Belgrade Noir

As effortless as she was in her appearance, so was she in verbal exchanges. “Why, thank you. I do hope you can sort this out. My iPhone appears to run out of power in less than an hour. Is it time to ask for an upgrade?”

“Normally, madame,” said Miloš before clearing his throat, “I would suggest that you invest in an expensive upgrade. Under pressure from my superiors, you understand. But, in all honesty, you probably only need to replace the battery. It’ll take an hour or so, but once I’ve done it, it should be as good as new.”

“That is so very kind of you,” the woman replied.

“You’re most welcome,” said Miloš with exaggerated politeness.

She pulled the iPhone out of her back pocket, placed it on the desk, and then with those green eyes seizing Miloš’s gaze, she gently waved goodbye. “See you in an hour…”

As he examined her iPhone, unrestrained desire surged through Miloš’s body. The phone requested a code. He tapped in 0000 and the lock screen dissolved to reveal the woman’s secrets. Notwithstanding his sudden infatuation, he muttered his familiar rhetorical question, “Why do they make it so easy?”

That evening, his usual saunter turned into a breathless sprint down Dositijeva. Once home, he kicked off his shoes and walked quickly through the large, empty apartment until he reached his bedroom. He switched on his computer and immediately accessed the phone remotely.

She was twenty-five years old. Along with Serbian, she spoke English, Italian, and German. She traveled a lot but he could find nothing about her employment. He realized that this was her personal phone and she must have used another one for work. Her friends were not just Serbian but from across Europe and the US.

He hesitated before entering WhatsApp but eventually got up enough courage. He knew that this would reveal much about her intimate life. He was torn between his vision of her purity and his barely controllable desire to soak in the imagined reality of her sexual being.

Just as he decided to finally click on the app, an alert flashed on his screen. The remote phone had been attached to another device. Miloš rushed to his laptop and flipped it open before feverishly typing in various commands. Within a minute, he had access to her desktop. Using the RAT, he activated her camera.

Her bedroom was predictably elegant. Minimalist but not austere. Above a luxurious but tasteful sofa, there was a poster of a giant cat smirking and holding a gun. Below this, a small table upon which sat a large metal statuette — a man in a great coat smoking a cigar. Miloš zoomed in. Underneath the bust on a little plinth was the inscription: Comrade Tito. To the left was what looked like a walk-in closet and to the right side of the computer, Miloš assumed there was a door leading out of the room. Against the wall, a large double bed.

Katarina started playing something on her iTunes. Miloš had never heard the song although he identified it as German. So he looked on her computer — Udo Lindenberg, “Unterm Säufermond.” She was lying on her sofa, and as the melancholic sounds floated over her, he focused on those green eyes and realized that she had begun to cry.

He was frozen with a sympathy that he couldn’t articulate. Least of all to her. As the song came to an end, she left the room, returning with a large glass of red wine. Miloš longed to be there to offer her comfort. But, real as this was, it was mediated by virtual deception.

At this point, Katarina started to remove her top. This was too much for Miloš to process and he slammed his computer shut.

Try as he might, Miloš could not keep away from her computer. Each time he watched her undress, he would wait a little longer before slamming down the top of his computer, overcome with guilt and anger at himself. At the same time, he felt betrayed because her WhatsApp messages indicated that she was having an affair. Her lover had yet to pay a visit to her apartment, but Miloš suspected it was only a matter of time.

Xenonauts 2 still provided a healthy distraction. The latest version was proving to be a magnificent challenge. He would play with intense concentration for two hours and then he would return to Katarina. By now, he knew every contour of what he considered her celestial body. Deep inside, his conscience was telling him that what he was doing was infernally immoral. Unfortunately, burning desire could outmaneuver his conscience. When at work, he distracted himself by thinking of ways in which he might approach her, how he might declare his resolute, adamantine, and eternal love. Should he casually bump into her as she was leaving her apartment? But what would he say? Hey, miss, you remember me? I fixed your iPhone. Fancy a drink? Preposterous.

Perhaps he could research fine red wines and present a rare bottle to her as a gift. There was something about this idea that appealed to him. He could get the necessary cash from his father.