#GenghizInLove: Episode 8

I staggered back to the University of Truth and Justice late that night. Lunch with the University big shots had been a largely liquid affair, prolonged well into the evening at various Art Nouveau cafes that held nostalgic appeal for Professor Masaryk and his old pal Otto Hell. Drinking one liqueur-laden coffee after another with these hardy old Central Europeans, I belatedly realized the appeal of the old Austro-Hungarian cafe-culture. Cafes are places for respectable intellectuals to get smashed. Most of the conversation between the two old professors had centered around which of their old associates were dead or dying, and while it was cute to observe the dimple of pleasure that appeared on Hell's jowled cheek at every mention of senility and disease among his still-extant contemporaries, I couldn't help feeling left out, which made me put even more Cointreau into my coffee than I would have otherwise. And then Hell insisted on going to the opera. They say it ain't over till the fat woman sings, but my eyelids droop the moment some jumbo diva appears and begins to moan. And it would have seemed rude to snore openly in front of my new boss, so I tried to swallow my yawns instead, causing Professor Masaryk some concern when I choked and my face swelled and turned purple like a bloated bullfrog. Hell watched the spectacle with malicious amusement. After the show the two professors merrily toddled on down the long garish strip of Wenceslas Square's cabarets and night clubs, two old reprobates indulging in a night on the town while I caught a taxi and came straight back to the university. I needed sleep, badly, even though I knew that I would have nightmares about opera singers with Alzheimer's disease.

Adorable Annichka at the reception desk waved a little pink slip at me. "You had a phone call!" she exclaimed gaily. `Call Rasputin immediately,' the message read, followed by a long phone number. A cold shudder ran through me. "Your friend called from Moscow!" Annichka squeaked. "He wanted to talk to you! He said it was very important!"

"Did he say what he wanted?" I asked huskily. Synchronicity always bothers me. It disturbed me profoundly that Rasputin had been calling me while I was insulting him behind his back.

"No, he didn't." Annichka made a delightful little moue. "Why don't you call him and find out?" She offered me her telephone. I recoiled involuntarily. Then, bringing my heart up from my boots with some effort, I bravely took hold of the receiver and with shaking hands punched in the number. It rang a few times and I was just about to put the phone down gratefully when a voice answered.

"Hullo..." A very languorous English drawl. I was filled with a strange foreboding.

"May I speak to Rasputin please? Who the hell is this anyway?"

"Rasputin is away at the moment. This is God speaking. May I help you?" the languid voice murmured. I felt faint.

"Godfrey. Why are you in Moscow? What is Rasputin doing there? Isn't he afraid of getting arrested?"

"Oh, hullo, old chap. Didn't recognize your voice. He may well be arrested at any moment. It might even do us some good. Free publicity for this Canadian documentary, you see."

"No, I'm afraid I don't see. What documentary?"

"I thought Rasputin might have explained to you. But he is a terrible correspondent, isn't he? It's quite simple, actually. Rasputin and I are working with this Canadian chap called Tim or Jeff or Mutt or something or the other, one of those North American names, you know. I always get mixed up." God paused. I waited breathlessly. "Tom? Jerry?" God mused. "No, I really can't remember. Anyway, this Canadian fellow makes documentaries and he wanted to make one about the Russian mafia. I met him at a party in someone's place in South Kensington and put him in touch with Rasputin who of course jumped at the chance to make some money..."

"Wait a second. Rasputin used to boast that he was on the KGB's list of most wanted dissidents. Isn't he scared that..."

"That they might get him? No, things seem to have changed quite a bit. Actually, we even went to KGB headquarters and had a guided tour. A frightful bore, really. All those dungeons. Who really cares which rooms they kept their silly files in?"

"So what is Rasputin doing to this poor Canadian?"

"Oh, he's buying nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers."

"I don't catch your drift."

"Draft is the technical term, I believe."

I had a strong divination of God at that moment, the mental image of a short slight young man reclining indolently on a couch in some apartment in Moscow, heavy-lidded eyes fixed vacantly on a half-empty vodka bottle, stroking his unshaven chin, trying to decide whether the bottle was too far away to reach without excessive movement, the phone receiver crooked between shoulder and neck, far away from his fat lower lip.

"Eighty-five thousand ton draft, the aircraft carrier. It's lying unfinished in some Ukrainian shipyard. Rasputin is trying to outbid the Chinese. Or is it the Indonesians? I can't remember. One of those states that want the Spratly Islands. I don't know why they should, really."

"What do the Spratly Islands have to do with it? Stop prattling, God. Get to the point. Why is Rasputin trying to buy an aircraft carrier?"

"It's for the documentary," God explained, unperturbed by my hysterical outburst. "This chap, Joe, or is it Ike?, has wired Rasputin up. Quite ingenious although a bit uncomfortable, I should imagine. It took ages to strap all the little gadgets onto Rasputin in invisible places. Little tape-recorders and microphones and even a tiny video-camera. Luckily, he found that he could hide all the wiring under the rolls of flab on Rasputin's belly where they wouldn't show even if he was strip-searched. The video camera was a bit more tricky but Steve?, Mike?, ended up embedding it in the sole of Rasputin's shoe. So all Rasputin has to do is to sit with his leg up on his lap and his shoe pointed at the person with whom he is negotiating, if you see what I mean."

"I think I see. So Rasputin isn't actually planning to become a shipping magnate or a pirate. He's just pretending to buy submarines."

"Exactly." God chuckled. "Can't you just see the faces of these Malay or Filipino negotiators when they see the documentary and find out that they've had to pay three times their original offer because Rasputin was upping the ante? I imagine there might be a few red faces in Bangkok over this one. Do Asians blush? I mean, do their faces change color? I ask purely out of scientific curiosity."

"Well, I can sometimes feel my face getting hotter but I don't think it shows. That's why you white people think of us as inscrutable. Actually, we're flustered and confused all the time."

"Interesting. I suppose you're right. I was forgetting about this notorious propensity for embarrassed giggling."

"With whom is Rasputin negotiating?"

"Oh, some corrupt admiral or the other," God said airily. "Probably in cahoots with the KGB. They're all trying to make money these days."

