All's well that ends well, but what about the beginning? Furled in myth and memory, entwined in exaggeration, my story has too many knots and tangles, and each plausible beginning is a trap: pull at one dangling end and the whole ball of string draws ever tighter into an infernal noose. O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Are you sure you want to enter this maze? Be warned: I am lost in my own labyrinth. But I make no excuses and there is no question of complaining. I deserved what I got. An idle mind is the Devil's workshop.
All good things in life start in bed and the day I was fired was no exception. I really should have known better than to go to the office that day. Curled up in bed, cozily drooling into my goose-down comforter, luxuriously nursing the languid hangover that only 25 year old archive single malt Scotch can induce, I felt so deliciously fragile. I could see through half-closed eyes that it was a perfect afternoon, with the sun gently beaming down from an immaculate azure sky, taking the chill off the cool autumnal breeze, and I relished the prospect of absently listening to the latest gossip in some snug little pub, one of those warm dark holes in which my London cronies loitered. Instead, impelled by some obscure sense of duty, I got up, brushed my teeth and hair, and actually walked to the office instead of taking a taxi. My boss's umpteenth urgent summons were strewn like yellow confetti all over my work space, which I ignored as long as I possibly could, until Cynthia, his pert little secretary, pranced over, all curves, tickled my face with her cute fake-blonde eyelashes, and cajoled me into walking down the corridor to my boss's office with her. She didn't feel safe with all those other journalists around, Cyn explained, and I was gentleman and fool enough to believe her. How should I have known that etiquette would lead me so far astray?
So there I was, sitting across the desk from Jenkins, listening to him hum and haw. The international editor of the most respected English-language periodical on this planet spoke like an alien: the innumerable words he had chopped out of countless sentences had taken a cruel revenge on his personal syntax. After a while, he finally got to the point. Or tried. "Going to have to let you glow. I mean, grow."
"Gosh, thanks." I batted my eyelashes ecstatically. "I wasn't expecting a promotion… just yet."
"Not promotion. Oh hell…" Jenkins fumbled feebly in his jacket pocket for a moment and pulled out a crumpled Marlboro packet. Even before he swore sadly, I knew that the packet was empty. "Thanks," he mumbled, taking the Gauloise I held out to him. I leaned over the proofs strewn around the huge desk and lit the cigarette. Enveloped in tweed and an acrid haze, coughing and blinking away tears from red-rimmed eyes, Jenkins looked the part of an editor at that moment. As I stared admiringly at him, I felt a glorious twinge of deja vu, as though we were living in film noir. I felt authentic. But the moment couldn't last. Jenkins waved a hand around ineffectually at the smoke. "You're hired. I mean, fired."
"Which?"
Jenkins shot up out of his chair, wheezing eerily like an erupting volcano. "Fired! Ejected! Rejected! Out! Lout!" He subsided again, glaring at me. "Get it?"
"I suppose. But don't you think you might regret it?"
A humourless bark. "Regret! Regret the day I hired you. Ruined for life."
I was touched. "No, really, it hasn't been that bad. I've quite enjoyed working here, and I do understand, really…"
"Understand?" Jenkins was swelling and turning red alarmingly fast. "When you missed Tienanmen we understood. Even though every other Western reporter covering Asia and the Soviet Union was there. Still, wasn't really your fault. Couldn't get a flight to Beijing that weekend. Besides, new."
It was my turn to sigh. I knew the litany of my failures yet to come. Jenkins ploughed on remorselessly. "Expected better after transfer from Hong Kong to Munich desk. Agreed, nobody expected all that stuff on the Central Europe beat that year. But still mystery how you could miss everything. East Germans crowding embassies in Budapest. No sign of you. On train to wrong country. Polish round-table talks in Warsaw. Wrong city. Demonstrations in Wenceslas Square. Wrong square. Fall of the Berlin Wall?" Jenkins looked at me lugubriously. "You were in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall? Interviewing archaeologists ? Managing editor and I still wonder about that one. Gave you money. Lots of it. Carte blanche to travel. Photographers. Unlimited assistance from every other bureau. What did we do wrong?"
Jenkins' voice had risen to a raspy wail. I looked down at my neatly manicured fingers and waited for the inevitable tears. "Even then, even after disastrous summer and autumn and winter, gave you another chance. Could happen to anybody, we said. Put boy in a place he understands, we said. Where has family. Connections. Mongolia. Nobody could miss significant news event in Mongolia, could they?" Jenkins shook his head slowly. "Benefit of hindsight. See now where went wrong. Problem is you just don't have reporter's instincts. Not your fault. Some people have it, others don't." He looked over my head at the wall behind me. "When I was a cub reporter beginning career in Indochina," he began with a distant air as though lost in time.
I had heard this particular reminiscence before. "Was this when you were at the horse races in Saigon and you heard two tiny people babbling in broken Chinese about a sick old man in hiding and you followed them to the place where Ho Chi Minh was staying on a secret inspection trip and you got an exclusive interview with him by pretending you were a Swedish doctor except that no paper would print it because nobody believed you?"
