Chapter 2 Unfortunate Order

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Having lived for some years and having completed a few education stages, you strongly believe that life will only calm down, you are bound to settle down, obtain a diploma, get married, possibly get pregnant. Expectations are rarely correspondent to reality.

The last thing she wanted to be doing in the early days of September, just weeks before her last year of studies, was to sit in one dilapidated Warsaw’s police department, ready to be questioned over the most embarrassing thing she had ever ordered online. To make matters worse it was not the only reason. Now she was the victim, even worse, the villain, in a typical case of domestic crime. Now she was a potential murderer.

Sure, she got into this fight. Sure, she exaggerated. She might have not mentioned the police, but he, for the hundredth time over the past couple of months made her furious.

And she thought that the years of heavy partying, meeting weird people in strange circumstances and doing all those inappropriate, ridiculous and unreasonable things were over. Nothing was apparently over, and life seemed to prove her wrong, which she sensed sitting on a line of chairs occupied by thieves, murderers, assassins and God knew who else. Possibly there were sitting only petty criminals, but this wasn’t the environment she saw herself in. At least not yet.

Then the door opened and a tall dark figure made itself visible. A police officer looked at everybody in the line, stopped briefly, noticing her, frowned, pointed at her and invited her to a small, grayish, oddly furnished room. The man was a strangely handsome - even for a policeman - individual. Not that policemen couldn’t be handsome but this particular had looks more of an actor or a TV presenter than someone living the average life. He was in his mid-thirties, possibly early forties, though his hair barely bore the signs of aging.

The man encouraged her to sit down.

‘Sorry for the waiting. We had a busy week. You’re the last one for today. Name?’

‘Lena Zaya,’she answered rather angrily.

‘Have you got an ID? Let me have a look. Oh, Zaya... Are you Polish?’

‘Don’t I sound Polish?’, she asked the tricky question.

‘You don’t look Polish. That’s what I was suggesting. Asian? Chinese? Where is the surname from?’

‘I’m half-Mongolian. My father was Mongolian. My mother is Polish. What does it have to with the matter?’

‘I’m just curious,’ the police officer was strangely calm, ‘Mongolia. This sounds exotic. I’ve never been there.’

‘Me neither. Parents separated when I was little. I had my tough time at school, believe me. I’ve never been in a yurt.’

The man didn’t smile. He was digesting the data.

‘Are you still a student? Do you work?’

‘I study English. It’s my final year. I work at a language school for children.’

‘Oh. So you speak English. See, I have never been able to master the craft. I’m hopeless at it. I don’t really know why...’

‘Maybe you just don’t learn. You’re not systematic. You haven’t been motivated. Everybody now knows English. It’s nothing special.’

The police officer was silenced, but he smiled at her attitude.

‘OK. Yes, I do agree that languages are useful. I had my time abroad. I actually worked for Berlin’s police department for some time. Drug cases mostly. Have you ever lived abroad?’

‘London. Half a year. It was after high school. Well, a little bit longer after high-school. I earned some money for studies in Warsaw. I changed my course of studies. English wasn’t my first choice.’

‘What was it then?’

‘Medicine. See, I was a bright student. I even didn’t mind the dissecting room or those dead bodies. But the longer I was there, the more I felt that it wasn’t for me. So I dropped out, went to London, worked at a cafe for some time, returned and enrolled to study English philology. Possibly it was dumb, you know career prospects and so on. There will always be jobs for doctors. But I like learning languages. I’m kind of good at it.’

The police officer nodded in understanding.

‘Fine. Let’s get to the case. We brought you here for two reasons. One is an apparent violation of consumer rights. You were a part of a bigger group of victims of the online shopping fraud. We got over a thousand complaints. The woman was receiving the money transferred to the bank account and she didn’t ship any promised goods. Let’s clarify, What have you ordered?’

Lena Zaya didn’t blush. She didn’t even blink.

‘A dildo.’ she answered calmly and clearly.

‘Would you be so kind to describe it?’

The police officer was apparently having fun, as he was smiling under his nose in a rather indiscreet way, not even trying to act professionally.

‘It was an average dildo. Twenty-five centimeters long. Plastic. With batteries. Nothing special.’

‘What color?’

‘Black.’

‘You mean like a black man’s penis? You know what they say about black people, stereotypes and so on...’

