Mission London

by Alek Popov

  “I understand,” the Ambassador nodded.

  “You see, we do not wish to profit from chaotic, short-term contacts!” Ziebling was on a roll. “When we create a particular connection, we look at it in a larger perspective. For that reason, connections made with our help are usually stable and last a long time, often for years.”

  “Most impressive!” whispered Varadin.

  “And so, Lady Thatcher…?”

  “Actually, no…It concerns the Palace.”

  “Ahhh, the Palace,” Ziebling nodded again, then continued, “Well, why not? We often work with them.”

  “We are organising a charity concert,” Varadin began timidly, “and we would like Her Majesty to grace us with her presence.”

  “Her Majesty?” Ziebling raised his eyebrows.

  “Exactly!”

  “An interesting choice,” Ziebling clasped his hands together thoughtfully. “Audacious. Of course we can arrange it. I don’t see any problem with that. However, this concert concerns me a little. What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “Well, a charity concert, you understand,” replied the Ambassador, confused once more. “For Bulgarian orphans.”

  “Orphans?” Ziebling sounded worried. “Do you mean minors…?”

  “Mmm, yes. At least I assume that they are under eighteen….”

  “I cannot allow them to participate in the entertainment!” Ziebling’s tone brooked no argument.

  “Of course, they won’t participate,” agreed the Ambassador. “They’re in Bulgaria, aren’t they? You see, they are merely the reason for the event…We want to gather together the most select audience. High Society, as such.”

  “Uh-huh,” nodded Ziebling, relieved. “Fine. We have plenty of experience with similar undertakings. It’s beginning to look like a very ambitious project.”

  “That’s exactly what it is.”

  “We will have to work out a preliminary scenario,” continued Ziebling. “We have a specialist who deals with just that. He’ll get in touch with you in the next couple of days. His name is Thomas Munroe.”

  That’s what I call a business-like approach to things, Varadin thought. Maybe Carver would turn out to be right.

  Robert Ziebling left the office in high spirits. He even shared a joke with Tania Vandova, who seemed a little worried.

  Varadin decided that he should take advantage of this brief moment of partial satisfaction (the satisfaction was never complete and never lasted long), to sort out some family matters that had been left to one side in the haste of his departure. He ought to call his wife. This was something that he had been carefully avoiding ever since he set foot on British soil. There was no way to erase it from his mind, and in fact he had no intention of doing so. He looked at his watch: it must be almost 10 am in Sofia now. A good time, he decided, dialled the number and waited. Would she still be in bed? When had she gone to bed? What had she been doing until so late?

  “Hello?” a confident male voice answered.

  Varadin stood open mouthed in shock, but did not say anything. Nor did he put the phone down.

  ‘Hello...?’ repeated the voice, suspiciously this time.

  Varadin listened carefully, straining to hear better. The man at the other end started to do the same, so the only thing to be heard for several seconds was the hiss and crackle of the line. Then both of them put the phone down almost simultaneously.

  “Wrong number,” Varadin told himself, less than convinced.

  He dialled again. This time a sleepy female voice answered.

  “Hello, Nadya, did I wake you?” he asked, relieved.

  “Hello, yeah, pretty much. Are you calling from London?”

  “What do you think?”

  “From London, or else it would have been the doorbell ringing, I know you. Why are you calling?”

  “I want you to come,” his voice brooked no denial. “I need you. I hope you’ve thought it over.”

  “Yes, I’ve been thinking quite a bit.”

  There followed a short pause.

  “So you’ll come?”

  “No, of course, I won’t.”

  “We are talking about London, in case you happen to have forgotten.”

  “We are talking about the London Bulgarian Embassy,” she put a special emphasis on those last two words. “There is an important difference.”

  “What’s this load of rubbish?” he hissed.

  “You heard!” snapped Nadya. “I don’t like the environment and that’s that; I still feel sick when I think of your last mandate. Not to mention the previous one! All those holes stink as badly as each other, no matter where they are. It was that way before and nothing has changed, nor will it because this half-arsed country hasn’t changed a bit!! D’you get what I’m saying here?”

  “Nadya, Nadya!”

  “Ahh, so you don’t get it then?! You think you’ve got God by the beard, but in reality he’s got you. And you know where? By the balls, the nuts, the privates. And he’s slowly crushing them. Squish, squeeze for fifteen years now. You’re not the man I married all those years ago. Now you’re like someone who’s had a steam-roller go between his legs. You all get that way after you spend a few years in that mill! I, on the other hand, don’t intend to be a part of all that. I’m not going to be one of those misanthropic little women, who accompany their husbands for cocktails, and spend the rest of their time at female get-togethers and organising charity events. Finita la commedia!”

  “You’d rather rot over there then!”

  “YOU are not telling ME where to rot!” she yelled. “I’m going to the UAE.”

  “Where?”

  “You’re the diplomat, you should know: the United Arab Emirates.”

  “What are you going to do there?” Varadin felt stung.

  “I found myself a job in a clinic.”

  “You’re going to work as a doctor?”

  “Exactly, that is what I’m trained for. I’m leaving in two months. You’ll have to send me some money.”

