Belgrade Noir

Together they went to a one-bedroom apartment on the last floor of a standard three-story building. She was very surprised when Neđo pointedly rang the bell and when, a moment later, a girl opened the door. It took her a second or two to realize who she was. It was Zumreta Alispahić, of course, but more properly nourished and changed so much from that first encounter that M.N. could barely recognize her. Her eyes gleamed and her cheeks charmingly blushed whenever Neđo addressed her. She fulfilled every order at once and without any comment. She was his faithful, obedient slave. That was obvious from the beginning. The journalist, who had recently read a lengthy essay on Stockholm syndrome, had it all quickly figured out. Or at least I thought that I had it all figured out, she wrote.

As the evening wore on, Neđo, who tossed back brandy like there was no tomorrow, grew increasingly drunk. He babbled about anything and everything, but the journalist could barely concentrate on his words. Instead, she observed how his behavior toward Zumreta was gradually changing. It was, she wrote,

increasingly less commanding and increasingly more intimate. At one point, slapping his knees with his open palm, he called her over to sit on his lap.

(Zumreta obeyed that command, like all the others.)

With affection, in which there was at once something of the father and something of the lover, Neđo enlaced his rough soldier’s hands around her thin waist. He kissed her forehead, eyes, and lips, stroked her hair and cheeks.

(Zumreta, so small and slender, bent supplely into his large body.)

Only then did everything become clear, the journalist wrote. She felt dazed as she watched the two lovers, the victim and the perpetrator, exchanging hugs and kisses. Maybe Stockholm syndrome works in both directions under certain circumstances? But then disgust overwhelmed her and all she wanted to do was leave.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” she whispered to Zumreta in the kitchen as they waited for the coffee to boil.

In the living room, Neđo, already dead-drunk, was singing a sorrowful sevdalinka off key.

Zumreta smiled in response. She reminded M.N. of a stuffed bird. “Why?” she asked.

Zato što će te ubiti, budalo, thought M.N. “I’ll save you!” she rasped.

“No one needs to save me from anything. Or save anyone, for that matter,” Zumreta calmly replied. “Neđo loves me,” she added, arranging the džezva

, cups, sugar cubes, and Turkish delight onto a tray. And then she turned and looked straight into M.N.’s eyes. “I’m carrying his child.”

“I’ll save you,” the journalist repeated, though this time less forcefully.

The next day M.N. fled, helter-skelter, from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She felt sick, was out of breath, and thought she was going to have a heart attack and die. But her breathing became much easier, she admits, as soon as she crossed the border into Serbia.

Although she never again returned to the war-ravaged Bosnia, she continued to produce, almost mechanically, article after article on the heroic fight of the persecuted and suffering Serbs against the invasive hordes of Muslim militia.

And then the war was over. And then the years went by. Maybe she was once somewhat scared of possible consequences, but this changed over time. She grew more relaxed and understood that no punishment awaited her around the corner. But she was riddled with a guilt that kept growing stronger. She would often remember the emptiness in the eyes, the blush on the cheeks, and the broad, happy smile of Zumreta Alispahić. Whenever she dreamed of her, and she dreamed of her often, she inevitably woke up in sweat and tears.

She would discover the rest of the short and unhappy fate of Zumreta Alispahić years later, however, from the court testimonies of the Case of the Women at the Korzo Motel. But sparse evidence collected at the court hearing was not enough for her. She acquired permission to interview the two survivors and thus gathered additional data. Here is what she was able to add to the story.