Dark Protector

by Ana Calin

  Of course Tony jumped at the chance. But, contrary to what I’d expected, Damian didn’t follow.

  The place welcomed us with its orange walls adorned with paintings of fishermen throwing nets in calm seas, and broad tables laid with shell-shaped dishes. Leona was pretty creative when it came to stories, so she gave Tony details about this imaginary peasant granny who’d fed us homemade bread and roasted pork. It felt a bit like the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, with Leona often displaying a disturbed expression as if she remembered watching someone being chained and stuffed with food, then sliced open.

  Tony made himself smaller and smaller in his chair, eyes wide like onions as he constantly expected a sharp edge to the story that Leona’s tone threatened with. Soon unable to put up with the game I myself had initiated, I cut in.

  “It’s getting late,” I said, and threw another glance out the window to check if Damian and his crew came strolling down the paved little street that linked the white university building and Portofino. They didn’t, and dusk was falling. No point in waiting any longer.

  But, as we emerged from Portofino there it was, his black BMW with dark windows, parked by the restaurant. Damian himself was nowhere to be seen, yet for a moment I hoped with all I had that he’d somehow been watching us, concealed, eating his heart out.

  Then Damian appeared with Svetlana and two laughing couples from the nearby gas station. They’d most probably had their dinner at the local fast food joint. Leona chose that moment to drag me forward.

  Tony used the walk to the bus station to fill us in on the changes he’d made in his own life over this past year. He sure could monopolize a conversation.

  “I sold my car to pay for my last year at Shaguna,” – a private university with bad reputation, but no matter – “and I no longer live with my Mom.” Here he smiled at me as if that was supposed to give me some sort of satisfaction. It was funny, seeing him in his cheap suit swaying in the ride, holding to the overhead rail, yet giving me looks like he was the most powerful man alive. I barely repressed the urge to laugh.

  “Now I live with Cocker and Furious in a rented apartment at the Lighthouse,” he said. “You remember them, don’t you, Alice?”

  “Sure.” Like I could forget the two thick-necked drunkards Tony would leave me for often in the evenings—his ride or die boys.

  I tuned out his chatter, my mind spinning around Damian, and drowning in jealousy. It was unacceptable that I allowed him to make me feel so used and powerless. Then I glanced up at Tony and realized that was my pattern.

  Tony accompanied us to the gate. I was no longer angry with him. Tonight he’d been an instrument that had failed its purpose. He’d used me in far more vile ways, so this was the least he could do.

  He started visiting daily at the cafeteria. A week later, at noon, Leona sent him for coffee – the poor guy went out of his way to win her favor as my best friend and influential counselor.

  “Don’t look now, but Novac’s been watching you,” she whispered in my ear.

  “What?”

  “Whenever you glance at him, he looks away.”

  Butterfly wings flapped in my stomach. “He’s surely wondering what the deal is with Tony. He’s already made it clear that he means to protect me, he owes it to Dad. Maybe he feels guilty for keeping his whore warm.”

  I threw Damian and Svetlana a jealous glance.

  “No matter how detached he manages to appear, he’s watching you! Trust me. Whenever you turn your eyes from him, his settle on you. I mean, c’mon, he’s followed the freaking bus every night, Alice.”

  Another flapping of butterfly wings that I struggled to repress. “So what. He’s playing the bodyguard.”

  “Oh, yeah? Even here, in the full cafeteria, where nothing can happen? I don’t buy this detached act, he’s drinking you in. It’s growing more obvious by the day. Even Svetlana noticed.” Her eyes flicked to the woman, and mine followed. Indeed, she glared at me, while Damian talked to another campus heartthrob, Gino Bogza or the blonde Elven Prince, as I liked to call him.

  “Leona, he’s just keeping an eye on me because he feels he owes it to Dad.” I let my shoulders slump. I was tired of this scenario. “He extracted Dad, who is now safe with his organization, and I . . . I’m giving up.”

