[GA]: Secretary-General's Call to Spain

[Global Assembly]

Upon receipt of the diplomatic letter from the Prime Minister of Spain, Secretary-General Édith Cresson deemed it prudent to address the matter raised verbally. She instructed Norman Howard, Chef de Cabinet of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, to contact the Spanish Ambassador to the Global Assembly and inquire whether the Prime Minister might be available for a brief telephone conversation.

As the arrangements were being made, the Secretary-General remained seated behind her desk, awaiting the secure connection in the privacy of her office.

Zak

 

[Zak]

Agustín Santos Maraver sat alone in the office that still felt faintly like someone else’s. The scent of fresh paint hadn't yet replaced the underlying trace of old paper and cologne, a reminder that the walls held the memory of another ambassador’s tenure. The folders on his desk were creased at the edges from a long morning of handovers, protocol briefings, and annotated speeches dating back from previous administrations.

Balanced precariously between a dense policy summary on Security Council reform and a page of handwritten names he needed to memorize by tomorrow, sat a cardboard takeout container which was half-open, its contents slowly losing warmth in the hum of the air conditioner. He had taken two bites of the empanada when the phone rang.

He wiped his fingers on a napkin, sat up straighter without meaning to, and answered with the practiced calm that had followed him through embassies in Beijing, New York, and beyond.

“Ambassador Agustín Santos Maraver... Oh, hello Mister Howard.”

He listened. No notepad, no pen, just memory, his most trusted ally after all these years. His eyes flicked once to the edge of the desk, where a small Spanish flag rested beside a photo of his family and an old Foreign Service medal from his early days.

Global Assembly