Carstairs of Arabia
Copyright© 2019 by Ron Dudderie
Chapter 4: Ask Me No Questions
Still Monday July 7th, 2015. A government building somewhere in London. (smiled.oddly.hosts)
I was made to sit alone in a room for about ten minutes, so ordered by a man who clearly had no intention of getting me a cup of tea. And I did ask, twice. He was a bit shorter than me, but also a bit wider. Instead of a suit he wore something that was supposed to give him a military look but made me think of a fisherman: a brown shirt, brown carpenter pants, army boots. He was ginger, but his hair was shaved short and he looked very stern as he announced that he was ‘going to prepare the equipment’ in a different room.
“Is that a euphemism?” I asked.
“What?!”
“Does that mean you’re going to the loo?”
“No. Just wait here. Don’t leave the room.”
I listened to his footsteps and was quite sure he was in the office on the other side of the hall, just waiting for me to pop my head round the corner so he could yell at me to wait. And so I opened the window and climbed out onto the window cleaners’ balcony to see if anyone on this floor would let me in. Some rooms were just for storing furniture, others had plastic film covering the windows. All the rooms that served as actual offices were empty and I didn’t want to cross over to the other side, because there I could be seen from the street. As I couldn’t find another way into the building, I climbed back in and sat down again. The interviewer looked very agitated when he opened the door.
“THERE YOU ARE!”
“Yes. I knew that,” I said, pretending to be startled.
“Where were you!?”
“I was right here! Like you said!”
I guess he had come to collect me while I was out.
“No you weren’t! Tell me where you were!”
“What, without the machine? Is that safe? I might lie to you. I could tell you anything and you’d have no way of knowing.”
“WHERE WERE YOU?”
“Right here! Look, you probably checked the wrong office. It happens, at a certain age.”
“Just ... follow me!”
Have you ever seen a lie detector in the movies? Well, that’s what they look like for real. Sensors on your wrist, a band around your chest and a roll of graphing paper on which thin graphing pens draw nervous, squiggly lines. It was 2015, I’ll remind you. There was no Earthly reason to use graphing paper nowadays. You could do all this with an iPad. It was just theatrics, plain and simple.
The room we were in was rather warm, which was achieved via a small space heater he clearly had on at full blast until very recently. It ticked as it cooled down. This being a modern office building, the room didn’t have an independent thermostat. There was a desk for him and his gadgets and a metal chair for me. I’d have to sit sideways, facing a wall. For now I was made to stand.
The lie detector was a box the size of a bread bin, with some cables coming out of it and some cables that ran to the graph recorder. Or perhaps that’s called a printer, I’m not sure. Look, I haven’t got the words for Sixties technology and the Seventies are fading rapidly: the other day I had to use Google to remember what a SCART-plug was called again. (SCART is one of the few good things the French ever invented, besides quality pastry. It was born out of protectionism, but quite by accident turned out to be extremely useful in the analogue age.)
The man was browsing through my file, or what I assumed to be my file, and didn’t seem to like what he was learning about me. I started off by pretending to be in a jovial mood.
“Love your office,” I said. “Glad you turned the heating on because I have a cold. Best hope I won’t sneeze on you, because I was sick all weekend.”
“Mister ... ven dee kez ... teely?”
“What?”
“Is your name Martin vendee kestilly?”
“What? Let me see that?”
I almost managed to grab the file, but he snatched it away.
“You don’t get to see this! What is your name?”
“Martin van de Casteele.”
“That’s what I said!”
“Didn’t sound like it to me. Your Dutch is awful. By the way, I assume I have the right to be interviewed in my native language, right? So where’s my interpreter?”
He still had me standing as part of his power play, so I sat on the edge of his desk instead. That was not to his liking, either.
“Please don’t. And you don’t get an interpreter. Your English is fine. I’ve seen you on TV.”
“Have you, now? So why did you pretend not to know my name?”
“MISTER KING! I must caution you that this is a formal evaluation. Everything you say will become part of your dossier. If you wish to get this job, I would suggest you cooperate.”
“So it’s King now, is it? You know, it’s probably illegal to use a false name in official records.”
I now addressed an invisible judge by speaking into one of the sensors as if it were a microphone.
“M’LUD! I should like it entered into the record that I did NOT use the name Mr. King to identify myself.”
