Caustic Soda

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All of them wanted caustic soda. A ton, five tons, a hundred tons .

The guy from South Africa had a boat in Antwerp. A Liberty ship for ten thousand t ons  of calustic soda .

That was quick , I am going to be rich in a minute .

So I went to Solvay the only producer in Europe at their address 33 rue du Prince Albert ,and asked for the export manager .

A huissier, a man dressed as a funeral director but very chic, took me to the second floor, the executive floor of that Victorian Building  ,and asked  me to wait for the export manager .

He was an impressive man 60 year old , and looked very important.

In fact so important, that his chair was on a platform and from up there he asked me what I wanted.

I want caustic soda. Tons of it for export to the whole world .

He smiled , surely the first smile that day .

” Young man , caustic soda is the basis for soap, and you know what , there is no more soap in the world since 1940 when the war  began .

You are too young to remember how people were using soap to wash, to shave ,to clean clothes .

Now they use a cloth with loose sand and they rub and rub and rub.

You seem a very nice young man, but you will not find a kilo of caustic soda available, for the next ten years .”

He was very nice at the end and said goodbye, I will not see you for the next ten years .

Obviously he had no idea that there would be a Plan Marshall that would save Europe .

Nobody did.