He puts it in a padded courier envelope and pauses for a moment over the address. In the end, he writes Nina’s name and details on the label. He puts a note inside, saying, ‘Hold this till I come fetch it.’ He’s left stuff with her before: notes for his book, journals from his travels. Safer with her than travelling with him or in an empty apartment somewhere. He’ll get the American ambassador to put it in the diplomatic bag.
If Tatiana Moskalev is trying to do what it looks like she might be trying to do, he doesn’t want her to know yet that he’s going to document it. He’ll only get one chance at this story. Journalists have been expelled from countries for less than this, and he doesn’t kid himself that it’ll make any difference that he flirted with her once.
It’s that afternoon that the hotel asks for his passport. Just because of the new security rules at this difficult time.
Most of the other non-bureau staff are on their way out of Bessapara. There are a few war reporters in flak jackets on the northern front, but until the fighting starts in earnest there’s nothing much to say here, and the posturing and threats go on for more than five weeks.
Tunde stays. Even while he’s receiving offers for substantial sums to go to Chile to interview the anti-pope and hear her views on Mother Eve. Even while more male-activism terror splinter groups say that they’ll only deliver their manifesto if he comes to tape them. He stays, and he interviews dozens of people in cities across the region. He learns some basic Romanian. When colleagues and friends ask what the hell he’s doing he says he’s working on a book about this new nation-state, and they shrug and say, ‘Fair enough.’ He attends the religious services in the new churches – and sees how the old churches are being repurposed or destroyed. He sits in a circle in an underground room by candlelight and listens to a priest intoning the service as it used to be: the son and not the mother at the heart. After the service, the priest presses his body against Tunde’s in a long, close hug and whispers, ‘Do not forget us.’
Tunde is told more than once that the police here no longer investigate the murder of men; that if a man is found dead it is presumed that a vengeance gang had given him his proper reward for his deeds in the time before. ‘Even a young boy,’ a father tells him, in an overheated sitting room in a western village, ‘even a boy who is only fifteen now – what could he have done in the time before?’
Tunde doesn’t write online about any of these interviews. He knows how that would end – a knock on the door at 4 a.m. and being hustled on to the first plane out of the country. He writes as if he’s a tourist, on vacation in the new nation. He posts photographs every day. There’s already an angry undercurrent to the comments: where are the new videos, Tunde, where are your funny reports? Still, they’d notice if he vanished. That’s important.
In his sixth week in the country, Tatiana’s newly appointed Minister for Justice gives a press conference. It’s sparsely attended. The room is airless, the walls papered with beige-and-brown string.
‘After the recent terrorist outrages across the world, and after our country was betrayed by men who work for our enemies, we are announcing today a new legal vessel,’ she says. ‘Our people have suffered for too long now at the hands of a group which has tried to destroy us. We do not have to ask ourselves what they will do if they win; we have already seen it. We must protect ourselves against those who might betray us.
‘Thus, we institute today this law, that each man in the country must have his passport and other official documents stamped with the name of his female guardian. Her written permission will be needed for any journey he undertakes. We know that men have their tricks and we cannot allow them to band together.
‘Any man who does not have a sister, mother, wife or daughter, or other relative, to register him must report to the police station, where he will be assigned a work detail and shackled to other men for the protection of the public. Any man who breaks these laws will be subject to capital punishment. This applies also to foreign journalists and other workers.’
Looks pass between the men in the room; there are about a dozen, foreign journalists who’ve been here since it was a grim staging post in the business of human trafficking. The women try to look horrified but at the same time comradely, comforting. ‘Don’t worry,’ they seem to say. ‘This can’t last long, but while it does we’ll help you out.’ Several of the men fold their arms protectively over their chests.
‘No man may take money or other possessions out of the country.’
The Minister for Justice turns the page. There is a long list of proclamations printed close together in small type.
Men are no longer permitted to drive cars.
Men are no longer permitted to own businesses. Foreign journalists and photographers must be employed by a woman.
Men are no longer permitted to gather together, even in the home, in groups larger than three, without a woman present.
Men are no longer permitted to vote – because their years of violence and degradation have shown that they are not fit to rule or govern.
A woman who sees a man flouting one of these laws in public is not only permitted but required to discipline him immediately. Any woman who fails in this duty will be considered an enemy of the state, an accessory to the crime, one who attempts to undermine the peace and harmony of the nation.
There are several pages of minor adjustments to these rulings, explanations of what constitutes ‘being accompanied by a woman’ and leniencies in case of extreme medical emergency because, after all, they are not monsters. The press conference becomes more and more quiet as the list is read out.
The Minister for Justice finishes reading her list and calmly sets the papers down in front of her. Her shoulders are very relaxed, her face impassive.
‘That is all,’ she says. ‘No questions.’
In the bar, Hooper from the Washington Post says, ‘I don’t care. I’m leaving.’
He’s said this several times already. He pours himself another whisky and plops three ice cubes into it, swirls them round hard and makes his case again:
‘Why the fuck should we stay somewhere that we actually can’t do our jobs, when there are dozens of places we can? Something’s about to break out in Iran, I’m pretty sure. I’ll go there.’
‘And when something breaks out in Iran,’ drawls Semple of the BBC, ‘what do you think will happen to the men?’
Hooper shakes his head. ‘Not in Iran. Not like this. They’re not going to change their beliefs overnight, cede everything to the women.’
‘You do remember,’ continues Semple, ‘that they turned overnight when the Shah fell and the Ayatollah came to power? You do remember that it happens that quickly?’
There’s a moment of quiet.
‘Well, what do you suggest?’ says Hooper. ‘Give up everything? Go back home and become a gardening editor? I can see you doing that. Flak jacket in the herbaceous borders.’
Semple shrugs. ‘I’m staying. I’m a British citizen, under the protection of Her Majesty. I’ll obey the laws, within reason, and report on that.’
‘What are you expecting to report? What it’s like sitting in a hotel room waiting for a woman to come and get you?’