Dark Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

friend.
    Jana and Sofia had been best friends since they had met at school and found out that they both disliked their teacher, a man named Adolphus. It had been easy to dislike him. He found ways, in every class, almost on an hourly basis, to praise the current government for its commitment to warm relations with Russia and to disdain the West. Unfortunately for him, since everyone knew he was of German, not Slovak, descent, he was axiomatically, uniformly distrusted.
    Today Jana’s mother was visiting Jana’s sick grandmother, and Sofia’s mother was working in her small hat shop, so the two youngsters had been free to walk through the streets holding hands and to settle down on the front steps of a closed cinema that still displayed posters of the last film it had shown over a year ago. Sofia was holding forth on the subject of boys, which still didn’t interest Jana much, but which was irresistible to Sofia.
    “I like them looking at me,” proclaimed Sofia, smoothing a stray lock of hair. “Then I like to ignore them, or sneer at them. Then they get mad.”
    “Why do you want to make them mad?”
    “’Cause I noticed that they come back and stare even harder.” She snickered. “Then they bring you a present or something. Just to interest you. Most of the time I ignore that too.”
    “Why do you care?” snapped Jana, a little irritated. “They’re not supposed to give you presents. And you’re not supposed to take them.”
    Sofia shrugged off Jana’s criticism, turning her nose up, assuming a haughty attitude. “They’re not worth much, so I throw them back.” They had both seen that done in a movie they’d gone to. The heroine of the film was a good girl, and everyone believed she had done the right thing, so Jana nodded her approval.
    They chatted away for another few moments until Sofia noticed a black government-licensed Zil limousine pass by. She smiled at the man who looked out from behind the partially open curtain of the back-seat window. The car slowed.
    Jana slapped at Sofia’s knee in disapproval, her voice taking on an edge. “Stop smiling. The man is ugly, and his thoughts are uglier.”
    Sofia’s smile lost a bit of sparkle. “He’s respectable. He has a big car. And it’s a Zil. He must be a high official if he has a Zil instead of one of those ugly, noisy Tatras.”
    “Government officials are never respectable, particularly the older ones. Everyone knows that.”
    The curtain in the back seat dropped as the car picked up speed.
    Sofia watched the limousine move away, making a small moue of regret. She hadn’t had her chance to really flirt and to enjoy the results, which was the whole point of flirting.
    “Who says they’re not respectable?” she asked.
    “My father, sometimes, and he’s a judge so he should know. He says they steal, and other things.”
    “What other things?” a suddenly pugnacious Sofia demanded, her jaw jutting, a little angry at being reproached for exercising her newly found skill.
    “You know.” Jana’s voice took on more assurance. “They don’t want me to hear so they drop their voices. Or my mother tells my father to be quiet.”
    “She’s brave to do that.”
    “Why?”
    “He’s a judge.”
    “They’re married,” explained Jana. “She’s louder than he is.”
    The two of them nodded, both understanding that louder was better.
    “Marrieds always argue.”
    “No, they don’t.”
    Jana tried to think of one pair of married neighbors who seemed happy. There were two, both sisters married to a pair of brothers.
    “The Slavins.”
    “They’re not Slovak.”
    “Yes, they are.”
    “They are also brothers who married two neighbor sisters. That’s different.”
    “I fight with my brother.”
    “They’re also Jews. Jews keep it quiet.”
    “How can you keep an argument quiet?”
    “That’s what Jews do. My uncle says they have secrets they only tell other Jews.”
    “What does that have to do with them