Belgrade Noir

“Quiet. It’s all relative, isn’t it? As long as he doesn’t ask me to smuggle drugs or people or be a professional assassin, it’s okay with me.”

Neda shook hands with Viktor Marković. He was in his early forties, bearing the wide-set, dark eyes of a shark. Eyes that didn’t reflect his thin-lipped smile, yet in a second had likely rated her and categorized her somewhere in his mind. He could be called handsome — or at least interesting, with that air of self-confidence and his velvet baritone. Yet, something about his face looked wrong, as if someone had disassembled it and then reassembled it, but made some sort of a mistake along the way. She couldn’t describe the fault, but it was definitely there. A fault that made Neda want to avert her eyes.

August 30, 1999

I understand that in a way, I betrayed myself. I guess it was the result of weariness. Fatigue and struggle without rewards quickly exhaust one’s mind. But my situation needed a solution, and it came down to an attempt to balance my needs and the price I’d have to pay.

In all honesty, it’s not like you’d have had to bend my arm for me to sleep with him. He’s one of those men who radiate power like body odor and, as much as it confuses me, his power pleases me in some primal way. I let the woman in me out — nota bene: a rather lonely woman — and let him take the lead. I let myself enjoy it: being just a woman, “the weaker sex.”

Speaking practically: besides giving me a job and a more-than-decent salary, through his connections he acquired the medicine my father needed, making my parents’ lives easier. Instead of taking from them, I’m finally able to help them. God, how good it is not to feel guilty anymore.

Yes, I am perfectly aware that he is not somebody I can talk to about the universe and freedom. But isn’t that something people like me contemplate in solitude anyway?

No, I’m not lost, I am still me. This arrangement is a temporary solution, just one little bump obstructing the right path of my life.

September 30, 1999

At Vimark Consulting, where she officially worked as one of the secretaries — though it was clear that her more significant role was serving as a hostess at the business lunches and dinners Marković often organized — Neda got wind of the existence of his children. But she never asked him, not about children nor his marital status; not even during their intimate meetings in the small private hotel owned by one of his friends.

Actually, the answer wasn’t important: what was happening between them was not a relationship but a trade, a transaction in which, for the first time in her life, she used her looks and her body as currency.

Marković was a skilled but uninspired lover and it suited Neda. At first, she had expected something different. She often had a feeling that “different” was there — some small move, the way he grasped her, the expression in his eyes would almost reveal… what? Neda couldn’t finish the thought, or maybe she was afraid to do so. Making her curious and excited at the beginning, “different” was starting to scare her.

Then things happened and she didn’t know what to do.

“I have a problem which I have to solve fast if…” said Marković, standing naked by the window of the hotel room with a glass of cognac in his hand. He was relaxed in his nudity, as a man who knew very well that power is a substitute for most flaws. “Actually, that part is none of your business. What’s important is that our friend from the Ministry of the Interior can help me. You’ve met him. I think you are aware of what he wants in return.”