Belgrade Noir Read online

  There were, of course, women. I mainly indulged in brief and rather meaningless relationships, mostly with younger female students. At some point my parents realized that I wasn’t studying or doing anything, so they decided to try to discipline me by withholding money. It was sometime in the fall of 1998, a few months before the NATO bombing of Serbia began. I had just started working as a night guard. Some guy had a private pharmacy on March 27th Street near Palilula Market. Drug addicts had broken into the store a few times looking for narcotics and strong painkillers. He needed a guy on duty from midnight until eight in the morning. It was perfect for me: I usually read at night and slept in the morning anyway.

  I bought a gun just to be safe, but no one actually tried to break in once they saw the light on and a guy inside. In February of 1999, I met Katarina there. She pounded on the door; she urgently needed Voltaren suppositories. Her son had a fever, and she couldn’t get anything else to work. Even though I wasn’t the pharmacist on duty and it wasn’t in my job description to sell drugs, I gave her a box. Two nights later, she came to thank me. I invited her for a coffee, and so it began.

  She was four years older than me, her son was in third grade, she was divorced. We married in November of 2000, right after Slobodan Milošević fell from power and things were returning to normalcy. I was thirty-two and went back to college. It just suddenly made sense. Katarina’s husband had left her with a large apartment on Cvijićeva Street after the divorce. When we got married I moved in with her and rented my ground-floor apartment to students. Katarina was a dentist and earned good money, so she supported us financially while I, through some of my parents’ connections, got a job as a lawyer in one of the few banks that were still state-owned. The pay was good, and the position was mostly protocol. I barely lasted five years there.

  Katarina supported my idea to open a kafana. I found a perfect place near the pharmacy I’d worked at as a night guard. I’d sit in the kafana, sipping a White Russian cocktail, imitating the hero of the only film from the nineties that I loved the way I loved old black-and-white films: The Big Lebowski. The kafana did quite well for some time. I enjoyed being the owner, flirting with girls who came in, treating them to drinks and all that, but I tried not to engage in full-on adultery. But then I hired Anđela as a waitress. Anđela was twenty-five and I was forty-five, but the age difference didn’t bother her. And stereotypically—in the middle of a midlife crisis—I was madly in love again, and this infatuation fucked up both my business and my marriage. Less than a year later, the kafana was bankrupt, Katarina had left me, and in the end I left Anđela too.

  More than twenty years after I bought the apartment on the ground floor, and fifteen years after I started renting it out to students, I went back there. I didn’t know what I would do with myself. I had some savings because I kept the money various tenants paid me over the years in an account that I mostly hadn’t touched.

  It was at that time that Nađa appeared at the door. After she left the apartment I looked at her business card. At the top was Sweden’s coat of arms, below was her name, then farther down, Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden, while her number and e-mail address were at the very bottom. I was considering where to start.

  My friend Mirko was a journalist specializing in stories about war and war crimes; I could ask him if he knew who came from Serbia to run riot in Rudo and thereabouts. At one point while owning the kafana, one of my bartenders was from Priboj. His name was Petar. He was too young to remember the war, but Priboj is a small place, and he’d know who to see about a guy by the nickname of Vojvoda.

  Mirko didn’t answer the phone, so I called Petar. He still worked as a bartender, but now in some neighborhood near Bogoslovija. His shift had just started and the bar wasn’t crowded, so if I had time, he suggested, it’d be best that I come over right away for a drink.

  Like he’d said, the kafana was practically empty. Petar was listening to Leonard Cohen. I sat down at the bar and ordered a whiskey. I started in a roundabout way, saying I’d recently heard from a high school friend now living in Canada that he hangs out with some guy from Priboj supposedly called Vojvodić. Petar frowned and said he’d never heard of any Vojvodić from Priboj. I said maybe I remembered wrong, maybe that’s not his last name, maybe they just call him Vojvoda. Petar burst into laughter: “Hey, now that’s a different thing. There’s a guy in Priboj who everyone calls Vojvoda, but fat chance he ever went to Canada.” I started asking questions, but the answers disappointed me. It turned out he was some village idiot, a slow kind of guy who lived on charity. He was called Vojvoda because before the war, during the rise of nationalism, he used to sing Chetnik songs in the street.

