Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.
— Edgar Cayce
The reader may reproach me for resorting to a literary cliché, but there is simply no other way to put it: Pavel Afanasyevich Berendyai was beaming. No, not merely beaming—he seemed to glow with some fantastic, unearthly light. The moment he crossed the threshold of his apartment, he flung his briefcase into a corner of the hall and joyfully announced to his wife, who had rushed out to meet him:
“That's it, Mashka! I'm a minister! My dream has come true… Or rather, our dream has come true.”
“Dear Lord!” His wife crossed herself and threw her arms around his neck. “Congratulations, darling!”
Tears glistened in her eyes.
“Didn't I tell you I'd become a minister one day?” Pavel Afanasyevich declared, drawing her close and stroking her back. “And you had your doubts…”
“I didn't doubt you, Pashenka,” she sniffled. “I was just afraid of tempting fate. You remember what my father used to say—God rest his soul. He almost lived to see this day, didn't he? ‘Don't shout “Hop!” until you've cleared the hurdle.’”
Berendyai gently held his wife at arm's length, raised his eyebrows and said cheerfully:
“Oh, don't be silly! What's all this blubbering for? We should be blowing trumpets, and here you are shedding tears!”
“But they're tears of happiness, darling! Just think how wonderful this is!” she exclaimed.
“Well, now you can shout ‘Hop!’ all you like,” her husband joked. “We're starting a new life, Marusya.”
“Hop! Hop! Hop!” His wife clapped her hands. “But… wait a minute… minister of what? Which ministry?”
“A new one.” Pavel Afanasyevich smiled. “An entirely new one.”
“A new one?” she asked in surprise. “And what's it called?”
“The Ministry of Dreams,” her husband announced.
“You're joking!” she said incredulously. Then, putting on an exaggeratedly plaintive face, she whined like a little girl: “Oh, come on, Panya, tell me! I really want to know!”
“I'm not joking.” He kissed her forehead. “The President has already signed the decree establishing the Ministry of Dreams. Mikhal Mikhalych recommended me for the post. So, essentially, it's all settled.”
“But what kind of ministry is that?” his wife asked, almost in a whisper. “What will it do? Put on television programmes like Good Night, Little Ones?”
Pavel Afanasyevich laughed at first, but then his expression grew serious.
“Your sarcasm is out of place, my dear. This isn't nearly as simple as you think. The matter—I mean the creation of the new ministry—was discussed at the Security Council, I'll have you know. And the decision was unanimous.”
“Well, we've never had a problem with that,” she remarked sarcastically, waving a hand. “What a surprise! If there's one thing we know how to do, it's vote unanimously. But tell me what your ministry will actually do. And what's the salary?”
Pavel Afanasyevich sighed heavily, took off his coat and went into the kitchen.
“The salary is quite respectable,” he began, “but that's not the point…”
“What do you mean, not the point?” his wife interrupted. “Surely that's one of the main…”
“Don't interrupt me,” he said with a frown. “The salary is the least important thing here. It's the sort of position one could hold without being paid at all. Do you understand?”
Maria opened her eyes wide and shook her head.
“No, I don't. How can you work without a salary? As a volunteer?”
“Mashenka, darling, I'm speaking figuratively. You can't imagine how much money they're allocating to us from the state budget. Billions and billions and billions…”
“But what is your ministry going to do with it all?”
“Decode the dreams of our citizens!” Pavel Afanasyevich blurted out. “Can you imagine? We'll know what every citizen is dreaming about. Special devices are already in production. Within a year they'll be installed in every flat, every house… No one will be able to conceal their dreams from us. And we'll take action.”
“Who could possibly need that? Why poke about in other people's dreams?” Maria asked, covering her mouth with her hand.
“What do you mean, who?” Pavel Afanasyevich snorted. “The state, of course! Dreams are… well, you see… an extraordinarily valuable source of information. There's even a saying: what you think about by day, you dream about at night. Tell me, what did you dream about last night?”
His wife flushed until her face was as red as a ripe tomato.
“What difference does it make?” she said, waving the question away.
“I'm interested,” her husband replied. “After all, I'm the Minister of Dreams now. I have a duty to know what my own wife dreams about.”
“Are you going to spy on me, too?” she snorted.
“Why call it spying? Every citizen will be required to submit a weekly report on their dreams. And if we catch anyone lying, we'll take the appropriate measures.”
“What sort of measures?” she asked, suddenly frightened.
“First, a preventive interview. The second time, administrative detention. And if they still haven't learned their lesson, the third offence will mean criminal charges.”
“Have you all gone mad?” his wife cried. “You're going to put people in prison for their dreams?”
“Not for their dreams, Mashenka! Not for their dreams!” Pavel Afanasyevich looked her straight in the eye. “For lying. Here I am, asking what you dreamed about last night, and you keep evading the question.”
Maria shook her head and declared angrily:
“What business is it of anyone's what a person dreams about? I don't want to discuss it. It's my private affair. They're my dreams. And whatever happens in them is nobody else's concern. What kind of madness is this? Are you playing some sort of joke on me?”
