The last time our office got a new budget was way back in nineteen twenty-something, when most of us were still struggling with geography and fractions. Nevertheless, the Boss remembered that event, and sometimes, when we didn’t have much to do, he’d sit himself down on the edge of a desk, legs dangling, immaculate white socks peering out from under his trouser cuffs, and describe with all his old emotion and his customary five hundred and ninety-eight words, the magnificent day long ago when his Boss—ours was First Secretary at the time—had clapped him on the back and said, “My boy, we’ve got a new budget,” with the satisfied air of a man who has already figured out how many shirts he can buy with his raise.

A new budget is any government bureau’s highest aspiration. We knew that some other bureaus with larger staffs got new budgets every two or three years. And we’d watch them from our little administrative island with the same mixture of resignation and despair Robinson Crusoe must have felt as he watched all those ships sail over the horizon, knowing it would be just as futile to send up signals as to complain. Signals and complaints would have been just as useless where we were concerned, because we never had more than nine employees, and it wasn’t very likely that anyone would pay attention to such a small department.

Since we knew nothing in the world was going to get us any extra perks, the best we could hope to do was cut expense, and to a certain extent we succeeded, thanks to a rather primitive system of cost sharing. I, for example, would pay for the mate, and the First Assistant, for afternoon tea. The Second Assistant would spring for the sugar; the First Secretary took care of the crackers, and the Second got the butter. The two typists and the porter were exempt, but the Boss, who earned a little more than the rest of us, supplied the newspaper we all read.

Our entertainment allowance was also shaved to the bone. We’d go to the movies once a month, making sure we all saw different pictures so we could tell each other about them. That way, we kept up with what was playing all over town. We had developed a taste for games of concentration like chess and checkers, which didn’t cost much and did a lot to keep us from yawning. We’d play from five to six, when we could be sure no new documents would be coming in because the sign in the window said no “transactions” after five. We had read that phrase so often, we couldn’t remember who had invented it, or even exactly what a “transaction” was. Sometimes people would come asking for the number of their “transactions.” We’d give them a document number, and they’d go away happy. So a “transaction” might be a document, for example. To tell the truth, our life there wasn’t all that bad. From time to time, the Boss felt obliged to lecture us on the advantages of the public over the private sector, and some of us figured that by this time it’d be strange if he had any other opinion.

One of his arguments was Security: we could be sure we wouldn’t be laid off. For that to happen would take a meeting of the Senate; and we all knew the senators only got together when they had to grill some Minister. So, in that sense, the Boss had a point: our job security was real. Of course, that wasn’t the only kind of Security we could count on: we could be just as sure that we would never earn enough to pay cash for an overcoat. But the Boss, who couldn’t buy one either, never thought it was the right moment to criticize his job, or ours. And—as always—he was right.

The resigned, almost definitive calm that had settled on our Office, leaving us reconciled to our lot and a bit lethargic for lack of insomnia, was broken one day by something the Second Secretary reported. He was the nephew of a high ranking official at the Ministry and it just so happened that this guy—no disrespect intended—had found out there was talk of a new budget for our Office. Since at that point we didn’t know where the talk might be coming from, we just smiled with the special irony we reserved for such occasions, as if the Second Secretary had to be nuts, or thought the rest of us were morons. But when he told us his uncle had said it had came from the alma parens of the Ministry—namely, the Secretary himself— we suddenly felt that something was changing in our seventy-peso lives, as if an invisible hand had finally tightened a loose bolt, as if someone had come along and slapped us out of our passivity and resignation.

As for me, my first reaction was to visualize and even say aloud the word “fountain pen.” Until then, I had never even thought about buying a fountain pen, but when the Second Secretary’s news pointed our noses toward that vast horizon where anything is possible, even the tiniest whim, I immediately exhumed from who knows what cellar of my desire a fountain pen with a black barrel, a silver cap, and my name engraved on it. God knows how long it had been waiting down there.

I also saw and heard the First Assistant say he wanted a bicycle, the Boss stare absentmindedly at the rundown heel on his shoe, and one of the typists make snide remarks about the “dear old purse” she had been carting around for the last five years. And I saw and heard all of us go on and on about our plans, not because anyone cared what anyone else was saying, but because we each needed a safety valve for our pent up and unacknowledged fantasies. And I saw and heard all of us decide to celebrate the good news by dipping into our contingency fund to buy special pastries for afternoon tea.

That—buying the pastries—was the first step. Next came the pair of shoes the Boss bought himself. The shoes were followed by my fountain pen, to be paid for in ten installments. My pen was followed by the Second Secretary’s overcoat, the First Typist’s purse and the First Assistant’s bicycle. Within a month and a half, we were all in hock and in agony.

