Alek Popov - Mission London

“99”

“Ah!” he smiled, happy that he had understood the meaning of the foreign words purely from the other’s expression. “The toilet! This way, please.” And he pointed to the end of the corridor.

Varadin headed mechanically in the direction indicated.

The agent shook his head and slowly pronounced, “De-vede-se-di-de-vit.”

Foreign languages were amazing.

What was this strange and beautiful place? Varadin asked himself curiously. How did I get here? The narrow cubicle gave him a feeling of security. The walls, the tiles, the ceiling shone with cleanliness. It was warm and smelled lovely. The water murmured gently beneath the lid. ‘I’m in the closet!’ the thought occurred to him. Just a second before he had said the blessed number ‘1’ He was calm now. Suddenly, his eye was caught by a stack of paper balanced on top of the cistern. It didn’t look like toilet-paper. He read the title. Adrenalin whipped his brain once more.

The Premier’s speech!

The fucking translation of the fucking speech in all fifty fucking copies here in the closet!

The door of the cubicle opened wide and the frame was eclipsed by the impressive silhouette of an elderly lady. She had carefully styled hair and a beautiful, cruel face. She frowned and tightened her lips like a matron in a Victorian girls’ school.

“You naughty boy!” she waggled her finger at him and slammed the door.

Wasn’t that Lady Thatcher? he asked himself, his jaw on his knees.

With a few skilful jumps Varadin reached the corridor, hugging the priceless sheets to his chest, and stared at the little-shoe cartoon on the toilet door in embarrassment, it was a female shoe.

He rushed to the hall. At the entrance he ran into Danailov.

“So you found them!” he exclaimed and helpfully took the entire stack.

“I found them!” Varadin snapped.

‘Just in time!’

“What?!” Varadin shook himself. “Hasn’t he started speaking yet? I though I heard them announce his name.”

“They announced that he was going to speak after the interval,” Danailov said.

Those words seemed to caress the Ambassador’s spirit like an angel’s feather. It was the most beautiful thing that had happened to him in the last two days. Even the vindictive Danailov seemed benevolent in that brief moment..

“Take care of distributing the Premier’s speech!” he said after the moment of sudden and undeserved bliss had passed.

He puffed out his chest and brushed off last traces of ill-humour and re-joined the delegation with the grace of a well-groomed lion.

The hotel Athenaeum was to be found at the lower end of Piccadilly, opposite Green Park — a modern construction wedged between Victorian mastodons. There was a pizzeria nearby, out of which drifted strains of jazz. On the other side of the street loomed the shadowy colossus of the Ritz. Katya had never been inside, just as she had never been near the Athenaeum before, but it seemed to her that were the Ritz to fall, the foundations of the world must have crumbled. There were certainly no strippers running around in the Ritz.

A few marble steps led to the entrance. The girl on reception could be seen through the glass doors, in the glow of the yellow lights pouring over her. The foyer looked deserted. In the twilit gloom, one could make out some well-tended, decorative plants. The porter shot her a suspicious look, but allowed her in, even tipping his top-hat. The girl behind the polished mahogany desk looked up and stared at her. Her hair glowed like a swiss-roll made of copper threads. On her lapel there was a name-badge: Mary-Jane. Behind her, the huge bank of pigeon-holes for the keys. Though for years now they had held only magnetic key-cards.

“Room 365,” said Katya, and waited to see what would happen.

Mary-Jane had obviously been informed of her imminent arrival. She lifted the internal phone and dialled a number, without removing her gaze from Katya.

“The lady is here,” she informed the other end emotionlessly.

A short command followed.

“Go straight up,” the receptionist nodded towards the lifts.

Her heart started beating faster. She had reached the final straight. She stopped briefly in front of the enormous mirror installed near the reception and stared at her reflection. Then she headed for the lifts. The numbers above the door quickly changed as the lift moved between floors. It stopped at the third, went on up to the sixth, and then set off downwards. The doors swished silently open. The lift was empty.

The thick carpet deadened the sound of her steps. Katya headed down the corridor, hypnotised by the number-plaques on the doors. At the end of the day, she was not obliged to do it. She could still turn back. But she did not turn back. 361, 363, 365. The door was no different from the rest. She stood in front of it for a few seconds, as though she was waiting for it to open of its own accord. No sign. No sound. She knocked. Nothing. She turned the knob and went in.

The room was simply yet tastefully furnished, which gave a touch of class to its regular visitors. The beige wallpaper gave a feeling of warmth. The bedside light was on.

The man was sitting in the armchair, his legs carelessly crossed, reading a newspaper. He was wearing black trousers with a sharp crease. From outside, the half-muted rumble of traffic on the street drifted in. It was exactly 11 o’clock.

“Hi,” she said. “I came.”

Barry put down the newspaper, “Hi.” He was in no hurry to speak. He just looked at her.

“And?” she smiled awkwardly.

It suddenly struck her that this could be a trap. And she had taken the bait like a dumb carp. She was overcome by fear.

“Listen carefully, Kate,” he started unexpectedly. “After one hour you must leave the hotel. There are two ways you can go about it. The first is to leave as you came — an ordinary girl. The other is to leave as a princess. Your choice.”

“What is expected of me?”

“For starters, put on the clothes that are in the wardrobe.”

She shrugged. Getting dressed, and undressed — a considerable part of her life had been spent on those activities. It was no big deal, but clearly paid well. Now she felt even surer of herself, because it seemed that things were taking a turn closer to her expectations. A simple black dress hung from the hanger. An unsealed pack of tights and a pair of high-heeled shoes, also black, completed the outfit. She got dressed and instantly realised that the dress cost a considerable sum. As though it had been made not just to be put on but to be worn as a demonstration of the idea of the general inequality between people. It was the first time she had ever put on such a dress. The shoes made her a few centimetres taller. She suddenly felt awkward, as though she had entered another body without permission. She moved woodenly to the centre of the room and stood before her client, as she had already come to think of him.

“Good,” he nodded, and pointed to the chair in front of the mirror, ‘Sit down.’

He pulled a pearl necklace from his pocket and put it around her neck, without demonstrating any feeling whatsoever. The pearls were cold.

“I’ll need to make you up.” Barry opened some sort of bag and took out a make-up case. “I assume you don’t mind?”

She said nothing. He obviously knew what he was doing; he was business-like and precise, like a professional make-up artist. He reinforced some features, reduced others and put others into the background. He gave her complexion that golden tan that only people from the upper classes possess, and rouged her cheekbones, which had suffered from ordinary food and bad air.

“Hey, you’re not some kind of designer are you?!” she could not help but ask.