MY ALARM CALL came at seven thirty and instantly I was filled with fear. All the bravery of the day before, all the manly confidence, had been replaced by a terrible hollowness in my stomach and my chest. I curled up and hugged myself and closed my eyes. I knew that I would have to shower and shave and put on a clean shirt. When I was dressed I would have to join the others for breakfast. I wondered if any of them might feel the same fear as I did, or if they faced each morning with equanimity and calm courage. I hated the idea of putting on a tie, half-choking myself. I wanted to lie down and go back to sleep.

The economists were all having breakfast. They moved from the buffet back to the tables like bees in a hive. The two experts on transport were at the same table. As soon as I came in, they asked me to join them.

“Are you British?” the American asked me.

“No, but my mother was born in England.”

“I don’t know if you know the phrase ‘to kick ass,’ but that is what we want to do here today, starting soon,” he said.

“Sure do,” the Irish one said.

We drove in a limousine to the Transport Ministry. We arrived just before nine o’clock. The American said this would give a shock to the officials they had been dealing with the previous day. I had the feeling that those officials might not have left home yet, but I said nothing. The building was an imposing structure from the turn of the century; the doorway looked as though it had been designed for carriages rather than transport officials; the hallway was vast and dark with a carved wooden ceiling. I spoke to the uniformed porter, a small man in his fifties with oily hair, and informed him who we were. I gave him the name of the officials we were waiting to see. He told us to wait on a polished wooden bench across the hall from his desk, but he did not, as far as I could make out, try to contact the officials. He sat and read the newspaper until another porter came down the steps from the corridor above. They went into a small room together, leaving the door ajar. The two economists sat without speaking. I felt tired and promised myself that I would go to bed as early as I could.

The phone rang on the porter’s desk and all three of us sat there watching it ring, with an eye on the door, wondering when the porter would answer it. After a while, it stopped ringing and then it began again until he came out of the room, lifted the receiver, and then immediately put his finger on the button, cutting the caller off. He did this casually, as though it were a normal reaction to a telephone call, and went back in to join his friend. When the telephone rang again, he ignored it, and soon it stopped and did not resume.