"I'm sure they'll be really amused by the documentary as well. Isn't Rasputin at all worried about this little escapade?"

"Oh, he isn't using his real name, obviously. He goes by the nom de plume of Lev Pistoff."

"And you? What are you doing there while Lev Pistoff negotiates?"

"Oh, I sit here and drink. I'm not bored in the slightest. Negotiating about nuclear powered ships is only the tiniest fraction of what we're doing," God said reassuringly. "We go to mob restaurants, drink vodka with the mob, fuck mob molls, you know, we're building up our personae as mobsters."

"So I gather. What character are you playing?"

"Corrupt British Secret Service. It goes with the accent and then, you know, Russians are so used to corrupt KGB agents that they just naturally assume that the Russian mafia in the West must have the same sort of connections."

"So Lev Pistoff is part of the Russian mafia in the West, is he?"

"Sounds so true to life, doesn't it?" God giggled happily. "We're also doing a bit of smuggling on the side."

"Drugs?"

"No, no, we don't want to get into a fight with the Italians. They're all over the place by the way."

"Drugs or Italians?"

"Both. Last night we went to this restaurant on the Arbat and the way the Italians behaved was really quite outrageous. I mean, it's one thing to politely insert a hundred dollar note into some stripper's G-string and tickle her a bit, and quite another to force the chorus girls, who one must admit were quite acquiescent, to dip themselves in bathtubs full of glue and to just lie there, shivering, poor things, you could see the goosebumps, while these mafiosi threw dollars by the bucket all over the place. Of course, they had been snorting cocaine by the handful all evening, which renders their disgraceful behavior understandable but not excusable."

"God, you seem to be developing morals."

"I know. Isn't it terrible?" God replied complacently. "Still it is a new experience. Luckily, we shall soon be returning to decadent old London, laden with all manner of good things."

"What are you smuggling?"

"Art. Ikons. Rare books. Stuff for the cognoscenti."

I yawned. "Whatever. Would you happen to know why Rasputin wanted to talk to me so urgently?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say, old chap. As you know, he doesn't tell anyone anything. It's safer that way. Is there any particular message I should pass on to him when, or, indeed, if he returns?"

A happy thought struck me. "You could tell him that I had lunch today with his friend Lady Monica Bigglesworth-Fume. She sent her love to Rasputin and asked him to get in touch with her soon. It's been so long, she said."

"I shall certainly pass on your message. Did Killjoy-Yuck have venison for lunch by any chance?" God sounded very sleepy.

Alarm bells went off in my head in a deafening clamor. I looked at my watch and sighed. I knew I had to find out what strange game Godfrey was playing, if I was to get a wink of sleep that night. I hate tossing and turning in bed. Whom the gods would destroy, they first deprive of sleep, and I was firmly determined to get my usual ten hours, even if that meant that I had to keep God talking. I made myself take a deep breath, and then another. If this momentary pause in our telephone conversation informed Godfrey that I was startled by the extent of his knowledge about who was present at my lunch with the big people who ran the University of Truth and Justice in Prague, thousands of kilometres away from Moscow where he was playing dangerous games with our thuggish friend Rasputin, well, then, so much the better. Wilful naivete has its own rewards, especially the confusion it produces among people who enjoy playing games with other people's heads. "You're very well informed, God," I said, allowing just a little shock to seep across the telephone. "Just how would you happen to know that Terence Killjoy-Yuck was also at lunch?"

"Oh, dear boy, welcome to the club."

"You mean you..."

"Didn't you know? Why did you think I got sent down from Oxford?"

"Because you drank all the time and did no work?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"True," I admitted. "But you were so ostentatious about it..."

"Precisely," God purred.

"Godfrey, you bastard." I was genuinely outraged. "Did Killjoy-Yuck recruit you?"

"Heaven forbid." Godfrey sounded appalled. "He wasn't my tutor. It would have been poaching. Not at all the done thing, my dear fellow."

"But are you working for Killjoy-Yuck?"

"`Working for...'" Godfrey repeated mockingly. "Isn't that rather an obsolete concept, old chap? Sounds so proletarian, somehow, sort of like singing company songs before descending into the mines. Surely we're all free-lance these days. It's more efficient, isn't it?"

"So how did you know about my lunch?" I persisted.

"Oh, Terence and I chat periodically. He knows we're friends. Surely it's only natural that I ask about you?"

A bright idea struck me between the eyes. "Are you keeping tabs on Rasputin?"

God laughed. "You mean telling Terence about Lev Pistoff's activities? But that would be peaching. Another of the things one doesn't do, my dear fellow."

"So what do you do?" I asked, exasperated. "No poaching, no peaching, good grief, it sounds so rural, like you're all boy scouts or something."

"Oh, one just looks around, you know. One keeps one's eyes open. One passes on bits of information that might be interesting. It's all very casual."

"Well, will you tell me why Terence asked me to gather the dirt on X-O-X?"

"X-O-X? Ah, you mean, Socks."

"It's pronounced 'Hdzhooohdzh' in Albanian."

"How very interesting," God replied with languid condescension. "Well, everyone's keeping an eye on Socks, aren't they? I imagine Terence just wants you to find out what Socks is up to with this University. Is it a front for arms smuggling to revolutionary movements? That sort of thing."

"The university doesn't even have any students yet," I protested.

"In that case, it isn't a very good front yet," Godfrey agreed. "But Socks does rather like setting up front organizations. Take, for instance, the Fund for Peace and Love."

"So that is a Xox thing? Flossie was applying to them for money for her research in India."

"Yes, well, they do give away large gobs of money for more or less legitimate research. Covers up the rumour that the Fund for Peace and Love is used to channel money to various guerrilla groups. I know that CIA bribes to moderate Arab groups were laundered though it. And the Kurds. Probably lots else as well. Maybe that's how Socks made his money. Kept a percentage."

"Godfrey, you sound like such an expert," I said, impressed. "Does anyone else know about all this?"

"Among our mutual friends, you mean? I can't remember. I might have told Floss. By the way, they gave her the money for her research so she's off to India next week. Lulu might know too. I often talk in my sleep. Quite embarrassing."