"Right," he snapped, annoyed at my interruption. "Wasn't really lying, though. Ethics. Mother was Swedish. Now she's dead. Point I'm trying to get across is that reporting takes initiative. Courage. Guts. Unlike you," he sneered. "When you were in Madras on your way to Ulan Bator when Rajiv Gandhi was killed. You were there. On the spot. Every reporter's dream. Story made in heaven. Largest democracy on earth. Election campaign. Important politician gets head blown off. Only Western reporter on scene. Could have made up any story you liked. Guaranteed to make front pages next day and reputation for life. But what did you do? Took first taxi back to airport. Coward!"
"There were riots," I protested. "I hate tear gas."
"Real reporter laughs in the face of tear gas," Jenkins bellowed. "Because of tear gas you missed coup in Moscow?"
"It was the tanks," I said defensively. "I couldn't help it. The Mongolian president wouldn't give me a lift from Sheremetyevo into the city. He said there wasn't enough room in his limousine. And then the taxi driver freaked out when he saw the tanks. He was screaming some gibberish about the revenge of the Czechs. Then he started frothing at the mouth and going into convulsions. I gave him some of my Valium but he just keeled over and I had to sit there for hours to make sure he didn't choke to death."
"Humanitarian of you," Jenkins said bitterly. "So you let dolt dribble all over you without even thinking about fact that you were our only reporter in Moscow since Rasputin was back here getting his absurd wisdom teeth pulled. Just our luck. Most momentous event in history of world and our man on spot decides to take up nursing. Just as well, really," he said, abruptly sitting up straight and mashing some papers on his desk together. "Sure it will come in handy. Been reading about shortage of nurses lately. Not sure it pays better than being foreign correspondent for The Sociologist," Jenkins smiled nastily. "But I'm sure more... fulfilling." He rose from his chair. I reached out for his hand and reluctantly restrained a strong impulse to bite it. "Don't know if we owe you anything," Jenkins called after me as I turned to leave. "But... got another cigarette?"
I smiled back sweetly. "Sure. Take the whole pack."
Jenkins grabbed the pack of Gauloises from my outstretched hand and lit one greedily. Then, suspiciously, "Why?"
"Because they're so good for you."
"Ah, go to hell."
I smiled again, remembering how much fun it had been to paint each cigarette with hashish oil the night before. I made a mental note to buy next week's issue of The Sociologist to check on Jenkins' editing. I walked out of his office, whistling. Cyn looked at me with concern. I winked wickedly and asked her out to dinner. Three bottles of champagne and a couple of pipes of opium later, I considered my next move. A hectic night later, my mouth was a sewer and my throat used cat litter, Cyn's hair was tickling my nostrils and her knee was jammed into my bladder. And then I remembered that I had run out of coffee and given away my last cigarettes. I had clearly taken Jenkins' advice and gone to hell.
Little did I know that my journey had only just begun.
All good things in life start in bed and the day I was fired was no exception. I really should have known better than to go to the office that day. Curled up in bed, cozily drooling into my goose-down comforter, luxuriously nursing the languid hangover that only 25 year old archive single malt Scotch can induce, I felt so deliciously fragile. I could see through half-closed eyes that it was a perfect afternoon, with the sun gently beaming down from an immaculate azure sky, taking the chill off the cool autumnal breeze, and I relished the prospect of absently listening to the latest gossip in some snug little pub, one of those warm dark holes in which my London cronies loitered. Instead, impelled by some obscure sense of duty, I got up, brushed my teeth and hair, and actually walked to the office instead of taking a taxi. My boss's umpteenth urgent summons were strewn like yellow confetti all over my work space, which I ignored as long as I possibly could, until Cynthia, his pert little secretary, pranced over, all curves, tickled my face with her cute fake-blonde eyelashes, and cajoled me into walking down the corridor to my boss's office with her. She didn't feel safe with all those other journalists around, Cyn explained, and I was gentleman and fool enough to believe her. How should I have known that etiquette would lead me so far astray?
So there I was, sitting across the desk from Jenkins, listening to him hum and haw. The international editor of the most respected English-language periodical on this planet spoke like an alien: the innumerable words he had chopped out of countless sentences had taken a cruel revenge on his personal syntax. After a while, he finally got to the point. Or tried. "Going to have to let you glow. I mean, grow."
"Gosh, thanks." I batted my eyelashes ecstatically. "I wasn't expecting a promotion… just yet."
"Not promotion. Oh hell…" Jenkins fumbled feebly in his jacket pocket for a moment and pulled out a crumpled Marlboro packet. Even before he swore sadly, I knew that the packet was empty. "Thanks," he mumbled, taking the Gauloise I held out to him. I leaned over the proofs strewn around the huge desk and lit the cigarette. Enveloped in tweed and an acrid haze, coughing and blinking away tears from red-rimmed eyes, Jenkins looked the part of an editor at that moment. As I stared admiringly at him, I felt a glorious twinge of deja vu, as though we were living in film noir. I felt authentic. But the moment couldn't last. Jenkins waved a hand around ineffectually at the smoke. "You're hired. I mean, fired."
"Which?"
Jenkins shot up out of his chair, wheezing eerily like an erupting volcano. "Fired! Ejected! Rejected! Out! Lout!" He subsided again, glaring at me. "Get it?"
