#GenghizInLove: Episode 5

"Ne!" the stout gatekeeper growled, brandishing his Uzi. He heaved his beer belly off his stool with a grunt and lumbered menacingly towards me. I didn't understand Czech but the body language was clear enough. I backed away from the stainless steel doors and went to the reception desk to find out why I had been imprisoned in the University of Truth and Justice.

"Security," Annichka, the cutie at reception, explained merrily. "Mister X arrived this morning."

"I just want to go for a walk."

"No one can enter or leave the building for the next three days."

"Three days!"

"You could watch television," Annichka suggested helpfully. "There are big screen TVs in all the bars."

I brightened. "That'a good thought. Maybe they have Amerikan football."

"I'm sure they do. We even get daytime soap operas in this building!" I was touched by the guileless pride on this post-communist duckie's beaming face.

"That's lovely. Hey, Annichka, who called me yesterday from the Amerikan Embassy? Did he leave a number?"

"Let me check… A Mr. Steele Remington. Here's his number. There's a phone booth just next to the stairs over there."

"Great. Thanks." I looked around furtively as I made my phone call. Lucy had warned me off calling the outside world and I wanted to know why. At the same time I didn't want to get caught by her. Luckily, Steele picked up the phone right away.

"Hey, Steele. I've got news for you," I said eagerly. "Xox is in town."

"I know, I know," my old school friend replied wearily. "It's on CNN and every other international channel. He's given a dozen major interviews since breakfast. He arrived this morning from New York via Berlin."

"Oh." A thought struck me. "How come you're tracking his movements?"

"Because Mister X is an eminent Amerikan citizen and the Secretary of State has given personal directions that we are to extend him every facility in our power."

"I thought he was Albanian. Didn't you tell me on the plane that nobody knew anything about him?"

"That's also true. Listen, bud, your Mister X is a very public enigma. We know everything about him and none of it means shit."

"Did he make his money dealing drugs?" I asked wildly.

"That's one I've never heard before." Steele seemed genuinely taken aback. "Where did you pick that up?"

"Everyone's too happy around here. And they give people vitamins at the reception desk."

"Interesting, but I'm not sure how far that will go with the backroom boys. They're getting a bit insistent on hard evidence these days. Tape recordings of drug deals are good. Videotapes are better."

"Steele, whom do you really work for?"

"Are you taping this?"

"No…. Why the suspicion?"

"Because someone is. I have a little device here that tells me when my phone conversations are being tapped and it just went berserk." Steele didn't sound very friendly anymore.

"Well, I guess I'll talk to you later then," I replied lamely before he hung up. I wandered back to the reception desk and asked Annichka if she knew anything about phone calls being taped.

Annichka nodded her pretty head and smiled at me. "It's just a routine precaution while Mister Xox is here. His guards are monitoring all communications in and out of the building. We have to be very careful." Annichka looked over my shoulder. "Isn't that right, Lucy?"

"That's right, Annichka. We can never be too careful about His well-being." In a severe grey suit, Lucy looked like a very business-like angel. "I'm sorry. They're all here right now. It's a very high level meeting. Leaks could be embarrassing. We can't take chances."

"Who is here?"

"Oh, all the Big People. The people who really matter. The ones who enjoy His confidence. Professor Masaryk. Doctor Terence Killjoy-Yuck. Lady Monica Bigglesworth-Fume. Professor Attila Ugh from Budapest. The famous dissident journalist Cain Piknik came from his hospital bed in Warsaw even though he was undergoing surgery on his liver." Lucy looked around and lowered her voice. "Mister Xox will be meeting the President later this afternoon."

"The President of Czech…?"

Lucy nodded proudly. "Good King Wenceslas himself."

"What does it mean?"

"I think Mister Xox is planning to make a very important announcement about the University's future."

"What is it?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know. But we'll find out soon enough." She gave my arm a little squeeze. "Relax. Read a good book. Have you read the book I gave you, His most recent one?"

"I started it," I lied, meekly cowering under the austere gaze of this angelic school-marm.

"Well, finish it then. Take long showers. Eat proper meals. Don't drink. And stay away from the twentieth floor."

"Is that where the Big People are meeting?"

"Yes. And Our Lord's guards can be a teensy-weensy impulsive sometimes."

I retreated to my room. I wrote long chatty letters to everyone I could think of. I watched football reruns on cable TV for hours on end. I went to the gym and sweated for hours in the sauna. I was so bored that I even lifted weights, spraining various embryonic muscles in the process. I limped back to the sixteenth floor and paced around sulkily in my luxurious cell. On a whim I had stopped taking the vitamins Lucy had given me. I was in a foul mood. I thought wistfully about my friends Flossie and Navel. I thought about getting Steele to send over some Marines to rescue me. I thought about sitting in a cafe with Man, talking about the end of the world. I thought about killing myself. The window wouldn't open far enough to jump, I didn't have any rope, and I couldn't extract the blades from my electric razor. I tried all three bars in the building but the barmen refused to serve me. "Miss Lucy's orders, sir," they smiled sorrowfully, spreading their hands in languid Central European resignation. "Would you like some coffee?" I drank so much coffee that I was forced to retreat to the library in search of something really dull with which to steady my jangled nerves. I buried myself in the rosy sheets of the Financial Times, having perused every word of the international news, the promise of the crossword still in front of me, when my hard won composure was rudely disrupted.

"I prefer the Wall Street Journal myself." I looked around balefully. I hate being interrupted when I'm engrossed in the latest installment in that ultimate melodrama of our times, the rise and fall of stock prices. A portly bald man in a badly wrinkled grey suit stood over me, smiling. He eased himself into an armchair next to mine and let out a comfortable sigh.

"The coverage is not as in depth," the bald intruder continued, oblivious to the hatred and incredulity on my face. "But then that is precisely the point. When you read a financial newspaper, you must always think of all those men on commuter trains, rushing from their suburban homes at seven in the morning, having gulped down instant coffee and desiccated cereal or perhaps a couple of greasy eggs on sliced white bread washed down with orange juice made from concentrate."

The man nodded to himself. The yellow light from the overhead lamps glinted on his bald pate. I looked at him with growing interest. His grin seemed glued to his clean-shaven face. "Think of their digestion! The acids generated by their breakfasts are sloshing around, biting deeper into already ulcerous stomachs. Now are they going to be able to concentrate properly on the newspaper they have hastily picked up at the train station? A newspaper which they buy solely because all their fellow commuters buy the same paper in order to show to each other that they are also businessmen, solid upstanding citizens who possess, or have the ambition to possess, a suburban house and a wife to go with it..."

"I ask you," the bald one continued, "will such men be able to read the newspaper well? Will they look at the small stories? Will they catch the nuances, the lines between the lines, the lines which were left out altogether because the editor was told by his managing editor who in turn was told by his publisher that a certain little fact might just as well not be mentioned for the time being for good reasons that don't need to be specified... In most cases, of course, the editor doesn't even need to be explicitly told such things. He already knows the finer points of the trade, otherwise he wouldn't have his job in the first place. And so, the little details that really matter are never in the newspaper. But then what does really matter on the financial markets? Markets are strange things. In some ways like democracies. No single vote matters and yet the sum of all votes does matter. It is the same on the financial markets. Why does a trader on the currency exchanges buy or sell dollars at a given moment? Why does he think that the Japanese economy is faltering? He has read it in the newspaper while half his attention was uneasily devoted to the churning in his stomach, and so have a million other sleepy commuters with the same digestive problem. And so the complex interplay of what we are allowed to eat and what we are allowed to think, it is this interplay which really matters. Perhaps it is the same thing. Ingestion. We are what we eat. This is the secret of my success."

