Actually, if you think about it, if I was up to something why would I have told them that we all came from the same place? And another thing, given that I was going to draw attention to myself in this way, why would I wait until they had been speaking for ages and then give myself away? Besides which, given that I introduced myself the moment that I noticed that they were speaking my dialect, is it likely that I would have heard anything important? Although there was no proof one way or the other, my assertion that I hadn’t heard what they were talking about won the day. My patient explanations and my boss’s praise resulted in the two policemen agreeing to let me go. However, they demanded that I swear that I would never tell anyone under any circumstances about what I had overheard, for it touched on issues of national security. Any failure to do so would have severe consequences. Of course I swore the oath, and that was the end of the matter.

3

How could that be the end of the matter?

Over the next few days, these events kept twisting through my mind like a snake, to the point where I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I could not imagine who those two men could be to possess such amazing powers and secrets that I was not allowed to hear even one word of their conversation. I knew something about the world, but this was a facet that I had never come across before, and, truth be told, it was more than a little scary. When I left the policemen’s office, the very first thing I did was to take the name cards that the two men had given me out of my pocket and tear them to bits; then I threw them in the bin. The first bin I found at the airport. Given that every bit of information printed on those name cards was wrong, you could say that they were rubbish right from the start. The reason I wanted to get rid of them so quickly was not just because it was pointless to keep them, but because I was hoping that by destroying them, I would also be preventing the two men from causing me any further trouble and the pair of them could go to hell! That was very important to me, because as an ordinary member of the public the last thing you want is to get into trouble with the authorities.

But I had a feeling that they would come and find me.