  “Give up?” Leona interrupted. “What if Hector Varlam is right? What if the organization Damian and your father work with is as nasty as BioDhrome? What if more people will be caught in this war between them like the Wretch and Marius Iordache? More people will die, Alice, and it will partly be on us if we don’t do anything about it!”

  “And what do you suggest we do? Grab machetes and march to war?”

  “I suggest that we work with Hector. I’ll go right away and tell him about the Giant, and how Damian confessed to working with BioDhrome’s antagonists. All this information could be vital in order to prevent the mountains debacle from ever happening again. We need to help take down BioDhrome. Meanwhile, you keep your lover boy busy so that he doesn’t worry about where I am.”

  “He’s not my lover boy,” I snapped.

  “Stop that. He watches your every move. You make sure things stay that way until I’m gone, so that he doesn’t notice and send someone to tail me.”

  Maybe she was right. Maybe I owed cooperation to the R.I.S. and to others who might fall prey to this war between the organizations. If Damian and his people were clean, then they had nothing to fear. I nodded with a heavy heart and let her go.

  Leona used the crowd pouring out of the cafeteria in the evening to leak out as well. A chance Tony took to inch closer to me at the standing table, and further from his coffee-to-go.

  “You were here all day, Tony,” I said with an awkward smile, making myself smaller and taking a step back. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Sure I am,” he replied with a slimy grin, his piggy face too close to mine. “How about we call it a day and grab some dinner?”

  I glanced over to Damian to gauge his reaction to this, but he happened to look away. My chest caved in with disappointment. Jealousy my ass. This isn’t working.

  “Maybe some other time,” I said, gathering my books and clutching them at my chest. “I’m going to Dr. Barbu’s Educational Psychology class.”

  “I thought you wanted to skip today.”

  “Yes, but then I decided it wouldn’t be wise. I have an exam with him in a couple of months, and good attendance will soften him on the grade.”

  “I can wait,” Tony said.

  “No, don’t. We might stay for debates after class. It could get late.”

  “Then just call me when you’re done.”

  “Okay, I will,” I lied with a smile.

  I was relieved to see him walk out, but I suspected he’d wait outside to make sure this wasn’t a strategy to lose him, which it initially had been.

  The cafeteria was now a more pleasant venue with only a few students left, rain trickling down the tall nightly windows, and dimming lights. To my dismay, as I glanced to the place where Damian should’ve been, it was empty.

  Despite the late hour and the scarce attendance, Dr. Barbu’s lectures always took place in a great aula, its amphitheater shape reminding me of ancient Greek plays. I loved attending seminars and lectures in these halls, wood-paneled symbols of history.

  A thin man in a tweed suit, bald atop his head but with jet-black hair on the sides, the proud bearer of a Poirot-style mustache, Dr. Anton Barbu always made an impression as he stomped into the aula. He took his place at the lectern, squared his shoulders and adjusted the mike system from his ear to his mouth. A famous and infamous psychiatrist whose name reverberated as far as the Sorbonne, he intimidated the living shit out of us. The room went so quiet, even flipping pages echoed like drones.

  Dr. Barbu had everybody’s attention in a matter of seconds, and not because his lecture was fascinating – as you might falsely expect from psych classes – but because we all desperately needed to pass his exam.
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  I scribbled as he talked, soon barely thinking of anything as my hand moved, eyes down to the page. But then he said something, and my wrist froze. Current shot up my nape, and my head snapped up.

  “More on gene-generated compulsions, their manifestations and how to identify them in Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair’s ‘Facets of the Nuclein,’ available at the city library.”

  He wrote the book’s title on the blackboard, and recognition smacked me full in the head. I’d read five pages of a book written by Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair up in the mountains. The book had belonged to Marius Iordache, the now dead journalist.

  Chapter Eleven

  “The relationship between genetics and psych might be far from obvious, but it’s there,” Dr. Barbu perorated as he paced the lectern area moving his hands like a TEDx speaker. “Genetic predisposition, behavior and mental condition are linked, make no mistake about that. Depression and schizophrenia are often genetically inherited.

