. Carol thought perhaps the time had come to look for another job, but even at the mention of the subject, Annabel would burst into tears.
Florentyna spent every waking hour learning from George how the Baron Group was run. At the end of her first year as chairman, George Novak’s private doubts about whether his kum would have the toughness necessary to run such a huge empire were entirely allayed, especially after her stand in the South on equal pay for Baron Group employees whatever their color.
‘She has inherited her father’s genius,’ George told Richard. ‘All she lacks now is experience.’
‘Time will take care of that,’ Richard predicted.
Richard made a full report to the board on the state of the company after Florentyna’s first year as chairman. The Group declared a profit of more than $27 million despite a heavy worldwide building schedule and the drop in the value of the dollar against most trading currencies caused by the escalating war in Vietnam. Richard then presented his ideas to the board for a comprehensive investment program for the seventies. He ended his report by recommending that this kind of program be looked into by a bank.
‘Agreed,’ said Florentyna, ‘but I still look upon you as a banker.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ said Richard. ‘But with the turnover we now generate in more than fifty currencies and the fees we pay to the many financial institutions we employ, perhaps the time has come for us to control our own bank.’
‘Isn’t it nearly impossible nowadays to buy a bank outright?’ asked Florentyna. ‘And almost as hard to fulfill the government requirements for a license to run one?’
‘Yes it is, but we already own eight percent of Lester’s and we know what problems that created for my father. This time let’s turn it to our advantage. What I’d like to recommend to the board is...’
The following day Richard wrote to Jake Thomas, the chairman of Lester’s, seeking a private interview. The letter he received in reply was guarded to the point of hostility. Their secretaries agreed on a time and place for the meeting.
When Richard entered the chairman’s office, Jake Thomas rose from behind his desk and ushered him into a seat before returning to the leather chair that had been occupied by Richard’s father for more than twenty years. The bookcases were not as full nor the flowers as fresh as Richard remembered. The chairman’s greeting was formal and short, but Richard was not cowed by Thomas’s approach as he knew that he was bargaining from strength. There was no small talk.
‘Mr. Thomas, I feel that as I hold eight percent of Lester’s stock and have now moved to New York, the time has come for me to take my rightful place on the board of the bank.’
It was obvious from Jake Thomas’s first words that he had anticipated what was on Richard’s mind. ‘I think in normal circumstances that might have been a good idea, Mr. Kane, but as the board has quite recently filled its last place perhaps the alternative would be for you to sell your stock in the bank.’
It was exactly the answer Richard had expected. ‘Under no circumstances would I part with my family shares, Mr. Thomas. My father built this bank up to be one of the most respected financial institutions in America, and I intend to be closely involved in its future.’