After lunch, Chavdar Tolomanov put in a call to the residence. He had been living in London for some years and presented himself sometimes as a salesman, sometimes as a man of the arts, but in reality he made his living some third way, which he avoided ever having to explain. From time to time, Kosta supplied him with cheap cigarettes from the Embassy’s diplomatic quota, and they had gradually become friends. Chavdar had come up with an extremely brash scenario, even judged by the cook’s low standards.
“I wanted to tell you that I’ve pulled a really great chick! Would you believe it? Real Latin American! Do you want her to phone you? Her name is Juliet. It’s just that she doesn’t speak any Bulgarian, ha-ha…”
Loud music was blasting down the earpiece and Kosta concluded that Chavdar was calling from a pub. He was tipsy and obviously having a good time.
“Listen, mate, lets arrange some business…” continued Chavdar. “Is the Mayor gone? Good. Look, I’m making out to this Juliet that I’m the Bulgarian Ambassador. Is it all right if I bring her to the residence? Just for one night, yeah?”
“No way! The new Ambassador’s already arrived.”
“What?!” Chavdar was surprised “How come so suddenly?”
“He dragged his sorry ass in here two hours ago,” the cook replied dryly. “Anyway, I’ve cleaning to be getting on with…” Try making out you’re the Ambassador to me! he thought and slammed down the receiver.
The news, however, had now leaked out. Chavdar Tolomanov did not have the same habits as Embassy people. Without so much as putting down his mobile phone, of which he was inordinately proud, he dialled the first number he came across. At the other end of the line a woman named Dafinka Zaks answered. Zaks lived off her late-husband’s rent and had a reputation as a happy widow. She thirstily soaked up the fresh gossip and delicately declined Chavdar’s proposition that she play the role of the rich, old auntie who lavishly provides space for the intimate adventures of her nephew. Dafinka Zaks shot off the news in several directions and the news spread like wildfire, along the approaches of the entirely unsuspecting Embassy, where the working day was winding towards its natural end.
At 4.30 p.m. the secretary’s telephone rang and an oily voice said, “Could you put me through to the Ambassador, please?”
The secretary, Tania Vandova, flinched as though scalded. She was familiar with that voice and in no way found it congenial.
“The new Ambassador has not yet arrived,” she declared in icy tones.
“Don’t hide him! Don’t hide him!” the voice at other end sang sweetly. “I know from a perfectly well-informed source, that he arrived this very afternoon. I only want to congratulate and welcome him.”
“Your source must have misinformed you,” the secretary attempted a nonchalant tone. “There is nobody here. Goodbye.”
In reality, Tania Vandova was not quite so sure and decided to trust to her well-honed secretarial instincts. A short conversation with the residence followed and Kosta was forced to spit out the truth (a big black mark for the cook!). The news whipped round the offices at the speed of light. At 5.30pm the Embassy emptied as though stricken by the Plague.
5
The eyes of the diplomats were filled with melancholy. They were sat fidgeting around the long empty table in the meeting-room beneath the map of Bulgaria, with its cold pink and yellow colouring. Malicious tongues had it that the map had been put there not so much to arouse patriotic spasms in the employees, but to serve as a reminder of where they came from and where they could be returning if they were not sufficiently careful. In practice, that was the only thing that could truly make them feel anxious. The ghost of going back! This ghost was a constant, inexorable presence around them. It sniggered maliciously in every corner and poisoned their lives with the memory of the finely scented black earth of their birthplace, from the very first to the very last day of their mandates. The subject of ‘going back’ was taboo, shrouded in painful silence. To ask somebody when he thought he might make the return journey (a blatant euphemism) was considered an act of bad taste, base manners and even hostility. Nobody talked about going back, nobody dared to say it out loud for fear of catching the attention of the evil powers that slumbered somewhere deep in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite the fact that everyone, down to the last telephonist, knew that this was their irrevocable destiny, as inevitable as winter or death, deep in their hearts they still sheltered the hope that that dolorous hour might pass them by, that they might be missed or forgotten in the overall mass of people and that the awful notice might never reach them. But the notice invariably arrived, along with its sinister title: Permanent Return – the creation of a vengeful bureaucrat from the distant past, the title had remained unchanged throughout the decades. And then began the time of the great retreat, the slow ebb. The condemned soul took to the road, watered with the tears of their predecessors, back to Heathrow Terminal 2, through Gate 7 or 9, and into the gloomy vessel of the national airline ‘Balkan’, after which the door slammed behind their back permanently.
It was soon after 10 p.m. The presidential chair was still empty. At a reasonable distance of a few empty chairs, the diplomats were sat with open pads, pens at the ready. The technical staff had crammed themselves at the other end of the table – the driver, the accountant, the radioman, the cook and the housekeeper. Very few things bonded those people together as did mutual dislike, slowly built up, layer on layer, over the course of all those years of enforced co-existence, resigned to financial and cultural restriction. Nevertheless, it could be said that for some time they had been leading relatively bearable and even carefree lives. They had all had their little pleasures, and they had all had one big, unifying one: they had had no boss. Several months had already passed whilst Sofia dithered over the appointment of a person to this important and sought-after posting. The interests of several lobbies intertwined and hindered one another. So many favours and counter-favours had been called in, so many obstacles found, so many traps laid, that the path to the UK began to look like a cross between an assault course and a mine-field. During that time, while it enjoyed a relative lack of authority, the life of the Embassy reorganized itself independently, on the principles of reason and progress, far from the chaos of administrative orders. The tensions between the employees had eased, some vague spirit of goodwill and mutual aid had been born, which had had a beneficial influence on the actions of the whole collective. Not that the denunciations had stopped entirely, but there was nobody to read them. There was nobody to give red or black marks – Sofia was far removed. But now the bell tolled the end of that calm and natural existence. The boss had arrived. He had arrived suddenly, without prior notice, which made his hostile intentions clear. The life of the diplomats had become messy again.
Shortly, the secretary Tania Vandova came in carrying a big diary-notebook under her arm. “He’s coming,” she said succinctly
Unperturbed, she installed herself in the chair to the right of the presidential seat, opened her pad and also started waiting. Silence reigned supreme in the room.
As he made his way down the stairs, Varadin Dimitrov was imagining the dispirited faces of his underlings and a smile slid across his face. Let them wait, let them tremble! He found no cause to doubt what he had always known: he had in front of him a gang of good-for-nothings, parasites living on the back of the state. At first, their indifference and self-satisfaction amazed him, then made him angry. He started planning ways to poison their existence more efficiently – in order to remind them that this job was not a winning lottery ticket. He liked to observe how they returned to their habitual forms of frightened little beasties. And that was only the beginning.
“Hello to you all,” Varadin greeted them dryly and took his place at the head of the table.
The pens clicked alertly, ready to take note of his immortal instructions. Reflexes die last, he thought happily to himself.
Then, suddenly, he frowned. “Where is Mr. Kishev?”
The diplomats looked at each other and shrugged.