  “Forget it!”

  “Then I’ll just have to send your old Communist Party Membership Card to certain department chiefs....”

  “My old Communist Party Membership Card? There’s no such thing.”

  “You wish! I fished it out of the trash. I can courier it to you, if you send me five hundred pounds. I’ll need them for my lawyer.”

  “Bitch!”

  “Don’t piss me off, small fry! You go calling me at some ridiculous hour of the morning, wake up my boyfriend, then wake me up as well, and to top it all you then talk shit down the phone. I told you, it’s over. What more do you want?”

  “Bitch!!!” Varadin repeated helplessly.

  Hearty laughter gushed from the other end of the line. “You woke me up nicely; Ciao for now!”

  The line went dead. Varadin shook the phone as though he wanted to shake all the negative energy out of it, then put down the receiver. First privatized Embassy was what percolated through his mind. But all he could vocalise was the number 100.

  “100!-100!-100!”

  Doctor Pepolen did not allow for numbers outside the framework of 1 to 100 – that was the iron rule. However, there existed no categorical statement that numbers could not be repeated, and thus Varadin often bent the rule by pouring out his spiritual turmoil in small packages of 100, fired off like a machine-gun, until he emptied the well of his anxiety. Dr Pepolen was unaware of this little innovation, otherwise he might have banned it.

  15

  For the opening of the European Conference, a huge heap of Bulgarian Cabinet members fell on London, headed by the Prime Minister himself. The local press was extremely sceptical about this gathering; there was even a note of cynicism, but for the transition-tormented governments from Eastern Europe, it was manna from heaven, an overwhelming prelude to their eventual membership of the club of prosperous Western cousins.

  Throughout these three days that were filled with general commotion, long speeches,
exultation and not very well hidden disappointment, Varadin struggled merely to survive. The reality of the situation blurred before his eyes, like the countryside outside the window of a speeding train; he saw clearly only the obstacles, hazards and pit-falls that he had to avoid. His immediate proximity to the Premier horrified him. That strict and powerful politician, who had swum out of Post-Communism’s primordial soup, looked to be the sort of man who breakfasted every morning on bureaucratic destinies, cooked al dente with garlic and horseradish sauce. Varadin had cause to believe (he had half-heard it from somewhere) that this man was far from happy about his ambassadorial nomination, and so Varadin was quaking lest something happen that might confirm the Premier’s suspicions. On the other hand, like all true careerists, he felt a pathological attraction to people in positions of power, and threw himself ferociously towards them, taking on all the risks that came with such dangerous proximity. For the moment, however, he had to be careful not to be dazzled by the Premier’s aura, which would, without doubt, attract the hatred of the other two ministers, who could easily harm him. He also strained to keep an eye on his staff, who circled like hyenas around those currently in power, and were only waiting for the right moment to discredit him. The task was daunting.

  The Conference was being held in Lancaster House – the most imposing element of the St James’ Palace complex. The place was breath-taking in its lavish splendour, but contributed nothing to the spiritual comfort of the Eastern European government representatives. Beneath the heavy gilded ceilings hovered feelings of both victory and defeat. Victory, they had all tasted; whereas defeat was something no-one was suffering from, visibly at least. But if the victory was for all, then why were all of its fruits gathered on one side, leaving only the stalks on the other? This new division of the old continent was what the leaders of the new democracies strove to understand and internally complained about. Even between themselves, however, there remained too little brotherly love. The simple and obvious fact that they were so similar that they could see themselves reflected in each other, infuriated them. They preferred to see themselves reflected in their rich Western relatives with their aristocratic habits and noble manners. They were envious and suspicious of one another, inclined to take the advancement of their neighbour as their own personal failure. They scrambled desperately to get out of the communal manure, without looking where they trod. The big competition for Europe had begun. The favoured countries celebrated the fact that they had come out a whisker ahead of their former allies, but their joy was overshadowed by the knowledge that between themselves and the developed European countries there lay many miles yet. The remainder, which included Varadin’s fatherland, were happy that they had so much as made it into the competition at all. They did not put much effort into drawing level with the West, because an old adage, from some unknown Balkan sage, lived on in their subconscious: Even sprinting, we aren’t going to catch them. Their pride thrived on the fact that there were even worse cases, such as Moldova or Yugoslavia. These had not so much as found a seat at the negotiating table.

  The western diplomats looked with reluctance at this cloudy cocktail of vodka, palinka and rakia, which they were being forced to swallow. At the end of the day, what they would like to do was to tip it under the table, without anyone noticing. But they could not – everyone’s gaze was fixed on them – and any false move might bring with it unforeseen repercussions. It was unavoidable!

  For Varadin, the Conference was an excuse to make official contacts at every possible level: from foreign Ambassadors and high-level employees of the Foreign Office, to Foreign Ministers and Heads of State. He did not allow himself to be carried away by the fact that he performed all this communication with ease. He stayed alert, trying to analyse the possibilities that each new contact opened for him. But he always remained disappointed with the low horizon and narrow perspective of their potential development. The infertility of those ephemeral introductions now seemed like the spark of an empty lighter. They lacked the depth and the resources to be worthwhile contacts. Their names slipped out of his mind as easily as their visiting-cards into his pocket. Conversing with these people required no more than three hundred words, and for the first time in his career, he came to realise that a well trained imbecile could quite easily carry out this function! And perhaps he was precisely that imbecile.

