Belgrade Noir

As always, Neda had the urge to avert her eyes from his face. But she knew she couldn’t do that. Not this time. Her hand slowly reached into her bag. She saw Marković gripping the edge of the desk. She almost chuckled, but she just smiled instead and pulled from the bag the newest edition of Flash, a tabloid with the largest circulation in the country, where Goran had made his living for several years. In a few minutes, readers who wanted to know who was screwing whom, literally or metaphorically, would be able to buy it themselves on their way to work.

“Frame this cover page and put it by that Dürer print,” she said, before turning and leaving the office.

November 16, 2018

Well, like a true representative of those without imagination or courage for actual drastic changes in their lives, to which, gladly or not, I now belong, I chose a “fart” instead of a “bang.”

The Fart, directed by Neda Adamović, looks like this: tabloid headlines, bold with avarice, scream that the illegitimate daughter of Vimark TV’s owner takes part in his reality show! I am sure that for a man who at a certain point in his life started to believe that money could transform a ravenous cannibal into a Renaissance man, those headlines were more painful than a bullet through his head. Yes, a bullet was my original plan. But I abandoned it when I realized that the anger in me was more complex than simple rage directed at Viktor Marković.

Mind you — he was certainly a very suitable devil for the exorcism I needed to perform.

New headlines kept coming as I’d predicted. Divorce! Rumor has it that Mr. Marković “has very specific tastes in sex.” Namely, it seemed that Mrs. Marković had received photographs of an unidentified long-haired blonde doing something nasty with Mr. Marković. I could just imagine horny readers making faces of disgust, wondering at the same time if they should try something like that. Marković can insist the images are photoshopped until he’s blue in the face, but who would believe a man who let his own daughter fuck in front of a camera?

And just like NATO — thanks to Goran and his permanently geared-up journalistic instinct — I have an infinite wealth of weapons. Such as the many images of certain high-ranking men with “specific tastes” enjoying the company of Marković’s merry “secretaries.” To stop these photos from leaking to the press, I had a price. Goran and I were laughing while we split the money. Truth be told, it was quite therapeutic.

As for Milena, she is an adult now and ready for her fate. I won’t give up on her, of course. Even with the set of genes she inherited, I hope she will eventually realize the difference between the real starry sky and the one where the shine of the stars is measured by their nudity and vulgarity.