He grabbed it from my hand.
“Don’t touch that! And SIT DOWN. Please unbutton your shirt.”
I played along for a while, allowing him to hook me up to the machine. I was given a stretching band around my chest, which would measure my breathing rate. Another one went around my belly, to record abdominal breathing. Two sensors went on my fingertips to monitor my nerve activity and my ‘galvanic skin response’, which just means ‘sweatiness’. I’m no doctor, but I’d be amazed if you can read my mind through my fingertips. Another sensor measured my skin temperature and the last one measured my heart rate. The was also some sort of whoopee cushion, which supposedly measured ‘air input changes’. I might have sneaked a blood pressure cuff into the exam room, you never know.
While everything was being fitted, he told me exactly what it all did. The magician was setting the stage. I said ‘gosh’ after every sentence he uttered, which annoyed him so much he stuck on the last one without speaking.
“There. Done.”
“Good. Can I just use the little boys room before we start?”
He gave me a bewildered look.
“You might have asked before!”
“Actually, I could have had a slash in the ten minutes you made me wait for no reason. Hang on, I’ll just be a tick.”
“You’re all hooked up now!”
I took off the finger sensors, quickly unplugged the cables of the sensors on my body from the machine and walked towards the door. The plugs dragged across the floor.
“Won’t be a moment. Really.”
“YOU CAN’T LEAVE!”
“Just ... two minutes. Maybe five: I got one in the chamber. Wait here. Don’t leave, okay?”
He followed me out.
“I can’t let you do that. You might tamper with the sensors!”
“Well then I suppose you’ll have to come along.”
I surprised myself by being able to use a urinal while another man was stood behind me, actively trying to peek. Sadly, I didn’t have a fart available.
He didn’t even allow me to flush without having inspected the basin. Then we went back to the office, where another man was waiting for us. This one seemed to be the other one’s boss. He was a bit taller and had more hair, but his was grey. He had a very round nose, which made him look like a figure animated in clay. For reasons unknown he wore a white lab coat over his fishing gear.
“Where the HELL were you two?”
“I’m sorry, Sir. He said he needed to use the lavatory and just ... walked out.”
“Did he now? Carstairs, what the fuck are you doing, man?”
“Oh, hello! Yes, I’m afraid I got a bit nervous. It’s all so exciting, isn’t it? My entire career hanging in the balance,” I gushed.
“He also played hide and seek with me in the waiting room,” said the first guy.
“Right. I see. I’ll take this one, George.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Oh, great ... Now I had to start again!
The new guy actually introduced himself, as Stafford. I’m still not sure if that was his first or his last name. I pretended to be elated by the fact I was now being interviewed by someone so senior and willingly let myself be hooked up to the machine again, spewing all sorts of questions that hopefully made me look nervous or trying to ingratiate myself with the interviewer. ‘So, do you have a rank? I bet it’s high. Have you done this long? Did you go to med school for this? The other guy was nice, do you two hang out? I’m not in trouble, am I? I just have a small bladder. It’s probably my prostate. It’s very large. Well, it must be. But I’m not having it tested. Live and let live, I say. But it’s awkward, having to pee all the time. I used to go to McDonalds, but you know how it goes. They always ask if I’m staying for lunch and I don’t want to be impolite.’
He barely answered any of my questions, fitted all my sensors again and then took a minute to browse my file.
“I think my name is in there all wrong,” I said, hoping to start that row again. He closed it, smiled and said: ‘I’m sure it’s fine. I’m switching on the machine ... now. We’ll start with some simple questions so I can get a baseline.”
“Okay. Where were you born?” I asked, while he checked to see if the graph paper moved properly through the feeder. He froze and then looked up.
“Very ... funny ... What is your name?”
“Who is Reginald Carstairs.”
He suppressed an irritated sigh and made a note.
“We’re not on Jeopardy and I need you to answer truthfully.”
“I have a passport in that name. It’s my name. I got it from the Queen. Says so on page 2.”
“You are being obstructive.”
“You’re just not very good at keeping order. You’d make a lousy teacher.”
“What is your BIRTH name?”
“Martin Ferdinand Umbold Carl Kees Yorick Otto Udo van de Casteele.”
