Dark Dreams

by Michael Genelin

  Sofia’s body seemed to shrink into the seat. She looked down at the plates, wiping her hands with a napkin as if she were trying to scrub off deeply embedded dirt. When she put the napkin down, Jana thought she might be ready to listen.

  “You let the man buy us the spiced wine; you walked up to that car. You’re right: the man who had bought us the wine had no right to expect anything more than to have us drink the wine, and maybe talk with him for a little while. It was just like the man in the car. He had no right to think that because you walked up to the car he was entitled to drag you inside and do those things to you. But some people do crazy things. They’ll abuse you if they can. So you can’t put yourself in a position where they can.”

  Sofia straightened her shoulders, an angry, determined look on her face.

  “I know people want things. I want things. You want things. We take chances to get them.”

  Jana phrased her answer carefully.

  “My father says that risks are a part of life. But the risks have to be thought out. You can’t just play with danger. If you do, the danger gets you. You have to weigh a negative outcome against a positive one, to decide if you want to chance it. You don’t take a risk just for the thrill of it.”

  The two of them sat quietly for a long time. Jana was beginning to despair, fearing that she had gotten nowhere with Sofia until, at last, her friend nodded.

  “Your father is right. I’ll try to consider the risk in the future, I promise you.”

  Jana felt relieved and happy. It had been worth the effort. Now she had to give Sofia a little nurturing and confess her own inadequacy.

  “I should also have considered the risk this time. I didn’t. So I’m sorry.”

  Sofia gave Jana an impish smile. “There’s one thing I know, Jana.”

  “What?”

  “I’m still hungry, and there is still pastry left on your plate.”

  Jana pushed her plate over to Sofia.

  Sofia quickly finished the remainder of the confection. When she finally laid her fork down, she voiced one more thought.

  “I’ll try to think about people, Jana. And men! I’ll be careful. But when I find the one I want, I’ll make him love me, not just want something from me. And I’ll love him back with everything I have.”

  They finished their chocolate, paid the check, and left.

  Chapter 6

  Jana was at the police academy, and Sofia was a teaching assistant at the university, when they next encountered Kamin. There had been a change in government, and the Velvet Revolution was imminent. It had taken Sofia and Jana a long time to become ready, emotionally, to confront Kamin.

  Jana had a day off from the academy. She called Sofia, who was able to break away from her duties at the university. The two of them agreed to meet in Bratislava’s central square and to take a walk through the Old Town.

  The Slovak government had decided to begin the resurrection of Bratislava after years of neglect first under the communists, and then under the Czech-dominated government in Prague. They had been even worse off, in a way, under the Czechs, who regarded their Slovak cousins as poor relations, as a drain on the country as a whole, as inferiors who deserved second-best when it came to the expenditure of tax revenues, and, of course, as undeserving of any say in the affairs of the country. So, with some regrets, particularly for the loss of Prague as their capital, the Slovaks had taken themselves out of their union with the Czechs. They now had their own country. Their own capital, Bratislava, had to be spruced up. Building reconstruction was going on everywhere.

  Both women had been involved in brief affairs. Jana’s beau had not been serious enough; Sofia’s had been too serious. As they walked, the two young women were confessing to the awkwardness of breaking up with men. Eventually, they strolled into the area around the Primate’s Palace. A number of missing tiles were being reset on the mosaic of the tympanum on the roof, and, as they were looking up at the daring young men working on it, Kamin emerged and strode to a waiting car, passing as close to them as one could without touching.

  Jana heard Sofia draw a breath, gasping. She followed Sofia’s eyes, and quickly broke out in a cold sweat. He was so close that through his cologne they could smell the body odor he was trying to conceal. The scar on his left eyebrow where Sofia had hit him with the window handle was still there. She had left her signature.

