The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

tiously peeks out at him. “Yes — who is it?” the man behind the door asks hesitantly. “Nigel Dixon?” Anthony asks, filling his words with urgency. “That’s right.” “Mr. Dixon, your wife has just had an auto accident. May I come in?” It is a ruse, of course. It has, however, the planned effect. As the door shuts, Anthony hears the chain lock being undone. The door flies open in an instant. “Please, come right in,” the homeowner says. “Where is she?” “It just happened; I got here as fast as I could. No need to call an ambulance, the paramedics are on their way,” Anthony says as he closes the door. “Where are they taking her?! I must go meet them,” Nigel says, turning to a closet to find his coat. Nigel Dixon is visibly distressed, and his body shakes with nerves. Anthony notices the sumptuous turtleneck sweater that Nigel wears, and cannot help but think how appropriate it is. Anthony has awaited this moment for over a year, or perhaps a lifetime. Anthony glances at his watch. It is exactly 6:30 a.m. With his back to Anthony, Nigel cannot see the insulated wire rising high before it comes down over his head and around his neck. W hen Anthony began working at the U.S. embassy in London four years ago, it was like a dream come true. As a political officer, he was tasked with learn- ing as much as he could about life in the British Isles, and he took the assignment to heart. Anthony faced no great challenge, however, as he already possessed more knowl- edge about his host country than many of the natives. His family lineage demanded no less of him. Anthony’s ancestors journeyed to Boston from Britain hundreds of years ago — that much he knew from an early age. His English heritage was a source of great pride as he grew up, to the point that he dedicated his university studies to all things British, including attending Oxford as an exchange student. Beginning then, Anthony cultivated a British accent and an even more fervent affection for the land of his ancestors. He wore only English suits, English shoes, and English spectacles. He had easily become, as his American friends observed, more a Londoner than a Bostonian. It was this dedication that slowly dissolved Anthony’s endearment to America, and he came to feel like an alien in his own land. Though he was soon to be sworn into the American diplomatic service, he did so with one goal in mind: to be assigned to London for as long as possible. It took several years, but Anthony was finally given his chance to call London home, albeit with a foreign pass- port and a very impermanent assignment. It was of no matter to Anthony. He was at last where he belonged, and he was sure of only one thing: he wished his ances- tors had never left such a wonderful, civilized place. After just two years in London, Anthony had married Maggie, the loveliest, most enchanting subject that the Queen could ever wish for. As a result, the legality of Anthony’s permanent stay in London was finally a matter of mere paperwork. Still, he was already scheduled to return to Washington for his next diplomatic assignment. Should he throw his career away to stay in England where he belonged? It wasn’t a difficult decision. Anthony had no equal among Anglophiles, and would now draw even closer to his forefathers. But the exact details of his English her- itage were not completely clear. Anthony knew that his family were loyalists in the American Rebellion, as he called it, but it was not until he delved passionately into his family’s genealogy during the next year or so that he uncovered something unexpected, truly sinister. J onathan Riggs, whose son journeyed to the NewWorld and from whom Anthony’s family descended, was not a rich man. He was so poor, in fact, that his surname was awarded to him posthumously by his widow and chiseled into his crude headstone. As a man of no means, Jonathan was married to the land and to the land alone. He was very old by the time he took a common-law wife — about age 30. Providing for a wife and a child, though, turned out to be more than Jonathan could afford. He felt prosperous enough, having a family and a lifelong job of toil, so long as his lord’s land would yield crops. He was short, how- ever, of one important thing: food. Living next to the king’s forest as a serf meant living in a world of constant temptation, and this was Jonathan’s cross to bear. F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4 John D. Boyll currently works in the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and has served with the State Department in Manila and Frankfurt. He enjoys writing works of fiction and humor in his free time.