He blinked twice as the machine quietly spat out paper. The needles were all over the place, because I wasn’t exactly sitting still. I’m not usually very animated when I speak, but this was a special occasion: I moved like an Italian on coke.
“Did you just spell ‘fuck you?’”
“Yes! Do you really need a lie detector for that?”
“MISTER CARST ... I MEAN, Mr. vendee Castayluh, I will report your failure to cooperate.”
“To who, your mom? I’m seeing her tonight, I’ll tell her myself. How’s that baseline coming?”
He smacked the table. It actually startled me, just because I figured he had a few more minutes of calm in him.
“SHUT UP!”
“It’s not going to be much of an interview if I do.”
He tore off the graph paper that had come out of the machine so far and crumpled it up.
“From the top: your REAL name.”
“Martin van de Casteele.”
“Date of birth?”
“Of whom?”
“YOU.”
“Oh. September 1975. I remember it well. Libra was in its second house. That makes me protective. Which I guess is true.”
I’d left out the day, but he didn’t seem to notice. I was going to pretend like I’d forgotten, and make a big deal about my parents always pushing the celebration to the next weekend. Which they did, but I didn’t care. Sadly, he didn’t pick up on it.
“WHERE were you born?”
“Leiden University Clinic.”
“Is Laiden a place?”
“Yes. I’m tightening my sphincter right now, can you tell?”
He sighed.
“That doesn’t work. It’s just a myth.”
“Funny, that’s what they say about lie detectors, too.”
“Have you ever engaged in sex with a man?”
“WHOA! That’s a biggy! If my sphincter tightened just then, that’s on you buddy. Reflex action.”
“Have you ever engaged in sex with a man.”
“You’re asking for a friend, right?”
“Have you ever engaged in sex with a man.”
“Yes.”
“How old were you?”
“Oh, really? There’s a follow up? I lied just then. I didn’t actually make up a complete back story. Huh huh... ‘back story’. Where do I come up with ‘em! I should be on telly, I tells ya.”
“So you have never engaged in any homosexual activity?”
“Uhm ... Do blowjobs count?”
“Yes.”
“And getting fucked up the arse? Does that count?”
“YES.”
“Then no. Yugh. Aaannnd ... release. Pffff. Oops. Silent but deadly. Wanna open a window?”
He stood up.
“MISTER KING! UHM ... Whatever your bloody name is. You can try to annoy me all you want, but I know what you’re up to. This does not work. The machine does not lie. If you don’t answer my questions, I will report this to your superiors!”
“Excuse me? Which question haven’t I answered so far? All of them, I think you’ll find. Now sit down, you fucking carnival barker.”
“WHAT?!”
“I SAID SIT THE FUCK DOWN, you pathetic fraudster with your stupid fucking box of wires.”
I changed from being goofy and playful to ... to myself, actually. It worked.
“Duh ... wuhh ... You can’t...” he said, now hovering over his seat.
“SIT. DOWN. Or I will beat you senseless with that machine. You will sit down, you will ask your obscene, accusatory questions and then you’ll go and tell someone who cares that I lied and for the first time in your pathetic life you will be RIGHT.”
“You can’t...”
“I’m between you and the door. I can do whatever I like, mate. And I can ‘ave you. Easy. Smash your teeth on the edge of that desk. Take ‘em home in a baggy. See if I don’t.”
He stared at me for a few seconds and then shrugged.
“Fine. Have you ever been a member of the armed forces of this or any other nation?”
“Wehrmacht. Full Colonel.”
I was actually curious to see what the needles would do. They’d been all over the place, but right now they were fairly calm. He quickly wrote a number in the margin, before the paper rolled off the table and into a collection tray.
“Do you believe in God?”
“No.”
I believe in Kate.
“Have you ever stolen anything?”
“Uhm ... No. Nothing of consequence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I sometimes take an extra sachet of sweetener when I leave a restaurant. It’s good to have one on me. I sometimes use restrooms in supermarkets without making a purchase. Never paid for a single computer game until I was about fifteen, sixteen years old. Is that stealing?”
“Technically, yes.”
“Then yes, I did steal.”
“You admit to stealing?”
He marked the paper again.
“No.”
“But you just said...”
“I lied. I figured you could tell. Not so much as a toothpick, mate.”
