Chapter 31: A Criminal and a Prime Minister

The next day Cynthia came by the room being used by Cecilia and Jason and knocked to wake them up. They had only slept for about four hours, but Cynthia was unsympathetic. That day, their first full day in Upper Danubia, would be a busy one for them. They had breakfast in the hotel and then walked past the Old City Wall back to the Central Police Station, where Kim already was waiting for them.

Jason and Cecilia spent the entire morning at Kim's office. In that building they came face-to-face with the Danubian justice system, because they saw numerous naked criminals going in and out of the Spokespersons' offices. Some of the criminals had very painful-looking switch marks on their backsides. Whenever a criminal greeted a Spokesperson, invariably they knelt and touched their head to the floor, as required by the society's protocol for criminals.

Jason and Cecilia had to push aside the sheer weirdness of their situation and concentrate on their task at hand. Kim spent hours briefing the couple on the Danubian system for trying criminals, how testimony normally was given in court, how to address judges and other court officials, and even much smaller details such as when to salute and when not to salute. She then told them to type out their testimony on the computer in her office and suggested corrections. She played devil's advocate, trying to make sure they understood clearly their roles in unraveling the coup and how they should answer questions from defense attorneys. Finally Kim had the two witnesses videotape themselves practicing giving testimony in the booking room downstairs to review the next day. Within a couple of days Kim planned to have Jason ready to fulfill his Path in Life and speak clearly to the world about what he had done to stop his father's ambitions.

By the time they finished with the videotaping it was mid-afternoon. They had a late lunch and then returned to Kim's office, where Tiffany Walker was sitting at a desk going over a textbook. Upon seeing Kim she immediately stood up, moved in front of her and knelt.

"Good afternoon, Apprentice Lee. I am pleased you have safely returned."

"Good afternoon, Criminal # 98946. I too, am glad that the Ancients kept you safe through the night. Please rise, so we may serve our purpose in life."

Tiffany's purpose in life became evident as soon as she was off her knees. It turned out that Kim and Cynthia would need to spend the rest of the afternoon helping translate the statements of several English-speaking mercenaries. It was quite likely that duty would take them well into the night. The departure of the Lee sisters drove home the stark reality that Jason and Cecilia would have to make their own lives in Upper Danubia as quickly as possible and not rely on Kim and Cynthia.

Tiffany told them that she would escort them to the university, where they would meet their Danubian instructor and get their first assignment for studying the Danubian language. Oh yeah ... that's right. On top of everything else, they had a new language to learn.

Tiffany asked Jason and Cecilia if they wanted to walk to the university, which was about a kilometer north of the hotel, or take a trolley. They decided to walk and enjoy the pleasant spring weather. Tiffany walked alongside them, completely naked except for her collar. She had a backpack full of books with her, but was carrying it, not wearing it.

"Sometimes I wish I could just put this on and free up my hands, but of course I can't, because a backpack's considered clothing. You know the rule, that us criminals can't wear anything except in the winter, when we can wear boots."

Tiffany's statement about her backpack let Cecilia and Jason know that she was open to talking about her situation and available to answer their questions. At first the questions were general, about the university, how hard was Danubian to learn, what was the study schedule going to be like, but then gradually the questions shifted to Tiffany and her own life.

Cecilia and Jason were a bit taken aback when Tiffany described her former life in the U.S. as a stripper and meth user. She really had hit bottom and was just beginning the slow process of the lingering death of a meth addict when Kim showed up at the club's dance stage. The shock was horrible; that afternoon when Tiffany saw the friend she had betrayed sitting right at her feet with an infuriated expression on her face and two dollars in her hand. Kim was absolutely cruel over the next few minutes while "Willow" finished her dance, but out of that cruelty came Tiffany's salvation. Less than a week later she was in Danube City in a rehab program and beginning the long process of recovering from two years of heavy drug use.

Cecilia had a question.

"I was wonderin' about something. Doesn't it piss you off that Kim wants you to get on your knees every time you say 'hello' or 'goodbye' to her? I mean, to see you do that, I just find kinda weird."

"I'm a criminal. That's what we have to do. It's the way things are in this country and I've gotten used to it. But I'll add something, maybe to make you understand why I don't mind greeting Apprentice Lee like that. I've been off meth for almost two years. It's because of her that I got off, and for that I'd lick her feet if she asked me to. If you haven't seen meth, you wouldn't understand where I'm coming from."