  That couldn’t be the guy who had taken Nađa’s father. I lit a cigarette, and as I put the lighter back in my pocket, I felt my phone vibrate. A message from Mirko. He’d been doing an interview outside the city in Novi Sad earlier and hadn’t been able to answer. Now he was on his way to Belgrade and hadn’t been able to grab a beer. Great, I texted back and sent him the address of where I was. As time passed, the kafana slowly filled. Petar had less time to chat, but when I realized he couldn’t help me I wasn’t really up for talking anyway. I waited for Mirko, turning to the door every time I heard someone walk in. They were the typical early evening kafana customers from the edge of the city. Like in one of those Springsteen songs, these were people who’d lost something that was the center of their lives: sometimes a woman, sometimes family, sometimes work, sometimes an apartment—sometimes all of it at once—and they were just looking to get through the day. They bet on soccer, bummed cigarettes, drank the cheapest rakija only to pass the time faster, until it was time to go to sleep, and after hundreds and thousands of these days and nights, it came time to die.

  At first glance, Mirko looked like a regular at one of these joints: unshaven, balding, with an eternal cigarette in his hand. Disheveled clothes. He was, however, one of the most reputable journalists in Serbia. He had been a brilliant medical student at the time the war broke out. In the summer of 1992, during the break between his third and fourth years, and after he’d taken all of his exams, he was hired as a fixer for foreign journalists reporting from Bosnia. He never went back to school, or even to his old life. The horrors he witnessed urged him toward a search for truth through writing. He became a journalist, focusing on writing about the war, war crimes, criminal privatization, and transitional theft.

  He was very skinny and could drink three, four liters of beer without seeming drunk. It wasn’t clear to me how he could hold that much liquid in his body. He was on his third pint when I asked him about a guy named Vojvoda who ran around Rudo and that area.

  “You know what,” he said, “that’s the thing about the war in Bosnia. It was so awful that there were some places where, for no reason whatsoever, thirty or forty people were killed, but your automatic reaction was to say that nothing notable happened there since in neighboring cities hundreds, even thousands, were killed. Same with Rudo: shit happened there, but much less compared to Foča or Višegrad. But I think I remember a few accounts of the guy you’re thinking of. He ran a small unit that mainly targeted prominent rich people who sometimes managed to survive because of their connections with local police and military at the beginning of the war, in small towns where there wasn’t any direct armed conflict. They would pay money for protection, and it would keep them safe for a few months. In addition to Rudo, I think he also showed up in Čajniče and Trebinje, all during the summer of 1992. By early fall he was gone. He was probably a careful guy, stole as much as he could, then went back to Serbia to milk it as long as possible. Yeah, he was definitely from Serbia, somewhere close to the border, like southeastern Bosnia or eastern Herzegovina, but I don’t know how you singled out Priboj and Raška—it could’ve easily been some other place. I think he had one of those generic names like loads of other Serbs—our ‘John Smith,’ if you know what I mean.”

  When I asked him if it was possible that Vojvoda
was in Belgrade these days, Mirko said of course it was possible; people from all over Serbia were moving to Belgrade en masse.

  We parted ways around ten in the evening. I was completely plastered; he looked like he had been drinking tea the whole time. On the way out he said, “You know, if you want to find this guy, the best thing would be to check out Romanija, a hole-in-the-wall near the Pančevo Bridge run by Ranko—they call him ‘Leopard.’ He did five years in prison for crimes around Rogatica. A lot of people who fought in that area hang around there. Someone there’s gotta know him. But be careful, those guys are fucked up. And take money to buy them a few rounds of rakija. That’s the easiest way to loosen them up.”

