The Fourth Cable

The crowd outside the gate has been there for days. They are families who ran east when the war started, and now the east is closing too. A transit visa through his country is one of the last open roads.

He has asked his ministry three times for permission to issue them. Three times the answer has come back no. The last cable was blunt: applicants need onward visas and money, and almost nobody at the gate has either.

He can sit down and write the visas himself, by hand, one at a time, on official forms with the official seal. It is forgery only in the sense that no one authorized it. It will save the people standing outside. It will also change nothing — the policy stays, and the next consul will follow it.

Or he can resign loudly, name the policy, and make it a scandal his ministry has to answer for. That saves no one at this gate.

His hand is on the drawer.