Belgrade Noir

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

Translated by Sibelan Forrester

King Aleksandar Boulevard

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…