  On the way home, I went to KGB for one more drink. It was a kafana near my apartment named after the Russian secret service, an appropriate symbol of the Serbs’ ambivalent attitude toward everything Russian and Communist. With that thought in mind, I ordered a White Russian. I was resolved to only have one. It wouldn’t bode well for me to be hungover tomorrow.

  My life would certainly be different if I’d been rational enough to stop drinking when I should have. And unfortunately, KGB is one of those kafanas that’s open as long as there’s a customer. So I stuck to the bar until four in the morning, drinking at least five cocktails too many.

  It took me ten minutes to drag myself home, then I slept for ten hours. I woke up around half past two in the afternoon. A cocktail hangover is fucking rough, but when a man gets enough sleep everything’s better. Anyway, it was unlikely that Romanija would even open before four or five in the evening, and it was highly unlikely that the types I was looking for would come in before nightfall.

  I first went to the Stara Hercegovina restaurant to eat some veal soup, pljeskavica with kajmak, and šopska salad. That combination raises the dead. I had to be somewhat fresh: in order to gain the trust of the old drunkards there, I’d have to drink too.

  At six thirty p.m. I was at Romanija. The kafana was in semidarkness because only one flickering bulb illuminated it. Inside were five tables, two of which were occupied. At each sat a guy in his sixties. On the tables were checkered tablecloths and ashtrays. I sat down and ordered šljivovica, a plum brandy.

  The fat, middle-aged waitress looked grotesque in a miniskirt. As she came toward me with a tray in her hands, one of the guys smacked her ass. She acted like she didn’t even notice. Another guy stared into the darkness through the window. No one here seemed particularly communicative.

  After drinking two brandies alone, it turned out my lighter wasn’t working, so I went to beg a light off the guy who had unsuccessfully attempted to sexually harass a pudgy woman. I figured he was giving communication a wild shot. The whole time, the other guy stared off into the dark like a zombie.

  This guy handed me his lighter without a word. When I lit the cigarette he motioned for me to join him at his table, again without a word. He waved at the waitress and said: “Give us two rakijas on his tab.” I nodded my head. He asked me why I was in the bar. Said he’d never seen me before.

  He had a strong Bosnian accent, which gave me an idea: I told him, “I’m Sarajevan; the war started while I was a student in America, I lived there a long time and recently came back. Some friends from high school told me about a graduation reunion, and I only then learned that my best childhood friend had been killed in the war. His name was Bogdan and he died as a Serbian soldier somewhere around Rudo, so I’m interested in knowing more about his death, since no one in our class is in contact with his family. You know how it is in Sarajevo: before the war we were all together—Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Jews, you know—and after the war, everything fell apart.” I made up a bunch of lies from a kernel of truth, hoping it wouldn’t sound like complete bullshit.

  The guy started giving me shit. “Why didn’t you come back from America to fight with your people?”

  My problem with the war was that they were all my people; Nađa was surely more my people than this idiot or Vojvoda, but I had no intention of saying that out loud. I was even okay with him giving me shit—at least then I knew he believed me.

  My interlocutor motioned for the waitress to get us two more rakijas, then casually nudged the zombie: “Hey, were any of our guys in Rudo?”

  The other guy was silent for a minute, like he didn’t even register the question. Then, without even taking his eyes off the window facing into the dark, he replied: “Stevo was there, with some guy called Vojvoda.”

  At first, my guy couldn’t remember who Stevo was. I talked nonsense about how I didn’t know if Bogdan had a tombstone, how we’d like to put together some money to get him a cross—maybe even write up a story since we wanted to publish a booklet about our class for the reunion. After another round of rakija, the guy murmured that I obviously had money for drinks, since stonemasons and printers didn’t work for cheap, so maybe I could jog his memory. I gave him fifty euros, and he immediately remembered that Stevo’s last name was Perić, then asked the waitress for his number. We had another drink.

  In the meantime, three other people came into the kafana and sat at an open table. They called the guy from my table to join them. As he stood up he said, “You have what you came for, so you should get out of here. If you call Stevo, tell him Ranko the Leopard gave you the number.”

