Belgrade Noir Page 7

  They look at each other.

  “Lucky Charm is closed. My last client was the first killed in the series of oncology clinic murders. He was sitting in the exact same chair you are now sitting in when he told me that I had cancer. There you go, you can have fun at the Story and then go chase after the murderers.”

  No reaction comes from Vera at first. Then: “Doctor Milošević? I know.”

  The reaction from Harijeta is visible, her eyes popping out of her head. “How do you know?”

  Vera takes a moment to think. “I saw him come in here. I was walking down the street, from the market. And I read the news. A few days after I saw him, the news was that he was gone. What did he want from you? Money?”

  “That’s a trick of the trade,” Hari snaps, intending to stop this insane conversation. “And I don’t believe that Nađa didn’t send you here to get some dirt.”

  “She didn’t. I told you, I need help.”

  “C’mon, woman, how can I help you? I can’t even get up from this chair. If I could, I’d throw you over the fence right now. And how can you, when you’re so—” She was about to say cadaverous. “How do you even have the strength to run about, move metal sheets, sneak around, and harass—”

  “I’m sorry. I have to.” Vera’s facial expression doesn’t change even when she apologizes. “Mara has disappeared. I’m begging you to help me find her. It’s urgent.”

  “Who the fuck is Mara?”

  “The peasant from the market, from the other day. I have to find her.”

  “Then get yourself to the market and find her.” Harijeta has really had enough. For the umpteenth time this morning.

  “She’s not there. The day before yesterday I insisted that she move in with me. She didn’t show up. She wasn’t at the market yesterday, nor today. Her phone is out of service.”

  “Insisted? To move in with you? What right do you have—”

  “What right do I have?” Vera barks. Then she goes silent, thinking for a few seconds, and continues, “Okay, I’ll explain it to you.”

  “Just be quick, I need to lie down soon.”

  “I’ve been buying fruit from Mara for five or six years. We got to chatting, almost became friends. I was already alone at home at that time . . . And so we made an agreement that on Mondays, when the market is closed, she would stay in Belgrade and clean my house.”

  “Wait, you were already alone? You divorced?” Hari is unaware that she’s entering the standard routine. Interrupting the client with more questions.

  “No, I never married. I don’t have children. My father left us when I was a child. My sister died. Mother before her. Before Mother, my aunt. The four of us lived together ever since I can remember. And they left, one by one. Breast cancer. Now me, it’s genetic. I won’t be long now . . . That’s not important, but Mara . . .”

  Harijeta is speechless. And her scar burns, it burns terribly. It’s the nerves, she thinks to herself, staring at Vera. Genetics? There was this woman who was in the same room with her during pre-op, deeply sedated and babbling about genetics, murders. There was chaos in the hospital that morning, the body of Dr. Milošević had been discovered, already decomposed . . . But she can’t remember anything clearly!

  “Mara’s family ordered her to leave Belgrade, they needed her to work in the village. Then she appeared at my door, with a lump in her breast the size of a child’s fist . . . just around the same time you and I were running into each other in the hallways of the oncology clinic, waiting for surgery.”

  “I don’t remember you,” is all Hari can say.

  “And it’s better that way. But I remember you, it was hard not to notice your red mane. Sorry, you’ll grow a new one. Anyway, I wrote her first referral to a specialist, and somehow I expedited her surgery.”

  “You bribed someone? Someone from the newspaper?”

  “No. It doesn’t work like that with doctors—bribes are taken from patients, rarely from colleagues. Doctors are a mob.” She goes silent and then corrects herself: “We are a mob.”

  “I figured that out on my own even without your help, a long time ago. What you’re saying doesn’t absolve you from—”

  “I didn’t come for forgiveness, I came to look for Mara. She’s had her surgery. She has a chance, chemo started on time, but those criminals—”

  “You doctors?” Hari brazenly interrupts again.

  “No, her people, from the village, they solved the problem of her chemo by sending her to the market, to sell grapes. Between treatments. No wasted time. That’s why I insisted that she move in with me—I see you’re frowning at my interference. As if I care. She’s only halfway done, but soon she’ll feel sick. She needs to rest, she needs to eat, and not be like you.” Vera waves her off, as if Hari is a lost cause.