  He lifted his anxious gaze towards the Premier. What if he had heard his thoughts? People with power usually possessed a well-developed intuition regarding their inferiors. For the time being, though, the entire attention of the Premier was focused on the President of the European Commission’s speech. The little headset running the simultaneous translation was buzzing persistently in his ear, but did he hear a word of what was said? It was impossible to tell. For the last few years, Varadin had been observing the people at the head of the government closely, and had caught on to the processes they underwent internally, almost without exception. Power sucked them from the inside: like shrimps, their faces tightened onto their skulls, their eyes became round and bulged, ready to jump out of their sockets like bullets. Their senses also changed: the old ones atrophied, and in their place new ones developed, akin to those of lizards or insects. First they lost their ability to listen, as though they no longer grasped the meaning of words, and then they stopped seeing – they looked through people as though they were made of glass. They trusted only in the vibrations they gave off in all directions to gain information about the world around them.

  The vibrations of power were universal and had no need of an interpreter; they warily scanned every body they met: they examined it for form and consistency, they checked its durability and colour, they searched for irregularities and cracks, and they gauged the strength of its vibrations, if it had any. Then they reported back. The bodies were either animate or inanimate. The animate ones were divided into subdued and non-subdued. The non-subdued were subdivided into hostile and neutral. The hostile were subdivided into strong and weak.

  One had to be careful with the strong ones!

  The President of the EC was strong, although he looked soft and well-polished – he was smooth and had no cracks; his vibrations were low and unobtrusive, yet powerful. Not so much strength of character as the strength of the institution he represented. He was not to be underestimated and the Premier was alert. Cold and immobile, his head raised (the wire of his headset hung lifeless from his ear) only the slow movement of his adam’s apple gave him away. Up and down. On his other side was the Foreign Minister, who was continuously taking notes in a gilt-edged, leather-bound, luxury notebook. He also had a headset, although his was crammed into his ear, not that he needed translation, but to show solidarity with his superior. Varadin threw a glance at his own notebook and realised with horror that the only thing he had jotted down was a little stickman in the bottom corner. He was straining to catch up on what he had missed, when the President’s speech, somewhat unexpectedly, ended. There was polite applause until some other leader took the podium. At that exact moment, the Premier inclined his head towards Varadin and whispered, “Is my speech ready?”

  The Ambassador nodded instinctively. In reality, he was not so sure. Of course the question concerned the English translation of the speech, which would be distributed to the listeners. This creation had been tirelessly edited, until the very last minute, and only this morning the staff at the Embassy had started its feverish translation. He quietly got to his feet, and went to talk to one of the diplomats that had accompanied the delegation.

  Counsellor Danailov was chatting carelessly with the mighty Minister for Industry and some other upper echelon aides in the Cabinet entourage. This picture turned the Ambassador’s stomach. He drew him to one side and asked him whether the Premier’s speech was ready. Danailov calmly looked at his watch and said, “It should be here already. I’ll go and get it.”

  Varadin, relieved, watched his figure until it left the Negotiation Hall, then immediately returned to the group.


  Danailov left Lancaster House at the pace of a well-fed man, crossed the courtyard full of shiny limousines, and went to the gate. The young intern Nikola Turkeiev was already waiting for him there, looking around impatiently. He did not have a pass for the Conference, his job was merely to bring the translated and printed speech from the Embassy to the gate.

  “How are you, lad?” Danailov gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder.

  “Did you get it?” The intern looked worried and confused.

  “What should I have got?”

  “Well, the speech.”

  “Weren’t you bringing it?” asked the Counsellor in surprise.

  “I gave it to someone to give to you, just a minute ago,” the intern said and hurried to explain himself, “I was worried it might be late.”

  “Wait here, I’ll go check,” The Counsellor’s voice was suddenly grim.

  He came back a short while later, even grimmer.

  “Can’t find it anywhere,” he scratched behind his ear. “Why the hell didn’t you wait for me, Smartypants?”

  “I waited,” the intern quavered. “You didn’t turn up and I got worried. I asked some guy to call someone out, but he offered to take it to you himself.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Danailov suspiciously.

  “Well, I mean...” stuttered Turkeiev. “He had a raincoat and glasses; he was extremely polite.”

  “And you gave him the Premier’s speech?” the Counsellor’s eyebrows jumped. “Every copy?”

  The intern nodded, devastated.

  Danailov quickly questioned Security. The cops confirmed that Turkeiev had given the copies to a tall gentleman in a green raincoat. The man had been coming to the gate every hour and people had been bringing him documents that he had taken inside. Maybe he was from the Romanian Embassy, no one was sure. There was always a crowd around the entrance.

  Danailov left the intern to stew in his own juices and quickly headed into the building, checking at every step for green raincoats. Varadin lay in wait for him, hidden behind a column in the foyer.