  They watched Kamin’s chauffeur open the passenger door for him. Sofia came out of her shock with a start and began to walk toward the car, her fingers curved into talons. Jana grabbed Sofia’s arm, pulling her back, using a police hold on her arm, forcing her toward the opposite end of the square. Kamin was driven away without ever realizing that Sofia had been close.

  Not that he would have known who she was. Sofia, a mature woman, was much different from the child who he had raped. But they both still knew him.

  Jana ultimately felt it was safe to let Sofia go. Sofia pulled away, panting from exertion. She stared at the corner around which Kamin’s vehicle had disappeared, then swung around to face Jana, teeth bared, ready to fight her.

  “You would have been beaten by the chauffeur if you had tried to attack Kamin,” Jana countered. “Or shot. These men have chauffeurs who double as armed bodyguards.”

  Sofia’s fists began to uncurl. She took several deep breaths and her body began to relax. “I want to kill him. It’s the only way.”

  “If you want to suffer afterwards, yes, that’s the way. However, that would be foolish and wasteful. I’ve seen the inside of prisons, Sofia. They’re not nice places to live in. You would surely go to prison if you killed him, no matter what he’d done to you in the past.”

  “It wouldn’t matter.”

  “It matters to both of us, Sofia. Neither of us wants our lives destroyed because of him.” She put her arm around Sofia’s shoulder, and they began to walk. It would only be a matter of time, Jana thought. Time and planning.

  Unfortunately, their planning was put on hold. The next day, Kamin left the country. Rumors swirled through the media, some of them confirmed: he was a leader of organized crime; his wife had recently been killed in a vehicle collision and Kamin was suspected of murdering her; a large amount of money had been embezzled from the government and Kamin was believed to be the mastermind behind it; Kamin had fled because the tax police were after him. Investigations were commenced, none of which ever resulted in charges being filed.

  Chapter 7

  Mehta made use of his shoulders and elbows to get through the ocean of people. He would never get used to this smother of humanity. Mumbai was always like this: masses spilling into the streets, its inhabitants darting among, around, and through the huge, boiling, swirling crowd. They sweated, screamed, talked to themselves or to anyone else, as they pushed and squeezed their way through countless bodies, walking, running, and dashing through the stream of cars and carts and bullocks that wandered freely, or stood uncaring as they blocked traffic.

  Mehta felt himself start to become angry as an older woman screamed at him for blocking her way. Another man was screaming at her, telling her to shut up. The two of them were still arguing as they moved away from each other, forgetting in that split second what had started the altercation.

  Mehta put his own emotions behind him. It wasn’t good to be angry at work, and today he had business to conduct. It had been hard to live in this Indian city, now the size of Australia’s total population. Bollywood, the film capital of Asia, computers, diamond-cutting, cars that poured off assembly lines, international engineering firms, and all the offices and housing for their employees piled on top of buildings, higher and higher. It stifled one’s soul.

  It had taken Salman Mehta, as he called himself, a month to acclimate to Mumbai sufficiently to feel that he could conduct his business at an acceptable level of safety. His job required patience, not the too-quick hands and jerky movements that impatience generates. He was holding a paper-wrapped package; it was not heavy, but awkward to carry th
rough the crowded streets. Mehta did not want the contents of the package jostled. He checked his watch, looking in the direction the vehicle would come from, unsuccessfully trying to see through the gaps in the crowd. He felt water on his face. A solid mass of dark clouds loomed; the daily monsoon deluge was about to begin. He tugged a plastic envelope out of his inner jacket pocket and unfolded a rain cape, slipping it over his head and shoulders. The gray plastic covered him to his mid-thighs.

  He was just in time. The sky opened, the rain pelting down hard enough to hurt. Mehta pulled the plastic hood over his head, then took another look down the street. He saw the small canvas-covered truck slowly plowing down the middle of the road a few minutes early.

  He didn’t wait. He let the truck pass, then quickly hoisted himself up and into the open rear of the vehicle and knocked on the back of the driver’s cab to let him know that he was there, as the truck inched over the curb.

