Lasciate ogni speranza o voi che entrate
From my archives - a short story of my first days in Washington and in the US…
[…] let me now start telling you about my adventures here in the States. I know a story should start from the beginning, but allow me to start this story a few days after the beginning, and precisely on the day in which I reported to the office: Tuesday February, 22nd, 9.00 am local time.
The building at 1818 H Street, NW - Washington, DC - I have to admit - is rather impressive. It occupies an entire “block” (the basic road unit in the States) and it is surrounded by concrete fences and upright policemen. As an ancient middle-age castle, its shadow strikes the same fear on the neighbourhood. I was told that the former four independent buildings (the towers?) have been unified by a glass and steel structure to form the present building (the castle!). If the result, outside, is as I said pretty impressive, the interior is even more impressive. Because of this glass structure, the main hall is enlightened by sunlight, and there is a huge artificial waterfall in the middle of the hall surrounded by evergreen trees which creates a “tropical forest” ambience...
Still a bit confused in looking around, I showed my letter of appointment to the lady at the desk, asking where I should go. I was told that the African Region, the division where I’ll work, is not in the “MC” building (the main complex), but in the “J” building, just across the street. A bit disappointed for not working in that amazing environment, but still excited by my “first” day of work, I crossed the street and entered into the J building. The J building is definitively less impressive than the main one, but equally nice. The sixth floor (where I had to go) is full of well taken care plants and colourful African decorations, and the floor is covered by a “clean” fitted carpet (don’t be surprised if I was struck by this detail: I spent my last year in the UK!). The offices are not particularly spacious, but they all seemed bright. There, I met Beula, the unit’s secretary (or programme assistant, as the new protocol prescribes), that, after the usual welcoming ceremonials, told me that my manager was in a meeting for the whole morning, and offered to show me my desk. I will talk more about Beula in the future, because she is really worth an entire chapter. However, I don’t want to lose track of the events that so deeply characterized my first day of work, and, probably, my existence from now onwards…
We returned to the lifts, so I sharply deducted that my office was not at the same floor of my manager’s. Fair enough. I couldn’t see however which button Beula pushed because there were other people in the lift, but I immediately realized we were going down. Again, fair enough. The lift stopped at each floor to let the people in and out, and at each floor I was ready to go out. But Beula didn’t move. Fifth, fourth floor… nothing… Third, second… still nothing… I was a bit worried: the first floor here in the States is in fact the ground floor in the rest of the world. However I thought my office could be in another building. Logistically it wouldn’t have been convenient, but the idea that I could be sent to the main building relieved me a bit. But my illusion did not last long, just the time of one floor. We reached in fact the first floor, and still Beula didn’t go out of the lift… Only when the door opened at the B1 floor (the basement) we finally went out and only then I realized with horror how terrible my days at the World Bank would have been…
As in a probably worst version of Kusturica’s “Underground”, the office (?) was situated completely under-ground. The first thing that I noticed was that there were no windows at all, and the only sources of light were a sequence of greenish, cold, trembling neon-lights. As in Kusturica’s “Underground”, as in Dante’s Hell, as in a medieval hall for torture, a dozen of employees (slaves?) run here and there in this dungeon, more similar to mice in the subway’ rails than to human beings. In this miserable environment I was desperately looking for a sign of humanity, but nobody did pay attention to me, probably because the hostile environment had already taken away from them any residue of humanity. Only my two neighbours raised their tired and heavy heads from the screen of their computers and turned to give me a sad welcome. And only then I noticed with disgust and terror their grey faces and their glassy eyes - as that of those creatures that live in the abysses of the oceans and have altered their physical structure to make up for the lack of light and to adapt to the eternal darkness. I screamed in terror and turned around ready to escape, but Beula had already left, taking away any remaining hope that I would find my way back to the surface again…
In this hopeless framework, only two things partially comforted me. First, as all American happy end stories want, it doesn’t matter from where you start, but where you arrive. American stories are full of self-made people who started at the very bottom before building their empires, and “democratic” Americans seem to like this kind of stories and these kind of modern heroes (it’s sufficient to spend half-hour in any American bookshop). So, if I have to adapt to these new rules - and if this is what future puts aside for me - well, I believe that B1 is bottom enough. Second, and at this point probably more important for my spirit, there are two floors below mine: B2 and B3. That is to say: it could have been worst!
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