"I suppose. But don't you think you might regret it?"
A humourless bark. "Regret! Regret the day I hired you. Ruined for life."
I was touched. "No, really, it hasn't been that bad. I've quite enjoyed working here, and I do understand, really…"
"Understand?" Jenkins was swelling and turning red alarmingly fast. "When you missed Tienanmen we understood. Even though every other Western reporter covering Asia and the Soviet Union was there. Still, wasn't really your fault. Couldn't get a flight to Beijing that weekend. Besides, new."
It was my turn to sigh. I knew the litany of my failures yet to come. Jenkins ploughed on remorselessly. "Expected better after transfer from Hong Kong to Munich desk. Agreed, nobody expected all that stuff on the Central Europe beat that year. But still mystery how you could miss everything. East Germans crowding embassies in Budapest. No sign of you. On train to wrong country. Polish round-table talks in Warsaw. Wrong city. Demonstrations in Wenceslas Square. Wrong square. Fall of the Berlin Wall?" Jenkins looked at me lugubriously. "You were in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall? Interviewing archaeologists ? Managing editor and I still wonder about that one. Gave you money. Lots of it. Carte blanche to travel. Photographers. Unlimited assistance from every other bureau. What did we do wrong?"
Jenkins' voice had risen to a raspy wail. I looked down at my neatly manicured fingers and waited for the inevitable tears. "Even then, even after disastrous summer and autumn and winter, gave you another chance. Could happen to anybody, we said. Put boy in a place he understands, we said. Where has family. Connections. Mongolia. Nobody could miss significant news event in Mongolia, could they?" Jenkins shook his head slowly. "Benefit of hindsight. See now where went wrong. Problem is you just don't have reporter's instincts. Not your fault. Some people have it, others don't." He looked over my head at the wall behind me. "When I was a cub reporter beginning career in Indochina," he began with a distant air as though lost in time.
I had heard this particular reminiscence before. "Was this when you were at the horse races in Saigon and you heard two tiny people babbling in broken Chinese about a sick old man in hiding and you followed them to the place where Ho Chi Minh was staying on a secret inspection trip and you got an exclusive interview with him by pretending you were a Swedish doctor except that no paper would print it because nobody believed you?"
"Right," he snapped, annoyed at my interruption. "Wasn't really lying, though. Ethics. Mother was Swedish. Now she's dead. Point I'm trying to get across is that reporting takes initiative. Courage. Guts. Unlike you," he sneered. "When you were in Madras on your way to Ulan Bator when Rajiv Gandhi was killed. You were there. On the spot. Every reporter's dream. Story made in heaven. Largest democracy on earth. Election campaign. Important politician gets head blown off. Only Western reporter on scene. Could have made up any story you liked. Guaranteed to make front pages next day and reputation for life. But what did you do? Took first taxi back to airport. Coward!"
"There were riots," I protested. "I hate tear gas."
"Real reporter laughs in the face of tear gas," Jenkins bellowed. "Because of tear gas you missed coup in Moscow?"
"It was the tanks," I said defensively. "I couldn't help it. The Mongolian president wouldn't give me a lift from Sheremetyevo into the city. He said there wasn't enough room in his limousine. And then the taxi driver freaked out when he saw the tanks. He was screaming some gibberish about the revenge of the Czechs. Then he started frothing at the mouth and going into convulsions. I gave him some of my Valium but he just keeled over and I had to sit there for hours to make sure he didn't choke to death."
"Humanitarian of you," Jenkins said bitterly. "So you let dolt dribble all over you without even thinking about fact that you were our only reporter in Moscow since Rasputin was back here getting his absurd wisdom teeth pulled. Just our luck. Most momentous event in history of world and our man on spot decides to take up nursing. Just as well, really," he said, abruptly sitting up straight and mashing some papers on his desk together. "Sure it will come in handy. Been reading about shortage of nurses lately. Not sure it pays better than being foreign correspondent for The Sociologist," Jenkins smiled nastily. "But I'm sure more... fulfilling." He rose from his chair. I reached out for his hand and reluctantly restrained a strong impulse to bite it. "Don't know if we owe you anything," Jenkins called after me as I turned to leave. "But... got another cigarette?"
I smiled back sweetly. "Sure. Take the whole pack."
Jenkins grabbed the pack of Gauloises from my outstretched hand and lit one greedily. Then, suspiciously, "Why?"
"Because they're so good for you."
"Ah, go to hell."
I smiled again, remembering how much fun it had been to paint each cigarette with hashish oil the night before. I made a mental note to buy next week's issue of The Sociologist to check on Jenkins' editing. I walked out of his office, whistling. Cyn looked at me with concern. I winked wickedly and asked her out to dinner. Three bottles of champagne and a couple of pipes of opium later, I considered my next move. A hectic night later, my mouth was a sewer and my throat used cat litter, Cyn's hair was tickling my nostrils and her knee was jammed into my bladder. And then I remembered that I had run out of coffee and given away my last cigarettes. I had clearly taken Jenkins' advice and gone to hell.
Little did I know that my journey had only just begun.