  “And you think you’ll look after her? Look at yourself, woman, you’re like a twig.”

  “And do you know where the sellers from the market sleep? I’m not talking about wholesale merchants, but peasants, the ones who lure half the city to Kalenić Market. Authentic, I heard one nouveau riche cow say in passing, how she only buys from authentic peasants. Do you know where all the boxes and carts of vegetables and fruit that can’t remain in the stalls disappear in the evening? They move to Vračar basements, along with the sellers. Have you ever walked around here at twilight? Or at six in the morning?”

  “Frankly, no. Or I don’t remember. Neither did I look around. Sometimes Laki and I drink beer at Kalenić . . . Is it okay to drink beer, doctor?”

  “You can, if you’re able to. Mara. She sleeps in a basement with her grapes. Half of the old buildings around the market stay standing by renting basements to peasants. That’s how they supplement their budget. Maintaining these houses has become too expensive. People sell them and leave Vračar. Lila might do that too, someday. Who knows what they could build in this spot then? A spa. A casino. A villa for some criminal, a villa even older and more beautiful than the one they demolished.”

  “If you thought we’d go around nearby villages and look for her, forget it. I can’t drive.” And you even less so, you phantom, Hari thinks to herself.

  “No. I wanted us to look for her together down below. In the basements. To be honest, I’m afraid to set out alone, maybe something has happened to her, she got sick or—”

  “Which one of them is her basement?” Hari makes an effort to get up and look for her bandanna. She’ll take the skeleton to the fucking basement and be done with her.

  “I don’t know. They all hide their burrows from each other, because somebody will come and pay more, for a bigger basement, closer to the market.”

  Fuck, Kalenić under Kalenić seems to be the business center of Belgrade, Hari thinks while dragging herself off the lounge chair. “So what’s the problem? Afraid you’ll see a corpse, doctor?”

  “No. I’ve seen plenty of them. But I don’t know my away around in the dark. And I don’t know how to get past the door buzzers. I’d have to lie so they’ll let me into the buildings. You probably know some tricks.”

  “True, I got a degree in ceiling and basement navigation, and a doctorate in buzzer deceit. Idiot . . .” Hari is now up, unlocking the door. “C’mon. We’re going, and after that you are getting out of my life.”

  * * *

  The two bald women, one with a straw hat, thin like a ghost, and the other with the colorful bandanna on her head, in jeans that were always too baggy, visit eighteen Vračar basements around Kalenić Market in total, posing as mail couriers, godmothers who came for a birthday and forgot their glasses, pizza delivery . . .

  Hari hasn’t done this before, but her imagination flies when she’s in action. They couldn’t get into some basements because their doors were locked. In others they found nobody alive, or dead, luckily.

  Their flashlights reveal hills of potatoes, crates with apples, large plastic bags containing carrots purchased in some supermarket—which are obviously repackaged and sold as homegrown—two
inflatable mattresses, an occasional pillow, one camping bed, a decommissioned couch, pears, imported cauliflower left to wither and appear organic, a mirror next to a basement window, blankets—some folded up but more often thrown over a makeshift bed—sneakers, plastic canisters with water . . . and no grapes anywhere, or any trace of Mara.

  * * *

  Vera stops by the fence of the gray one-story house where she lives, the one with a peeling facade, and pets the two cats stretching on the wall. She opens the metal gate with a creak and enters the yard. A few crates of grapes lie by the open basement door. Mara comes out, looks at her, and cracks a toothless grin. Definitely cynical.

  “Where have you been, doctor? You scared me shitless! Are you done? I was afraid. All I could think was, She’s stronger than you, maybe she even knows karate . . .”

  “Nothing is done,” Vera answers tiredly, and sits on the steps by the back door. “The spots you picked were stupid. And we ran into at least five people who knew me. You can’t plan a murder willy-nilly. There’s nothing I can do for her, she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. My fault, I shouldn’t have told her that I killed all those corrupt doctors, scum profiting from others’ suffering. But we were sedated, waiting for surgery, you remember how it is. For a second I had my doubts, I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me, if she really understood. But the way she looks at me. And how she refuses to admit that we know each other. And some things she says . . . Besides, she gave me a better idea. But this time you have to pull your weight too.”

