Siren of the Waters: A Jana Matinova Investigation

by Michael Genelin

  That evening, Dano came up the walk carrying a package. And even before she wrestled the door open, Katka knew that it had to be a present for her. She jumped on her father at the door. Dano swept her up with his free arm, the two of them dancing a quick jig around the room. Katka hugged her father around the neck as hard as she could squeeze, kissing him on the cheek, and finally, when he was out of breath, let go to slide down to the floor. Of course, the first questions she asked were: “What’s in the package, Papa?” and “Is it for me?”

  “For you?” Dano pretended to be surprised by the question. “I’m not sure. I guess I’ve forgotten.”

  Of course it was for her, and Katka pulled it out of the loosely tied paper wrapping. A dramatic purple skirt, long and flowing when it was unfurled, more an adult’s skirt than a ten-year-old’s, but Katka loved it anyway, squealing with joy, running to kiss Dano again, running to show it to Jana and her grandmother, finally slipping it over her head, holding up the hem so she wouldn’t trip over it, parading around the room as if she were a royal princess.

  And Jana loved him again, because she could see the sparkle in his eyes, reveling in the fact that he had made their daughter happy. This was the Dano she had known before, the Dano who was Hamlet and all the other great stage heroes that he had portrayed, standing there in their living room that evening. She went to him, as her daughter had done, and gave him a long kiss.

  Dinner that night, even though not graced by any particular holiday dish, was as festive as any they’d had recently. There were lots of giggles from Katka, jokes from Dano about his latest rehearsals, and local gossip from her mother about who was having an affair with what married man in the neighborhood. Jana generally had nothing to offer at the dinner table because the nature of her work was not conducive to the appetite, but tonight Dano insisted that she tell them what was going on in the “dreaded halls” of the local police.

  Jana finally gave in, laughing while she told them a story about Trokan and his wife. His wife had come to his office, and everyone could hear an argument building up between them, with Trokan’s wife getting louder and louder. Finally, Trokan had broken away, steaming out of his office, telling his secretary he was not going to return that day, leaving his wife behind. Thirty minutes went by, with the wife still inside, everyone starting to make bets on how long she would remain. When she emerged from the office, she turned back as if Trokan was still inside behind his desk, yelling at the phantom Trokan, “And if you come home late this evening, don’t count on spending the night in your bed.” With that, she’d stormed out, a self-satisfied look on her face as if she had gotten the last word in the argument.

  Katka wanted to know if the woman could have been speaking to a ghost, like Hamlet had talked to the specter of his father in the play. Dano, who had gone over his favorite role many times with Katka, indicated it was possible, but more likely the woman was a little crazy. Jana’s mother chimed in with “more than a little,” cackling about poor Trokan coming in the next day not knowing the embarrassment he was facing. And Jana suddenly felt depressed.

  Husbands and wives often share terrible events, events they can never get out of their minds as much as they try.

  Dano’s cheerful mood dissipated, as if sensing what she was thinking, the almost perpetual gloom returning to his face. And Katka, seeming to sense that she shouldn’t be around the adults for the rest of the evening, announced that she was going to bed and would be sleeping in her new purple dress. Princess-like, she imperiously demanded not to be disturbed for the rest of the night, and went off to her bedroom.

  Jana’s mother began clearing the dishes from the table, both Jana and Dano stopping and starting to speak, stuttering sentences trailing off. They no longer had the confidence, or the ability, to maintain a pleasant, comfortable conversation.

  “Would you like to know where I got the dress for Katka?” Dano finally ventured.

  “It’s very pretty,” Jana quickly got out, realizing she hadn’t said anything about the dress before.

  “The National Theatre’s wardrobe warehouse. They shouldn’t have let me come back.” He laughed, awkward in confessing to an act he should not have committed. “I stole it for Katka. You see what I’ve become because they won’t let me work: a thief.” He thought about his confession. “Are you going to arrest me, Jana?”

  “No. I think, perhaps, they owe you more than what the dress is worth.”