“No, it's not a joke,” Pavel Afanasyevich answered, knitting his brows. “Our scientists have proved that properly decoded dreams can help us identify crimes while they're still being planned: theft, bribery, fraud, terrorist attacks, all sorts of rebellions… But tell me, what did you dream about last night?”
“I don't want to talk about it,” his wife said firmly.
“Something forbidden?” Pavel Afanasyevich smirked.
“Not exactly,” she sighed. “But…”
“Go on, tell me,” her husband encouraged her. “Don't be shy.”
“I had an erotic dream,” she admitted, blushing deeply.
“Well, well!” Pavel Afanasyevich clapped his hands. “Now that's interesting! Very interesting. Tell me everything!”
“I'm embarrassed,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“Embarrassed? With me?” He thumped his chest with his fist. “Since when have you been embarrassed with me? We're about to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary, and now you're shy of your own husband!”
“Please, leave me alone.” Maria held out her palm to stop him. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“I don't like this at all,” her husband said irritably. “Have you started keeping secrets from me?”
Sensing that this conversation would come to no good, Maria decided to change tactics. She put her arms around him and said affectionately:
“Don't worry, darling. I'll tell you everything tonight, in bed. It'll be more appropriate there. For now, go and change, wash your hands, and we'll have dinner. We ought to celebrate, too. After all, they don't make you a minister every day.”
Pavel Afanasyevich nodded contentedly and took his wife's advice.
A year passed. The Ministry of Dreams had grown to astonishing proportions, and its achievements were no less astounding.
Five regional governors found themselves behind bars: they had been regularly dreaming separatist dreams. Around ten mayors were arrested for planning, in their sleep, to steal public funds. Factory directors, school principals, hospital chief physicians and university rectors all suffered under the new system. Police officers, judges and prosecutors were caught taking bribes.
The dream-reading devices worked without interruption. Signals poured in from every region. A special ministerial commission laboured tirelessly. One official after another was summoned before it. The members listened carefully as each official described their recent dreams, then withdrew to deliberate.
First, the commission decided whether the person was telling the truth or lying. Next, its members put forward their own interpretations of the dreams. Finally, they reached a decision.
Almost everyone lied. Some embellished their dreams, others left out important details, and still others invented things they had never dreamed at all.
One judge concocted such a dream that he left the entire commission bewildered. He began by explaining that, in his dream, the President had invited him to a barbecue. Afterwards they went skiing together. Then a polar bear attacked the judge. He courageously beat it with his ski pole until the frightened animal ran away.
One of the commission members asked:
“And what did the President do?”
“Nothing.” The judge spread his hands. “He watched. Then he took a state decoration out of his pocket and awarded it to me for bravery.”
“Tell us, comrade, are you sure you aren't lying?”
“Why would I lie?” the judge protested indignantly. “It's the honest truth!”
“That's impossible!” an elderly woman shrieked. “Does the President carry state decorations around in his pockets? What kind of nonsense are you making up? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?”
The judge laughed.
“Wait a moment, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “It was a dream. I don't choose what I dream. I simply tell you what I saw. You're the ones insisting that I give you an honest account.”
The commission members whispered among themselves and signalled for him to continue.
“After I received the decoration,” the judge went on, “I invited the President to a restaurant. It's customary to drink a toast to a new honour, after all.”
“And did he accept?” the restless young woman asked again.
“Of course.” The judge nodded. “Who would turn down a fine cognac?”
“Our President doesn't drink!” the woman objected.
“Madam,” the judge replied, “I repeat: it was a dream. Anything can happen in a dream.”
His account ended when the commission cut him off in mid-sentence and withdrew to deliberate.
About an hour later, armed men entered the room where the judge had been sitting, bored and waiting. They were members of the Ministry of Dreams' special forces unit. A minute later the commission emerged from the conference room. Its chairman read out the decision:
“Judge Balalaikin, the commission has concluded that your dream constitutes a threat to the state. You are hereby sentenced to three years' imprisonment, to be served in a high-security sanatorium and dream-treatment facility.”
“How dare you?” the condemned man shouted. “This is outrageous! What have I done? Why are you sending me to prison?”
“Calm down, my dear fellow,” said the chairman. “This isn't a prison. It's an excellent dream-treatment facility. Why can't you understand? You urgently require intensive treatment. Normal people don't have dreams like yours. It's disgraceful!”
“But what am I guilty of?” the judge protested. “I… I…”
“You aren't guilty of anything,” the restless woman replied calmly. “But dreams like yours are prohibited by law.”
“I've been a judge for fifteen years, and I've never heard of any such law!” the man retorted.
“Quite right!” the chairman chuckled. “This law was devised specifically for our department. Ordinary courts don't hear cases like these.”
The chairman ordered the guards to take the convicted man away. The judge tried to resist, but their commander subdued him with a single movement, and the special forces escorted him out.