The bald man heaved himself up slowly. "You will excuse me. I am supposed to be in a meeting. I am always supposed to be in a meeting. It is a pleasure to play hooky. I knew they would not look for me in the library. I have enjoyed this conversation," he said politely, still grinning. I nodded. I hadn't said a word.

I spent the next half hour leafing through the newspaper but even the comics couldn't hold my attention. I went back up to my room and paced around discontentedly for a while. Then I noticed the noises next door and stiffened.

I don't watch pornography unless I can help it, but I know the sound of sex when I hear it. Although this sounded more like a herd of elephants having a wild orgy: great rambunctious harrumphing grunts, punctuated by piercing wails in ecstatic counterpoint, all to the cheerful squeaky rhythm of a bed being given the bouncing of a lifetime.

It was too much to handle: my curiosity was madly piqued. I fumbled with the latch of my window in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the action. I couldn't quite get my head through the window, but I knew what to do in this emergency, thanks to an instructive hour spent in detention in the company of two slightly older thugs when I was myself in fourth grade and only just beginning my career in crime. I rushed to the bathroom for my portable shaving mirror, hooked it onto the end of a coat hanger, and dangled the impromptu periscope out the window. As I searched cautiously for the right angle, I could only hope that the couple next door were too engrossed to notice.

My mirror nearly fell off the coat hanger when I caught sight of my rutting neighbours. Pieces of grey suiting lay scattered around the bald man I had encountered in the library less than an hour before. Seen from behind, he was an impressive sight: his naked back and buttocks and legs were covered in a thick mat of greying hair, altogether appropriate to his virile movements. I have always admired our cousins, the great apes, and this helped me get over the shock of recognizing the bald gorilla's paramour. Blonde hair strewn all over the pillow, her body flushed with passion's fever, face contorted in purple joy, a barely recognizable angel: Lucy. Her severe grey suit lay promiscuously crumpled with her lover's pinstripes in grotesque caricature of the bodies writhing and cavorting above.

I watched the reflections in my distorting mirror in stunned silence before yielding for a moment to mute misery. The night Lucy and I may have spent together, even if in dream, had given me a warm fuzzy feeling of ownership, and the shattering of that illusion struck me like a slap in the face. A swarm of horrid thoughts came buzzing into my head as I watched their unending revels. His boastful bellows and her joyous shrieks grew louder and louder, and each successive climax bred ever more hateful comparisons of endurance, and, yes, length. And I had to admit the gorilla won on all counts. Definitely the Alpha male.

Head drooping, I was about to admit defeat and go sulk in a corner with my thumbs in my ears to block off the mating couple's victorious cries, when suddenly I forgot everything. In the corner of my periscope, I noticed a small black object twitching to and fro… and as it turned towards me, I saw a glint of light: another periscope! I hastily pulled in my own amateur device, moved to the further end of the window, and tilted my periscope's angle downward to watch the watchers. The alien periscope protruded and retracted, whirred and spun, like a watchful alien. I flinched involuntarily each time it turned towards me: it had the intimidating bulk and menacing sheen of a nuclear submarine. The long shaft was attached to a sleek black metal viewfinder hooked up in turn to a videocamera. The whole operation was frighteningly professional, but what scared me most were the two men stooping over the viewfinder screen. I had never seen the smaller rat-faced man before, but I instantly recognized the tall stooping figure in the beige trench coat: the distinctive vulture face could only belong to my old college tutor, Terence Killjoy-Yuck, at whose behest I had come to work in Prague at the University of Truth and Justice.

At that very moment the bald man let out a resounding roar. My nerves couldn't take it any longer: my ramshackle contraption slipped out of my quivering fingers. Dolefully, I watched the shaving mirror slip off the coat hanger as it fell sixteen floors to the road below, shattering into a million murderous fragments. A passing cyclist sailed safely by, oblivious of his good luck. I, on the other hand, stood entranced a fraction too late: Terence's periscope swivelled towards me and I stared helplessly into its malign gaze. Now the watchers knew that I was watching them watching. And I didn't even have time to smile.

The next two days passed without event. I had made friends with one of the barmen, a big blond boy named Marek who had a passion for Amerikan football. I sneered at the throwing arm of his favorite quarterback while he considered my fervent attachment to the Kalifornia Quakers an unworthy, atavistic, and parochial sentiment which could not be justified on any truly rational basis. Naturally, we had bonded at first sight. That evening he furtively slipped me two bottles of whisky in a plastic bag which I smuggled into my room and hid in the water tank of my toilet. I knew that treacherous Lucy would not leave me in peace until I had read Xox's book and so, with a heart-felt sigh, I barricaded myself into my room, brought out the whisky, and set myself to work. It was heavy going, ploughing through all this gibberish about Godel's theorem, chaos theory, fractal geometry, and how the hidden order of the universe lay precisely in its randomness. I had happily left science and math behind me in high school and this book felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I did notice with interest a footnote which read, "I am indebted to Dr. Terence Killjoy-Yuck for his comments on this subject. However, I disagree with him on all grounds." My victory dance when I reached the end of the book was a thing of joy.

But then I idly glanced at the photograph of the author on the end flap of the dust cover. A portly man in a grey suit peered out of the picture, his grin a crease in the middle of his round hairless head. I recognized him at once: billionaire, philanthropist, and sex maniac, the enigmatic and very hairy Mister Xox.

#GenghizInLove: Episode 4

I was woken early by the merry chirping of birds. I sat up (alone) in bed and stretched luxuriously. Cool air wafted in through my window along with morning sunshine. The sky was a cool deep blue and there was not a cloud to be seen. There was a smile on my lips and a fresh taste in my mouth. What the devil was going on?

I have never been a morning person. Admittedly, my friends and I had heard it rumored that people existed who did not get up grumpily at three in the afternoon to scrub their teeth and tongues with shaking hands for hours before giving up the futile effort to get rid of the acrid taste of too many cigarettes and too much whisky; as we huddled behind our newspapers in our dressing gowns and watched the sun go down while we began the slow and painful process of jump-starting our bodies by drinking pot after pot of strong expresso, we spoke with condescending envy of those fabulous beings who revelled in hearty breakfasts. And so the sensation of staring into clear wide-open eyes in the bathroom mirror filled me with awe and suspicion. What had Lucy done to me? Had I just dreamed her presence in my bed last night? Had my food been drugged? What were those pills that she had given me last night? Vitamins, hmmm...

I stood in the shower, waiting for the balmy torrent to cool and dwindle, but it didn't happen. Too many years of living in England had left me unprepared for the miracle of an endless supply of hot water. I dried myself with the largest softest towel I had seen since escaping from my mother's home in Kalifornia. As I went through the hour-long ritual of my toilette, I was struck by the contrast between the luxury I was enjoying and the hardships I had expected to face in Prague. But this extravagant building was not the city, I reminded myself, and I decided to go for a walk. I took the elevator down and looked around. An extremely pretty girl with short dark curly hair stood behind the reception desk. I walked up to the counter and stared. She smiled back, showing two adorable dimples in her peachy cheeks.

"Can I help you?" the pretty girl said in a disconcertingly high voice, her smile a row of little white milk teeth.

"I was told to leave my key here when I left the building. And may I buy some tram tickets, please?"

"You can't buy them. We just give them to you. Are you going out for the day? Let me give you your pocket money."

"That's all right. I've got some of my own money which I want to spend anyway. What's your name?"