Meanwhile, the Second Secretary had brought some more news. First, that the budget had gone to the Main Office. Then, that it hadn’t: it wasn’t in the Main Office, it was in Accounting. But the Head of Accounting was sick, and his opinion was crucial. So we all started worrying about the Head of Accounting, even though all we knew about him was that his name was Eugenio, and he was reviewing our budget. We would even have welcomed daily bulletins on his health, but all we ever got was the discouraging news that came from our Second Secretary’s uncle: the Head of Accounting was getting worse. We were so sad for so long about that man’s illness that the day he died we actually felt relieved—like the relatives of a critically-ill asthmatic must feel, when they don’t have to worry about him any more. But most of all, we were happy for ourselves, knowing that with Don Eugenio gone, they might finally name a new Head of Accounting, who might finally review our budget.

Four months later, the new Head of Accounting was named. That afternoon we canceled our chess match, our break for mate, and all our office work. The Boss started humming an aria from “Aida,” and between that and everything else we were soon so nervous that we had to go out for a little window-shopping. We came back to some shocking news: according to the uncle, our budget had never reached Accounting; that was a mistake. in fact, it had never even left the Main Office.

This news cast a dark shadow over our horizon. If the budget had been held up in Accounting, we wouldn’t have worried. After all, we knew about the Head Accountant’s illness. But if it had never even left the Main Office, where the Secretary—the man in charge—was in perfect health, then the delay was unexplainable and might drag on indefinitely.

Now our depression reached a critical stage. Each morning we looked at each other with the same pessimistic question in our eyes. At first we would ask, “Heard anything new?” Then we cut that down to “Anything new?” and finally, we just raised our eyebrows. Nobody knew a thing. And when somebody did, it was that the budget was being reviewed in the Main Office.

Eight months after the first bit of news reached us, my fountain pen was no longer working—it had quit two months earlier; the First Assistant had broken a rib riding his bicycle; the books the Second Assistant bought had been pawned to a Jew; the First Secretary’s watch was losing a quarter of an hour a day; the Boss’s shoes had been half-soled twice, stitched the first time and just tacked the second; and the Second Secretary’s coat had threadbare lapels that stood up stiffly, like two tiny wings that didn’t belong there.

One day we heard that the Minister had requested the budget. A week later the report was issued. We wanted to know what it said, but the uncle couldn’t find out because it was “strictly confidential.” We thought that was idiotic, since we treated documents with a card clipped to them marked “Extremely Urgent,” “High Priority,” or “Strictly Confidential” exactly the same way we treated all the others. But, apparently, at the Ministry they didn’t do things that way.

Next we heard that the Minister had spoken to the Secretary about the budget. Since conversations don’t usually come with little cards clipped to them, the uncle was able to find out that the Minister had concurred. Concurred about what, and with whom? By the time the uncle got around to asking, the Minister had changed his mind. And we understood, without further explanation, that he had once concurred with us.

Next we heard that the budget had been revised: it was on the agenda for next Friday’s session. Fourteen Fridays later, however, it still hadn’t come up for discussion. Then we started keeping track of all the meetings, and each Saturday we would say, “Well, now we’ll have to wait till next Friday. We’ll see what happens then.” And nothing would happen then. Nothing ever happened ever.

By that time I was pretty upset over all the money I owed, because the fountain pen had thrown my finances off and I still hadn’t managed to get them back on track. That’s why I got it into my head that we should pay a visit to the Ministry.

We rehearsed our interview for several afternoons. The First Secretary pretended to be the Minister, and the Boss, who had been chosen by all to speak on our behalf, presented our request. When we felt we had done enough rehearsing, we asked for an appointment at the Ministry and were given one for that Thursday. So on Thursday we left one of the typists and the porter at the office, while the rest of us went to have a talk with the Minister. But a talk with the Minister isn’t the same as a talk with anyone else. To have a talk with the Minister, you have to wait two and a half hours; and it sometimes happens, as in our case, that you can’t have a talk with the Minister even when the two and a half hours are up. We never got past the Secretary, who took a few notes as he listened to the Boss, excused himself briefly, and returned with the Minister’s response: the budget was on the agenda for the next day’s session. As for the Boss, he didn’t do nearly as well as he had done at our worst rehearsal: during rehearsals, at least no one stuttered.

As we were leaving the Ministry, relatively satisfied, we saw a car stop at the door and the Minister step out.

We found it odd that the Secretary had brought us the Minister’s personal response, when the Minister hadn’t even been there. But in fact, we all stood to gain by not asking too many questions, and so when the Boss suggested that the Secretary had probably consulted the Minister by phone, we were relieved and only too happy to agree with him.

The next day, at five PM, we were all pretty nervous. Five was the time they had told us we should call to inquire. We hadn’t gotten much work done; we were too restless to do anything right. Everyone was very quiet. The Boss didn’t even hum his aria. We waited a discreet six minutes before calling. Then the Boss dialed the number we all knew by heart and asked to speak to the Secretary. Their conversation wasn’t very long. In between the Boss’s responses—”Mmm,” “Mm-hmm,” “I see,”—we heard the muffled drone of another voice. When the Boss hung up the phone, we already knew the answer, but just to confirm it, we listened: “It seems they didn’t get to it today. But the Minister says the budget is definitely on the agenda for next Friday.”