That was a lie. We all take napkins, sweeteners and toothpicks when we need them and it’s no big deal. As to the games: I just don’t think that’s stealing. When I made more than pocket change I started buying my games and I eventually bought most of the albums I had pirated in my teens. I apologize to whoever programmed Lemmings in 1991, but I just didn’t have thirty guilders to spend on a game. That was a bloody fortune back then. Now that I’m an adult I pay for stuff I like, but I was once a kid on ten guilders a month. What’s your excuse, anyway?
The interviewer sighed.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been unfaithful to her?”
“Oh yes. Many times.”
I got another agitated look.
“Look, we have to get through this. Just answer the bloody question.”
“I did.”
“You cheated on your wife? Oh no wait, now you’ll say you didn’t.”
“But I did.”
“With whom?”
“My sister.”
He stared at me, looked at the paper, then back at me.
“YOUR sister? Not HER sister?”
“Yes.”
“You cheated on your wife with your SISTER?”
“All the time.”
He looked at the paper again. The pens barely moved. Then he shut off the machine, stood up so quickly his chair slammed into the radiator and walked around the desk. When he opened the door, Dupree was waiting outside.
“What’s wrong, Stafford?”
“THIS BASTARD! He’s cheating! I don’t know how, but unless he’s a bona fide psychopath, he’s cheating on this test! And he’s not even TRYING to hide it! He drove George up the wall as well, AND he threatened me. He FAILED. There. Fucking hell. I’m having a cuppa. Sir.”
Dupree watched the man as he walked to the end of the hallway, where the toilets and the vending machines were. Then he came in, smiling.
“You can take that off now. We’re out of interviewers.”
I was already nearly done unplugging myself.
“Well, that was fun,” I said, buttoning up my shirt.
Dupree nodded and sat on the desk with one buttock, just like I had tried to do earlier on.
“Without a successful polygraph interview, we are not clearing you for this assignment. I honestly don’t care if you get shot or caught because you refuse to take our other classes. In fact, I think they’ll send you straight home when they discover you’re practically illiterate in their country, given your poor performance in our Arabic primer classes. But you will take this test, or I won’t provide you with so much as a pencil for your mission, never mind a security clearance. Is that clear?”
“Very much so.”
I was dressed again and followed him out. The interviewer had just put money in the coffee machine and was watching as the cardboard cup was filling up.
“He didn’t cry, though,” said Dupree, conversationally.
“WHAT? NOT FUCKING SOUP, YOU BLOODY THING! I WANT TEA! WRAAAH!” howled the man, and kicked the vending machine. It didn’t budge.
“AAAAAAAHHHH! FUUUUUCK! I BROKE ME TOE!”
He toppled over and sat on the floor, clasping his foot.
“Broke me fucking toe!”
“Are you alright?” I asked, not even trying to be sarcastic.
“And you can fuck off an’ all! I’ve NEVER had to deal with a fuckstick like you. You’re fucking mental, mate! MENTAL! OH GOD, IT HURTS! It ... I ... huuuh ... huuuuuuhhhh ... huuuuuuuuuuuh!”
Turns out I won my bet after all!
Dupree gave me a quick handshake, smiled and left me in the care of a man who wanted my visitors’ pass and then escorted me to the exit. I never did get my one hundred quid.
It was a two minute walk to the main entrance, during which I wondered if I hadn’t pushed things a bit too far by refusing to take this test. I was afraid I’d be asked about all sorts of secrets, but this had been childishly simple. I could have bluffed my way through it without antagonizing these people, if I had focussed on that.
“Have a nice day, Mr. Carstairs,” said my escort, and motioned towards the glass turnstile. The entrance hall of this building was rather grand: you came in via revolving doors, went through an airport-style security check, spoke to someone at reception and then were given a pass for the glass turnstile. There were always people here: several guards, one or two receptionist and people chatting or just waiting on the benches just left of the revolving doors.
As I took the one-way lane to exit the building, a man in a suit got up from one of the benches. I recognized him as Caroline’s driver.
“Mr. King? If you’ll follow me.”
“Hi, Richard. Is she here?”
“This way, Sir.”
Good of him to explain how revolving doors work. We walked into a light drizzle, which fell from a grey sky. Ah, London ... A very familiar blue limousine was parked in a handicapped space just outside the building, with a uniformed meter man trying to peer in through the privacy glass in the back.