Next came a school principal, a stout woman with rosy cheeks and an elaborate high hairstyle.
“We're listening, madam,” the chairman announced. “I trust we don't need to remind you to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”
“I don't generally tell lies, but…” The woman faltered.
“What's the matter?” the chairman asked.
“I'm not sure,” she began awkwardly, “whether you'll enjoy hearing what happened to me in my dream.”
“Nothing to worry about,” said one of the women on the commission. “We're used to it by now. Go ahead!”
The principal cleared her throat into her fist, rubbed her eyes and began:
“You see, comrades, I've been having the same dream for a month now. I've acquired a pig, and it lives in my flat. Every morning I wake up to its squealing. Sometimes it screams so loudly that I think even the neighbours must hear it.”
“How do you know?” one of the women asked. “Have you asked them?”
“No, I haven't. It just seems that way. But the worst thing is that when I wake up in the morning, I can smell a terrible stench, as though my flat were a pigsty. And the smell doesn't go away while I'm getting ready for work. I've used three bottles of French perfume in the last month alone. My secretary says she can smell my perfume from a mile away.”
“And why do you use so much perfume?” the chairman asked.
“Because, as I've just told you, the place reeks like a pigsty! I can't go to school smelling like that…”
“But the smell is in your dream, while you're using the perfume when you're awake. Where's the logic in that?”
“I don't understand it myself. Those pigs keep appearing in my dreams, no matter what I do. I'm utterly exhausted by them.”
The commission listened carefully to the school principal and reached a unanimous decision: she was to be removed from her post and sent to the countryside to work as a milkmaid.
“But why are you dismissing me?” the unfortunate woman asked in bewilderment. “I haven't done anything illegal.”
“Perhaps not,” the chairman said, “but we can't allow someone with pigs on the brain to work with children. Come back in a year. We'll see what can be done.”
In the third year of the Ministry of Dreams, Pavel Afanasyevich was informed that his wife, Maria Petrovna, had been arrested and sentenced to three years in a high-security dream-treatment facility.
“What for?” Minister Berendyai cried. “Have you all completely lost your minds? Who dared arrest the wife of the head of this ministry?”
“The commission made the decision,” his aide replied.
“What bloody commission?” Pavel Afanasyevich roared. “Get the chairman of that commission in here at once! Call him immediately. I'm waiting.”
Half an hour later, the aide returned to the minister's office with his report.
“Pavel Afanasyevich, the chairman says he can't come to see you today. He…”
“What do you mean, he can't?” The minister stared at him. “Did you tell him the minister was summoning him?”
“Yes, sir!” his aide replied in military fashion. “And I made it clear that it was urgent.”
“And?”
“He said he had his whole day planned. He has ten hearings to conduct, and…”
“To hell with his hearings!” Berendyai shouted. “I want him here immediately! Tell him this isn't a request. It's an order!”
“I'm sorry, Pavel Afanasyevich, but that's exactly what I told him. Only he…” The aide hesitated. “He explained that he now answers only to the President, and no one else has the authority to give him orders.”
“Arrogant bastard,” the minister muttered through clenched teeth. “Fine. I'll deal with him. Dismissed.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The chairman of the commission that had sent the minister's wife to the dream-treatment facility arrived three days later. The minister did not return his visitor's greeting. Instead, he came straight to the point:
“Have you people gone completely fucking mad?”
“What do you mean, Comrade Minister?” the chairman asked with a smirk.
“Never mind what I mean!” Pavel Afanasyevich frowned. “Why did you arrest my wife?”
“Our instruments showed that she… that her thoughts were directed against law and order…”
“Are you seriously telling me that?” the minister bellowed. “Who do you take me for? What the hell do her thoughts have to do with anything?”
“Her dreams indicated…”
“Shut up!” Pavel Afanasyevich stepped right up to the chairman. “What dreams?”
His visitor recoiled, suspecting that the minister was about to punch him in the face.
“Don't you know that all these dream inspections are a complete fraud? You interpret dreams however you please. And if someone says they don't dream at all, you put them down as dissidents. Isn't that right?”
“You see, Comrade Minister, there are eleven other members of the commission besides me, and I can't always influence their decisions. We have a democracy, after all.”
“I couldn't give a damn about your democracy!” the minister shouted. “Release my wife immediately! Release her and report back to me!”
“I can't do that.” The chairman spread his hands. “We can arrest people, certainly. But releasing them before the end of their sentence… only the President can do that, by special decree. I'd gladly help, but…”
“Get out!” The minister nodded towards the door.
✦ ✦ ✦
Maria Petrovna was released only after three years. Pavel Afanasyevich tried everything he could, but nothing helped. The President never granted him an audience, and no one else had the power to resolve the matter.
His wife had lost her mind in the dream-treatment facility. After her release, she wore a constant smile and spent every day watching the same feature film, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.
One night she died quietly, leaving Pavel Afanasyevich a note:
“Farewell, my love. I hope I'll appear in your dreams…”
Mikhail Samarsky • Forbidden Dreams •