Belgrade Noir

Air-raid sirens began their shrill scream while she was entering “the little woods” — a wooded area that covered the block below her old high school — which usually had a calming effect on her nerves. Feeling like she was about to explode without any help from a NATO missile, Neda started singing from the top of her lungs: a song Belgrade Gypsies had sung during World War II, while German Stukas bombed the unfortunate town, which seemed to be everybody’s favorite target.

NATO intervention was the last straw for Neda. A private language school where she was teaching German collapsed under Western sanctions, leaving her without an income. So once again, she was depending on her parents. Upon retiring, her parents had moved to a village in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and once in a while they would send her some cash and homemade goods. Making her feel worthless, if not suicidal.

Neda decided there was no reason to hurry home, to the little house on Todora Dukina Street, where she expected at any moment to turn into collateral damage under its old bricks. After all, it was in these woods where she had had her first kiss. A first kiss, perhaps the last day of life — wasn’t she a proper heroine from some Remarque novel?

The woods seemed empty, save an old man who sat on a bench by the path, staring at nothing as he ignored the sirens. Either deaf, thought Neda, or just didn’t give a shit. Perhaps he found it better to be killed by a bomb than to fade away in some poorly supplied hospital, living on bread with margarine.

The sirens stopped as suddenly as they had started. Knowing what was coming, Neda chose a bench for herself and sat to wait for the hard rock delivered by NATO to overpower the Gypsy lament.

June 15, 1999

In Dača’s kafana, time had stopped somewhere in the seventies: plaid tablecloths, glassware with a little line marking volume, a menu limited to barbeque and the daily course of cooked meals. And guests who asked for kilo-kilo —

a liter of white wine and a liter of sparkling water.

“Bread, circuses, and cigarettes,” said Goran, taking a carton of Winstons from his bag, making a face as the exhaust fumes from the number 26 bus, passing down the street, prevailed for a moment over the scent of linden in the air of the kafana’s terrace. “That’s how the saying should go.”

“If only they’d had cigarettes in ancient Rome,” said Neda. “Thank you. You know I—”

Goran made a gesture to stop her. Knowing that she was completely broke, he didn’t expect money for the cigarettes. They had known each other for quite some time and he helped her when he could. It was all part of their friendship, which endured despite their differences in life philosophy. Goran was practical. He always knew what he wanted from life and would find a way to get it. Neda was a seeker. The only thing she knew for sure was what she didn’t want, or that what she wanted was rather more complex than the university-marriage-children recipe. Although in her late thirties and despite all her problems, she still hoped to tumble into the right path eventually, one that her “own blood whispers to her,” as her favorite writer put it.

“Now buy me a drink and I’ll forget about the fact that you brought me here to exploit my feminine charms,” she said, lighting a cigarette and inhaling with unconcealed pleasure.

“Who else if not you?” said Goran, smirking. “You are the only Swede I know, and I have no better ideas, even if this one’s kinda wicked. Besides, you have better chances than me. I could only hope to worm my way in.”

Neda smiled, thinking of the nickname “Swede” someone had given her a long time ago, on account of her being a natural blonde. In her experience, most men reacted to strong statements, so in addition to her main allure — her long blond hair — tonight she wore a short red dress, an Olé! for the rich bull.

“So where is this friend of yours?” she asked.

“An acquaintance of an acquaintance,” Goran quickly corrected her, slightly offended.

Said “acquaintance of an acquaintance” was their last hope at finding a job. The weekly newspaper Goran used to work for had been forcefully shut down by the regime and now he generated his income by selling smuggled gasoline and cigarettes on the black market. But those days were quickly coming to an end, partly because of the bombings, partly because a monopoly on smuggling seemed to be changing hands.

“Whatever, as long as he’ll pay for a round.”

“I think he’s coming,” said Goran, looking over the terrace’s metal fence at the silver BMW pulling into a parking spot. “Charm him from the start and we could get ourselves a nice dinner. For him, it’d be pocket change.”

“How did he get his money?” Neda inquired, taking a long look at the corpulent man in black jeans and a red polo shirt approaching their table.

“These days you don’t ask questions like that,” whispered Goran.

“A criminal?”