Belgrade Noir

Hari barely shakes her head no and stares at the peasant, who appears to be in her early thirties. Missing a front tooth, she gives her a half smile. Cynically, or is she tripping?! And — wait — she’s wearing a wig — a cheap synthetic nest, the color of hazelnut — in this heat?! The wig has shifted to one side. A woman with no hair, not even one visible strand.

“Wait, I have a full one,” the straw hat digs through her canvas bag, her harsh voice matching her gaze.

The straw hat underneath which there is no hair, nor a wig? Am I hallucinating or has the illness spread to my head? Hari now shakes her head no to both women, as well as to herself, but does not let go of the stall edge.

“We know each other,” the straw hat says, like she’s making a statement, not asking a question.

Hari throws her another look. A real ghost.

“I don’t think so. I remember faces. Excuse me, I need to go. And thanks.”

“You’ll be fine. I’ll walk you out,” declares the straw hat. Turning to the peasant she adds, “Mara, I’ll see you tonight.”

That authoritative tone! There’ll be no escorting, sister, fuck off. Hari gathers enough strength to turn and walk faster, at least up to the market gate.

But at the gate of the hundred-year-old house on Petrogradska Street, a new wave of weakness comes over her. She is unable to insert the key into the lock. And there is no one to call. The owner of the house, Laki, her best friend and partner in their failed business, has taken his wife to the mountains for two months. They’re saving their marriage. They left Hari to take care of the house. For Hari it is conveninent. With her chemo treatment coming up, she can easily walk from Laki’s house to the hospital in ten minutes, instead of having to drive from New Belgrade across crowded bridges. She’ll also avoid the stress of having to find parking around the medical complex. Frazzled after her surgery, she did not object too much when Laki pointed all of this out.

She finally manages to get the key to work, locking the gate behind her. Once in the garden, she tears off the colorful bandanna from her head, wiping away the sweat from her bare scalp, convinced she’d imagined what just happened.

Harijeta, Hari to her friends, fifty-plus, former chief inspector with the Serbian police in the homicide and sexual crimes division, former chief of security in a large department store in Chicago, former returnee to Belgrade. Soon she will be the former co-owner of the private detective agency Lucky Charm, which she started with her friend Laki, this she has firmly decided. Soon she will also be a former oncology patient, at least so she hopes. She needs to make it through her last round of chemotherapy, which is hitting her especially hard. Damn chemo brain… Everything is in a fog. But this, too, will pass. Provided that she does not die in someone else’s home, in this elite part of town.

Weekend. Two days without a needle. Harijeta keeps her eyes closed, reclining on the antediluvian lounge chair, in the shade of the old cherry tree, and pretends to relax. That is what they told her — she needs to rest. They also told her, though, that she must eat. Did someone say food?

The bell at the gate is ringing. Harijeta looks at the time on her phone. Quarter to ten, Saturday. She’ll play dead.

Like hell she will!

“Juhuuuuu! It’s me! Open up!” Nađa. Laki’s wife Lila’s friend since childhood. Who will not be satisfied with the pretense that Hari is dead, but will march into the yard even if she has to jump over the fence. Every Saturday, at exactly quarter to ten, the voice is heard: “Juhuuuuu! It’s me!” and there is Nađa with her cart, crammed with the entire damn market, and with small Tupperware containers of cooked food in her bag.

Reluctantly, Harijeta gets out of the lounge chair and opens the gate.

“Why do you even lock it? My whole life, this yard has been open,” babbles Nađa when she passes Harijeta as if she doesn’t exist, walking right into the house, then into the kitchen, where she opens the fridge and unpacks the containers.

“You will eat all of this later, do you understand? You have to eat! And now, go put something on your head. I’m taking you to the Story Café. Well, you don’t have to wear anything, you’re great just like this too. When someone has a nice skull—”

“They can even go through chemotherapy without fear of ruining their beauty,” Harijeta interrupts. “I am not going anywhere.”

“You’re going. I need you. For tonight’s theme.”

The café is some twenty meters from the house, on the corner of Petrogradska and Topolska streets. It’s a prewar, one-story, witchy-looking house, surrounded and covered by vines, with a wonderful garden.