My stay at the Defence Minister's quarters

 This piece just came to me, in a nap right now.

The security detail to the Home Minister were not particularly happy about his coterie of low-level goons, a surprisingly inclusive group all things considered that included several women who it was known the Minister sought no improper favors from and rather acted as their guardian assuring their security, one of whom had jokingly asked the inspector one time during the duty to teach her to build a bomb. To which the inspector suggested perhaps he should also make them explode at her heart's desire and collect whatever money was to be collected and so on, until it eventually dawned on her that he was not being serious.

When I stayed at his place, for reasons not explained to me by my contacts (the dream was unclear on how I knew the Minister), there was somebody else crashing at the guest house too. Somebody I knew from way back, so we had a good time, organized small parties and what not, so things were going well.

The Minister's missus was abroad -- instead of returning between his two Europe trips, she was bridging the gap by staying over at a relative's in France and traveling abroad -- and the last time I saw the minister, my first night of the stay, there was a big party where a woman in her thirties, so full of energy was the heart and soul of the party. There was no impropriety between her and the Minister, that I could see, but the way everybody seemed to defer to her, and the way his henchpersons couldn't look at him straight in the eye, it was clear that something was up. She was not just any woman.

Turns out I was behind the times.

Two weeks into my stay in the giant palace, I acquired a decent sized piano, and a host of other knicknacks to make my stay in the heat more bearable. I made friends with the security people, his army guards were quite aloof but the local police was more than happy to talk to new people who they didn't also have to worry about taking control of should the situation arise. It was the inspector, who was the main man incharge of securing the compound, who told me the news and provided me with the relevant newspaper page3 report.

The talk of a potential mistress had been all over the papers for weeks, and now the woman was dead.

My compadre in the guest house had made friends with the local operators and I would go visit their houses every so often. Again, it occurred to me that the level of operational security and carelessness they displayed towards a stranger was shocking. As soon as I informed them that I was a guest for a short while, they opened up to me like a romance novel.

These thugs had a very feared leader who didn't look kindly to them skimming from the middle, and his payment and threats of reprisal were not sufficient in those rough economic times. All the money that was being skimmed then didn't go into bank balances or ostentatious display of wealth but in small improvements. A high-end AC system that ran on basically no power nobody would know the true value of, an  expensive foreign air purifier that could be passed off as  a cooler, pricey insulation hidden amongst the cheap looking bales of cotton, those were the kind of things they invested on. Their North Face and Rado looked exactly like the ones belonging to the rest of the neighborhood, but they were genuine. High resale value. Latest gaming consoles and television sets hidden into the bodies of much chunkier older modes.

One evening, one of them, a woman -- a girl, she was no more than 22 and I wondered how she'd found herself in the situation -- whose family we were at dinner for, asked me what I thought about the murder or if I knew anything about it. I was in a pleasant mode, so I said in a conspiratorial tone, to not be overheard, hey I thought it was your other boss's job, and winked. Her face darkened, her mood soured all of a sudden and she didn't talk much to be after. To me that meant either she had the same suspicions and was not happy about it, or that the very mention of her other boss was not something she was happy discussing with me in the open.

The days  moved  by slowly, trickling like an an jar's honey. I taught myself to play decent piano, worked on my stories and books, and went out on long walks around the neighborhood. On the weekends I was accompanied by the security people for they too were interested in seeing what the other ministerial coteries were up to, and it was a whole production, noisy and rowdy. The weekdays were mine alone, on a rare occasion my housemate who had now begun working at an office would join me, but beyond that it was rare to see him outside the house. Not that I believed he worked in an office either, but at least he had someplace to kill time. I hoped that's all he was doing.

During those walks around the colony and beyond, I made a few friends, among them the more rebellious daughters of Ministers and various government bigwigs who came out walk their fluffy dogs. That was the joke in the community, the fluffier the dog, the richer and corrupt the minister. I was made fun of at the start because of my mustache, I looked like a cartoon inspector from the movies. Eventually we connected on shared interests, and they had friends of friends who I knew of in the West, which warmed them up and put me in their grace. Never went to the hangouts they invited me to, I didn't understand the nature of my stay and didn't want to jeopardize it under any circumstances.