  “I agree,” Jana’s mother chimed in. “They owe you.”

  “Thank you,” Dano nodded. He turned his seat around, still facing Jana, his arms now folded over the back of the chair, his enthusiasm starting to return. “I have decided to do more than steal a dress. I am going to fight back.”

  Jana’s mother was the first to react to his statement. Suspiciously, a little afraid of what he meant, she approached the table to face him. “What do you mean you’re going to fight back? Who are you fighting? How are you going to fight?”

  “I’m joining a political group that is going to form a new party.”

  “And what will its political platform be?” Jana’s mother demanded in a pugnacious tone.

  “To bring down this government. It will be called the Revolutionary Democratic Party. There are already fifteen of us who have subscribed to its platform. As time goes on, we will attract others. And then we will pull this government down.”

  Jana’s mother turned white, her voice taking on a frantic edge. “Are you a madman? Have you forgotten Dubcek? Have you lost your memory of the Soviet tanks rolling into Prague? Has it slipped your mind what they did in Hungary? They don’t tolerate other revolutionaries.”

  Dano ignored his mother-in-law, addressing Jana. “Do you understand why I have to do this? If you have gone through what I have gone through, what I am going through, you must act against them. I am not a contented lapdog any more, nibbling at a bowl of chopped meat before napping in a corner.”

  Jana’s mother’s voice rose even higher. “You are doing it again, aren’t you? You have not learned the cost? Lunatic! Lunatic! Lunatic!”

  “Stop. Stop now!” Jana found herself yelling. “Katka will hear.” Jana could feel what remained of her relationship with Dano slipping away. “He has a right to act as he feels, Mother. He should not be talked to this way. Dano is a man of respect.”

  “To hell with this ‘man of respect’ nonsense! Look what he did to us the last time! He nearly buried us with his actions. They sent him away from the theater, but they exiled you from your home, your friends, your job. And you have been fighting your way back ever since. Listen to this man: He is proposing that he do it to us all over again!”

  “That remains to be seen, Mother.”

  “Are you also a lunatic? You cannot hope to survive again!” Dano hung his head for a moment, his shoulders slumped. Then he looked back up at them both. He held out his hands, palms up, as if to say “What else can I do?” “That’s why I have to leave,” he said. He looked directly at Jana. “You see that. I must go. Otherwise you will be tainted by what I do.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “I agree, yes,” said her mother. “Emphatically, yes!”

  Dano packed his clothes and left that night. He wrote a note for Katka, explaining that he had work that required him to be away for a while, kissed Jana on the cheek, and walked out of the door. For some reason, Jana found that she could not cry. Ever afterward, Jana felt she had not done enough to stop Dano, to keep him home, safe.

  Jana’s mother told all the neighbors that they had finally thrown that no-good actor out of the house, that Jana and she were tired of supporting him. Then she went to the local police station and informed the registry people that Dano no longer resided with them, making sure that all the police officers knew that they had rid themselves of the nuisance of his presence. For Katka’s sake, her mother demanded that Jana tell her supervisor and everyone else she knew at the police department that her husband had been thrown out. T
hey needed to make a public break from him and whatever his activities were going to be.

  The next day, Jana told Trokan that she and Dano had parted, and took his picture off her desk. When she put it in a drawer, she felt like she had gone into mourning.

  Chapter 18

  They had lunch in an old Alsatian restaurant in that corner of the Grande Ile called Petite France. Her son-in-law drove like a madman through the streets, never worrying about traffic, the diplomatic plates on his small car giving him immunity from French prosecution. He came close to colliding with other cars at least twice. Jana wondered if all Americans were suicidal when they drove. She finally decided that it was the Dano in him that was so reckless.

  The restaurant had a folksy interior, combining old French and German décor. Jana didn’t really listen to the waiter’s suggestions, absently nodding her head so that when he filled the table with food, she was surprised at all the dishes. All Jana could really concentrate on, most of the time, was Jeremy. His resemblance to Dano, even up close, was remarkable.