"I'm Annichka," she squeaked. "Do they let you spend your own money? Are you going to work here?"

"I hope so." We looked into each other's eyes for an eternity. I imagined spending my life together with this beautiful creature, leading a modest happy existence in some suburban apartment, taking our dog for a walk in the neighborhood park, having babies... It was no use, I couldn't sustain the fantasy for long, she looked too young and happy, so I just took the tram tickets from her and left the building. Or rather, I tried to leave the building but a big scowling man in uniform blocked my way. I returned to the reception desk. "Annichka," I said plaintively. "How do I get out of this building?"

"Oh, that's easy," Annichka squealed. "Didn't they give you a pass when you came into the building? You have to show it to the gatekeeper."

"I think they carried me into the building. I was asleep."

"I'll make one for you." I beamed gratefully at her while she played with her computer. She gave me a small card like the one Lucy had given me in the dining hall.

"That's funny," I was about to say when some instinct warned me that it might be useful to have two passes. "Thank you so much," was therefore what I actually said.

"You're welcome. Peace and love!"

"Yeah, well, the same to you. Have a nice day!" I noticed with interest that the gatekeeper had a sub-machine gun by his side and that the doors letting me out into the outside world were made of inch-thick armoured steel.

I went into town and wandered around, gawping in unison with about a million other tourists at the splendid Baroque and Art Nouveau facades of the buildings in the city center. With some difficulty, I found an English newspaper and a cafe and sat down to write the postcards I had bought on an impulse in Wenceslas Square. Besides Flossie and Maya, I wrote to our mad friend Navel, whom I sadly missed. The only person who still called Navel by his original name, Neville, was his father, evil Mr. Pickie. "Poor Navel!" This had once been our constant cry and Navel had been the first to cry it aloud, literally from the rooftops. Floss and Navel and I were then all living together and from the living room of our penthouse flat, Flossie and I would see Navel pacing about the rooftop garden, obliviously trampling on Flossie's carefully cultivated basil plants, brooding over his sorrows, withdrawing his hands occasionally from the pockets of his tweed jacket to raise his arms to the heavens... It was his propensity to submerge himself into the contemplation of his navel (not to mention his unfortunate family name) that had earned him this sobriquet and also the contempt of his father, who, born in Leo and relentless in his life-long pursuit of shallow self-importance, could never understand the murky depths of the emotional world inhabited by his Piscean son... This, at any rate, was Navel's claim, and Floss and I had to agree, especially after Mr. Pickie, recognizing that his son would never follow in his footsteps as a high official wielding considerable power in the shadowy world of international financial organizations like the Zurich Club, cut Navel off without a penny, and ultimately placed him in a home for the mentally challenged, asserting that Navel's incapacity to support himself or to decide upon a career were proof of his moral imbecility.

Sipping the last dregs of an abominable cappuccino, I was still drawing lessons from Navel's sad fate when two men came up to my table in the crowded café and asked if they could sit down. I waved an arm at the empty chairs and withdrew behind my newspaper. I was engrossed in the comics for a while but then their conversation distracted my attention.

"What difference does it make who wins this election or the next one, if there is a next one?" the voice snapped. "Why don't you just go back to Santa Kruz and go surfing? Ride the waves before they flood Kalifornia. And the Maldives. And Bangladesh. But what do you care about those places? You've never even heard of them."

"Hold on," the second voice protested. "I'm a liberal too."

"I'm not a liberal. I'm a radical. You think it's possible to change things within the system. I know it's all over. Life on this planet. Everything. We're dead. We're ghosts. We just don't know it yet. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door..." The voice began singing loudly and discordantly.

I stopped pretending to read my newspaper and stared at the radical. A small slightly balding man with thin hunched shoulders and a pale freckled face, in his ragged green cardigan, he looked like a leprechaun. He could have been fifteen or fifty. His companion, the liberal, was in his early twenties. His cool glasses and long blond hair and flannel shirt and faded jeans ripped carefully at the knees put him in his place and he clearly liked it that way.

The radical opened a thick well-thumbed hard-bound volume. He seemed to be looking for a particular passage which he proceeded to chant out loud in a fast sing-song voice. "Negotiations among teams of scientists and bureaucrats representing national governments may indeed result in international protocols that would significantly reduce future ozone depletion if governments felt it in their short-term interest to enforce such agreements. However, the damage has already been done. The effects of global environmental degradation on the micro-molecular structures which permit DNA and thus species replication are already catastrophically irreversible." The radical closed his book with a thump and looked at us triumphantly. "What do you say to that?"

"I don't get it," the liberal confessed.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a report published this year by an international team of experts who disagree with the propaganda line put out by governments. They did a big independent study which the media of course totally ignored."

"Who funded the study?" I asked.

"Good question. Let's see." The radical opened the book again. "Most of their funding came from something called the X-O-X Foundation."

"That's funny," I said, taken aback. "I've just started working at this university here started by someone called X-O-X."

"Is that the University of Truth and Justice?" the radical asked. "I just got a job there too. My name is Immanuel. Some call me Man. Ecce homo."

"And I'm Bob," the liberal said. "Me and some friends of mine from Santa Kruz just opened up an English language newspaper here in Prague. We just put out our first issue. There's lots of Amerikans living here. Maybe fifty thousand."

"What are they all doing here?"

"Just hangin' out. The beer is cheap."

"That's their slogan," Immanuel said bitterly, gulping down the rest of his beer. "I thought I'd escaped from Amerika when I came here two years ago. Now I'm thinking of moving to Saint Petersburg. But that's probably where they'll all move too. Rats. Leaving the good ship Amerika, now sinking after running into an iceberg made from the frozen waste of the world she exploited so long."

"Wow," Bob said uncertainly. "That's a little strong, isn't it? I mean, yeah, we're having problems right now but it'll get better some time, won't it?" Immanuel remained silent. "Won't it?" Bob appealed to me.

"I wouldn't know," I said evasively. "I'm not Amerikan."

"Say, you're right! Your accent is kinda funny. Where are you from anyway? Hong Kong?"

I hate being asked where I'm from. Especially by Amerikans. Tell them you're Canadian and they can't stop saying 'eh'. Once I would have felt compelled to give my life history. Now I knew better. "I was born in Mongolia." While Bob tried to decide if Mongolia was a place or a disability, I turned to Immanuel. "What job did you get at the university?"

"Teaching philosophy."

"But you sound like a scientist."

"I started off as a chemistry major," Immanuel confessed. "Then I went to medical school for a while. And then I decided to study philosophy. I've just finished my Ph.D."

"What was it on?"

"A French philosopher named Whineasse who writes about death. I was applying his insights to the problem of environmental catastrophe. How, as ethical beings, we should respond to the end of the world."

"And how should we respond?"

Immanuel dug around in his tattered canvas rucksack and pulled out another book, thick with little bits of paper inserted at practically every page. He dipped into it, nodding his head and smiling, humming softly now and again. Bob stared at him, open-mouthed. "And the only proper way in which I am allowed to act on the Other," Immanuel quoted, "is to go to his deathbed and to hold his hand as he lies dying."

"So we should just hold each other's hand?"

"What else can we do?"

"Can't we fight or something?"

"Fight what?" Immanuel smiled beatifically. "It's all over."

"So why not kill oneself?"

"What's the difference?"

"Nothing matters and so everything matters?"

"Exactly. We're so lucky. We are the first generation in human history who know that there will be nothing after us. Our lives therefore take on a unique meaning." Immanuel leaned over excitedly. "We can afford to be disinterested. Our every single action can now have total ethical value!"