  Pedestrians hurried out of the way, angry at being forced out of their path, banging their fists in disapproval on the fenders and sides of the truck. The driver gave them one long blast of the horn to let them know that he was angry at them, too. As previously instructed, he stayed in the driver’s seat. He heard the tailgate of the truck come down, the sound of a motorcycle revving up, and the truck shuddering as the motorcycle leaped out of the back of the truck, roared down the street through the rain-slowed traffic, and was quickly lost to sight in the moving flood of water, vehicles and pedestrians. The driver heaved a sigh of relief, glad he had not seen the man who was now on the motorcycle. He’d heard enough stories to know the necessity of avoiding such a meeting.

  The motorcycle zigzagged through the streets. The crowds in the Dharavi slums were even denser. Mehta took to the sidewalk, weaving through the people clustered near the storefronts in their effort to avoid being hit or soaked by the additional water the wheels of the motorcycle kicked up. A path on the sidewalk opened up. There was no real reason to worry about being stopped by the police. These were relatively minor transgressions. And although the Mumbai police are considered among the best in India, they rarely entered the slums, and if they did, it was over something much more serious than traffic violations.

  Mehta swung into an alley, behind tenements that spewed forth a stink of sewage and offal, and rolled about ten meters to an open lot, a rare area large enough to hold a large tent. Clutching umbrellas, newspapers held over their heads, jackets pulled off their backs and offered to the sky as a defense against the pouring rain, a line of men, women, and children were filing into the tent. Everyone was being welcomed by young women clutching parasols that offered scant protection against the slashing downpour. The young women wore light blue clothes that darkened as they became soaked. They escorted the people into the tent to be seated, females to one side, males on the other.

  Mehta braked along the outside of the tent, bringing the cycle to a stop near a side-gap entrance. He dismounted, took his parcel from the rear storage box of the cycle, then walked past a blue-uniformed usherette and into the tent. Mehta knew what he would see. He had been through this twice before on previous weekends, identifying exactly which seat he wanted to occupy: one near his entry point and ten steps away from the raised throne that occupied a place in the exact center of the front of the tent. All Mehta had to do now was to wait. The Church of the Universal Master would do the rest.

  Mehta slipped his raincoat off so his movements would not be restricted, then crushed it into a ball, casually placing it on the seat next to him. The rows of seats were rapidly filling up, with every class and caste. Mehta had to admire the church founder, simply called the Master. The church practiced no segregation by birth or economic wealth, openly welcoming untouchables. The church acknowledged only one God, but preached universal benevolence and connection. All were equals, although everyone acknowledged that the current Master was slightly more equal. He was exalted above everyone else due to his ability to interpret the word of God.

  Gradually the parade of incoming parishioners trickled to a halt; the usherettes took seats near the doors, and a trio of musicians in one of the corners of the room began to play. The second number was a psalm that everyone, almost as a single person, stood and sang. This was followed by another hymn. They remained standing as the Master made his entrance. He walked through the same gap in the tent that Mehta had used and was helped up in a graceful swirl by several of the blue-clad usherettes to his place on the throne.

  The Master, now comfortably seated, had a smile on his face, nodding to his followers, all of them shouting, murmuring, singing, mumbling greetings until the Master held up his hand and the room immediately fell silent. The Master, a pleasant-faced man with a dark beard, his head framed by a white turban, gave everyone a huge smile that seemed to light the whole tent. He surveyed his flock, nodding, his head bowing slightly, then coming erect as his smile faded. He waited an additional moment, creating the dramatic tension he wanted, then began to address his flock.

  His voice became a drone to Mehta. He was not interested; he was rehearsing in his mind’s eye, exactly what he had to do. Mehta checked his watch: the sermon would take fifteen minutes, his walk to the throne perhaps thirty seconds; going outside to his cycle, forty-five seconds; starting the cycle and then leaving the immediate vicinity, two minutes. Satisfied, Mehta reached down for the bundle he had carried into the tent and placed under his seat, pulled some of the wrapping aside, and punched a pre-set button. A very low buzz came from the package. Satisfied, he sat back, again focusing on the Master.