  “That won’t be so hard for me. Now you’re father and mother to me, may they both drop dead! I only have you. If they lock you up, I’ll end up six feet under too.”

  “Stop your blabbering. You’ll live, I promised.”

  Mara goes to the basement with two crates of grapes in her arms. Vera digs into the canvas bag. She takes out a bottle of chloroform, a cloth, an old metal medical box with syringes in it. At last she finds her cell phone.

  “Hello, Nađa.” She is silent for a long time. Nađa is monologizing. “Can you check when the construction is scheduled to start at the house on Topolska Street? They’d know in the municipality, because of the traffic. So let’s organize a protest. Peaceful, of course. This is Vračar, after all, we’re not savages, we’ll let them work, but we’ll stand in the street with banners. They’ll respond better to that, it’s more publicity . . .”

  PART II

  The Dark Corner

  A DIFFERENT PERSON

  by Vladan Matijević

  King Aleksandar Boulevard

  Translated by Sibelan Forrester

  Peppy, I’ve decided to kill someone. I decided in one instant and then didn’t think any more about it.

  A river of people was flowing around me, King Aleksandar Boulevard, the bulevar, was breathing deeply. The sun-roasted cars were racing around, beggars asking for money. Street vendors were offering sunglasses, umbrellas, underwear, socks, shoelaces, insoles, cosmetics, children’s toys, medications that hadn’t yet expired, to passersby. They sold their goods from improvised stands made of cardboard boxes and pieces of clothesline.

  I was standing, just like every morning, close to the Đeram market and shouting from a wobbly footstool: “Vlast ima kapacitet!” (“The authorities have a tremendous capacity!”)

  Hardly anyone looked at me, the rumble was constant, but I didn’t give up. Kombucha was playing Clapton on his guitar, I had to outshout him too.

  “The authorities have a tremendous capacity! The authorities have a tremendous capacity!”

  I didn’t give up my political protest. People in this city don’t care about anything but politics and the crime report; if you want them to pay attention to you, you have to stay within the framework. The daily newspapers have turned into mouthpieces of the regime, no one reads them, people have more faith in me. And I have faith in the people. I eavesdrop on other people’s conversations.

  Yesterday by Lipov Lad kafana a patient fell out of an ambulance and died instantly, last night on Maxim Gorky Street a man bashed a woman’s head with a beer stein . . .

  Every so often in Belgrade a husband kills his spouse. The women have never looked better, every second one could be a runway model, but they get no benefit from their beauty. I say that some devil has entered into people, but no one gives a damn. Inspector Vasović gives me a barely perceptible nod. He goes to the market every morning, but when he’s not in his office he has no interest in what’s happening in the city.

  * * *

  I met an interesting young woman. The way she walked reminded me of Žana, my first love. She was going down the bulevar to the Vuk Monument and suddenly came to a stop in front of me. She addressed me as druže, “comrade.” She was tiny, with red hair and a ring through one nostril. She gave off an air of cleanliness.

  “Comrade, will you sign my petition against trashy culture, schund?” she asked. Two pimpled teenaged boys stood behind her.

  “Against schund?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “I will,” I said, and started to get down from my stool.

  She held me by my upper arm with both hands, she was afraid that I might fall and perish before I could fulfill my promise. I’m sure she didn’t think I meant to run away from her, it was obvious that I wasn’t hesitating. Who, Peppy, could miss out on an opportunity to settle accounts with rubbish?

  As I took the papers and pen I noticed that there were already many pages filled with signatures. The campaign they had started had accumulated plenty of supporters. In addition to my signature, the girl wanted my personal ID card number. I pulled out my military service booklet, to this very day I have no other documents, and I copied the number from the first page. A photo of our little volunteer, um, paramilitary brigade was sticking out of the booklet, I pulled it out for a moment and looked at it. The girl didn’t like that, she made a face. Perhaps I could kill her went through my head.