"I've got to go, guys," Bob said, shaking his head as though to get rid of all this subversive talk that had seeped into his clean-living ears. He stood up. "Nice meeting you," he said, shaking my hand heartily. "Hey, Manny! You should meet this friend of mine who's just come over from Santa Kruz. Environment was his major in college too. You guys would get along."

"Sure," Immanuel muttered. "I love surfers."

"What do you have against surfing?"

Immanuel looked at me suspiciously. "Are you a surfer too?"

"I don't know what I am. What do you call someone who just moves around?"

"A vagrant?"

"What do you call a vagrant with money?"

"A tourist?"

"So I'm a perpetual tourist. Is that better than being a surfer?"

Immanuel considered this for a moment. "Only marginally. They're both repulsive. You want the world to entertain you."

"That's not true," I protested. "I have no expectations from the world. Just from my mother. If she ever dies."

"You don't like her?"

"She loves me. She wants me to come home and be with her. Old people are so selfish."

"Yes," Immanuel snarled. "They've destroyed this planet and with it the future of all life. It's worse than crimes against humanity. Old people are guilty for crimes against Life!"

"But what punishment would fit the enormity of the crime?"

"Death won't do. They'll die anyway. The sooner the better, I suppose. But I am not a Nazi! Probably the best punishment would be exile," Immanuel offered. "All the old people of the world should be forced to live together someplace like Vienna. They could all hang out together in baroque cafes, wheezing and snorting, choking on great gobs of whipped cream and sit snoozing in concerts given by geriatric cellists. Maybe they could have all of Europe. All of these big grey stone buildings and monuments, just to remind them of their mortality."

"And where would all the young people go? Youth in Asia?"

"I like you," Immanuel declared suddenly. "Do you play chess?"

"Never. I don't play games. Not even Monopoly. It's one of my few principles. Do you actually like being called 'Manny'?"

"I hate it. My parents used to call me 'Manny'. When they were feeling particularly affectionate, they would call me 'Mannikin'. It was usually when they had friends over. 'Come here, Mannikin!' 'Where are you, Mannikin?' 'Why are you hiding under the bed, Mannikin?' 'What are you doing with that razor blade, Mannikin?'" Immanuel laughed bitterly. "Can you imagine the humiliation? I spent five years in therapy over it. That was after my third subliminal suicide attempt, when I fell asleep smoking a cigarette in my ex-girlfriend's apartment and the couch caught fire and the whole building burned down."

"How many times did you try to kill yourself?"

"Five times unconsciously and twice deliberately. They put me in an institution the first two times." Immanuel laughed maniacally, a wild glint in his eye. His long straggly hair stood up in all directions. "But I'm much better now! I've felt just fine since I decided to take the sufferings of the world on my shoulders."

"I think you'll like working at the university."

Immanuel and I talked like this for many hours until it began to grow dark. We walked out of the cafe and into the cool autumn twilight. As we walked along on a quiet bridge, the amber street lights came on, bathing the pale pastel painted facades of the stately river-front mansions in a sepia glow. Young voices raised in song and the strains of strummed guitars came faint but clear across the dark river flow. And behind the buskers on Charles Bridge, surrounded by the creamy walls of the Castle, there rose a rugged spire, blue as a distant mountain, distinct as a dream. In that moment of epiphany the quiet enchantment of Prague seized me and I knew that I would be sad to hear the voices choked and to see the facades crumble and the spires tumble if apocalypse were more than just the jaded talk of melancholy dreamers.

When I returned to the university building. I found Lucy waiting for me. She smiled brightly at me and I wondered if last night really had been just a dream. "Did you have a nice walk? It's a very pretty city, isn't it?'

"It is," I agreed. "I had a good day. I'm glad to be here."

"You have a few more days to enjoy it," Lucy said. "Professor Masaryk won't be able to see you for at least another week." She lowered her voice. "We're all so busy right now, preparing for Our Boss's visit."

"Is Mister X coming here? When?"

"Why, in five days! We're all so excited. It's such a privilege to see Him. He even spoke to me once," Lucy confided proudly.

"What did he say?"

"He asked me to bring him some mineral water."

"Wow. You lucky thing."

"Oh, Annichka asked me to give you a message."

"Yeah?"

"She said that someone from the Amerikan embassy called and wanted to speak to you." Lucy was looking at me rather closely, I thought.

"Impossible. How would they know that I was here?"

Lucy lowered her voice again. "You know, once Professor Masaryk was a little tipsy and he told me that there are lots of nasty people out there who are always watching everyone who works for The Philanthropist. I'm just telling you so you'll be careful."

"I will," I promised. "I won't tell anyone what goes on in this building."

"I knew you'd understand," Lucy said, skipping a little in her joy. She handed me a book. "Here. This is Our Giver's newest book. I thought you might like to read it. It'll help you see what the University of Truth and Justice is all about."

"I'll read it tonight in that case."

"Take your time. Read it slowly. You'll get more out of it that way. He's such a profound thinker. Shall we go get dinner?"

And so up we went, Lucy and I, up, up to the twenty-first floor and its fine free food and the smiling peaceful faces and the panoramic view of beautiful Prague laid out beneath us in a grid, a darkening cobweb of streets and lanes and courtyards all around us, strung along through the dusk as though spun by an invisible spider, as though the building itself were a dwelling which the spider had prepared for himself, as yet invisibly lurking, waiting for some anticipated signal to show himself, to come forth in all his dread glory.

#GenghizInLove: Episode 3

I always forget to take a guide book when I travel. This makes my life more fun but it also may have been why I was fired from my job as foreign correspondent for The Sociologist. I could never get to news events in time, usually because I was trying to explain to some uncomprehending official that I simply hadn't known how to buy a tram or bus ticket. Now I was standing around the desolate arrival area of Prague airport, fidgeting with my bags under the increasingly suspicious scrutiny of the customs personnel, wondering what to do next. I noticed uneasily that the airport security people were armed with wicked-looking Kalashnikovs. One of them began to move towards me.

Luckily, the devil takes care of his own. At that moment I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned sharply and stared into a pair of wide azure eyes, blueberries set in peaches and cream, all framed by an ash-blonde halo, and beneath, billowing white drapery. I blinked. I wasn't drunk enough to be having hallucinations but I did seem to be staring at an angel.

"Are you going to the University of Truth and Justice?" the angel asked dubiously. Angels have North Amerikan accents! The angel smiled, blinding me in the shiny glow of perfect white teeth. "I wasn't sure that it was you I was supposed to pick up but you were the only one who seemed so... lost."

"I was lost but now I am found," I said fervently. It was the angel's turn to blink, great sweeps of thick honeyed lashes. She bit the lower petal of her rosebud mouth. "Don't worry," I said. "I'm harmless. Will you take me wherever you're going?"

"Follow me," the angel said. We emerged from the airport terminal. The angel disappeared into a (what else?) white Cadillac stretch limousine. I got in beside her. The taxi drivers stood staring in outraged disbelief. The angel tapped the dark panel in front and spoke a few words in a language I had never heard before. We drove off. "I'm Lucy," the angel said, lying back in the plush upholstery. I saw now that her angelic drapery was a long white dress. "I work at the University." I could hear her capitalize the word.

"I'm so glad. What do you do besides picking up strays at the airport?"

"Oh, this and that," Lucy murmured. "I'm the Special Assistant to the Director."

"And who's the director?"

Lucy looked at me sharply. "Didn't they tell you?"

"No. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing at the university."

"Be patient," Lucy breathed. I had to move closer to hear her. I could see the rise and fall of her chest. Angels have breasts! (Cute ones too.)"The Director will tell you."