"I 'spose I do know. I haven't seen meth, but I have a brother who was sellin' crack when I was in school. I saw a lot of what that shit does to people, so I guess I know where you're coming from."

After a pleasant walk along a tree-lined street the three Americans arrived at the university. Tiffany took Jason and Cecilia to the instructor from whom they would be learning Danubian. She knelt and placed her head on the floor when she greeted him, because a professor was public official. Tiffany took an assignment out of her backpack and handed it to him before introducing the two new students.

With that another part of Cecilia's life in Danube City was finalized, because the language instructor was the man who would be organizing the exchange program with Cecilia's university in Chicago from the Danubian side. He would be setting up the orientation program and hiring the instructors to teach a crash-course in Danubian to new exchange students, the same program that Cecilia would be administering on a day-to-day basis.

The first class was simply learning the Danubian alphabet and a few short words to go with each letter. Jason and Cecilia left carrying homework assignments; letters and syllables they would have to memorize for the next day's class.

Upon stepping outside, Tiffany took the two newcomers to a cafe at the university's language school. The university was set up very differently from a typical U.S. university, because instead of a large student center, each department had its own cafe. The closest thing to a central plaza was the courtyard in front of an old church that still was used for worship services and formal ceremonies. However, the university's social life revolved around the smaller cafes, not any centralized location.

Another significant difference was the lack of a stadium. There were no university-level sports teams per se, and the Danubian Olympic Team was not associated with the university at all. There was an athletic department, but its purpose was to run fitness classes for the entire university. All students had to exercise throughout their university careers by showing up for calisthenics sessions five days per week.

Another difference was the complete lack of dormitories. Almost all students commuted from their homes or lived with relatives. The few students whose families were too far to commute normally lived with family friends, or if there were no other options, in hostels run by the Danubian Church. Tiffany emphasized that there was no such thing as "living together".

Suddenly Jason and Cecilia had a sinking feeling. No "living together", huh? It was Jason who asked the dreaded question.

"Tiffany, I think we're both kinda curious. Has anyone told you ... what exactly our living arrangements are going to be?"

"Cecilia's probably going to be living with Victor Dukov's family, which is where I'm staying. One of Victor's sons just joined the Army, and so his room will be opening up in a few days. In other words we're gonna be housemates, and I'll be helping her with learning Danubian. As for you, I'm gonna guess you'll be at Spokesman Havlakt's place, since their kids are all grown up and they'll have room for you."

"But what about getting a place of our own, just us together?"

"Nope. Not gonna happen. And especially not with you two, because of your visibility. You're gonna have to put forth a good public image and show proper protocol. They're very strict about that in the Duchy. I'll give you an example, me. I'm officially a member of Victor's household. My fiancée Vladik, even though he's a cop and Victor's nephew, still has to come over to dinner on Sunday afternoons and formally court me. Even though I'm just a meth head and a criminal, he's still gotta do it. I never did anything formal in my life before I left America. But, now here I'm having to do all that formal courting stuff, just like any one else."

"Shit."

"It's not that bad, really."

"Well, it doesn't sound all that good."

In a lot of ways their protocol makes things easier. The Danubians aren't as concerned about where you come from or what you look like as much as they're concerned about "haráshkt jettít", or "the proper way to live". They want you to play by their rules. They're real big on that. You learn their rules and protocol, and they'll treat you just like anyone else. Once again, I can give you my own example. When I was starting out in the drug rehab program ... well you know, I was coming down off both meth and heroin. I wasn't a pretty sight and I had these horrible mood swings. About a week after I started rehab, I snapped at one of the doctors and cussed him out. I did it in English and I thought they couldn't understand me, which was dumb of me, because my tone of voice made what I was saying obvious. The intern confronted me, but I told him I never said anything to the doctor. What's interesting was that all of the other patients quit talking to me, because I broke protocol and then lied about it."

"So what happened?"

"I had to take a switching, and that was my first lesson about the values here. What happened was that at the hospital they switch you for stuff like disrespect, but in my case they were going to cut me some slack because they thought I didn't know what I was doing, you know, being a foreigner and not speaking the language. I thought about it and figured: screw it. Just 'fess up, take the consequences, and get it over with. Once I apologized and took the strokes, that was it. It was as though it never happened after I admitted I was wrong. That's all they wanted, just for me to say I was wrong."