‘That’s racist. And Asians have little? I’m half-Mongolian, remember? That’s rather offensive.’

‘Yes, we established that. So what kind of black?’

‘Normal black. Plastic black.’

‘Plastic black. So why have you ordered it? For what reason?’

‘For rolling the dough.’

‘I didn’t ask for stupid answers.’

‘So don’t ask stupid questions.’

‘Fine. I need all the proofs of purchase, mail correspondence with that woman, anything that might come in useful. I cannot guarantee anything, such cases usually drag for a long time. Next time I suggest going to a trusted sex shop and saving some money. Next case. Gabriel Gacek wrote to us that he was afraid that his life was in danger and that you threatened to kill him.’

Lena Zaya shrugged.

‘I should have killed him long ago. He’s hopeless. I wrote to his sister that if he doesn’t stop calling me, I would either go mad or sue him. So he sued me, instead. Revenge, a joke. I really don’t know. He’s been behaving strangely lately.’

‘But who is he?’

‘My boyfriend. He lives in Cracov. Now it’s fine.We had a fight. I’m not going to kill him. Next year we’re moving in together. He’s a little bit crazy. He gets emotional.’

The police officer knuckled on the table, wondering.

‘Fine, I’ll let you go. But for such threats, you might face prosecution and be put in jail for three years. If I were you, I’d pay attention what to say and to whom. Experience, believe me. Your closest friend can be your biggest enemy...’

When Lena Zaya left the office, Robert Rej had two very strong impressions left. First was totally unreasonable, since very deeply and very surely he felt that he actually found his life’s best friend. The fact, considering his life circumstances, made him extremely glad, as his life felt literally like shit. You could call him a freak, but he distinctly felt that this significant event in his life was as certain as attractive was young James Dean, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Brad Pitt.

Ten years younger, English teacher, of half-Mongolian descent. He couldn’t explain it, as he couldn’t explain many other hunches in his life, but this time he was sure. He was sure of another thing in his life. Not only was she going to become his best friend, but also she was going to become his professional partner, she wasn’t aware of the idea yet.

Since for years he changed his colleagues, looking for someone who could cooperate with him on the everyday basis, hopelessly trying to find someone who would be trusted and could be trusted, he never found anyone of the kind. And now this young, beautiful, dark-haired girl sat there in the less than romantic situation of having been cheated by a dildo seller, and he instantly knew that that was it.

And he had another equally strong hunch. He was sure that Gabriel Gacek was a far bigger fraud than the woman selling dildos online.

Due to his family life being over, Robert Rej had a lot of free time on his hands. For this reason, he managed to get access to Gacek’s social media correspondence, his current address and his usual places of habitation. Gacek was one of the dandy boys. He wasn’t particularly handsome but he knew how to dress well, what kind of hairstyle to wear and what music to listen to according to trends. He seemed like a difficult character, moody, sociable, and slightly less smart than he expected to be perceived. A bit cunning, but not necessarily to cunning to be transparent.

As Gacek was cute (and Robert Rej could say something on the matter) he managed to accumulate quite a big group of college friends, especially girls, so it was difficult to distinguish whether Lena Zaya was, in fact, his real girlfriend, as all of them he treated more of less the same. The correspondence was similar, similar were also the places of gatherings, dates and social events.

Robert Rej was so intrigued by Gacek’s figure that on Saturday morning in mid-September he drove to Gacek’s place of residence and observed his every move. Gacek was a lazy student and he could be one, as the school year hadn’t even started, but Rej had to wait for five hours to make the lord get up from his bed and finally go somewhere. Gacek was too much in his own thoughts to notice that the head of Warsaw investigation department was following his every move and taking pictures of his every activity, monitoring his every coffee on the go and making a thorough research of his each and every acquaintance. And after a few hours, Robert Rej was sure of a couple of things.

First was that Lena Zaya wasn’t his only girlfriend. Maybe she was the longest, as their correspondence started years ago, but since this time Gacek had time to find new objects of his adoration.

Gacek spent his Saturday afternoon with one girl on a Cracov’s Planty walk, managing to squeeze the evening at the Old Town cinema with another lovely prey, reserving time for a blissful morning at the Wawel brand shop with traditional chocolate with the third young girly flirtation, it was actually Lena Zaya who came to Cracov on Sunday evening, and her, on the other hand, he took to his place, as he wanted to keep her at home.