"When do I get to meet him?"

"He's a very busy man. But I'm sure he'll want to meet you."

"What's his name?"

"Tomas Masaryk. But he doesn't like people to make a fuss about it. He's very modest. Even though he's so important." I closed my eyes and inhaled Lucy's perfume. She exuded the aroma of fresh mountain flowers, I think, but then it had been a long time since I had sat in an alpine meadow and I don't know anything about flowers anyway.

"Have you ever been to Berlin?" Lucy asked suddenly.

"A few times," I replied cautiously. "They never let me stay very long. Why?"

"Is it nice?"

"Nice?" I grinned. "I'm not sure it's nice but I certainly enjoyed myself."

"Do you enjoy debauchery and decadence?" Lucy demanded primly.

I sat up and stared at her. "Doesn't everyone?"

"Who hired you?"

"Terence Killjoy-Yuck," I said, slumping back and closing my eyes again. Lucy's perfume now smelled like fruit, ripe juicy fruit, overflowing with sticky sweetness. Had Terence received the mango I had sent him as thanksgiving for procuring me this job? Mangoes are messy if you don't know how to eat them and I was sure that Terence didn't. "He was my tutor at Oxford. Do you know him?"

"He's also very important at the University. I don't know exactly what he does. But that doesn't matter, does it?" Lucy laughed prettily. I opened my eyes to look at her. "Their titles change all the time. Sometimes the Director is called the Academic Head. Another day he's the Principal. Dr. Killjoy-Yuck is the President of the University Senate at the moment. He used to be the Chairman of the Executive Committee." She waved a dainty hand airily. "But titles don't matter. What matters is that Professor Masaryk and Dr. Killjoy-Yuck enjoy the confidence of Our Benefactor."

"And who is that?"

"Come on!" Lucy pouted. "They must have told you that!"

"Lucy, dear," I protested, taking her smooth little hand in mine. "They didn't tell me anything. But I enjoy their confidence," I went on, winningly. "They wouldn't have hired me otherwise, would they?"

Lucy obviously agreed with my relentless logic since she let me stroke her hand. "The University of Truth and Justice is the brainchild of Our Founder, Mister Hdzhooohdzh..."

"Mister what?"

Lucy jerked her hand away and frowned. Angels can be petulant! "Hdzhooohdzh," she repeated. "Spelled 'X-O-X'. Okay?"

"What kind of name is that?"

"Albanian," Lucy replied coolly. "In Albanian, the consonant 'x' is pronounced in this guttural fashion as 'hdzh' and the vowel 'o' is often elongated."

"Wow," I said admiringly. "Where did you learn that?"

"I studied linguistics at Brigham Young University in Utah. Besides English I speak six languages with fluency."

"Wait a second." I edged away from her. "Brigham Young University. Are you a Mormon?"

She looked at me unblinkingly. "I am serving here for the time being."

"Serving here? Does that mean that you're converting people?"

"There is one God and one true Prophet."

"Allah u Akbar," I agreed, taking a deep breath. "Go on. Tell me more about Mister Hdz..."

"Mister Xox," Lucy said kindly. "is Our Sponsor. He pays for the University."

"Why?"

"Who can say?" Lucy cast her eyes adoringly towards her heaven. "The ways of Our Donor are marvelous indeed."

"Well, what does Mister Hdzh..."

"Oh, call Him Mister X," Lucy said impatiently. "Most people do. Were you asking what Our Patron says about his reasons for setting up the University?"

"Right."

"Well, Our Master has declared that the West is not doing enough for Central and Eastern Europe and, therefore, that private initiatives are required to push forward much needed investment in the human infrastructure of the region and so he is spending several hundred million dollars in setting up colleges all over these post-communist countries to promote the values of Truth and Justice," Lucy recited. I noticed for the first time the sing-song quality of her soprano voice. I also noticed her perfume welling over me in heavy overpowering waves. My eyes had closed again and I slipped right down in my seat.

"You're tired," Lucy chanted. She took my head onto her lap. I could feel her leaning over, swaying gently over me. I tried to open my eyelids to stare down her cleavage but I just couldn't bother. I wondered idly who had trained Lucy in hypnosis. Angels might be dangerous! Very dangerous! "You are very tired. And confused. This makes you even more tired. You need vitamins. I'll give you vitamins. Lots of vitamins. Everything will be all right."

"I'm sure it will, Lucy," I mumbled, my head nestled between her soft breasts. "I'm sure everything will be just fine." And then I toppled into deep sleep. Not altogether dreamless: I had disturbing images of Lucy, angelic in white, a virginal sacrifice to a smiling hairless Oriental idol. But then the bald Buddha opened his smiling mouth and laughed and I realized he was…

"Wake up," the voice insisted. "Wake up! Or else you'll miss dinner." I squinted up at a pair of azure eyes. I was lying in a bed. Naked. I closed my eyes tightly and cowered beneath the covers. What had I done now, and, more to the point, with whom?

Slowly, it all came back to me. I had fallen asleep on the limousine ride from Prague airport to the University of Truth and Justice and the insistent voice and azure eyes belonged to Lucy, the demented Mormon angel who had picked me up at the airport, and who was now sitting cross-legged next to me on the bed in her white dress.

"If you don't get up this instant I'll go away immediately."

"I can only get up if you go away immediately," I retorted. "I have to put some clothes on."

"Pooh!" Lucy snorted scornfully. "Who do you think undressed you and put you to bed?"

"You did? How come you still have your clothes on then?"

"Actually it was the chauffeur. But I'm not scared of seeing you naked. I've seen more naked bodies than you could count."

I sat up, interested. "Lucy, what exactly did the Mormons make you do?"

"Nursing, silly. Now get up. Here." Lucy handed me a pile of clothes. "I'll look the other way if you're so shy. But hurry up."

I got dressed quickly. I recognized these clothes. I'd thrown them into my suitcase just that morning after all. "Did the chauffeur unpack my bags as well?"

"No, I did." Lucy giggled. "You've got a lot of cosmetics."

"They are not cosmetics," I said hotly. "I've got sensitive skin, that's all."

"Sissy." I followed Lucy out of the room and down a long brightly lit corridor. She handed me a key during the smooth elevator ride. "If you ever leave the building, leave your key at the reception desk." We stepped out into a gigantic empty room and walked up to a wall lined with stainless steel food hatches. Lucy handed me a small card. "There's your identity card. Get whatever you want and then show the card to that lady sitting there."

"Whatever I want?"

"Anything at all. Gobble away to your heart's content. Our Lord pays for everything."

"Mister X?"

Lucy sighed. "Are you always this slow? Of course I mean Him. He wants us to be well-fed and happy. Ask and he shall provide. His generosity knows no bounds."

"Do you know how much I'll get paid?"

Lucy looked confused. "Paid?"

"Cash," I said patiently. "Dollars. Pounds. Marks. Yen." Lucy still didn't seem to understand. "Uh... cheques? Drafts? Bank transfers?" I rubbed my thumb against the tips of my fingers and looked hopefully at her. "Money?"

Heaping plates of steaming food were passed out to us through the serving hatches by anonymous hands. (My menu choice for the evening was venison pate, steak Chateaubriand, and crème caramel with raspberry sauce for dessert.) An apple-cheeked middle-aged lady in a starched apron looked at my card and smiled at me sweetly. "You're new here," she said. "Welcome! Peace and love!"

I smiled back uncertainly and followed Lucy to a table by the huge windows at the far side of the room. "Peace and love?"

