Why Dark Pools – and Why a Pseudonym?

By Muttu Murali, Manager and Chef at Villa Traxler.

It was the evening after our fifth anniversary celebrations and I was on my way back from Weisenberg, when I noticed Sir, standing on the banks of the Meiringensee, seemingly deep in contemplation, staring at the silhouetted mountains. I wouldn’t normally have spoken to a guest informally, but he seemed too lightly dressed for the impending Alpine night and would certainly have been very cold on the climb back up to the Traxler.

“Herr DuCharme!” I called out. He was startled, dropping a pebble he had been holding into the still water.

“I hope you are enjoying your stay with us,” I continued.

He turned to acknowledge my greeting. I sensed he was still lost in some other thoughts, or perhaps he was momentarily trying to recollect who I was, as there was a reflective pause before he responded, “Yes, very much, lovely evening last night, thank you and well done on the food. Urs has also done a super job on refurbishing the Villa, but I have to say I’m finding it a bit nippy out here.”

“I can offer you a lift back,” I volunteered.

“That’d be great, thank you” he replied, but didn’t seem in any hurry despite the chill, and turned to look at the concentric circles dispersing across the water from where the pebble had landed. “It’s strange, isn’t it,” he said, “that during the day, the water is so clear that you can see almost to the bottom, but at night you can barely see below the surface.”

“It's mostly cloudy in Switzerland,” I replied with a smile. There followed a long silence, in fact for so long, that I felt obliged to speak again. “I hear you are writing a book, Sir. What is it about and do you have a title?”

He turned to look at me intently before speaking. “It’s about how you can never be sure of people's past, the true motivations behind their actions, particularly when they are overly ambitions or passionate about their goals or, perhaps less charitably, if driven by unencumbered greed or ego. All that can so often be hidden below the surface, the facade.”

“As in this lake,” I ventured. There was another pause, so I continued. “But I thought the book was about your experiences in banking?”

“Somewhat, but the concepts are true more broadly, wouldn’t you say?”

I didn’t answer. He was right. He continued to stare at the water, so I walked up to wait silently beside him.

“Dark Pools,” he murmured, eventually. “For the title, I mean. What do you think?”

“It certainly captures something hidden.”

“Yes, ‘dark pools’ are also private trading venues for large trades, where things are hidden as it were, so, you know, their price is not affected for the large volume being executed.”

I’m not a finance guy but anything important and hidden always creates a sense of unease for me. “Interesting,” was all I could say.

“Some people would say they could do with a bit more regulation, but they serve a useful purpose too,” Herr DuCharme continued, seemingly detecting my scepticism.

“And I understand you’ll be writing under a pseudonym?”

“Yes, why not, adds a bit of mystery doesn’t it, like Banksy? And privacy too, some of the characters get a poor write-up, and even if I change their names, there are plenty who would be vain and paranoid enough to think it’s about them, and I have to work with some of these guys.”

He paused, and I detected a faint familiar smile, before continuing, “On top of that, a different name can provide a break from your true self. Maybe I’m being deluded but you never know what the book might become – you understand what I mean?”

Indeed. I understood his point very well.