  “Many of you are aspiring teachers. It’ll be your responsibility to keep an extra eye on cases of serious sadness, piercings and tattoos and, of course, watch for borderline. Request to see the parents, ask about the grandparents. Dig as deep as possible. Remember the suicide case studies last year, and remember that in all of them it had turned out that at least one family member had committed suicide one or two generations before.”

  But with a biochemist for a father and a teacher for a mother these things weren’t new to me. Not for a second did I wonder why a geneticist’s name would end up on a shrink’s list, but this particular name . . .

  That Marius Iordache had been reading a book written by Dr. Sinclair for a reason related to what happened in the mountains was now crystal clear. As it was that Dr. Anton Barbu had answers, answers worth gold.

  I barely contained myself until the end of class, when I hurried to reach Dr. Barbu to ask him questions, but some of my fellow students were faster. And just as two people still hovered ahead of me at the lectern, Dr. Barbu bluntly closed the session, grabbed his briefcase and scurried out of the aula. I ran after him, but found the hallway shadowy, echoing only the evening steps and voices of my fellow students.

  As we trickled out of the university I kept close to a flock I sort of knew until we crossed the campus and reached the bus station. Some members of the group took the same route. I moved to the back of the bus, chin deep in my wool shawl with my bonnet pulled down over my ears as they talked and laughed out loud.

  I glanced behind through the rear window. Of course a pair of headlights tailed us, but there was no way I could tell if they were Damian’s. It could’ve been anyone, just another car on the road after ours. Plus, I doubted Damian’s tailing would be so obvious.

  I would’ve peered harder, but it would’ve been too weird, since my company was increasingly interested in me. Boys stole glances as they cracked loud jokes as if taking a stage, and girls’ stares were even more unfriendly than usual. By the time the bus stopped at the intersection of Unirii with Iorga I felt like a clown in the middle of an arena.

  I got off the bus into a strong wind, tiny snowflakes whirling around me. Advancing was difficult. Soon the cold permeated through my fleece coat, and a sensation of loneliness to the marrow of my bones. The light from street lamps was a haze cast along the empty street like a tunnel into darkness, making my steps heavy and slow.

  A couple of shaggy stray dogs crept out of the shadows and flanked me. I had known them both forever – Vasile and Chanel – and was more than grateful for their company. They hoped for something to eat, begging eyes up at me.

  “Need to get to the house first, guys,” I said.

  They suddenly began to bark – a warning to any stranger to those parts, no more than the harmless tunes of home to me. Especially as we approached my parents’ gate Vasile and Chanel became increasingly alert. They eventually stopped in place, tail and ears up. Baring their fangs they growled ugly growls that made me freeze in the whirling snowflakes, peering through. I waited for the dogs to dash ahead of me as they usually did when spotting a stranger in the night, but this time they only dared the growls.

  “Freakin’ traitors,” I breathed to myself, white steam escaping from my mouth and damping the shawl. It felt piss-wet under my chin. And piss-wet is how my whole body felt in a second, as I watched with widening eyes how something moved in the darkness, as if the shadow itself had grown legs. Long, rock-muscular legs outlined through the fabric of denim as they moved.

  Then Damian’s face emerged from the night.

  We stared at each other.

  “Tell me,” he hissed, “don’t you have one bit of backbone?” His strong chin was locked, his stare steely.

  “Say what?” I forced my frozen lips to move, barely fighting the surprise he seemed to have a talent at producing.

  “Anton Anghel. A.k.a. the Jackass, if I remember correctly. You’re seeing him again. Has it occurred to you that his interest has resurfaced for a reason?” he said before I got to reply.

  “So this is why you’re here? To make sure I understand I’m once again a failure?”

  Damian took a few steps closer. Vasile and Chanel barked in alarm, but kept back.

  “With BioDhrome on your tail, trusting anyone is a bad idea.”

  “Which is exactly why I want to wish you a good night, Damian.” I pushed the gate ajar.

  Damian grabbed one of the rusty bars and yanked it shut. The old thing creaked like a wounded crow.

