Belgrade Noir

And before Mirko hung up, in a tiny fraction of a second, shorter than the one between the moment I felt that her cheek and then her lips were wet, I realized that although I’d said nothing to her, everything she’d needed was in my phone. I realized that I’d never hear from or see Nađa again. And I realized that I should stop drinking White Russians. Even without them, I’d think of her too often.

Regarding the Father

by Vladimir Arsenijević

Translated by Ena Selimović

Topčiderska Zvezda

Whenever one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

— Isaac Newton

“We goin’?” I say.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Zoe responds from the front passenger seat.

I listen to her quickened breathing in the dark. Then I put my seat belt on. I turn the key in the ignition. The car rumbles. The headlights switch on automatically. As the two powerful beams illuminate the tree-lined plane before us, the ancient trees seem stunned, as if caught in some wrongdoing.

Before we set out, I look at Zoe again. I raise a questioning eyebrow. That almost always makes her smile. But, apparently, not now.

Zoe doesn’t return my look. She stares straight ahead. Her forehead is coated with droplets of sweat. Beneath her white shirt, her chest rises and falls visibly in the darkness.

“Okay,” I sigh. I lower the handbrake, then move my foot off the brake pedal. I slowly press on the gas and release the clutch. “Then let’s go,” I say.

From a poorly lit side path, we drive onto a freshly paved road with a line of evenly spaced streetlights that border the northern end of Hyde Park on the slopes of Topčider.

It’s late and cold. An easterly wind is whistling, and a sharp icy rain is falling diagonally. Except for the occasional superenthusiastic runner on the trail winding through the small woods, there is nobody around anywhere. Even the private security guards, tasked with protecting all those mansions in the vicinity (which have for decades alternated between various generations and members of the political, economic, and entertainment mainstream), are holed up in their poorly heated cabins.

In the hollow silence, we drive toward Topčiderska Zvezda. Even though it’s only early November, the roundabout is all stacked up in tacky Christmas and New Year’s decorations. It shines in front of us like a lone galaxy in the desolation of a dark and cold universe. The two life-size wire giraffes, which have stood in the very center for years, have now sunk entirely into darkness. There were once three, but then one was mowed down by a drunk driver. The remaining giraffes have stood there in solitude ever since. When thick vines cover them in the spring, they give the impression of being almost imposing. Now, though, in November, it is as if they are there by mistake, like lost characters in the wrong fable. While one of them, the smaller one, appears to be grazing calmly, the other has lifted her head on her long neck and with pricked ears scans the surroundings in unending concentration. There’s no relaxing, they seem to be telling us as we enter the gravitational field of Topčiderska Zvezda. There’s no relaxing; someone always has to be on alert in this fucked-up city.

We followed him for days. And we just loved it. Well, at first, anyway.

We didn’t argue. We slept well. Even sex became more frequent and passionate than usual. Every morning, after a mutual orgasm, sitting over Zoe’s ginger tea and my Turkish coffee, we made plans and delegated different tasks to one another. Then we methodically went about executing them. Zoe and I had finally been living a life worth living. A life that seemed to emerge directly from a very specific pulp subgenre that we both simply adored. We were self-proclaimed heroines of a real, bona fide lesbian noir detective story.

Childish? Fuck if we cared.

We followed him all day long, literally. Wherever he went, you could bet we were sniffing around after him. From this point in time, it seems like a real miracle to me, considering all our goddamn amateurism, that he didn’t notice us. But he didn’t, no. The fact that I’m now behind the wheel, that Zoe’s in the passenger seat, and that the load’s in the trunk — that, in other words, everything turned out just as we had planned — this is evidence that miracles do happen. Well, sometimes at least.