"Peace and love," Lucy beamed. "That's how we greet each other here. Isn't it nice? You'll get used to it."

I groaned and looked around while the venison pate melted in my mouth. Small groups of smiling people sat around at their dispersed tables, engrossed in lively conversation as they feasted. A string quartet was playing beautiful music in the background. Thick white curtains fell artfully from the high ceiling, half concealing the bright lights of the city below. The atmosphere in the room was calm and peaceful. I wasn't sure how long I could stand it. "Are you all hippies or something?" An idea struck me. "Was X a hippie?"

"Mister X," Lucy corrected me. "Do you mean those people who used to wear beads and had long dirty hair and listened to all that loud music?"

"Lucy, how old are you? How can you not have even heard of hippies? Yes, I suppose I do mean those people who used to wear beads. Does this Mister X wear beads?"

"Mister Xox usually wears grey suits and his hair is..." Lucy giggled merrily, "certainly not long. In fact, he doesn't have any hair at all. As to your first question, I had a sheltered upbringing."

I have a single-track mind. "Actually, my first question was about money."

"Why do you need all those dirty bits of paper?"

"Well... To go to a bar and buy a drink?"

"This building has three different bars where you can get a drink at any time of day or night by showing your card to the barman. Although the University encourages its employees to avoid alcohol or to use it only in moderation." A waiter came up at that moment with a trolley laden with drinks. I gratefully grabbed a beer, drained it at a gulp, and took another one and a deep breath. Lucy looked on impassively.

"What if I want to leave the building and buy a newspaper and sit in a cafe and drink coffee and write postcards which I buy impulsively on the street?"

"Newspapers are delivered to your room every morning. There are postcards, paper, and envelopes on top of your minibar. There are two cafes in the building besides the three bars I mentioned. Why would you want to go outside?" Lucy seemed genuinely surprised.

"What if I want to go for a walk? See the sights?"

"Oh, of course you can do that!" Lucy smiled. "Just ask at reception for tram tickets and pocket money."

"Pocket money? Lucy, I am not ten years old. I go to the bathroom by myself and everything!" I felt an irrational outrage welling up in me.

"Why are you shouting?" Lucy looked concerned. "Are you upset about something? Can I help you?" She thought for a second and then smiled at me brightly. "Would you like to go to the sauna with me after dinner?"

"No, I don't want to go to the sauna after dinner!"

"Don't you like me?" Lucy's lower lip quivered.

I'm a sucker for quivering lower lips. I took a deep breath and lowered my voice. "Lucy, I like you fine. It's just that I'm used to money. When I feel insecure about myself, it reassures me to press the nice thick wallet in my jacket pocket against my heart. I like spending money. It's fun." I leaned forward persuasively. "Look. Wouldn't you like me to take you out to dinner sometime? In a nice restaurant. There must be some nice restaurants in Prague. Nice candlelight. Nice wine. Nice soft music. And then the nice waiter comes up at the end of the meal and discreetly puts a plate on the table and on the plate there is a nice piece of paper with numbers on it, and that's when I'll pull out my nice lizard skin wallet and pay. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Oh, we go to restaurants all the time," Lucy said indulgently. "You just ask reception to book a table and they tell the people at the restaurant that we're from the University of Truth and Justice. And then you don't have to pay."

"But doesn't that take all the fun out of it? The whole point of all that candlelight and soft music is that people work all day to make the money to be able to relax with people they like. That's what capitalism is all about! Is this guy, Socks, a communist or something?"

Lucy's blue eyes narrowed. "Where did you hear Him called Socks? You told me that you had never even heard of Him."

"Oh, I don't know," I said lamely. "It just came to me."

I squirmed in my seat for a while under Lucy's silent scrutiny. Presently she smiled. I smiled back. She ran a finger lightly over my hand. Then she reached into her white drapery and pulled out a little bottle. "I almost forgot to give you these!" she giggled. "Vitamins. You can get more at reception. Wasn't that silly of me to forget?"

"Thank you." I said, touched. "That was sweet of you. I forgot to buy a supply before I left England. It was all so rushed."

"Of course it was. Don't you want to take one now?"

"Sure. Why not?" I washed the little pill down with the last of my beer. We sat around for a while in companionable silence, then got up and walked back to the elevator. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the sauna?" Lucy asked. "It has every facility."

"Not tonight, Lucy. I'm tired," I said truthfully. "I'll just go back to my room and sleep."

Lucy nodded. "That's probably best. You can sleep late. I don't think Professor Masaryk will be able to see you for a day or two. He's so busy right now."

"Just as well." I felt a wave of fatigue sweep over me. "It's been so hectic in the last few days…"

"Of course," Lucy said, kissing me on the cheek. "That's why you're being so cranky. You're just tired. Good night. Peace and love!."

"Peace and love!" I replied as the elevator door closed. I staggered down the hallway to my room, opened the door, fumbled with my clothes and dropped them on the carpet in an untidy heap. I barely managed to brush my teeth before crawling into bed. Nice bed. Nice warm comforter. Everything in the whole wide world was very nice. Peace and love...

Later in the night, a white shape came noiselessly into my room and slid into bed with me, a warm soft presence that felt like a dream. I was just awake enough to enjoy myself with my lovely succubus for the rest of the night. What we did probably wasn't nice but it sure was fun.

#GenghizInLove: Episode 2

"All right, then, I'll go to hell!"

Well, what else was I to do after being fired from my cushy post as foreign correspondent for The Sociologist? It was all very well for my former boss, Jenkins, to suggest a career in nursing but it had been years since I had rudely rebuffed my mother's dream of a medical career for me. She would probably still be willing to pay but she would be smug about it. I do occasionally love my mother but not when she gets her own way. I like her best when she throws a tantrum. I can feel superior then.

And I couldn't really go back to Mongolia. My grandfather was probably still mending fences from the many affronts I had inadvertently given his friends and official connections during my brief sojourn as a reporter there. Besides, I was still addicted to my creature comforts then, in those days, oh so long ago, in that glorious autumn of 199-, when I was fired by The Sociologist. I was going through a belated infatuation with crumbly Cheddar cheeses and, revelling in their subtle syntheses of sharp and bland taste-sensations, I couldn't bear the thought of Mongolian cheeses which are, as you know, uniformly pungent whether curdled from the milk of sheep or goats. I have disliked sheep passionately ever since I had a near-death experience with a bad-tempered mob of sheep in the Scottish Highlands. Ever since, I have studiously avoided any contact with sheep except with legs of lamb (spiked, however, with many cloves of garlic to mask the rank sheep smell) which I demolish with a certain fierce and unholy joy at the thought of three-legged sheep hobbling along as fast as they can, cursing vainly, unable to catch up to their escaping prey.

Mongolia was out of the question, then, and so was Amerika, not least because my mother lived there. If I went back there, it would be with my tail between my legs, a whipped whelp scurrying back to its mother for succour. It didn't matter that she lived in Kalifornia and that I would probably try to lie low in Vancouver, where I still had some friends from my civilised childhood in Canada: She would find me. You can run but you can't hide, she said to me when we were saying goodbye at the airport as I left Amerika forever. "I'll call once a week, dear," is what she actually said, I think, but I was strung-out from lack of sleep and from all the designer drugs at the parties thrown by my "friends", ostensibly to mourn my leaving, but my imminent departure was really just a convenient excuse for manic orgies of pretentious conversation under the pernicious influence of glistening white walls and exotic mineral waters; and the thought of my mother managing to insinuate her presence through many time zones, breaching the austerely forbidding defences of my Oxford college, infiltrating what I devoutly hoped would be a reclusive, even monkish, existence: this thought stunned me into an appalled silence for the first few hours of the long flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow, persuading the stunning model in the next seat that I was either gay or a stuck-up son of a bitch. But as she later said, first impressions can be so misleading. So much for the monkish existence.

