Belgrade Noir

I met Dr. Edward Ryan, called Eddie, the head of the American Red Cross in Serbia, in the Belgrade army hospital. A solid, strong man, you didn’t know if you were looking at a soldier or a doctor. He was a little of both. I’d seen him earlier, how he briskly walked down the Belgrade streets while the people cried out, “Viva, Ryan!” He was famous even before he came to the Serbian capital. Somehow the residents of Belgrade got wind of his heroism in Mexico, how when the Mexicans put him in front of a firing squad and accused him of being an American spy, he just smoked his pipe and waited for them to shoot, cool as a cucumber.

And now he was smoking that same pipe, looking at me as though he suspected something. Then he offered me some rakija. On the worktable lay an undetonated grenade.

“I like being around death,” he told me. “So I’m always on the edge. Sharp as a bayonet. Ready for action.”

And he really was.

With him, generally, there was no bullshitting. He knew he’d lock up his closest colleagues if they turned on him. He worked day and night. When he wasn’t in the operating room he was roaming around Belgrade, picking up supplies, food, medicine, and training people amid the ruins.

He came to Belgrade on October 16, 1914, three months after the Austro-Hungarians attacked Serbia and started World War I. He stayed when they occupied it, the first time in autumn of 1914, and the second time in the autumn of 1915. The Germans wouldn’t touch him since he was a citizen of a neutral country. Which he knew, and used to his advantage. He saved the hospital by ordering that an American flag be raised on the roof. The Austrians weren’t allowed to shoot it.

I asked him about the headless body. He shrugged, and then said, rather cynically, “Well, we can rule out natural causes.”

The headless body. Aćim Dugalić.

My grandfather wrote that the deceased had been in a special company responsible for creating diversions. It wasn’t clear who was in charge. But one name did stand out.

Apis.

Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, the leader of a secret society called the Black Hand — and also the conspirators who, in May 1903, killed King Aleksandar Obrenović and Queen Draga, and put King Petar from the rivaling Karađorđević dynasty on the throne. At the time he was something of a kingpin of all the Serbian secret services. A dangerous man.

My grandfather went on in his journal: