Benjamin Jones
Simon & Schuster
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A delightful mix of historical fact and science fiction, Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel “The Ministry of Time” (Simon & Schuster) mixes historical fact and science fiction in the story of a British secret agency that rescues condemned people from the past.
Read an excerpt below.
“The Ministry of Time”, by Kaliane Bradley
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The interviewer said my name, which made my thoughts become clearer. I don’t say my name, not even in my head. She said it correctly, which people don’t usually do.
“I am Adela,” she said. She had an eye patch and blonde hair the same color and texture as hay.
“I’m the deputy secretary.”
“In …?”
“Sit down.”
This was my sixth round of interviews. The job I was interviewing for was an internal position. It was marked SECURITY REQUIRED because it was clumsy to use TOP SECRET seals on paperwork with salary ranges. I was never cleared for that level of security, so no one told me what the job was. Since it paid almost triple my current salary, I was happy to prove ignorance. I had to get absolutely clean grades in first aid, safeguarding vulnerable people and the Home Office life test in the UK to get here. I knew I would work closely with refugees of high interest and specific needs, but I didn’t know where they were fleeing from. I assumed they were politically important defectors from Russia or China.
Adela, deputy secretary of God knows what, tucked a blond lock behind her ear with an audible snap.
“Your mother was a refugee, wasn’t she?” she said, which is a demented way to start a job interview.
“Yes ma’am.” “Cambodia,” she said. “Yes ma’am.”
I was asked this question a few times during the interview process. Normally, people ask this with an ascending tone, expecting me to correct them, because no one is from Cambodia. You don’t look Cambodian, one of the first clowns told me, and then it flashed like a pilot light because the interview was being recorded for monitoring and staff training purposes. He would receive a warning for this. People say that to me a lot, and what they mean is: you look like one of the late-arriving forms of white—Spanish, maybe—and also like you’re not dragging genocide around, which is good because that kind of of things make people uncomfortable.
There was no follow-up adjacent to the genocide: Some family is still there [understanding moue]? Have you ever visited [sympathetic smile]? Beautiful country [darkening with tears]; when I visited [visible on lower lid] they were so friendly. …
Adela just nodded. I wondered if she would choose the rare fourth option and declare the country dirty.
“She would never refer to herself as a refugee, or even as a former refugee,” I added. “It’s been really weird hearing people say that.”
“It is unlikely that the people you will work with will also use the term. We prefer ‘expatriate’. In answer to your question, I am the Deputy Secretary for Expatriation.”
“And they’re expatriates from…?”
“History.”
“Sorry?”
Adela shrugged. “We have time travel,” she said, like someone describing the coffee machine. “Welcome to the Ministry.”
Extracted from “The Ministry of Time”, by Kaliane Bradley. Copyright © 2024 by Kaliane Bradley. Excerpted with permission from Simon & Schuster, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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“The Ministry of Time”, by Kaliane Bradley
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