But it was again the monkish existence that I sought now to find in Prague. I dreamed of crumbling Art Nouveau facades, of dilapidated mansions with boarded-up windows, of a dank hallway lined with mailboxes whose flapping lids bore the faded indecipherable names of past tenants long since disappeared in mysterious circumstances, of laboriously climbing many flights of broken stairs and fumbling in the musty dark for the key to my airy atelier... my dreams were stolen from Baudelaire: how desperately I wanted to feel the sweetness of seeing the first star in the sky and the coal smoke streaming upward and the moon shedding a pale enchantment over it all! Pollution in Prague was bad in winter, I knew, from the brown coal that was used to heat apartment buildings, but I was young and healthy enough to cope, I thought, and besides, I could do as my opium-smoking idol had done, close my shutters, draw the curtains snug, and dream of alluring distances. Even, perhaps, of Kalifornia.

It was so easy to get by in the world we lived in then, if you had the right connections. I did. A week after Jenkins fired me, I happened to be in Oxford on my way to a weekend at the country cottage of my Kurdish friend Maya. Inevitably, I missed my train connection at Oxford and since the next train to Maya's small Cotswold village was several hours later, I decided to drop in on my old college tutor, Terence Killjoy-Yuck.

Terence greeted me with horribly sweet sherry and muted enthusiasm. "I have a proposition to make you, dear boy," he (might have: I'm exaggerating, but only a little) murmured, rubbing his thin hands together. "I have heard of your, ahem, slight contretemps with The Sociologist, and I gather that you are… available at the moment?"

I hesitated. Frumpy wife notwithstanding, everyone knew Terence was gay. It had also always been rumored that Terence was one of the dons who double as recruiters at Oxford for the British secret services, mentioning discreetly to suitable undergraduates the possibility of serving their Queen and Country in, ahem, underhanded ways. I knew I was being propositioned: I just didn't know for what.

"A friend of mine is on the lookout for sensible young men," Terence continued. "Setting up a new international university in Prague. No students yet, but that's just a matter of time. Perhaps, a leetle unusual, but then the benefactor is a billionaire… Albanian, I believe. You wouldn't have to learn Albanian," Terence hastened to add. "In fact you wouldn't have to do very much at all. Just hang around, keep your eyes open, look around…"

I didn't quite catch the rest of what he said; I was filled with a bizarre exhilaration. No wonder they lost their silly empire, I giggled to myself. It struck me as cosmically absurd that the British spy agency should want to recruit me, congenitally incapable of catching trains, let alone reporting on world-historical events, and a Mongolian-Canadian to boot. Without even asking whom I was to spy on or how much I would get paid, I accepted. Terence was a little taken aback by the swiftness of my acceptance but I think he attributed it to my Mongol blood or to my North Amerikan impetuosity. Perhaps he thought they were the same thing. It's hard sometimes to tell just what the British think of other races. They're so inscrutable. But they do make great cheeses: after I managed to successfully catch my train to Growe-on-the-Mold, an ever-so-quaint ye-olde-English village, I spent a wonderful weekend at my terrorist friend Maya's charmingly draughty stone cottage sampling many varieties of crumbly Cheddar cheeses, both sharp and bland.

I had always liked Maya's taste in wine and cheese: she was by far the best-adjusted terrorist I met in the four years I intermittently went to seminars on international politics at Oxford. At an especially boring talk, I would look around the room at people I knew, hands propping up familiar faces, studiously scribbling, and I would count the number of terrorists in attendance. Oxford was an asylum for terrorists on sabbatical and the lands for which its inmates had fought read like a litany of the oppressed: guerrillas from El Salvador nodded across conference tables covered by torn green baize at counterparts from Tamil Eelam; Kashmiri freedom-fighters rubbed elbows with grizzled combatants from Mozambique; waiting in line for watery coffee, participants in the armed struggle for South Africa made polite small-talk with the new arrival from East Timor. They dressed like students, they dressed like housewives, some even wore suits and ties. Lunch at St. Antony's College felt like a general assembly of the United Not-yet-nations. And between these sober people, these good students, there floated a few long-haired Amerikans, wearing tattered T shirts and gold-rimmed round glasses, uneasy yet earnest, determined to fight the good fight, to struggle for justice and peace, violently if necessary. Students/terrorists, terrorists/students: at times my head reeled and I found it hard to tell the difference and even harder to decide whom to dress like. I compromised by wearing jeans and a jacket and my hair modishly short. I was destined to be a yuppie but, mercifully, History intervened.

Or Terence. I felt a deep personal gratitude to this deus ex machina who had resolved my tedious existential crisis with such ease. After my weekend with Maya, on my return to London, I went from Paddington train station straight to Harrods to buy Terence a mango. I instructed the salesgirl to send the luscious fruit to Oxford immediately. I then ran around Harrods buying all those little necessaries I would probably not be able to find in Prague. I was to leave the next day and I winced at the thought of pining for months on end for a complete set of Mystique face products for men. I have very sensitive skin and after months of suffering in Mongolia I had my priorities straight. To thine own face be true and all the rest shall follow...

Flossie, my best friend in the world, whose London flat I shared, was not at home when I arrived, out of breath and laden with shopping bags. The situation was clearly dire: Floss had irregular habits and my latchkey had fallen out of my pocket some months before into an anonymous dune in the Gobi desert as I struggled to hold on to a particularly obstreperous camel. I sank into an uneasy nap, broken eventually by a vicious kick in the ribs from a steel-toed boot. "What's with you?" Flossie demanded as she kicked the door open and threw my parcels into the apartment.

"I'm going to Prague tomorrow," I said complacently. "You can't come."

"I don't want to," she shouted from the kitchen. "Want some coffee?"

"Yes, please," I screamed ecstatically, following her into the disaster zone we called our kitchen. Our parents hadn't visited in months.

"Well, you can't have any," Floss crowed but she relented after I had grovelled a bit. For a total bitch she has a heart of gold.

"I've got a job."

"What job?"

"Can't tell you," I said, after I had my bowl of cafe-au-lait securely in my hands. "It's top secret."

"You're so juvenile," Floss said, kissing on the nose her larger than life teddy bear which took up most of the kitchen but which she insisted was a vital component of her social life. "Did Maya recruit you finally or has she realized now that you would be fatal to the Kurdish struggle?"

"Maya is, as usual, wonderful. But since she won't let me share her struggles till death do us part, I've joined the other side. That's all I can say for the moment."

"You're working for Saddam Hussein?"

"No, silly. I am now an active agent of the forces of good old capitalist imperialism."

"You always have been," Flossie said indifferently. "You're such a consumer. Hey, did you look for any pants for me while you were shopping?"

Clothes were a constant tribulation for Floss. While consistently deploring the wanton waste of scarce resources represented by such disgusting absurdities as the fashion industry in western consumerist societies, she was all too aware of the growing hole in the seat of the only trousers she owned, a pair of jeans she had stolen from her brother. Six feet two in her tattered socks, Flossie found it impossible to buy women's clothes that were less than a foot short at her wrists and ankles. "The British are so short," she complained bitterly. "Generations of malnutrition. I can't even find men's Levis that fit in this absurd country."

"Go to Denmark," I advised her. "The women there are all seven feet tall."

"No, I'm just going to get a lot of clothes made for me next month when I go back to India."

