Better to laugh at your own than weep over someone else’s. Better traditional bonds than disintegration.
I told John: no more classes, negotiations are starting. Then we went to Mexico, and I sat as a beggar outside a ministry, reciting Romans 8 and comparing the people at the border with the people in suits. At the talks I offered Republican-state ports free passage on the Northern Sea Route, and the Americans, in return, would clean up the Arctic coast. At three a.m. Biden signed.…
I was offered the rectorship. I said I couldn’t quit American intelligence. They answered: be a double agent, they get paid twice. I returned the question: “First survive there a week.” He guessed my predecessor on his own: it was me.
I asked in Spanish, with chili or without. He translated a Russian idiom: “Without anything.” I answered in flawless Russian: “Nobody eats it that way here.” I passed along greetings from Igor Ivanych. Next time he should say “plain.”
Two songs. Two answers: one to those he’s not walking with, the other to those with whom, it would seem, he is now for good. The double returns home with a treaty, values, and an unexpected sincerity in his voice. Next awaits the Kremlin, a new Empress, and a freezer.
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