  I was tipsy, but not enough to fall asleep easily, so I returned to KGB. I smiled a little to myself for not realizing that the guy who’d slapped the waitress’s ass owned the joint. Him asking her for Stevo’s number came back to me. It seemed like he was one of those old-fashioned types who didn’t even own a cell phone. I decided to try something crazy. I took out my phone and wrote a message to Stevo: Hey compadre, I’m sitting here with Ranko the Leopard. He gave me your number and says you know Vojvoda. I haven’t seen him for thirty years, and we’ve known each other since we were kids. Give me his contact info if you can.

  I didn’t even finish my first White Russian when his reply came: I don’t see him much anymore, but I know his wife owns a flower shop on Ilije Garašanina Street.

  My hands started to shake. It was nearby, and not just near me now, but near Tašmajdan Park where Nađa had seen him. I paid for the cocktail and headed for the street. I knew it was too late and there was only a slim chance of the shop being open, but I wanted to see where it was. The street wasn’t too long and not very close to the cemetery, so I doubted there were many other florists.

  Sure enough, there it was near the intersection with Takovska Street: a tiny, inconspicuous flower shop with Owned by Đorđe Jovanović written on the glass door. I stood there and laughed aloud. Ah, the patriarchy, I thought. This one wouldn’t allow his wife to formally own the shop if his life depended on it.

  Walking slowly to the apartment, I wrote a message to Mirko: Could our “John Smith” be Đorđe Jovanović?

  He replied within a few seconds: Fuck if I know. I could swear that was his name, but if you wrote Jovan Đorđević, I’d probably tell you the same thing.

  Normally I didn’t make cocktails at home, but I had a bottle of whiskey handy. As I set a glass on the table in front of me, I saw Nađa’s business card. Warmed by alcohol, I texted her: There’s been a little progress in the investigation. See you tomorrow?

  She responded in less than five minutes: Are you in Palmotićeva? I’m nearby, and can come right away.

  Without even thinking I responded: Come over.

  I lit a cigarette and for the first time started thinking about what I really wanted to say to her. I wouldn’t tell her everything, not yet. I’d tell her I had a lead on a guy from Vojvoda’s unit, and explain a bit about how I investigate, tell her a few stories.

  The cigarette hadn’t even burned out when I heard knocking on the door. I opened it. She was smiling, had obviously been out, and was a little drunk. She looked younger to me than the last time, in a short skirt and heels with a little too much makeup.

  She came in and I offered her a drink. She nodded. I handed her a glass, she took a
good long sip, and then she looked at me. “So, did you find him?”

  I lit another cigarette. “Not yet, but I’m close.” I told her what I’d been up to, leaving out a few details. I didn’t tell her I already had the number of a guy in Vojvoda’s unit, but that I was going to get it.

  When I was done, she dropped her head. I thought she’d fallen asleep, that she was comatose from drinking, but then I noticed her shoulders shaking. She was crying. It wasn’t like I couldn’t really console her from a professional distance. I approached her, kneeled in front of her chair, and took her hand.

  “Don’t cry,” I said.

  She abruptly stood up, and I stood too. She hugged me and mumbled something I didn’t understand, probably thanking me. I stroked her hair, felt on my cheek that her cheek was wet, and then suddenly, and a little surprisingly, that her lips and tongue were too. We kissed, and I realized that this was why I’d called her.

  We stumbled to the door that divided the living room and bedroom, where we fell onto the bed. The rest is history.

  When I woke up, it was still early morning, but she was already awake. She acted completely sober, as if she hadn’t drunk anything the night before. She was lying at the end of the bed, flipping through a book. It’s easy being young, I thought to myself. “Want coffee?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said, so I got up to make coffee.

  When I came back, she’d already gotten up. She wasn’t fully dressed, just wrapped in the shirt she was wearing the night before.

  She took a sip of coffee. “You know, last night I wasn’t myself. My emotions got the best of me. Like everything came full circle. Like my dad rose up from the grave to tell me everything would be okay.”