Conversation · Cleaning Lady

"Give me a moment..." The cleaning lady still seems to be having difficulty breathing.

"Do you know anything about a secret meeting that's happening tonight?"

"What?" She frowns. "No. Nobody tells me anything."

Would she understand if they did?

"How about any unusual activity taking place after hours? Say after 22.00?"

"If it ain't my business I keep my nose out of it..." She shakes her head and mutters to herself.

"Think we'd all be better off if people kept their noses to themselves."

"I am looking for Martin Martinaise."

"Oh, you'll find plenty of Martins here, don't you worry!" She smiles a gap toothed smile when she hears you mention the name.

"What do you mean? I wasn't joking."

"Pea-brain, someone played a trick on you. Martin Martinaise is a name for anyone from Martinaise. Like Jim Jamrock or Raoul Revachol."

Oops... you really didn't get the joke there.

"I thought it was obvious..." He stops before he offends you. "Anyway, officer. We don't have the witness' name."

"No, you don't understand. I'm looking for a real person named Martin Martinaise. He told me he's Martin Martinaise."

"I have a few questions about those apartments..."

"Ask away, policeman."

"Who lives behind the padlocked door?"

"Oh, that one is a scientist, a future scholar!" Suddenly the old lady's face is beaming.

"I think he studies astrology at the community college. Education's good, I always tell them to study."

"Astrology?"

"Something to do with all those stars around his door. He asked me to leave his drawings up on the wall."

"Are you sure you don't mean astronomy?"

"That's what I said, astrology."

The lieutenant shakes his head, as though to say 'let it go.'

C'mon people, try to keep up any standards here. It's not about stars, it's... forget it.

"You mean the star-and-antlers? I think that's the symbol of communism."

"The symbol of what now?"

"It's for loons who have no idea how economy works."

"Economy? Why should anyone care about economy?!" She shrugs and returns to sweeping.

"Communism. It's a political ideology."

"Ah!" the cleaning lady says, leaning on her broom. "All I know about politics is that it has brought us more harm than good."

"You know, the ones who support the working class against Capital."

"Huh," the cleaning lady says, "I thought Revachol was the capital."

"Communism. You know, like in the world revolution?"

"Never heard of it," the cleaning lady replies, before another coughing spell takes hold of her.

"It's a symbol for contributing to the demise of our noble state in the name of some made-up world of 'equality'."

"I don't believe in equality. Never seen it work." She shakes her head and returns to sweeping.

"It's an ideology. It has some noble aims, but it's also been used to justify terrible bloodshed."

The cleaning lady shrugs and returns to sweeping.

The clash of ideas and atrocities are as far from her world as fairies and wizards.

"What can you tell me about Cindy?"

"The artist?" She scoffs. "Nothing I can do about her, I'm afraid. She ruins the walls faster than I can clean them. Still..." She leans on her broom.

"She leaves an old lady to her business. More than I can say for others..."

"Tell me about the man who lives at the end of the hallway -- Uuno de Ruyter."

"I don't want to talk about de Ruyters," the cleaning lady mutters. She starts digging for something in her pockets.

"Why not?"

"Addicts, all of them... And sometimes I hear them screaming." She winces.

"They don't like me cleaning behind their door, think I'm listening in on their fights."

So she doesn't. Not after that one time. There's a that one time here.

It didn't get physical. She heard something she doesn't want to hear again.

"We saw unpaid utility bills -- aren't they going to be evicted?"

"No one likes them in this building." She shakes her head. "It's only because of the kid they haven't been thrown out."

"I don't like talking about those people," she looks down the hallway.

"Okay."

"I don't like talking about them," she says mostly to herself.

"I saw unpaid utility bills -- aren't they going to be thrown out?"

It was dirtier there. After the janitor's closet. She avoids the end of the hallway.

"Who lives in apartment #12? I heard snoring."

"The de Ruyters..." She frowns. "He's chained it and fallen into a stupor again."

"Sounds like he has."