Belgrade Noir

Every Saturday at ten in the morning, Lila meets her two friends from elementary school at the Story Café. When they’re all together, they are a real trio. They cling to the idea that they are all committed intellectuals — Lila is a lawyer, one friend is a doctor, the other a journalist. Naturally, Nađa is the journalist. And every Saturday when they meet, they tackle a different sociopolitical topic. And some commitment it is! A meeting of the minds, at least according to Nađa and Lila.

Laki had told her all of this. He also has a best friend, Hari. But the two of them guzzle beer and don’t give a fuck about politics. At least that’s what they did when Hari was healthy. How happy she would be to have a beer now, but she fears the nausea that she feels with every bite or sip of anything other than water. Hari is afraid! Fearless Hari has been terrified for months.

Shit! Squeezing behind Nađa, the first thing Hari notices near the table under the purple wisteria flowers is a straw hat balancing on a bare neck and thin shoulders. That straw hat. She cannot turn around and leave now.

“Let me introduce you. This is Vera, our doctor.”

Two bald women look at each other and shake hands somewhat reluctantly.

“We know each other,” announces the straw hat.

“From the day before yesterday,” Hari retorts as she sits down.

Vera’s face is expressionless.

Nađa is impatient. “Harijeta is a guest. It would be great if she could join us on future Saturdays, of course, but today she is here on a mission.”

Harijeta gives her a confused look.

“I told you I had a topic for our Saturday discussions.” Nađa looks at them intensely. “You read about the events at the oncology clinic?”

If she expects some type of reaction from the two bald women, she is wrong.

Harijeta and Vera are silent. Disappointed, Nađa stares at both of them.

“I don’t read the news. I’ve had other concerns lately, in case you haven’t noticed.” The last thing Harijeta wants to chat with these women about is the oncology clinic.

“You don’t read the news either?” Nađa is persistent, calling on Vera now. She pulls out the cover of the Vračarski Glasnik from her bag. “‘Corruption Club Unraveling!’ ‘Bribery Scheme Uncovered.’”

“I read that, but if you’re looking for an insider, I can tell you that nothing much happens in the chemotherapy department.”

“You didn’t hear what the nurses were talking about when—”

Vera shook her head.

“But here we have an ideal situation. I looked into it — all the corruption cases the newspapers mention happened at the exact same time the murders were recorded.” Nađa takes out another cover. “‘Fourth Doctor from Oncology Murdered. Police Closing in on Murderers.’”

Closing in, my ass. The old Hari would have jumped on that piece of news. This new one, with chemo brain and a desire to forget, hardly even remembers her doctor Milošević.

“It’s suspicious that no one connects these two things. And you and Vera had your surgeries just then,” Nađa blabs on.

We were there? Hari examines Vera’s gray, tortured face. Didn’t she say that we knew each other, the other day at the market? And again now. Vera purses her lips and shoots a glance at Nađa. Those eyes… Harijeta’s brain feverishly scans images from her memory, images she is vigorously trying to delete, with varying degrees of success. No, they still don’t know each other.

“We were there together, so what?” Vera comments dryly.

“I wouldn’t say so,” Hari counters.

“Well, it turns out that here we have at our disposal a true detective, and two eyewitnesses, so to speak. So we can solve the murders. Imagine how it would be—”

“You don’t have anyone at your disposal,” Hari cuts her off, and readies herself to leave the garden.

“And there were no eyewitnesses,” replies Vera, showing no intention of leaving.

“Come on! What’s with you today? With all our talents combined, and the help of a professional, we have the opportunity to find the serial killer of these corrupt doctors! And to finally do something that matters, something this rotten state is never able to accomplish.”

Hari leans over the table. “Nađa, let me explain something to you. As a professional. And then I’m off. Look — never, ever, has one individual solved a crime in real life. Or a group, even if they were idle merry wives of Vračar. That only happens in crime novels. Go and write one, it’s your job to write, whatever it is you write about. And let the police do their job. And let me do my own work, getting cured, if that’s possible. All right now, goodbye, I’ll see you if you ever drop by the New Belgrade blocks with regard to some new topics…”

She gets up, sets a crumpled banknote on the table, and hurries out of the Story Café, and out of their story too.