"Exploiter. How long are you going to be there this time?"

"I don't know," Flossie replied moodily. "I have to beg D'Urberville College for a leave of absence. And the Principal of the college, this Lady Monica person, she's such a bitch. She's always complaining that I'm never there."

"I just don't understand these Oxford colleges one little bit," I said sympathetically. "Why did they make you a fellow of the college if they just want you to hang around there?"

"Exactly. Oxford is just so boring. I'm sick of wine and cheese and these twittering upper-class accents. I want to go to India. I want to see people killing each other and to write all about it."

"That's exactly why I became a foreign correspondent. Can I come visit you this winter?"

"I haven't heard yet if these people will give me the money to go for a whole year."

"Whom are you begging from this time?"

"It's called the Fund for Peace and Love."

"Are they missionaries?"

"I don't know. I've heard they give a lot of money to dissidents and revolutionary movements. Funded by some mad Albanian billionaire…"

"How odd. That's the second one I've heard of this weekend. I wonder if it’s the same one. There can't be two Albanian billionaires, can there?"

"Depends how much you've been drinking."

"It doesn't really matter if they don't give you a grant, does it?" I asked, cruelly referring to Flossie's considerable fortune, over which she still spent sleepless nights, tossing and turning because of her socialist convictions. "You can still go, can't you?"

"Yeah, but nobody will take my research seriously unless I'm sponsored by some international body. Besides, I'm giving all my money away."

"Can I have some?" I asked hopefully.

"Only if you join the Punjab Liberation Front. They're really short of people right now. The Indian army slaughtered another bunch of guerrillas today. It was horrible."

"Tell me all about it."

By the warm flicker of long black candles we sipped twenty-five year old single-malt whisky all night long and Floss told me tales of torture, unimaginable brutality and degradation. It was our form of bonding. Unsurprisingly, I was a little shaky the next morning, as I tottered into my seat on the plane to Prague.

"Would you please bring me some whisky?" I murmured huskily to the flight attendant whose attention I had finally secured by grabbing the edge of her magenta and orange striped uniform. I looked at her and my heart sank. Middle-aged, healthy, bossy, painted. She looked cruel.

"We do not serve complimentary drinks on short European flights, sir," the stewardess replied frostily. "Besides, we haven't even taken off."

"I'll pay," I mumbled feebly. "Name your price. Double it. Multiply it by four." I couldn't remember what came next. I passed a shaking hand over my unshaven chin. Drinking with Flossie is dangerous enough at the best of times, but letting her drive me to Heathrow in the early hours of the morning in her vintage Jaguar, tires squealing, police horns blaring, the manic race to the boarding gate... Damn it, I deserved a drink. I pulled out my wallet and jammed a fifty pound note into the stewardess's pudgy fist. I looked up at her imploringly. "Please..."

The stewardess glared at me and flounced off, returning a moment later with a bottle of Chivas. "Your change, sir," she snarled, flinging a bunch of crumpled notes and coins at me. My neighbour, a youngish guy with glasses, helped me gather most of the change from the floor.

"Have a drink?"

"It's a bit early for me," he answered, looking at me curiously. "But, say, did you by any chance go to Bendover…"

"Its not possible. You can't be..." But by then we were standing locked in a clumsy embrace as the plane wobbled around us.

The flight attendant came running up. "Gentlemen, the seatbelt sign is still on…" she began furiously.

"It's all right, its all right, we'll sit down, we haven't seen each other in ten years, that's all, relax, honey, oh, and by the way, would you get us a couple of glasses and some ice, thanks a million." Steele put his arm around the stewardess. She stiffened, freed herself, and marched away uncertainly. Her experiences with Central European businessmen hadn't prepared her for Amerikan preppie charm. My old school friend Steele and I grinned at each other. "You first," he urged. "Where have you been?"

"Let's see," I pondered. "When did I see you last? Was it when..."

"When Yasuhiro and I came to visit you in college..."

"Hiro! Remember how he wanted to try acid and so we gave him some and..."

"And he just held his head in his hands for twelve hours and groaned and we were really worried..."

"No, we weren't. We were just trying to figure out what he was saying. It sounded like `I am woe,' which seemed pretty profound and we were glad that he was facing up to the harsh realities of his life because he was such a superficial twit, but actually what he was saying was, "I am... whoa!"

"And we were so disappointed that he couldn't find the words to articulate his experience. Hiro never said anything after that. I dropped him off at his parents' place in D.C., still holding his head in his hands, still groaning."

"Did you ever run into him again?"

"Nope. He's probably gone back to Japan and become just another salary-man."

"And what have you become? What's with the suit?"

"Hey, bud. I work for the government."

"Foreign service?"

"Something like that."

"Isn't your dad ambassador in Moscow now?"

Steele groaned and reached for the whisky. "Well, what the hell else was I supposed to do?" He shot back a serious slug straight from the bottle. "A Bendover education doesn't prepare you for the market place. Nobody speaks Latin out there. I did the investment banker bullshit but then the crash happened and a million slobs like me were on the streets. Did you ever hear about the anarchists silently parading down Wall Street, that day when a trillion dollars got wiped off our computer screens, holding up sheets that just said, `Jump'?"

"So now you're in government. What are you doing in Prague?"

"I'm at the Embassy."

"Really? I'm going to be working there as well. In Prague, I mean, not the Embassy. I've got a job at a new university. I don't know what I'm supposed to do but I guess I'll find out soon."

"Wait a second." Steele looked interested. "Is this thing run by that guy, what's his name, Socks? The mad Albanian billionaire? You better be careful. Ooops," he said anxiously, looking around. "I'd better be careful. I shouldn't go around saying things like that."

"Steele. You're talking to someone who knew you back in the days when you were a gawky freckle-faced brat, running around Bendover with a goddamn glow-in-the-dark orange baseball cap the wrong side on your head. We used to stay up all night just so that we could go buy donuts at five in the morning. We used to break rules. What are you not supposed to go around saying? I need to know what I'm getting into."

"Oh, nothing really. You'll be fine, I'm sure. It's just that this guy, Socks, is somebody everybody is watching. He's a weirdo. Nobody knows what he's up to."

"Who is he?"

"That's the thing. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows where he came from. Nobody really knows how he made all that money. Nobody really knows why he's giving it away. Oh, he's written books about it. He gives interviews constantly. But who is he?" Steele was warming up to the subject. I liked the sight of this gaunt young man in a rumpled ill-fitting standard-issue government-grey suit and bent steel-rimmed glasses talking, scowling, gesticulating, as in the days when we were best friends at boarding school and stayed up late every night, sitting in the bathroom of his basement room in our dormitory, smoking illicit cigarettes, snorting lines of an orange powder which derived its color from the mixture of its constituents since we compounded it from pink speed and yellow caffeine tablets which we ground into our proprietary concoction, staying awake just for the hell of staying awake, arguing all night long about such schoolboy topics as the nature of love, about whether love was merely a mixture of lust and friendship, like the orange powder we snorted, or whether there was something more to love, some mysterious ingredient which we longed to discover in those days of our innocence.

But those days were gone. Steele refused to say more. The plane landed. We made small talk as we wended our way through passport control and then parted ways, promising to get in touch soon. I pushed my baggage cart through the sliding doors and looked around the crowd waiting to greet passengers, friends, loved ones, holding up hand-lettered signs or just eager faces. I couldn't see my name on any sign and I certainly didn't recognize any faces. All my friends were far away and I was entering the service of a mad Albanian billionaire. At that moment I felt very alone.

#GenghizInLove: Episode 1

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.