Belgrade Noir

“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.”