  “Apparently I didn’t make the rules clear, girl,” he pressed, his upper lip curling over bone white teeth. “You allow anyone to get too close, and I switch on the necessary mechanisms to keep you safe. And those mechanisms aren’t exactly orthodox.”

  The way he said it, cold sweat shot down my spine.

  “You didn’t mention rules, actually,” I managed, failing to sound confident. My voice trembled, my gaze wavered. This is how I became aware of Officer Sorescu and two of his men, acting drunk before the dump-bar. But soon they disappeared around the corner, pretending to lean on each other. After the Marvimex evening it was clear Damian was safe for me.

  “Well, I have a whole list of them rules,” he said.

  I glimpsed the light flick on between the living room curtains. Mom had surely heard the gate slam shut, but before she could look out Damian had grabbed my hand and drawn me after him. I realized he wanted to present the said list someplace else, though I didn’t see what couldn’t be clarified in a few minutes right here and right now.

  He’d parked his car around the corner, in front of the elementary school and just a street away from the seafront. Here the wind blasted, almost knocking me off my feet. Only Damian’s grip kept me standing and walking until we found the safety of his BMW.

  He had me call Mom, which I did—assuring her I was safe and sound. Tea with Damian Novac, and she approved. She didn’t ask any further questions and hung up before I did.

  I could only hope my playing indifferent worked by the time we parked somewhere close to the Mircea National College, a rather gothic-looking, shady building, which directly neighbored and resembled the Ovidius Theatre. Damian held the car door open for me to get out. In order to appear composed, I refused to put my sweaty hand in his, but took his arm instead.

  We walked in silence towards Café d’Art, a historic and busy little place by the theater. It had been at a table in the back of Café d’Art a year ago that Tony had screamed in my face, “It’s over, Alice.” Every pair of eyes had turned to us. And every pair of eyes had known us, since we were regulars here.

  “Please, keep it down,” I’d begged in a small, rickety voice, lacing my fingers together in my lap. He banged his fist on the table, making my teacup clatter against the saucer.

  “It was stupid of you,” he’d spat, his eyes alight and his face red. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! Now your father is gonna think I pushed you to do it.”

  I kept kneading my hands painfully under the table. “I already explained to him why
I gave up his money. And besides, why does it matter what he thinks?”

  “It matters because he can destroy my life with one single phone call! And he’ll surely want to punish me after this. Did you stop to think about that when you made the stupidest move ever? No, sure you haven’t,” he’d grunted, measuring me up and down like I wasn’t worth a spit. “You don’t think much, do you?” He’d poked my temple with his index finger as he spoke the next words. “This monkey brain of yours isn’t built to think of others, only of itself, right?”

  Tears had burned in my eyes. He’d turned and left. I’d stayed there, sniffling and wiping my nose with my sleeve. When I finally looked up again, everyone was staring.

  I wondered why Damian brought me here of all places, among the people who’d witnessed my embarrassment. His arm curled around my waist, and he acted as possessive as he had at Marvimex as he led me among the open mouths to a small table by the bar. As if he were proud to have me.

  Had it been Friday evening this particular table would’ve been taken, but couples rarely had romantic dates here on weeknights. Weeknights were for groups, like those Tony and I had belonged to in his phase as a drunken poet.

  We used to come here and hang with his artist friends, Tony reciting his newest poetry, which was better than I like to admit.

  The enclosure by the bar made for a more intimate atmosphere than the other tables offered, while it still lay in the public eye, so to say. The thick candle that presided on the table enhanced the sensation of privacy, and the butterflies in my stomach went frantic against my best wishes. Behind us, dark cherry curtains separated the pub from a more or less secret access corridor inside the theater.

  Damian helped me out of my coat, then he peeled off his trench coat and sat down to face me, unnervingly close across the small table. He wore a dark shirt with a few buttons open to reveal the top of his perfectly defined pectorals. I swallowed hard and fixed my eyes on his, pale green. The butterflies weren’t doing any better so I looked aside.