فصل 03

Chapter three

The Building Business

After nine months in Haiti, Conway was a happy man. His business was going well, and he was making a lot of money. He had a large office in Port au Prince, a big house, and hundreds of people were working for him.

He had some land near Port au Prince, and he was building a new town.

There were already hundreds of new houses, and many people knew the name Conway Construction. But Conway had a problem, and he wanted to see a business friend, Jacques Remy.

The telephone on his desk rang. He picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Mr Remy is here to see you, Mr Conway,’ said his secretary.

‘Send him in immediately.’ A few moments later, Jacques Remy came into the room.

‘Jacques, it’s nice to see you. Thank you for coming. Sit down.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jacques. ‘You said on the phone that you had a problem.’

‘Yes,’ said Conway. ‘You helped me buy the land for the new town when I first came to Haiti. Some of the houses are ready, and people are living in them. But now I need more land.’

‘You can buy land anywhere,’ said Jacques.

‘I know, but I want a piece of land near my houses. People will need shops, and perhaps I can build a hotel too, and some more houses.’

‘What piece of land do you want?’ asked Jacques.

‘Well, that’s the problem.’ Conway took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and began to draw a map. ‘

Most of the houses are here,’ he said. ‘Now, I can’t build on the south or the east side of the houses because of the sea.

On the north side the land is no good. There is too much water in it. So I can only build on the west side. I can only build on this hill.’

‘Good,’ said Jacques. ‘Buy the hill and then you can build more houses on the other side too.’

‘I want to,’ said Conway, ‘but there’s a problem.’ He went over to the desk and picked up a photograph.

It was a photograph of a graveyard. He gave the photo-graph of the graveyard to Jacques. ‘You see, it won’t be easy. I want to build on the graveyard.’

Jacques looked at the photograph carefully. ‘It’s very old,’ he said, ‘and that’s good. If only a few people go there, perhaps you can buy it.

But if it is new and a lot of people go there, they will be angry, and it will be difficult to buy it. Go and look at the stones.

Find out how old the place is. I’ll talk to some friends. Perhaps they can help.’

‘Thank you very much, Jacques. I won’t forget this.’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Jacques. ‘Tell me how old the stones are, and I’ll ring you again in a few days.’