Because she had heard another man from the same family say almost the opposite thirteen years earlier.
That memory arrived so suddenly that she nearly stopped walking.
An older Russian man.
A Manhattan conference room.
A yellow legal pad.
A cup of tea he refused to drink because Americans kept making it too weak.
His voice:
“Компания — это не только имущество. Это люди, которые утром приходят открывать двери.”
A company is not only its property. It is the people who arrive in the morning to open the doors.
The waitress placed a plate carefully.
She had not thought about the old man in months.
Maybe years.
Not seriously.
She had met him when she was nineteen.
At the time, she had been studying Russian, international relations, and legal translation.
She had won a university language scholarship after high school and had been absurdly proud of it.
Her grandmother spoke French.
Her father’s family carried Louisiana French.
Russian had come later.
A fascination that started with literature and became serious once she discovered languages could become careers.
She studied obsessively.
Summer language programs.
Conversation groups.
Translation labs.
By her second year of university, she was good enough to assist professional interpreters on low-risk assignments.
Not diplomacy.
Not classified work.
Business lunches.
Medical consultations.
Cultural events.
One professor recommended her to an interpreting agency.
The agency handled visiting executives.
That was how she met the billionaire’s father.
At the time, the father was already in his seventies.
A Russian industrialist from an older generation.
Not poor.
Not humble in the simple sense.
He was wealthy, demanding, stubborn, and sometimes impossible.
But he had one quality his son seemed to have misplaced.
He noticed people.
The first day she interpreted for him, she made a mistake.
He asked a question involving a technical term for a type of rolling equipment used in steel production.
She did not know it.
She guessed.
Wrong.
The old patriarch stopped speaking.
Looked at her.
“What did you say?”
Her face burned.
She admitted:
“I’m not certain of the technical term.”
He stared.
Then said:
“Good.”
She thought she was being mocked.
He continued: