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I, Erich Hetzel, killed Dude. What a moron — he is not guilty of anything. I have a plan to kill — one by one — all the actors in the National Theater. I’ll do it because of my wife Barbara, who has drawn me into Judaism. I am banned from further work at the theater. Elga, by Gerhart Hauptmann, was my last performance. They believe that I’ve fled to a village like a protagonist in some Russian drama, but I am still hiding in the theater building. I descend floor by floor. I am now closest to the bloody stone of the Turkish gallows upon which the National Theater was built. In old times, the Turkish Stambol Gate stood here — the starting point of the road to Istanbul — but it was also the place where criminals and rebels were hung as a warning to travelers entering and leaving the city.

No one knows as well as I do the passageways and doors of the National Theater. One of the doors is quite peculiar…


It is now 2019. The actors have just ended a big strike and replaced one director with another, who is just as disliked as the previous one, so they wonder what to do: should they go through directors like Kleenex or take charge of the situation? But how? From that deep and fruitful thought, a forgotten event (although recorded in the nation’s theatrical history) stirs them. Someone was murdered onstage.

In 2019, the role of Nikolai Ivanov, a long-standing member of the Council of Peasant Affairs, in the Chekhov drama Ivanov, was played by Svetolik Beložanski, also known as Dude. Toward the end of the play, the Dude from 2019 spoke his lines:

IVANOV: What do you mean, come on? I’ll put an end to all this here and now. I feel like a young man again, it’s my old self that’s speaking. [Takes out his revolver.]

SASHA: [Screams] I know what he wants to do. Nikolai, for God’s sake!

IVANOV: I’ve rolled downhill long enough, it’s time to call a halt. I’ve outstayed my welcome. Go away. Thank you, Sasha.

SASHA: [Shouts] Nikolai, for God’s sake! Stop him!

IVANOV: Leave me alone! [Runs to one side and shoots himself.]

At that moment Nikolai Ivanov, i.e. the actor Dude, pulled out the prop pistol, placed it against his temple, and fired. A stream of real blood rushed down from his head like a fountain. A body, which at that very instant died, convincingly collapsed on stage. The audience was impressed by this realistic theater of what appeared to be a daring stage direction. The applause did not fade. Next to the dead Dude the other actors, always craving praise, kept returning to the stage. Seven curtain calls — is that not enough? Only when the curtain finally fell did someone scream. Soon word got out that an unknown individual had planted an old trophy pistol on Dude, loaded with real bullets.

The detective in 2019 was Slobodan Jovićević — he was without a nickname; a worker, a purist, quiet, assiduous, precise in accommodating his supervisors, yet talented in solving difficult cases.

As soon as he heard about the shooting, Jovićević rushed from the Majke Jevrosime Street police station, which is responsible for the National Theater district. Ivanov did shoot himself onstage, but the detective had suspicions, and immediately classified the case as premeditated murder. The question was: who killed him? Again, this time, none present were allowed to leave the theater before being interrogated. When he was done with the audience, Jovićević addressed his questions to the actors. Everyone had a good alibi. They were all gathered backstage; only the actress playing Sasha was with Dude before the audience. She had the best alibi.

Jovićević returned to the police station to think, having ordered the actors not to leave Belgrade, which some of them accepted only begrudgingly because it disrupted their plans for guest appearances in the Romanian town of Cluj. As he was leaving the theater, the detective failed to notice a shadow which quietly slipped backstage, descending underground with silent footsteps, and continuing one level farther down via metal stairs. The phantom opened a rusty door, slammed it behind him, and disappeared from this era.


Seventy-seven years earlier, in September 1942, on this very stage, another murder occurred. The victim was the actress Jovanka Dvorniković. According to the press — not only Opštinske Novine, but also Novo Vreme — this time the authorities were far more prepared. Here is what the reporter from Novo Vreme observed:

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 Те, кто помнит прежние времена, знают, что самой редкой книжкой в знаменитой «мировской» серии «Зарубежная фантастика» был сборник Роберта Шекли «Паломничество на Землю». За книгой охотились, платили спекулянтам немыслимые деньги, гордились обладанием ею, а неудачники, которых сборник обошел стороной, завидовали счастливцам. Одни считают, что дело в небольшом тираже, другие — что книга была изъята по цензурным причинам, но, думается, правда не в этом. Откройте издание 1966 года наугад на любой странице, и вас затянет водоворот фантазии, где весело, где ни тени скуки, где мудрость не рядится в строгую судейскую мантию, а хитрость, глупость и прочие житейские сорняки всегда остаются с носом. В этом весь Шекли — мудрый, светлый, веселый мастер, который и рассмешит, и подскажет самый простой ответ на любой из самых трудных вопросов, которые задает нам жизнь.

Александр Алексеевич Зиборов , Гарри Гаррисон , Илья Деревянко , Юрий Валерьевич Ершов , Юрий Ершов

Фантастика / Социально-психологическая фантастика / Боевик / Детективы / Самиздат, сетевая литература