"Isn't it a breach of security?"

"On the contrary, old chap." God sounded amused. "It's the old strategy of double-bluff. Rasputin is particularly good at it. That's how he defused all the suspicion he aroused at Oxford, you know, this excessively loud dissident Russian, everyone thought he must work for the KGB, right, otherwise how could he get away in the early days of perestroika with calling Gorbachev a KGB stooge? Why wasn't he getting the shove with the old poisoned umbrella, people muttered. Rasputin brazened it out well by simply declaring that he might be KGB but how would you ever know? You see, this way he was executing a triple-bluff, finessing the whole thing onto another, higher, dimension of uncertainty. Perhaps, one could keep going on infinitely. You know the paradox about the Cretan who declared that all Cretans are liars. Now, what does Wittgenstein say about it? Maybe I should look at Godel again..."

"Godfrey," I pleaded. I knew from bitter experience that he could spend hours rambling on and on about such things. He did after all have a first class degree in philosophy from Cambridge which, actually, now that I thought about it, made his amazing failure as a postgraduate student at Oxford quite inexplicable. Unless he was telling the truth... They want you to think like this, I said to myself sternly. Stop thinking! Be your normal superficial self. Take things at appearances. It is dangerous to get too deep into the quicksand of analytic thought. Besides, Godfrey's mention of Godel reminded me of a footnote in a book I had recently read... "God. Quick. Answer one question."

"Ask and you shall receive..."

"Who paid for Rasputin's studies at Oxford?"

"The Fund for Peace and Love. In other words, Socks. But you must have known. Wasn't Terence your tutor as well as Rasputin's?"

My head was whirling. X-O-X, Terence Killjoy-Yuck, Rasputin, Godfrey… fragmented faces and leering grins in a lurid kaleidoscope of connections. I knew I couldn't keep this up much longer. "Of course. Yes, of course, I knew that all along. I must hang up now. Good talking to you. Take lots of drugs. Say hi to the Mafia. Good luck with the art smuggling. I hear the airports are dangerous in Moscow now..." I babbled and then hung up. I rested my spinning head in my hands and took another deep breath. I didn't know what to believe from what Godfrey had been telling me. Was I really working for a fake university, for a front organization for arms smugglers and revolutionaries? I knew that I had to get in touch with my friend Lulu. She would know what was going on. In desperation, I looked up, straight into Annichka's pretty little face behind the reception desk.

"You were talking about drugs. Do you take drugs?" Annichka asked wonderingly, her big brown eyes bovine with amazement.

"Uh, sure, sometimes, I used to," I responded uncertainly, not knowing the extent to which Czech children were indoctrinated against pleasurable chemicals.

"I wasn't sure, you look so prim and proper. Such a clean little boy."

I glared at this infant. "And you're shooting up every day, I suppose, huh?"

I haven't yet but I'd love to," Annichka responded. "Everyone I know takes drugs," she confided. "My parents smoke marijuana all the time. They said I could smoke some with them when I'm eighteen. But that's so far away!"

"How old are you, Annichka?" I felt like a child molester, just looking at her. The contrast between the lithe yet lush body of this little Lolita, encased today in a skin-tight bodysuit, and her squeaky babyish voice seemed even more disconcerting now that she was talking about drugs. After my conversation with God I felt aged enough to be her father. Or her grandfather. But maybe the old gentleman took drugs too.

"Sixteen." Annichka smiled frankly.

"Sixteen." I couldn't remember back that far. "I think I was sixteen when I first took drugs. I'll give you some."

"Will you?" Annichka beamed at me. "Do you have some here?"

"Not right now. But I'll get some soon," I promised. "I'll get my friends to send some mescaline from Kalifornia. You'll like it. It makes you see pretty colors."

"Does it?" Annichka breathed. I leaned forward to hear her better. "I love pretty colors. I draw with my crayons all the time."

"Me too," I smiled, looking up from her baby cleavage. "Maybe we can play together sometime."

"I'd like that! When you get the mescaline, okay?"

"It's a date. Now can I make another phone call? It's kind of private."

"Sure! Go into the booth and call anywhere in the world! Talk as long as you want! The University pays for everything! Isn't it lovely?" Annichka clapped her hands delightedly. I blew her a kiss and walked across the wide lobby to the phone booth.

As I dialled Lulu's unlisted number, I looked at my watch and tried to calculate the time difference. It wasn't even two o'clock yet in Oxford so there was only the slimmest of chances that Lulu might actually be home and alone. But it was worth a try. Genuine naivete was positively dangerous in the perilous circumstances in which I now found myself. I needed information in order to maintain my stance of ingenuous innocence. And who better to turn to for lessons in the dainty art of candid guile than that consummate ingenue, Lulu?

#GenghizInLove: Episode 7

Hell's arrival was a momentous event. While Professor Masaryk quavered behind his cluttered desk and I pretended to be invisible, Lucy ushered in a little old man, bent double over two stout walking sticks. Bright brown eyes peered up and darted around the room sharply from beneath one massive eyebrow. The old man's cheeks were bloated red pouches that folded over under their own weight into the immense dewlaps of an aged bloodhound. A battered beige corduroy jacket was drawn tight against a powerful torso barely covered by a sporty purple and puce checked shirt, unbuttoned at the throat and well beyond, exposing a matted growth of grey chest hair that sprouted thickly up to the old man's unshaven jowls. Faded blue denim trousers, folded up at the ankles, flapped loosely against thin twisted legs as he hobbled with audible effort into the room. "Where's Masaryk?" the old man growled in a powerful bass voice. "Where's my lunch?"

Professor Masaryk advanced across his office, smiling, deferential, glad to be of use. "Otto!" he exclaimed, holding out both hands. The old man grudgingly let his hand be shaken. "Otto, my old friend! When did you arrive? Did you have a safe trip? You look well!"

"You said lunch was at twelve," Professor Hell grumbled, looking at his watch. "It's twelve. I want my lunch. They feed you badly on aeroplanes these days. Plastic! Plastic trays, plastic meat, plastic rolls. Wine in a plastic bottle and a plastic glass to pour the wine into. Disposable culture. Shoddy manufacture. Modernity!"