  As Mehta anticipated, the sermon was over in exactly fifteen minutes. The Master was quite predictable in his habits. Several of his followers came forward to put gift offerings in an area set aside for them next to the throne, then bent to kiss the Master’s feet. Mehta stood, walked to the throne, and waited to let the people already lined up kiss the Master’s feet, then edged close to the Master, looking up at him. Very impressive, Mehta thought; then without any hesitation, Mehta reached under his jacket to his hidden shoulder holster, drew his semi-automatic, snapped off the safety, and pumped half of the gun’s magazine into the man above him.

  Chaos reigned. People screamed, ran down the aisles, cowered in their seats, some not understanding what had happened, only that something dreadful had befallen them, others climbing over each other trying to get out of the tent. And above, on his high seat, the Master leaned back against his throne as if he was asleep, unchanged except for the bloody tears on his once all-white garments.

  One of the blue-suited usherettes tried to stop Mehta as he walked toward the flap in the tent. Without hesitating, Mehta fired once, the bullet propelling her back into the general seating area, knocking over a file of chairs as she hit the floor. Unhurried, Mehta continued out of the tent, holstered his pistol, climbed onto his motorcycle and rode down the alley, away from the tent. Thirty seconds later, the bomb that he had left under his chair went off and blew the tent apart.

  Later police accounts reckoned that there were eighteen dead and sixty-three injured in what they attributed to a probable suicide-bomber attack by a rival church group. Whoever had done this was a fanatic. They questioned the survivors, but no one could identify the man who had killed the Master and left the bomb, so the Mumbai police were stymied.

  There were a large number of mourners at the Master’s funeral. Most of those who attended came from other Churches of the Universal Master, located in New York, Amsterdam, Bremen, San Francisco, Kathmandu, and New Delhi. Not many parishioners from the local church could attend, since they were either dead or in the hospital.

  The worshipers could not assemble for a month after the killing. Then, with amazingly little disagreement, they selected one of the old Master’s acolytes as the new Master and held a church service in their new tent.

  The service went well.

  Chapter 8

  The gray Soviet-style central police building had been transformed into a very stale-looking gingerbread ho
use by the storm. The windowsills were layered with snow that looked yellow in the light from inside the building. Unfortunately, the yellow snow did not change the structure’s appearance for the better: its concrete walls continued to look brutally ugly and cruelly unappetizing. It would always say “police.”

  Jana trudged up the stairs to the building’s entrance, kicking her boots on the top step to knock the slush away, and returned the salute of the guard at the entrance. His name was Jarov, a decent cop who was now doing sentry penance outside in the freezing sleet, instead of inside the vestibule, because of a minor infraction. He’d been monitoring a right-wing demonstration and one of the demonstrators had spit on him. Jarov had returned the favor, with interest: a smack alongside the head of the miscreant. The media had caught it on camera, which was Jarov’s sin, so now he was stamping around trying to keep his toes from frostbite.

  “Commander,” he grimaced at her. “I am freezing my balls off.” And, as she was going past, “I could use a piss break, Commander. They seem to have forgotten that I’m out here.”

  “Maybe you should have brought a wool scarf for your balls?” She nodded. “Hold on to them a while longer. I’ll send someone out.” She walked inside.

  It was only slightly less frigid inside. The cold rose from the barren cement floor in icy waves, bleeding even more heat from the air, the chill only beginning to abate when Jana took the elevator up to her floor. To supplement the inadequate central heating, a number of space heaters lined the corridor. They whined at full blast, their warmth almost tempting her to remain in the hall. After toasting her hands for a moment at the last heater before her office, Jana walked in, only to find her warrant officer, Seges, going through her desk.