“Bloody Montenegrins,” he said. “I bet you it’s them.”
One of the old crones crossed herself. She looked as though she might faint. The scene before us represented every Belgrade old lady’s nightmare. Cases like it were reported in the popular press all the time, or so it seemed. Serbian hacks loved milking the drama. The country may be going to the dogs, but that story is not nearly as vivid as a nonagenarian meeting a violent end, however timely that end might be.
There was always a brutal man, or a whole gang of them, keeping an eye on your movements, and then, the moment they knew you to be alone… whack. It was a meat cleaver in this case but it could equally well have been a Black & Decker drill. They threatened and prodded you until you told them where the money was. Most of their victims talked sooner rather than later, but Olga was a general’s daughter, made of sterner stuff. Dear old Oggy, in cold blood, lying on the cold floor, murdered, robbed, and God knows what else.
Finally, as if coming out of a delayed shock, I let out a little shriek and dropped the bag. The policeman turned toward me as though he hadn’t noticed me before. The cabbages fell out and bobbed along the floor wetly until one of them rested between Olga’s dead feet, as though she had just given birth to it. Like something in one of her dreams, I thought.
You may complain about the Serbian police as much as you like, but they can be scarily, even brutally efficient when they want to be. And a little bit of criminal thoughtlessness goes a long way in these parts. They caught up with Jovo barely a week after they found Olga’s body, on the Serbian — Montenegrin border. He was on his way to Podgorica with that sword and with two buckets of top-grade Colombian powder in the trunk of his Benz. He was either unbelievably blatant or unbelievably stupid, the hacks reported, leaving no one in any doubt that the latter was more likely.
There is nothing as cute as a handsome, well-spoken Montenegrin man in a finely tailored suit, with an expensive watch on his wrist. Jovo was not one of those. I can’t say that I felt guilty about the fool.
Živorad will have to find a new assistant, but I won’t be going to Mirijevo again. I have other plans, businesswise. A woman knows when to stop tempting fate.
Anyway, here we are. The paperwork is a nightmare, as it always is with property in central Belgrade. The lease changes hands with every war and revolution, and there is no shortage of either, so you never know what lurks in the land register. I’m not worried. I’ve been here before and I have a lawyer much better than Stanojlo. I stand in my kitchen and I watch the lights at the Serbian Academy go out.
Undermarket
by Mirjana Đurđević
Translated by Genta Nishku
Vračar
Hari drags herself through the market like a beaten cat. From each stall, the lively colors of the Indian summer scream at her — hills of red peppers, small cucumbers, purple eggplants, all sorts of greens, big and small, with names she doesn’t even know, fifty shades of screaming green and orange pumpkins. All that’s missing is something blue.
It should be a magical sight. But it all just makes her want to vomit. She trips on a box and stumbles. Grapes. Aha, here’s that blue, or, rather, more of a plum. She clutches the edge of the stall with both hands, catching her breath, pretending she’s just looking.
“Are you okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Hari mutters, turning her head. Standing next to her in the stall is a gray, withered old woman, her gaze worried and hard. With a straw hat on her head, a too-wide summer dress — ha, wait, bablje leto, what in America they call Indian summer, we call “old woman’s summer” in Serbia. God, the things that come to my mind. Or maybe she is not an old woman at all?
“Want some water?” comes a faint voice from across the stall. A young peasant, dressed in the latest fashions from the Chinese markets, extends a half-filled plastic bottle with a calloused hand.
“Go ahead, I’m not sick.”
Hari barely shakes her head no and stares at the peasant, who appears to be in her early thirties. Missing a front tooth, she gives her a half smile. Cynically, or is she tripping?! And — wait — she’s wearing a wig — a cheap synthetic nest, the color of hazelnut — in this heat?! The wig has shifted to one side. A woman with no hair, not even one visible strand.
“Wait, I have a full one,” the straw hat digs through her canvas bag, her harsh voice matching her gaze.
The straw hat underneath which there is no hair, nor a wig? Am I hallucinating or has the illness spread to my head? Hari now shakes her head no to both women, as well as to herself, but does not let go of the stall edge.
“We know each other,” the straw hat says, like she’s making a statement, not asking a question.
Hari throws her another look. A real ghost.
“I don’t think so. I remember faces. Excuse me, I need to go. And thanks.”
“You’ll be fine. I’ll walk you out,” declares the straw hat. Turning to the peasant she adds, “Mara, I’ll see you tonight.”
That authoritative tone! There’ll be no escorting, sister, fuck off. Hari gathers enough strength to turn and walk faster, at least up to the market gate.
But at the gate of the hundred-year-old house on Petrogradska Street, a new wave of weakness comes over her. She is unable to insert the key into the lock. And there is no one to call. The owner of the house, Laki, her best friend and partner in their failed business, has taken his wife to the mountains for two months. They’re saving their marriage. They left Hari to take care of the house. For Hari it is conveninent. With her chemo treatment coming up, she can easily walk from Laki’s house to the hospital in ten minutes, instead of having to drive from New Belgrade across crowded bridges. She’ll also avoid the stress of having to find parking around the medical complex. Frazzled after her surgery, she did not object too much when Laki pointed all of this out.
She finally manages to get the key to work, locking the gate behind her. Once in the garden, she tears off the colorful bandanna from her head, wiping away the sweat from her bare scalp, convinced she’d imagined what just happened.
Harijeta, Hari to her friends, fifty-plus, former chief inspector with the Serbian police in the homicide and sexual crimes division, former chief of security in a large department store in Chicago, former returnee to Belgrade. Soon she will be the former co-owner of the private detective agency Lucky Charm, which she started with her friend Laki, this she has firmly decided. Soon she will also be a former oncology patient, at least so she hopes. She needs to make it through her last round of chemotherapy, which is hitting her especially hard. Damn chemo brain… Everything is in a fog. But this, too, will pass. Provided that she does not die in someone else’s home, in this elite part of town.
Weekend. Two days without a needle. Harijeta keeps her eyes closed, reclining on the antediluvian lounge chair, in the shade of the old cherry tree, and pretends to relax. That is what they told her — she needs to rest. They also told her, though, that she must eat. Did someone say food?
The bell at the gate is ringing. Harijeta looks at the time on her phone. Quarter to ten, Saturday. She’ll play dead.
Like hell she will!
“Juhuuuuu! It’s me! Open up!” Nađa. Laki’s wife Lila’s friend since childhood. Who will not be satisfied with the pretense that Hari is dead, but will march into the yard even if she has to jump over the fence. Every Saturday, at exactly quarter to ten, the voice is heard: “Juhuuuuu! It’s me!” and there is Nađa with her cart, crammed with the entire damn market, and with small Tupperware containers of cooked food in her bag.