“Is this your car?” he asked Richard, as he opened the a door for me.
“Step away, son. Mr. King,” said Richard. I wasn’t surprised to see Caroline’s legs and then the rest of her as I got in and sat down opposite her in an exquisite leather seat.
“Where’s your permit then?”
“Give it up, son. It ain’t gonna happen,” said Richard, as he closed the door behind me and walked around the car. Caroline smiled at me as we listened to a muffled argument between Richard and the meter man. Richard ignored the man completely as he got in, carefully backed out of the space and merged into traffic. As I faced the rear of the car, I saw an incensed and slightly damp civil servant furiously punching a handheld device.
“Where to, Miss Keller?”
“The office, please. And would you mind raising the privacy window?”
“Certainly, Ma’am.”
Something buzzed behind me. When I heard a gentle thud, as the glass plate hit the ceiling, I said:
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hello, dear. It’s good to see you, too. Not sure about the scraggly beard, though.”
I’d been ordered to grow one. It would make me less recognisable as Carstairs to expats, and facial hair is a big thing in Saudi Arabia. I need about three weeks to grow a decent beard, so I was currently in the vagrancy stage.
“Yes, it’s good to see you. I’m not saying that it isn’t. I’m just wondering if you’ve been parked here all day and all of last week, on the off-chance I might need a ride.”
Caroline smiled and put aside an issue of Vogue.
“Don’t be silly, dear. Rupert called me the other day to ask me how to handle you, after you bolted from that van. That’s how I knew you had your test coming up. I asked a friend to let me know when it started. Richard suggested we put something in the meter, but I was pretty sure you’d be out within thirty minutes. You made it thirty-five. Hence the ticket we will be receiving. Anyway, so this is how it ends.”
“Don’t be so sure. I don’t need anyone’s permission to go to Saudi Arabia. I’m sure Prince Asim can get me all the paperwork I need.”
“But what’s the point of going at all when the security services won’t work with you? Who will you tell what you’ve learned?”
“I’m sure they will listen, regardless of my status. Caroline, I’m surprised. It’s not like you to gloat.”
“It is, really. But that’s not why I am here.”
“Then why?”
Her amused smile finally disappeared. She leaned forward and briefly touched my knee.
“I remembered something, Martin.”
“Which is?”
She leaned back.
“That my purpose in life is to guide talented people on their path. That is the essence of what I do. I make good artists great. I coax hidden talents out of people. I facilitate art. But...”
She sighed and briefly looked out of the window, which was now covered in tiny droplets. We were stuck behind a red double decker bus. Another one was stuck behind us.
“But it is not for me to choose someone’s path. I may nudge. I may suggest. But I do not choose. And your path now leads East. I may not like that. In fact, it terrifies me. But it is not for me to stop you, is it? We are friends, after all.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. I wasn’t really sure,” I admitted.
“Martin, of course we’re friends. Well, I am yours. That would only end if you did something heinous, on purpose. Mere bloodymindedness is not a disqualifying factor.”
“Oh, thanks. But what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that ... against my better judgement AND my instincts ... I will help you.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Really? That would be a first. What I mean is that I will help you to prepare for your new position. I’ve had a look at what MI6 has been offering you by way of preparation and I must say it isn’t the curriculum I would have drawn up. It’s mostly the cultural attache programme, isn’t it?”
“What? Cultural attache? What do you mean?”
“Embassy spies, dear. The people who actually recruit informants, follow the local news, prepare and run safe houses, stuff like that. Not quite the correct curriculum for you, I’d say.”
She was right: I had been told a lot about spycraft, but it all seemed quite irrelevant to what I’d be doing. Fascinating, but irrelevant. That’s why I skipped most of those classes after about fifteen minutes, to take another Arabic class. There was almost always one going on, or I’d have a session in the language lab with the computer.
“You’re right. I just got to sit in on classes that didn’t seem all that relevant.”
“Well, let’s see what we can do. I was waiting to received a copy of your training file, but it wasn’t there last time I checked.”
She opened her handbag and produced an iPad mini.
“Ah, there it is. Let’s have a look, shall we? Personality type: INTP. Oh my God, they’re still using Briggs-Meyer. And it’s wrong: you’re clearly an INFP, wouldn’t you say?”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Moving on ... Hang on, your file was created in 2008! How is that ... Yes, creation date March 3rd, by ... some sort of field officer. That’s very odd!”