"But we will have glass!" Professor Masaryk exclaimed unctuously. "Genuine hand-crafted Bohemia crystal."

"When?"

"We should wait for Killjoy-Yuck and for Monica Fume."

"Fume? Bigglesworth-Fume?" Professor Hell tilted his large head far to one side. He was so top-heavy that I feared for his center of gravity. I moved discreetly to his side to support him in case he fell over. "Is that Haighte-Westerclyde's youngest daughter? Runs some women's college at Oxford these days, doesn't she?"

"I know nothing about women's education, Otto," Professor Masaryk replied. "We must ask Killjoy-Yuck."

"Killjoy-Yuck? That the chap who resembles a vulture? Must say I didn't like the way he's been staring at me in all these meetings. Most disconcerting. He at Oxford too? Regular Mafia."

"Terence Killjoy-Yuck is Senior Tutor at All Fools College. Lady Monica is the Principal of D'Urberville," I piped up. I thought of the terrifying stories I had heard about Lady Monica from my friend Flossie who was a fellow of D'Urberville College and had been coerced, at the age of thirty-two, to spoon up all her custard at a formal college dinner presided over by her austere Principal. Did I really want to have lunch with these scary old people?

Hell grunted without looking at me. I wasn't sure if he hadn't heard me or if he believed that children should speak only when spoken to. "Didn't like her husband. Told him so. But he's dead now, I suppose? Fell off a horse, I was told. Stupid thing to do."

Masaryk nodded solemnly. Professor Hell still looked dubious. "Is that official?" he asked. "Never can tell with these journalists. Play silly games with obituaries. Mark Twain. Harry Truman. Nothing makes a chap look more stupid than writing nice things about some fool who isn't even dead. Happened to me once..." The memory of this mishap made Hell glower.

"Knew her father in the war," he continued. "Worked for me. Good man. No airs. 'Course he didn't know then that he'd inherit Blastedheath and the Dukedom. His brother, Angus, hadn't gone down yet with that damn convoy to Archangelsk. Stupid mission, if you ask me." Professor Hell laughed mirthlessly. "'Course they didn't ask me. Stick to breaking German codes, Hell, and don't talk to us about strategy. Fools!" he shouted. A vein throbbed on his temple and his cheeks swelled to alarming proportions. Luckily, at that moment a gaunt middle-aged lady strode into the room. Ramrod-erect, she marched up to Hell, saluted, and curtsied stiffly. They then shook hands without exchanging a word. The rest of us watched this brief ceremony in respectful silence.

Terence Killjoy-Yuck's entrance broke the hush. A confused babel of introductions broke out. Professor Masaryk seized the moment. Grabbing me by the arm, he led me up to Professor Hell. "Otto, may I introduce this young man to you? He is... uh..." He had clearly forgotten my name but he recovered adroitly. "Your Special Assistant."

"And what the devil does that mean? What is he supposed to do? What's your job?" Hell scowled at me. I smiled meekly and looked beseechingly to Terence Killjoy-Yuck for rescue.

"Lord Hades, he will, ahem, arrange your transport," Terence said silkily. He smiled at me. I involuntarily shuddered. "He will make sure that the Rector's office, which we are so glad you have consented to occupy, functions smoothly. He will represent you at meetings which you might not wish to attend."

"Good," Hell grunted. "Hate meetings. Hate administration. Hate shuffling papers." He wheeled around towards me. "Think you can take care of these things, boy?"

"I can vouch for him," Terence interjected with unnecessary ownership. "I was his tutor at Oxford. He shuffles papers with the best of them. Literally."

"What does cheating have to do with it?" Hell glared at Terence. "Didn't ask you. Mind your own business. Boy isn't dumb, is he?"

"I'll try, sir," I whispered timidly.

"What's that? Hmmm..." Hell frowned at me. Abruptly, his expression changed into a surprisingly gentle smile which broke out like an allergic rash over his withered cheeks. He reached over and patted my arm. "You give it your best shot, eh?"

"Yes, sir!" I said, snapping to attention. That smile had given me fresh heart. I began to understand why raw recruits in the army looked up to their gruff sergeants. I had heard of Hell. His reputation preceded him wherever he went, mounting with the decades, like a snowball before an avalanche. As Professor Masaryk had mentioned, he was a living legend. Generations of terrified undergraduates had passed through his hands. Some were traumatized for life by the experience, nervous wrecks fit for nothing better than managing country branches of banks and pruning roses on weekends with nerveless shaking hands. Others, Hell's favored acolytes, trailing clouds of fame and glory, sailed on to dizzy heights in the academic world and beyond, into exalted realms of secular power and fabulous riches. I devoutly hoped that this would be my case.

These were my thoughts as our small procession walked down the hushed pile-carpeted corridors of power and took the elevator down from the twentieth floor. Pressed close to Professor Hell in the crowded lift, I inhaled that musty odor peculiar to old men, a strange dank exudation of dust and sweat and port wine and pipe tobacco, accreted together over a lifetime spent in fusty rooms. For his part, I trust, Professor Hell could only smell the sharp clear woody fragrance of my favorite cologne, Solipsiste.

"Close in here," Hell muttered. "Need some fresh air."

"Soon, Otto," Professor Masaryk promised. "The restaurant is just a short ride away. The food is very good. Even Zoosh always goes there whenever he comes to Prague."

"Does he? Well, well," Terence Killjoy-Yuck murmured. "I always thought billionaires travelled with their own personal cooks."

"Just poison-tasters," Lady Monica stated bluntly.

"What does Xox eat?" Hell demanded. I started. It was exactly what I had been wondering. I remembered our billionaire benefactor telling me that the secret of his success lay in understanding that we are what we eat. So what did he eat? And could I have some?

"I must say that I never noticed," Professor Masaryk responded shame-facedly. "I was too busy eating."

