“Most of them were against you before you even got here. Career workers in an embassy tend not to rock the boat. Political appointees like to change things. To them, you’re an amateur telling professionals how to run their business. The second problem is that you’re a woman. Romania should have a big symbol on its flag: a male chauvinist pig. The American men in the embassy don’t like taking orders from a woman, and the Romanians are a lot worse.”
“I see.”
Harriet Kruger smiled. “But you sure have a great publicity agent. I’ve never seen so many magazine cover stories in my life. How do you do it?”
Mary had no answer to that.
Harriet Kruger glanced at her watch. “Oops! You’re going to be late. Florian’s waiting to take you home so you can change.”
“Change for what?” Mary asked.
“Haven’t you looked at the schedule I put on your desk?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t had time. Don’t tell me I’m supposed to go to some party!”
“Parties. Three of them tonight. You have twenty-one parties altogether this week.”
Mary was staring at her. “That’s impossible. I have too much to—”
“It goes with the territory. There are seventy-five embassies in Bucharest, and on any given night, some of them are celebrating something.”
“Can’t I say no?”
“That would be the United States saying no to them. They would be offended.”
Mary sighed. “I guess I’d better go change.”
The cocktail party that afternoon was held at the Romanian State Palace for a visiting dignitary from East Germany.
As soon as Mary arrived, President Ionescu walked over to her. He kissed her hand and said, “I have been looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency. I too.”
She had a feeling he had been drinking heavily. She recalled the dossier on him: Married. One son, fourteen, the heir apparent, and three daughters. Is a womanizer. Drinks a lot. A shrewd peasant mentality. Charming when it suits him. Generous to his friends. Dangerous and ruthless to his enemies. Mary thought: A man to beware of.
Ionescu took Mary’s arm and led her off to a deserted corner. “You will find us Romanians interesting.” He squeezed her arm. “We are a very passionate people.” He looked at her for a reaction, and when he got none, he went on. “We are descendants of the ancient Dacians and their conquerors, the Romans, going back to the year A.D. 106. For centuries, we have been Europe’s doormat. The country with rubber borders. The Huns, Goths, Avars, Slavs, and Mongols wiped their feet on us, but Romania survived. And do you know how?” He leaned closer to her, and she could smell the liquor on his breath. “By giving our people a strong, firm leadership. They trust me, and I rule them well.”
Mary thought of some of the stories she had heard. The arrests in the middle of the night, the kangaroo court, the atrocities, the disappearances.
As Ionescu went on talking, Mary looked over his shoulder at the people in the crowded room. There were at least two hundred, and Mary was sure they represented every embassy in Romania. She would meet them all soon. She had glanced at Harriet Kruger’s appointment list and was interested to see that one of her first duties would be to make a formal duty call on every one of the seventy-five embassies. In addition to that, there were the multiple cocktail parties and dinners scheduled for six nights of the week.
When am I going to have time to be an ambassador? Mary wondered. And even as she thought it, she realized that all this was part of being an ambassador.
A man came up to President Ionescu and whispered in his ear. The expression on Ionescu’s face turned cold. He hissed something in Romanian, and the man nodded and hurried off. The dictator turned back to Mary, oozing charm again. “I must leave you now. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”
And Ionescu was gone.
19
To get a head start on the crowded days that faced her, Mary had Florian pick her up at six-thirty. During the ride to the embassy, she read the reports and communiques from other embassies that had been delivered to the residence during the night.