Robert Rej quite quickly was sure that the upcoming month was going to be quite an illuminating one for his half-Mongolian friend. But he wanted to make the experience for her as real as possible.

Next week, he phoned from the office and asked Lena for an urgent arrival at the police station on Saturday morning. When she finally came, he put the unsuspecting girl into his private car and drove her to Cracov. It was a three-hour drive through lovely mountainous and green area, a ride Robert Rej covered just a week before, and so did Lena Zaya, but previously, she had been taking a train. When they arrived, he asked her to be discreet and hide behind the shadowy window from the potential looks of Gacek’s irritable eyes. Then he started the same journey as he had taken a week before and showed her every flirtation, every date and every coffee on the go. And as he saw that the events happened in the same way as a week before, he was proud of being successful.

His pride wasn’t shared. His efforts weren’t appreciated. His friend’s facial expression bore the signs of something bigger than a sense of despair.

Lena Zaya didn’t cry. She was furious. If she hadn’t been held in a car with a police officer, she might have just as well gone out of the car and killed her boyfriend in front of the man and the girls.

Robert Rej tried to be supportive.

‘I have pictures from last week. It wasn’t the first time. He meets them regularly.’

‘Do they know?’

‘I doubt it. He’s really good at time-management. He really doesn’t make you feel neglected.’

‘True. I wonder how he manages his studies, though. And work.’

‘He doesn’t study. He stopped more than a year ago. His mother has no idea either as she still sends him money for tuition. I checked his account balance.’

And now Lena Zaya swore. Appreciating her attractive female and young physique was probably not giving justice to her personality, but it was a big mistake to ignore her swearing, as she really meant what she said.

‘And I was supposed to move to Cracov and live with him.’

‘You’ll just have to stay in Warsaw. Unless you can imagine yourself living in a harem...’

That was a mistake. He shouldn’t joke at the situation just yet. She looked at him with her dark slanted eyes and she started crying. Robert Rej didn’t know what to tell her because he thought it was better to know the truth than to live a lie, but she might have a different opinion on the matter. He didn’t even mention the yurt thing.

‘If it makes you feel any better, my wife left me last month. She has a man in Berlin. She took the kids.’

Lena Zaya looked at him in suspicion.

‘Is that a dating proposal? I’m cheated, you are abandoned? We would make a perfect couple?’

‘I wish. I’m... I’m gay’.

That was his first coming out ever. He was hoping for some disappointment.

‘Oh...’

That was her only reaction.

‘I bought you something. I thought that, taking into account circumstances, you might need something of the kind. Twenty-five centimeters. Black. I thought it looked pretty decent. And the company is trusted. They have excellent lubricants...’

Lena Zaya looked at the package which was placed in front of her and timidly opened the wrapping paper. It was a dildo.

Leaving the fact with no comment, she wanted to have another thing in her life arranged.

‘I want them to know. They should know that he cheats on them as well.’

Robert Rej had a very discreet idea. He put the pictures of each of the girl and Gacek into an envelope and addressed it to every girl, making sure that she wouldn’t receive the picture with herself. Lena was so kind to buy a flowery stationery ornamented with hearts, flowers, and birds.

The following day, all of them received a lovely romantic envelope, each with a photograph, signed with the name of the girl, her contact, the day and the place of the date with Gacek, and also a suggestion of the meeting, if they wanted to compare experiences.

Robert Rej and Lena Zaya never knew whether they met and how their lives changed after the correspondence, but their way back to Warsaw was not really enthusiastic. They traveled in silence. He drove the devastated girl back to her place, and when she was leaving the car, she didn’t say a word.

Gabriel Gacek’s life was made slightly miserable when suddenly none of his life companions seemed to want to have any contact with him and blocked him on all social sites. To make matters worse, a letter was sent from the University officials to Gacek’s mother, informing her that her son had not attended any lectures and exercises for over a year and whether she could so kindly ensure that her son wasn’t in fact dead. Gacek was dead for some time, taking into account his lack of occupation, money and love life, but this taught him one lesson, to cheat more carefully and never to trust anyone on his way. Once a cheat, always a cheat, they said. And Robert Rej knew something on the matter.