  Jeremy spoke almost nonstop about the Gods of Serendipity, who must have been working overtime for him to have recognized her in the lobby, since he had only seen a few old photos that Katka still had. Of course, he would have met Jana tomorrow anyway. Yes, more serendipity, she agreed, when she realized what the word meant. They would both be attending the same meeting. Jeremy surmised that he would probably have recognized Jana at the meeting tomorrow because Katka looked so much like a younger version of her.

  Jana managed to fully focus when Jeremy stopped talking and began eating.

  “A few simple questions. First, how is she?”

  “For the third time, Katka is marvelous.”

  “This time I’m asking about the baby.”

  “Daniela is super. Healthy, advanced for her age, etcetera. You can add all the rest of the things to describe her that any doting father would use to describe his child.”

  Named after Dano, Jana reflected. No need to ask who had suggested the name. “And you; why did the Americans select you to come up from Nice to Strasbourg?”

  “We’re stationed in Paris now. With the embassy, naturally. One of my responsibilities is civil rights and law-enforcement problems in France, which meant it was my turn to come up here. Political officers do all kinds of things. We stay current on smuggling dope, trafficking, stolen cars, and lots of other criminal stuff. We’ve got the FBI over here, but the meeting tomorrow is at the diplomatic level.” He smiled one of his Dano smiles. “And I’ve heard from other sources that I’m now sitting with one of the premier detectives in Slovakia.”

  Jana ignored the compliment. “Does Katka talk at all about me?” she asked.

  He paused, considering the question. “Some of the bitterness has faded.” He tried to use diplomatic language and found himself unable to. “You come up rarely. She has mentioned telling Daniela about her grandmother, but the baby is too young, so the time hasn’t come yet.”

  “I would like to see them both. There won’t be an opportunity like this again for a long time, if ever. I am in France, here, now. My granddaughter is close by. Perhaps I can come to Paris?”

  “Katka is in Nice right now, with the baby. It’s warmer than in Paris. And we have another month left on our lease for the Nice place, so while I’m in Strasbourg, she went south. I’m returning to Nice tomorrow, after our meeting.”

  Jana located Nice on her mental map, a dot on the French Riviera. She pictured palm trees and sunshine, with Katka walking Daniela in a stroller by the blue Mediterranean waters of the Côte d’Azur. Odd to think of her daughter in that storybook setting.

  “Will she see me if I go to Nice with you?”

  Jeremy winced. “I don’t think that’s a good move.”

  “You said the bitterness was fading.”

  “But not gone.”

  Jana nibbled at a piece of chicken with some sort of cream sauce, not out of hunger, but to play for time. Surely she could figure out a way to get to see her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, after all these years. The chicken was still tasteless. She drank a sip of Alsatian white wine. Tasteless as well, to her. She surveyed the almost-untouched dishes on the table in front of her, thinking: What a waste.

  Jeremy tried to resolve the family impasse. “Let me talk to her. Katka does not take well to surprises. You probably know that she likes everything to go according to a plan.”

  Jana ran through all the possible scenarios, regretfully concluding that Jeremy had to know Katka better than she did now.

  “I have to go back to Slovakia soon. You will talk to her quickly? About my seeing her?”

  “I promise.”

  “Time heals.”

  “And sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “Yes,” she had to agree.

  They sat in silence until Jeremy finished eating and the waiter arrived with the bill. She reached for it, but Jeremy got to it first.

  “How often do I get to treat my mother-in-law, courtesy of the U.S. government?” He slapped a credit card on the waiter’s plate, which was immediately picked up and run through a portable machine, Jeremy punching in the bank numbers. “I can justify paying the bill with taxpayer money if you and I can talk about Koba’s organization for a minute.”

  “I don’t know much to talk about.” Jana tried to switch the focus of her thoughts from Katka and her grandchild to the investigation. “Koba is dead, or he isn’t dead. Nobody is quite sure. Yes, I believe there is an international crime ring. But I am not positive. How many people are in it? Who are they? We don’t know, but it seems to exist in at least four countries, and, if I am right, in many more. Whoever these criminals are, they know how to plan, and are quite ruthless in carrying out that plan. In fact, there may be two groups, perhaps at war with each other. That is about all I know.”