“Could that have anything to do with me being the head of a fairly successful cryptography company? March of 2008 I was at a tech conference in Zurich. Missed Monique’s birthday.”
“Yes ... I suppose that might be it. Right, let’s go to the summary.”
She switched her voice to a reading style, which I recognized from when she read to Edwin. Her voice went up half an octave.
“Mr. van de Casteele has failed to impress during the first week of his evaluation. At first sight he appears to be a very suitable candidate: intelligent, a family man, multilingual and well-educated for a foreigner. He cannot hold his liquor, but seems aware of it. A blood sample analysis indicates no presence of any medication or traces of any recreational drugs. His testosterone levels are slightly elevated, which explains the male pattern baldness and the excellent blood pressure, even though he is slightly obese. There are indications of an increased sexual appetite, as evidenced in relations with the actress Emma Lestrade, the journalist Samantha Wilder, the actress Diana Albinson and ‘redacted’, all while in a relationship with his current spouse, the artist Melody Warder.”
“Who’s that last one? And I never did Emma!”
“I know. We did spread the rumour, though. Made you more bankable. And she never denied it. Oh, I suppose ‘redacted’ is me! But I’m not done yet. Ahem: ‘His first wife divorced him after his bankruptcy in 2013 and died of a pulmonary embolism soon after. It would appear Martin is currently allowed to play the field, which reduces the risk of blackmail somewhat. He is also financially independent, with occasional forays into show business. This provides a great cover to travel and meet people, but his loyalty lies with his family first and foremost and he clings to his Dutch nationality. He is also quick to anger and confrontational, skipping classes when he does not feel they benefit him and ignoring direct orders from instructors. He cannot be motivated by patriotism, at least not for the United Kingdom, and it is doubtful that he will act on orders received in the field unless he is in complete agreement with their nature.’ Well, at least they have that right.”
“I don’t remember a blood test?”
“Give them some credit, Martin. Do you have a blister anywhere?”
“Yes. Burned my index finger on the shooting range. How did you know?”
“They’ll have collected a bloody tissue or something like that. It will have been an exercise for one of the other students.”
“Oh! I think you’re right! I went to the first aid station for a band-aid. The first one was so drenched in blood it wouldn’t stick. They binned it for me.”
“They’ll have kept it. Moving on... ‘Intelligence: IQ rated at 125.’ Seems about right. ‘Coordination: average. Empathy: high. Aggression: high. Mechanical aptitude: high. Linguistic aptitude: poor.’ Huh! That’s odd. Must be because you made a dog’s breakfast of your Arabic classes. ‘Sexual orientation: cisgender. Political orientation: left of centre, not politically engaged. Criminal record: one count of drunk and disorderly conduct, waived.’ Da dum ... da dummm ... oh dear ... yes ... well, I could have told them THAT.”
“Can I see that?” I asked, and reached over to get the iPad. She moved it out of reach.
“Oddly, no. Your security clearance is currently below even that of the receptionist you passed on the way out. It’s the little things you do wrong they use against you, you know. I could shoot you and probably get away with it, but I can’t actually show you your file.”
“Do you even work for these people?”
“No. They call on me for advice and insight into certain developments, and I have in my youth done them a few favours, but I’m considered more of an informant, or an information broker. I do know a lot of people and I am something of a student of human nature, as you know. The intelligence services are still mostly run by white men past middle age, you see. They have problems predicting the action of anyone not educated at Oxbridge. And women in general. At least they know their shortcomings, in certain aspects of life. But let’s focus on you, my dear: I think you rather overplayed your hand, haven’t you? Walking out of classes is one thing, but the lie detector test really is mandatory. Why didn’t you just sit down and lie through your teeth? I did. Swore up and down I was still a virgin. I was twenty-eight at the time.”
“Look, you know about my life. I bumped off Emma’s psycho boyfriend. I fed a terrorist into a moving escalator and pushed another one in front of a train. And that’s just the ones I actually managed to kill. I wouldn’t mind if it was about my bankruptcy or my feelings about Communism, but the first serious question was quite literally: ‘Are you gay?’ I mean, really!”
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