  The two hunched, pimply kids neither moved nor spoke. I thought they might be mute. I asked the girl what her name was, she said Ira. I decided she had gotten her nickname from the Irish Republican Army, and I liked that. Kombucha had moved on to playing Bob Dylan.

  * * *

  Belgrade, Peppy, has become a monster. Mothers here name their sons after famous criminals, politicians have run out of neglected relatives, so they put their house pets in government positions. Now our leaders moo, baa, bark, and meow at us from their official armchairs.

  Anyone who’s dissatisfied with the condition of society can complain, the counter’s open every weekday from ten a.m. to four p.m. However, there’s always a long line, plus the computer has crashed, and you can’t get anything done without the computer. They say they’ve called the IT man, but he won’t show up, he hasn’t been paid for the last time he fixed things.

  Thus, no one will be surprised when I carry out a murder. It’s a firm decision, Peppy. But who should I kill? At first glance, it seems easy to choose a victim. In Belgrade, no matter who you look at it seems that you wouldn’t be wrong to kill them. However, that isn’t so. Many of them aren’t worth the time or energy . . .

  Yesterday, the Danube tossed up the lifeless body of an opposition party leader, last night a television magnate overdosed in the Intercontinental Hotel . . .

  A couple of police are walking in my direction: a young woman and a tall, bare-chinned young man. Pairs of handcuffs jingling against their butts, the weight of their pistols pulling down their belts.

  “The authorities have a tremendous capacity!” I shout as loudly as possible. They don’t even look at me.

  I can’t say anything wrong, the police never pay any attention to me, nobody mistreats me. People are tolerant of me. Both when I was shouting “Let’s clean up Serbia!” and when I stood at the intersection by the Lilly drugstore and directed the traffic, no one did anything to stop me. No one wants to get into an argument with me, Peppy. Probably because I’m crazy.

  * * *

  M
y health’s pretty good, I can’t complain. Sometimes I mix up the past and the present, but that’s not terrible.

  Peppy, nothing’s terrible here, people quickly get used to everything. No one minds that they pour water in the gasoline, that they mix air into the natural gas, that they send your electric power at a low voltage. Babies don’t mind that their milk’s diluted, sick people don’t mind that their injections are diluted, drunks don’t mind that their rakija is diluted. Pedestrians don’t protest that the streets are dug up, that cars are parked on the sidewalks, they jump and fly like the Chinese warriors in the movie House of the Flying Daggers.

  I asked Doctor Teodosić to prescribe me a higher dose, what I get isn’t enough for me, but he won’t. He thinks I might be selling my medication. Why would I sell my meds when I don’t even have enough? Doctor Teodosić asks me how it is I haven’t died yet—I ought to, if I’m taking everything he prescribes for me.

  “Why would I die, doctor?” I act surprised. “A person quickly gets used to everything here.”

  There’s always someone outside his office who’ll make a fuss that I’ve cut in line, but I don’t pay any attention to those losers. Maybe sometime I will, when I have a weapon on me. “The authorities have a tremendous capacity!”

  If only Kombucha knew about all the pills I have, he’d shove me off my footstool, snatch my key, and hotfoot it to my apartment. Nothing would stop that guy, whose nickname comes from fermented mushrooms, from robbing me. As it is, whenever he lands on hard times he brings his books and sells them cheap. It’s mostly philosophy, Kierkegaard and crap like that. Sometimes I buy one of his books—to be honest, philosophy relaxes me.

  * * *

  The woman whose husband hit her with a beer stein has passed away. The doctors fought for her life, but the hospital didn’t have enough units of blood on hand.

  Peppy, we never have enough of any of the blood types. Every day more people die a violent death here than are born. Death drives an electric lawnmower and clears out the streets of Belgrade, if you aren’t a killer then you’re a victim. Neutrality has lost its foothold, the laws are the same as on the battlefield. Perhaps that’s why I’ve succumbed to the general atmosphere, the euphoria so to speak, and have firmly resolved to kill someone. I probably won’t be punished for the crime, which gives me additional motivation to carry it out.