Belgrade Noir

Kombucha was hoping he could reach the bulevar and we would protect him. Everyone here who sells, begs, and picks pockets has some kind of cold steel: a knife, an awl, a hatchet… Even Miljana, the little woman who sells handicrafts, has a chunk of rock at her feet. Only Drago is weaponless, he stinks so badly that surely no one would touch him. I don’t have anything on me either, but I look dangerous.

The two young police officers were patrolling the area. The proprietors spoke to them sweetly. As I had expected, the farmer caught up with Kombucha. He grabbed him by the hair and pulled him backward. Kombucha fell down, the enemy sat on his chest, put his hands around his neck, and started strangling him. At first, Kombucha resisted, then he went limp. The young policeman started walking quickly in their direction, but the policewoman pulled on his sleeve and they went off in the other direction. Afterward, the farmer went back to his stand. Kombucha lay there without moving, and it wasn’t until half an hour later that he painfully got up and staggered toward us. His face had gone dark, unrecognizable, his neck was blue, with broken capillaries.

In Dedinje a terrier bit off a woman’s hand, four elementary schoolchildren beat a math teacher to death with baseball bats…

Did I imagine it, or did someone among the passersby mention Iron Butterfly? I concluded that the American rock band must be coming to Belgrade: lots of older musicians have gotten back together in order to tour here. I got the urge to go to a rock concert after not having gone to one in the past twenty-five years. The authorities have a tremendous capacity! I shouted with all my strength that the authorities had the capacity and snickered, satisfied. I knew what kind of person I should consider as a victim, the circle was narrow. The farmer who throttled Kombucha had helped me. I realized that I didn’t want to kill him

, but I’d be glad to bump off Kombucha.

Peppy, I want to feel grief after the murder. That emotion lasts longer than others. This society, along with every individual in it, lacks continuity. Therefore I’m going to kill someone who’s dear to me. The first one I thought of was Ira. Then I thought the best thing would be to kill Oliver. I like him the most. Oliver is nice-looking, lively, and cheerful until a limousine with tinted windows stops next to him in the evening. Then he gets unhappy and reluctantly climbs inside.

Oliver is forced to prostitute himself because he’s supporting his sick mother and two younger sisters. I’ll definitely kill someone I like, someone whose death will make me suffer for a long time. The grief will help keep me from drowning completely. I don’t believe in the torments of conscience, just the way you didn’t believe.

Yesterday at a construction site in St. Sava Street, a supporting wall collapsed and buried three people; last night two men impersonating police officers handcuffed a salesclerk in a grocery store on Kosančićev Venac and emptied his cash register of all the money he’d made that day…

My day was complete — I saw Ira again. Her hair was the same color as last time. I asked her how I could get a ticket for the Iron Butterfly concert. She told me to ask Smiley. “He has everything, and if he doesn’t have something he’ll always find it.”

I told her that I didn’t know who Smiley was.

Ira couldn’t believe it. “Everybody knows Smiley,” she asserted, “he supplies all of Belgrade. This city would fall apart without him.”

I had the impression that she appreciated how I wasn’t like everyone else. I looked at her pleadingly and she promised she would get Smiley involved to find me a ticket for the concert by the group with the beautiful name, which she hadn’t heard of until then. After that, she talked for a long time about that Smiley, with great respect, admiration, and love. I thought he must be her boyfriend. “Smiley is a power,” she declared. “At the 1991 demonstrations against the government in Belgrade he wanted to charge the police cordons, he wanted to topple the Slobodan Milošević regime with his bare hands and stop the war.”

I didn’t respond, she probably wouldn’t understand my sense of humor. You shouldn’t joke with anyone these days, Peppy, every person here is a ticking bomb.