Europe being much on our mind of late, and desirous of seeing it while it was still there, we yesterday betook ourselves to our neighborhood travel agency (Tout À l'Heure Tours), where owner/proprietor Algernon Squillum welcomed us each and severally with warmth and the merest suggestion of a bow.

Once Squillum had seated us he retired to a chair behind his massive mahogany desk, placed his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, shot his cuffs (though they had committed no obvious offense), and bade us tell him which of our slightest whims he might devote the rest of his life to fulfilling.

"Europe," we breathed as one, as softly as a prayer, "Europe. We want to go to Europe."

"While it is still there," added Mrs. Feeny.

Squillum's face became the personification of delight "Ah!" he said, "Europe! Yes, yes, to be sure!" and he chuckled and nodded his head, plainly stunned by his good fortune to be alive in a world with people so wise as these. "And what particular destination had you in mind?" He said, his pen in readiness above his notepad.

"Paris!" said one team member. "Berlin," said another. "Antwerp," from yet another.

Squillum put his pen down and regarded us with the merest trace of disappointment. "I'm afraid you're thinking of the Old Europe," he said.

"Old," we said, "Europe?"

"Yes," he said sadly, "France, Germany, Belgium, all Old Europe, their day long past, yesterday's news, muy olvidado, tres passé. No, no, my friends, you would be much happier sojourning in New Europe"

"New," we said, "Europe?"

"Oh, indeed!" he said, "Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, those are the places for canny travelers in the Rumsfeld era."

"Rumsfeld," we said, "Era?"

With kindly deference to our bewilderment he explained that the Rumsfeld Doctrine--so named for American Secretary of the Apocalypse Donald H. Rumsfeld--was a policy that sought to enlarge the growing ideological fault line separating Western and Eastern Europe. Its particular genius lay in its encouragement of increased accession of former Communist nations and even Soviet states to key European economic and military alliances.

"You see what this means, of course" he said expectantly.

"That the new Europe is the old Russia?" we answered, a bit dazed.

"No, no," he said, "That our international hand is immeasurably strengthened!"

From Squillum's account it appeared that Germany and France and their like were just big fat ingrates that had totally forgotten how much we had done for them in the years following WWII--after we had blown them up, that is--and instead of minding their own business were now meddling in ours--world affairs. Which might not have been so bad but for the fact that these were classical democracies, and thus required to pay at ;east minimal attention to citizen sentiment; which at present found American foreign policy to be slightly less appealing than a bowl brush.

Eastern nations on the other hand were still grateful to America for its opposition to their former oppressors, and since they had for centuries paid not the least attention to the wishes of their constituents, were perfectly comfortable with continuing that tradition and doing whatever they wished--or, as in this case, whatever we wished.

Squillum's impromptu geopolitical descant, particularly his discussion of Eastern Europe, appeared to have dislodged some Paleolithic strata in Mrs. Feeny's head, perhaps of the time she had traveled widely as a young girl, when the land was green and the sky thick with pterosaurs.

"I want," she said decisively, "To go back to Constantinople!" "You can't go back to Constantinople!" said Squillum, slightly dismayed. "Why? Why can't I go back to Constantinople?" she asked, "Because," he said, " it's not 'Constantinople' now, it's 'Istanbul'" "Oh," she said.

All of which, it seemed to us, was nobody's business but the Turks. For our part we mourned the passing of the simpler world that had obtained in the wee and blooming years of our youth, when there was only one Europe (much of it disassembled masonry at the time), and how that had seemed sufficient unto the day.

But Squillum reassured us that the exact opposite was true. The Rumsfeld Doctrine mandated a summary redefinition of nations in light of their support, or lack thereof, for American policy--or, in the Secretary's parlance, "Friends" and "Enemies". However confusing such recategorization might have seemed to those nations, it nevertheless wonderfully simplified the task of fine-tuning our own foreign policy, and made it a snap to distinguish among relevant and irrelevant polities

"You mean any opposition to American policies is a sign of irrelevance?" we asked,

"To be sure," he said.

"The United Nations?" we asked.

""Headed straight down the Oblivion Highway," he said.

"The European Union?"

"About as useful as a button hook"

"NATO?"

"They might as well go home."

"The Vatican?" we said,

"A shame, isn't it? And after all those nice centuries."

There passed a moment of thoughtful silence, then Squillum again picked up his pen, saying, "So have you reconsidered your destinations?"

Yes, we said, Europe was too confusing a proposition at the moment, and now we were thinking of somewhere else entirely--perhaps China! Yes, the fabled orient! Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai--"

We stopped suddenly, meeting Squillum's sad gaze. "I'm afraid you're thinking of the Old China," he said.

The New China, it seemed, was Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong (if they ever wised up), Thibet, and a few places in Downtown San Francisco.

And thus it continued, each new destination proposed and ruled out as the result of the new political fractionation. At last able to stand it no longer we rejected the idea of travel altogether, preferring instead to wait until the troubled old world had resolved itself in whatever measure. In the meantime, we said, we would, in the words of the old campaign, "see America first," exploring to our hearts' content the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Mr. Squillum's gaze was again sad, "I'm afraid you're thinking of the Old America," he said.

******

Cheers, traveling companions,

Hank