The elevator door opened noiselessly. Sheltered from the curious eyes of proletarian passers-by by the mirrored windows of our stretch limousine, the bigwigs of the University of Truth and Justice and I were whisked off to a small chateau on a hill overlooking Prague, once the favorite restaurant of high party apparatchiks, now the haunt of fat men in natty blazers, hefting bulging briefcases and cellular phones, regularly raking the room with cautiously shifty eyes between phone calls marked by excessively jocose camaraderie. Perhaps they were the same people.

"They just didn't have those little portable phones back then," Professor Otto Hell muttered. I looked at him sharply. I had said nothing. Was I working for a mind reader? "Otherwise, you're right. Power never really changes hands. Thugs."

"Line 'em up against a wall," Lady Monica Bigglesworth-Fume uttered crisply. "Shoot 'em. Shoot horses, don't we? Scum."

"You're wrong," Hell barked. "Wouldn't do any good. Look at the replacements. What's the difference?"

"Lord Hades! That's defeatist talk. Won't have it in my presence."

"Feisty woman," Hell said admiringly. "Comes from her father. Generations of aristocrats. Telling people what to do. Practice. Funny how it gets inherited. Enters the genes. Breeding will tell."

"I fought for this revolution!" Lady Monica glared. "Gave my time and money for the cause of freedom. Won't have it subverted. Otherwise what good was it to support all those tedious ungrateful dissidents?"

"But they are grateful," Professor Masaryk murmured soothingly. "I met the President just yesterday when Shoozh was up at the Castle and Good King Wenceslas asked how you were."

Lady Monica snorted. "I haven't been invited to the Castle yet. Can you imagine, that man invited these rock bands first, all these long haired musicians, instead of remembering that it was Blodgett Scrotum and I who brought him to the world's attention. Ingrate!"

"Well, Lady Monica, it was slightly tactless of Professor Scrotum to be so scathing about the new uniforms the President had ordered for the castle guards," Professor Masaryk reproved.

"And I imagine Good King Wenceslas must have winced just a little when he read Blodgett Scrotum's particularly caustic remarks on the choice of colours for the new presidential limousines," Terence Killjoy-Yuck chimed in.

"Blodgett was making a very important point which Wenceslas should have heeded," Lady Monica said, her thin colorless lips drawn together tight. She peeled the crust off a roll with acerbic severity. I winced, imagining what her students at D'Urberville College must endure on a daily basis. "Those in power must never permit themselves to play the fool. They must behave with decorum and sobriety. A certain mystique was required of Wenceslas if he was to convince the vulgar masses that he was in fact in charge after the Revolution. What did he do instead? He ordered BMW limousines. Fair enough, he needed new limousines, those tatty old Soviet tanks obviously wouldn't do. But why couldn't he order from Rolls Royce? And then I really fail to see why he should have wanted his limousines to be painted red, white, and blue."

"But they're the Czech national colors," Professor Masaryk objected. "People thought it was a nice touch."

"Limousines should be black," Lady Monica pronounced grimly. "And I think that Wenceslas demonstrated his fundamentally irresponsible character by taking offence with Blodgett."

"Is Blodgett Scrotum still teaching at Imperial College?" Professor Hell inquired.

"No," Lady Monica replied, a tragic quaver barely discernible under her stern veneer. "He was disgusted with England after all those Communist architects ganged up on the Prince of Wales. Blodgett took it as a personal attack."

"How so?" Hell seemed amused.

"Blodgett shaped the Prince's views on architecture. He took the Prince around the country, showing our future Sovereign the contrast between these disgusting modernist buildings sprouting like rank weeds all over our fair green land, and those old gracious mansions which accord so well with our sense of dignity and individualism. And Blodgett is really so sensitive beneath his crusty public persona. The venom of that attack on the Prince's views, his views, really, poisoned him against England. He felt that his Englishness was threatened. So he decided to go to Amerika. He was offered a professorship at Yale but he refused because he felt it was too permeated by this same fashionable... eclecticism." Lady Monica spat out the word with disgust and rinsed her mouth with mineral water. "Then this agricultural university in Texas wrote to him and he decided to go there since he felt that some of the original English spirit might still be felt in that pioneer frontier ethos. So he went off to Texas to commune with the crops."

"England is the poorer for it," Terence exclaimed, shaking his head sadly. "Lady Snatcher was quite apoplectic about it when we met the other day. What a great lady." A look of reverence crossed his thin ugly face and for a moment he almost looked human. "But there was also that awkward law suit. In my opinion, it's just as well that Blodgett left the country rather than see his name dragged through the mud of the Sunday papers."

"Oh, it makes me so furious to think of that viper we nourished in our bosoms," Lady Monica shrieked, clutching her scrawny chest. "That... Rasputin!"

I hid my gulp behind my napkin. But it was no use. Terence had been watching me. "You know Rasputin, don't you?" he asked maliciously. "You studied together at All Fools. And then you worked together as foreign correspondents for The Sociologist. You two are friends!"

Two bright red spots appeared on Lady Monica's pale bony cheeks. "You're friends with that vampire? That ghoul? That dastardly ingrate? How dare you?"

"I'm not friends with him anymore, Lady Monica," I said earnestly. "I broke off relations with him in disgust and anger ages ago. Even before he wrote that article about you and your friends..."

"Tell me the truth," Lady Monica said coldly. "What is your candid assessment of Rasputin's character?"

I considered for a moment. "He is a scheming, quarrelsome, sycophantic swine," I enunciated carefully.

"Oh, how right you are!" Lady Monica trilled, her thin hands clutched together in ecstacy. "What a concise and yet precise description of that evil monster." She turned to Professor Hell. "This young man strikes me as a very good judge of character, Lord Hades," she said. "I am sure he will do nicely as your assistant."

"Depends how he does his job, don't it?" Hell replied coldly. I was uneasily aware of the searching scrutiny of his bright beady brown eyes. I felt like an apparatchik. Was I really capable of deceiving the greatest living intellectual in the world, and a mind-reader to boot?

"I am sure he will do well," Lady Monica urged on my behalf. "Such judgement of character is, alas, all too rare in this degenerate age. God is dead, we proudly declared, and so now we are ruled by the devil. That's exactly what I wrote to Rasputin's mother. `I love you dearly, Katyushka,' I wrote, `but what devil raped you that you were forced to spawn such a treacherous freak?'"

