Tales from the Land of Serenity Part 15

These are tales that came into being following the brutal assassination of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, 16th October 2017.

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Where style, taste and discernment are concerned, some people are, quite simply, beyond criticism. Such could be said for Manuchehr Ahadphur Khanagh, a humble millonaire of modest origins who was – nay, most likely still is – an intimate friend of the Aliyev family, another delightful example of Serenity’s emphasis on kinship and the bonds of brotherhood.

The Aliyev family have a rich and colourful history as leaders of a democratic dynasty reliant on deconstructing the outdated notion of human rights, reintroducing the concept of corruption as a mode of common currency, using a lighting rig so the family remains in the spotlight at election times, and putting quite harsh yet necessary measures in place to deal with those who suggest the regime may be totalitarian, dictatorial and inhumane. Oh, there are always legal eagle beavers to contend with, such as lawyers advocating humanitarian treatment for each and every member of society, and journalists who consistently poke their noses in as Serenity knows and to its peril. Goodness, where the law’s concerned there’s just no pleasing some people!

The Aliyev family from Azerbaijan have a friend called Khangah, or Renaissance Man. And Azerbaijan and Renaissance Man have a penchant for places like Serenity’s land. Its slipshod terrain and its slippery stones make the Land of Serenity a land they call home.

And call it home they did.

Now if you remember, way back in Part 2, there was a man who remained nameless becasue everyone knew his name was Keith Schembri. There was also a man on whom we took pity because he was forced to resign from his eminent position at the Malta Institute of Accountants because, if he didn’t, he would be subjected to unjustifiable and incriminating disciplinary investigations by those accountants who he once thought were his friends. But friendship is a curious creature which shifts and changes shape at the slightest movement of the tide. Poor Mr Brian Tonna was forced to walk away in shame, his pockets heavy with gold and his heart weighed down with worries about what name he’d choose for his next money-making little venture.

The only names he could think of had already been taken by his esteemed friend and veritable man of culture, the Renaissance Man. In 2015, this modest millionaire opened up a symphonic sequence of investment holding companies respectfully named after classical composers who would surely not be turning in their graves if they knew. A melodic melange of musicality with an appropriately cerebral ring, these orchestral fiddles of the financial section rose in unison to form a sonata and a serenade within Serenity.

One account was called Bach – a fantasia and fugue. Another was named Beethoven, which was such an Ode to Joy. Yet another was named Mozart, with a nod to his magical flute, and Puccini wasn’t left to perish like his Madam Butterfly. The alliteration of Verdi and Vivaldi completed the six accounts which should have weathered the four seasons but were ripped open in an untimely manner just before the 12 month period elapsed when the contents of these compositions should have confronted a statutory audit. But alas! The awaited for crescendo was cut short and the climax never came! The security boxes lay empty, deadly silent and forlorn. All that is solid had melted into air although legend has it that the cockroach seen scuttling away as the vaults were opened was actually the conductor’s baton which, via the laws of metamorphosis and mischief, had been transformed into something other than it used to be. So many tricks up so many sleeves!

Mr Brian Tonna, an aficionado of all things sublime, including Keith Schembri, had, as one would expect, extended a courteous hand to Mr so Renaissance Man and, under a cloak of invisibility, led him through the trustworthy pillars of Pilatus Bank, a bank who have now become a household thanks to the aptly titled Paradise Papers (still being sued for copyright by Serenity on the grounds of libelous similarity).

Pilatus Bank. A financial institution once called into question by a journalist who deigned to suggest that it was not the local friendly high street bank it pertained to be but that its stocks included large quantites of washing powder and even larger quantities of fabric softener because nobody likes discomfort pricking at their skin.

In the soft and comforting pastoral known as Serenity, in the quiet pastures of rural tranquility, an explosion went off in the middle of an afternoon in which a woman, and a journalist, was not quietly killed, in a landscape in which, if there had been any sheep, their fleeces might once have been sheared, spun and dyed in order to disguise their original identity. As it was, the good little people of Serenity wrapped their delicate fresh garments around themselves, soothed by the fragrant and white white wool being pulled, hypnotically, over their eyes.