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Vox Dei
Valentin Fortunov
with Andrew CareyPart 1: Overture
 
OVERTUREFor the third time that night the smoke rings that hungremorsefully over the habitués of the Lions Club swungidly to the rhythm ofSentimental Journey
.
Well, at leastthe third, but Riley was well aware of the disorientingeffects of a looped soundtrack. He thought of hismother. Briefly. The air conditioning had lost the will tocondition air. And this being Sofia, and this being aSaturday evening, the Flamingo Hotel maintenanceteam had long since gone home and switched his phoneto silent.The Bog, as Riley and his fellow members called theclub with all the affection that a group of displaced journalists can muster, was a long, narrow, charmlessroom on the hotel mezzanine. What the room had beenmeant for, nobody knew – perhaps not even thearchitect, who had ‘gone dead’ at the critical moment.But the first-anointed manager had confidently turned it
 
into an International Press Centre, respecting the Frenchspelling not the American and savouring the distantperfume of dollars and free PR.Perhaps not the most visionary of decisions, as thedeterminedly shabby clientele was now engaged in aprotracted stand-off with the management. It went likethis: the clientele refused to accept even the mostmodest improvements (knowing they would beaccompanied by an improved range of drinks atimproved prices). The management refused to repair theupholstered seats or repaint the emphysaemic ceilingunless their modernisation proposals were accepted infull. Both sides felt hurt, resentful and betrayed. All inall, a very Balkan dispute. Wars had been started overlesser matters.Behind the bar, a rainbow of whisky, vodka, brandy,vermouth and rakia stretched along the endlesslymirrored, post-glossy brass shelves. Among them theusual Duty Free suspects –
London Bridge
gin,
Clan Macalister
finest Scotch whisky, and the ineffable
Bolting
of 00

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