"What the devil are you talking about?" Hell asked gruffly.

"It was all a Communist plot," Lady Monica declared dramatically. "During our fight against Communism, Blodgett and I became friendly with various Russians, magnanimously overlooking their racial origins and intellectual pretensions. One such family beseeched us to help their son get into Oxford. We helped in every way. I believe I persuaded Terence to give the young man a scholarship at All Fools." Terence nodded in sombre confirmation. "We did our best for him. We gave him books to review for scholarly journals. We invited him to our country cottages and gave him tea and long talks on the superiority of the English way of life. But then, after worming his way into our confidence, this Rasputin then proceeded to prostitute himself for various filthy Fleet Street rags. He wrote an article mocking the English way of life for some base magazine in which he insulted Blodgett and I and all our friends in the coarsest of terms. We had no choice but to seek recourse from the law in order to clear our names."

"Any publicity is good publicity," Hell responded without sympathy. "You should know that, Monica. Your late husband edited one of those filthy Fleet Street rags, as I recall."

Terence excused himself from the ensuing fistfight and went to the men's room. After a discreet interval, I followed. Terence had seen me watching him watching Xox and Lucy make love, and I didn't know if this was good or bad for my fledgling career as a British spy. On the one hand, it proved I was diligent. On the other hand, I didn't want Terence to think I knew too much, it would just raise expectations. I figured I'd try once again to brazen it out and demonstrate blatant ignorance, just as I had so often in my Oxford days. And so I stood at the urinal next to his and hissed. "Psst... Terence. What am I supposed to do?"

Terence frowned. "Did no one teach you as a child? You pull it out and then…"

"I'm toilet trained, thank you. What am I supposed to do at work?"

"Didn't Masaryk tell you?"

"He just said that I'm supposed to be Hell's assistant."

"Well, what else do you need to know?"

I nudged him in the ribs and winked inanely. "What am I supposed to do for you lot?"

"That is a very indiscreet thing to say," Terence replied stiffly. "And it was not discreet to follow me into the loo either. It is bad manners for one thing. You've made me piss all over my shoes. And it is bad for our reputations. Didn't they teach you even the basic skills when you were up at Oxford? You must have had a very incompetent tutor."

"You were my tutor," I reminded him.

"Oh, that's right," Terence conceded. "I must have had my mind on other things. Well, dear boy, just do whatever Lord Hades requires from you. I shall come to Prague at regular intervals. We may have lunch together on occasion. Keep your wits about you. Open your slit-eyes wide. Look around. See what is going on. Gather the dirt on Socks. Above all, just be there. Now let us get out of here before our reputations are irretrievably ruined. You go first. Being British, I shall pretend to be suffering from constipation."

The others were already on their feet when I got back to our table. After a suitable interval, Terence emerged from the toilet, making profuse apologies for his bowels. As we parted outside the restaurant, Lady Monica Bigglesworth-Fume and I shook hands warmly. The butterflies in my stomach had long since drowned in the splendid lunch. As a budding apparatchik, I had wondered if I should order exactly the same meal as Professor Otto Hell or have whatever I wanted. In the event, our choice had been the same: a delicate appetizer of home-made ravioli filled with the flesh of baby partridges followed by a robust rack of lamb with fresh mint sauce, washed down with several bottles of vintage 1952 Chateau Rochefoucauld. Exquisite. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I like to eat well. So, apparently, did my new boss. I had the feeling that I was going to enjoy working for Hell.

#GenghizInLove: Episode 6

Hell hath no fury like a lover horned, and I was not going to take Lucy's betrayal lightly. Pacing my room like a TV lawyer, I marshalled my arguments against Lucy and found her guilty on all counts. She had led me on and then misled me. But what most distressed me was the contrast between my ever dimmer impressions of our night together and an all too vivid memory of her romp with Xox. Yet the weakness of my case made me angrier still; confrontation makes me ill but I felt it better than meekly swallowing my bile.

And so I bravely decided to avoid dinner. I would stay in my room and starve. That would show her. I sucked in my cheeks and stared in the mirror. Tears rose in my eyes at the sight of my piteous countenance and I felt better by the minute. But then the hunger pangs started. I lurched around the room, desperately searching for the key to the minibar. But I had already gobbled up all the peanuts and pretzels while guzzling whisky earlier. There was nothing for it. The choice between starvation and humiliation was no choice at all: I pulled on my shoes and made for the door.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Hastily I kicked off my shoes and jumped into bed. "Come in!" I called out crossly, and buried my head under the covers.

"What's the matter?" Lucy inquired tenderly. "Aren't you well?"

"No."

"Aren't you taking your vitamins?"

"Yes. I mean, no."

"Why did you stop? Didn't they make you feel good?"

"Don't want to feel good."

"Why?"

"I hate you. Go away."

"Okay. I'm next door if you need me."

"I know."

The covers were raised from my cowering head. I looked up into Lucy's face. She was smiling scarily at me. "Now just how would you happen to know that I'm next door?"

"Uh… I don't know. Intuition?"

"Not good enough." She brought out a shard of glass and held it up before me. I saw my fractured face reflected in the broken mirror. "Security found these fragments all over the road this afternoon. Along with a coat hanger. Computer simulations of the distribution of broken glass show that it probably fell from this floor. Don't you have something to tell me?"

"Don't you have something to tell me?" I blustered back. "What were you doing with that hairy ape Xox this afternoon?"

"You saw what we were doing," Lucy replied coldly. "And it's Mister Xox to you."

"Whatever. So how come you were picking his fleas?"

"That's none of your business. How dare you spy on me?"

"I thought you were being attacked. I could hear you yelling down in the library. Besides, I wasn’t the only one spying."

Lucy stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

"None of your business." I folded my arms across my chest and stared at her.

"Why are you being like this?"

"I guess I'm feeling jealous," I said honestly.

"Jealous." Lucy seemed amazed. "What is that?"

"I thought you spoke six languages besides English. Isn't jealousy in your vocabulary?"

"I am familiar with the concept," Lucy said primly. "But I do not comprehend the emotion. Could you explain?"