  “What we want. . . .” He smiled ruefully at his use of the royal “we,” beginning again. “Well, what the U.S. wants, is to track this group, to find out if they’re already functioning in America, or if they are about to move into our country. Who the hell are they? Koba and Company have to be identified so we can track them.”

  “I thought the U.S. could track anybody, intercept all communications, color the world red, white, and blue, if it wanted to.”

  “My favorite colors,” admitted Jeremy. “Except in the nursery. But, no. The red, white, and blue is not all-powerful. We have no magic wand. We can’t even come close.” They both rose at the same time. Jeremy helped her on with her coat. “How about us touring the old cathedral together while we’re here? That’s a nice touristy thing to do.”

  “Only if you agree to come to Slovakia where things are even more antique.” They both headed toward the door. “Maybe I could arrange for you to visit one of our castles for the day? We have a castle that Dracula was supposed to have inhabited.”

  “I thought Dracula was from Transylvania.”

  “They stole the idea from us.” She laughed. “Everybody stole from us. It’s why we are so poor. Maybe that’s good. There is nothing left to steal, so now we don’t have to worry.”

  They walked over the canal bridge to the main island, turned toward Place Gutenberg, and from there toward the Cathedral de Notre Dame.

  “I think I know one of them; one of the group involved,” Jana acknowledged after they had been strolling for a while.

  “A name, any name, would look good in my report. Who’s the man?”

  “It’s early. I need to make sure.”

  “We can help.”

  “I hope so. I will be sure to ask for help, if I need it later.”

  “Maybe other things will happen to help us.”

  Jana nodded. “The cracks will widen. If there is a war between criminal factions, it will go on. More casualties. Hopefully, we will pick up the remaining pieces.”

  They stood in front of the cathedral, looking up at the sculptures and stone scrollwork enhancing the high walls. The main panels abov
e the door depicted the final judgment of saints and sinners, with the sinners falling down to Hell.

  “You see,” Jana continued, “all the evil people are punished in the end.”

  “Not everyone,” murmured Jeremy. “Just the ones who get themselves carved in marble.”

  “No.” She thought of herself and Dano. “I think everyone is caught in the end, one way or the other.”

  They went into the cathedral.

  Chapter 19

  Of course, the meeting began late. Those who knew each other exchanged greetings, others drank the coffee or tea provided, people searched for their namecards indicating where they were to be seated. Finally everything coalesced and the group was called to order. Jana was not surprised to see Moira Simmons as the Chair.

  Moira’s name plate stated that she was the head of the “Human Rights Anti-Trafficking Committee” of the EU. There were about twenty people at the table, mostly from Western Europe, along with representatives from a number of the former Eastern bloc countries, including Dmitri Levitin, a large-headed, lanky young man from Russia. He nodded at Jana as if he knew her. Politely, Jana nodded back. Jeremy had still not arrived, although his name was placed in front of the seat next to Moira. One other chair remained vacant: that of Foch, the representative of the UN from Vienna.

  The seat that interested Jana most was occupied by a man whose nameplate read Aram Tutungian. The man was olive-skinned, with coal black hair and eyes. The eyes were oddly set, off center, looking at you, but not looking at you directly. Tutungian and Jana exchanged glances. The impression that she received was one of lack of feeling. No emotion came from him, there was nothing to connect with. Jana was glad to look away.

  Moira Simmons began, going through the usual litany of why they were here and who the speakers were on the day’s agenda. Jana was scheduled for later in the day, her subject listed as “The Problems with Investigating Violence in Human Trafficking.” Inwardly, Jana groaned. She was not yet even sure she could establish that the killings in her case were motivated by anything to do with human trafficking. All she had were unverified suspicions. She decided that her speech would be as short as possible.