"Haven't you ever been jealous? How can I explain what it's like?"

"Here." Lucy gave me a vitamin and a glass of water. She scrambled into bed with me. "Take this first. Good. Now tell me exactly what you felt when Mister Xox was making love to me."

"Well, I was miserable at first when I saw what you were doing…"

"What were we doing?"

"You know, making love…"

"Show me."

"You mean…"

"Exactly. Yes, there. No, further down. Oh, yes, that's it. Slower. Oh, yes… Go on…"

And later, so much later, as we cuddled in the darkness, her silky hair caressing my bare shoulder, I told Lucy about Terence Killjoy-Yuck and his fancy periscope. She said nothing and I felt uneasy, but how should I have foreseen the dark and twisted path my disclosure would entail? Consequences appear around hairpin bends and collisions are always inevitable in retrospect.

We overslept and the next morning was a mad rush, gasps of shock and hasty turns at the washbasin, much slopping and slipping in bathroom puddles, ties awry and blood on collars, and popping vitamins in each other's mouth like bon-bons. Xox was off to see the President that day, and Lucy had to arrange the logistics. As she flew out of my room, one arm groping for an elusive jacket sleeve, a ladder in her stocking begin to run, but I resolved not to notice. It was probably the only wise thing I had done since arriving in Prague.

Lucy had arranged for me to creep along in the wake of Xox's entourage, provided that I was a good little mouse. I got to ride in one of the innumerable black Jeeps escorting the great man through Prague's winding streets, blowing aside sullen bystanders with splitting siren calls. It was all great fun and at the end of it all, in the grand square in front of Prague Castle, I was treated to the spectacle of Xox's limousine sweeping up to the Castle gates. The motionless toy soldiers in their brightly colored uniforms remained still as ever in their sentry boxes on either side of the great gates while a whole detachment of olive-uniformed palace guards opened the gates ceremoniously and brought the convoy in, even until the very heart of the Castle, under the sprawling shadow of the Cathedral. A solitary grey suit in an olive sea, Xox was taken to see Good King Wenceslas in his private quarters, while the rest of us waited in monotonously gilded anterooms and tried to make polite conversation in broken German with the President's courtiers. A half hour passed and we squinted discreetly up our sleeves; at the hour we looked with open perplexity at our watches; three hours later, we were all slumped in our seats, snoring. Eventually, noisily clearing their throats, the two great men roused us. At the subsequent press conference neither Xox nor the President would reveal what had kept them closeted together so long but they had clearly had fun: Good King Wenceslas looked marginally less morose than he had ever done since his glory days as Wenceslas the Dissident, writing surrealist verse in communist dungeons and Xox had on his usual cat-slurped-cream grin. I wondered idly what the wire dangling out of his right trouser pocket led to. What was that object in Xox's pocket weighing down his trousers on the right hand side? About the size of a remote control…

I was writing a letter next morning to Flossie, proudly retailing the whole experience (and filling in some details: I hadn't really seen Good King Wenceslas show Xox the cyanide-filled tooth which had given him courage in the face of all interrogation, but I was sure he must have had one and I thought Floss should learn from his experience for when she was next held captive and tortured), when Lucy marched in. I reached around to give her a kiss and a squeeze, but she would have none of that. She was all business that day, and I sighed and prepared myself to follow orders.

"Professor Masaryk will see you. Now."

I jumped out of my chair in fright. "You said he couldn't see me for the next five days!"

"He can. I made time."

"Okay. When?"

"In five minutes."

"Five…" I looked speechlessly at myself, unshaven, sockless, in tattered jeans and sweatshirt. "Can I go like this?"

"No. Be in my office on the twentieth floor in five minutes." Lucy marched away. At the door she turned and with heartless calm told me to clip my fingernails. I stared at the door in outrage but did what she said.

"Come in, come in," a rich baritone boomed. Lucy fixed my collar and smiled at me with fond encouragement, like an experienced mother smiling at her littlest one going back to school after a holiday. I took a deep breath and walked into a large room panelled in gleaming walnut wood and lined with glass-fronted bookshelves. At the far end of the room, a tall distinguished-looking elderly gentleman rose from behind an enormous mahogany desk covered with papers and files, and advanced rapidly towards me, arm outstretched. At last he reached me, shook my hand vigorously, stared probingly into my left eye, nodded (I hoped approvingly), smiled, took my arm, and led me to a long couch flanked by two fat armchairs.

"Sit down, sit down, my dear boy! I am sorry I have not been able to see you before now, but you understand, I have been so busy..."

He took off his thick glasses and rubbed them ineffectually against the knife-edge crease of his trousers with a veined and mottled hand. After some time, he looked up with reddened eyes, their pale grey centers pathetic without the protection of the thick lenses. A sigh emanated from the depths of his soul.

"I have so many tasks to perform and so little help. It is all very difficult. Hadzhooo..." I thought he was sneezing but then I gladly realized that he too was just having difficulty pronouncing Xox's name. "Hdzoosh expects his men to do their duty. It is too much to expect! At times I feel... very alone."

"But Lucy..." I ventured timidly.

"Ah, Lucy!" Professor Masaryk beamed. "Lucy is invaluable. She remembers everything. She knows when I am supposed to meet someone. Where I should be. She brings me letters to sign." His voice took on a note of hushed awe. " She even gives me vitamins. Lucy is a treasure. But she cannot do everything. There are so many decisions which only I can take at the moment. This is why we need a Rector. Why we need you."

I stared at him blankly. "You want me to be the Rector?"

Professor Masaryk threw back his head and laughed richly for several minutes. "Ah, no, that is not what I meant, that is not what I meant at all," he said at last, spluttering a fine spray of saliva in my face, obviously still overwhelmed by the humor of the thought. I smiled uncertainly. "No, no, I merely meant that we need able-bodied young men like you to assist us. And we need a Rector."

"But aren't you the Rector, sir?"

"No," Professor Masaryk said, waving his hands in limp self-deprecation. "I am merely the Director of the Czech college of the University of Truth and Justice. But there are other colleges as well. In Hungary, for instance." His brow darkened momentarily. He was about to say something but then he restrained himself. "And the Poles. The Slovenes. Ksoosh wants a college in every country of Central Europe. And why stop there?" The Professor waved a hand through the air. "There are so many parts of the world deprived of truth and justice. Why not a College of the University of Truth and Justice in every benighted country of the world?"

"How many students does the university have, sir?"

Professor Masaryk sighed. "None. At the moment. For several years now we have been studying the possibility of having students. We have held curriculum conferences. We have authorized task forces, commissions, and research projects headed by distinguished academics to investigate the requisite pre-conditions. To establish the necessary infrastructure. It is not easy to set up a University, you know. Even if you have unlimited money."

He shook his head and finger at me. "As an old academic, I know how difficult it is to have students. Students place an intolerable strain on any institution. They have to be taught. Supervised. Examined. And then they always whine and complain about everything. Institutions have to be strong to survive students. They have to be stable. They have to put down roots first. And we are so young!" The Director smiled engagingly. "At this stage the University is like a... like a fragile plant. So easily trampled by the impatient footsteps of students. The young can be so cruel." He looked around for inspiration. It came to him. He snapped his fingers in triumph. "Or again, the University can be likened to a pure young girl. Like Lucy. Brought up by caring parents in an atmosphere of gentleness and love. Peace and love," he added, involuntarily crossing himself before resuming his analogy. "Would you like this sheltered young girl, the University, to be given to some brutal rapist, to be seduced, ravished, violated?" He looked at me accusingly. There were tears in his watery grey eyes.

"No, sir. I suppose you're right."

"Well, Hadzooosh does," the Director said, moodily. "He wants students. Now. This year. This month! He doesn't seem to care about the University. Oh, he's paying for it and I suppose he thinks that gives him the right to impose students on us. The problem with him is that he is so decisive. He is a billionaire and he may even be a genius but he is not after all an academic. He should listen to us. We have said it in the Senate and in the committees. We have said it in every meeting and in every report. It is no use. He listens, politely enough, and then he just asks `So when will the University have students?' Oh well. Maybe the Rector can make him understand."

"So is there a Rector, sir?"

Professor Masaryk looked at me suspiciously and then relaxed. "It is supposed to be a top secret. No one must know. But I suppose I can tell you. After all, you will be his Special Assistant." I gaped at him. He nodded and smiled at me. "Yes, that is what we have decided. Killjoy-Yuck recommended you in the highest possible terms. He said that you were discreet. Responsible. Level headed. Trustworthy. Intelligent. Hard working." My jaw dropped open again. I closed my mouth quickly. No doubt Terence had his reasons for this shameless lie. And I was, after all, supposed to be working for him. Wasn't I?

"So I can tell you. But you must not divulge this information to anyone until the formal announcement is made. It will be in every newspaper in the world tomorrow!" He chuckled and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "It will put this University on the map! It will shock the world! It will make History!"

"Who is it, sir?" I asked eagerly.

"Hell," Professor Masaryk breathed.

"Professor Hell?"

"Lord Hades, Brigadier-General Sir Otto Hell, K.B.C, F.A.B, F.A.E., Professor Emeritus of Harvard, Yale, and the Universities of Chicago, California, and Cambridge," Professor Masaryk intoned, rolling the syllables around as though he were savoring thick glutinous mouthfuls of Christmas cake. "The most influential intellectual in the world. A living legend. He has consented at last to be our Rector. It took months of cajolery, coaxing, wheedling. But at last we bribed, I mean, persuaded him to accept the position."

"I would be proud to work for Professor Hell, sir," I said sincerely.

"Anybody would," Masaryk snapped impatiently. "That's the point. Can you begin to imagine how difficult it was to find someone so eminent that none of the Directors of the different Colleges simply could not object? Ugh..." the Director snarled. "Ugh, for instance. Attila Ugh, the Director of the Budapest college. A megalomaniac," he explained. "Would Ugh work under some obscure non-entity? Ugh wants to run the whole University himself, you see," Masaryk sighed, "like the rest of us." He corrected himself. "Not me, of course. I am a humble man. All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air, where I can talk to some students now and again, to suggest a few books for them to read, to build them up in their careers. Perhaps, one day, when I am long since dead, they will remember me as an older colleague who helped them a little." He frowned at me impressively. "It is the only reason why I have come out of my modest retirement to help Shoosh with this University. And my task will be much lighter now. I won't have to deal with Ugh any more. Hell can handle him. Hell can handle anyone. Perhaps he can even handle Shoodzh."

"Do you know Professor Hell well, sir?"

"We were schoolboys together," Masaryk said, a faraway look in his eyes. "After that I lost touch with him for many years. There was the war and then the Communists took over and Hell escaped yet again from Czechoslovakia and I was not allowed to leave. But I have known him for almost seventy years now."

"That's a long time."

"Yes. That is why I am so happy that Hell will be here. He will be on my side. We are supposed to have lunch together today."

"Is he already here, sir?"

"Yes. He will officially start work tomorrow. And you will work for him." Professor Masaryk stared at me appraisingly. I was wearing my best black suit and flowery tie. My nails were clipped and clean. I had taken one of Lucy's vitamins. I was fresh-faced and full of vim. "Why don't you join us?" the Director invited me hesitantly. "Zoosh has left and so have Ugh and Piknik, so there will only be Killjoy-Yuck and Monica Bigglesworth-Fume and Hell and I. I suppose I might as well introduce you to Hell. No time like the present! Let me ask Lucy..." At that moment Lucy entered the room. "Speak of the devil!" Professor Masaryk ejaculated, looking at me proudly. I smiled admiringly since he seemed a tad vain about his idiomatic English and I like to please.

"Lucy, my dear, should I invite this young man to lunch?"

"Yes, sir," Lucy replied demurely, the perfect secretary. "Lord Hades is already here. He said he likes to be punctual."

"Is he waiting outside?" Professor Masaryk exclaimed. He looked flustered. He smoothed his hair and straightened his tie and retreated behind his desk. "Show him in, show him in! It won't do, it won't do at all to keep Hell waiting!"

#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.