Stunned, she peers into the neighboring yard, right into the foundation pit of the construction site on Topolska Street. Where, until recently, there had been a very beautiful old house, maybe even older than Lila’s, certainly more decrepit. Now, a white four-story monster will rise up, let’s say the nouveau Vračar baroque style, with an underground garage for SUVs…
“Hey, you out of your mind? You could have been crushed there, fallen into the hole, had cement poured on you. They would never find you inside that hole. Why didn’t you ring the bell like a normal human being?” Feeling tired, Hari settles on the lounge chair and points Vera to a wobbly bamboo chair, possibly older than both of them combined. “So, what do you want from me?” she asks, already annoyed, but with no desire to move again.
“I need your professional help,” Vera declares, then goes quiet, taking off her hat.
Huh, I suppose I really do have a beautiful skull, thinks Hari. An urge comes over her to get her phone and take a selfie, because Vera—
They look at each other.
“Lucky Charm is closed. My last client was the first killed in the series of oncology clinic murders. He was sitting in the exact same chair you are now sitting in when he told me that I had cancer. There you go, you can have fun at the Story and then go chase after the murderers.”
No reaction comes from Vera at first. Then: “Doctor Milošević? I know.”
The reaction from Harijeta is visible, her eyes popping out of her head. “How do you know?”
Vera takes a moment to think. “I saw him come in here. I was walking down the street, from the market. And I read the news. A few days after I saw him, the news was that he was gone. What did he want from you? Money?”
“That’s a trick of the trade,” Hari snaps, intending to stop this insane conversation. “And I don’t believe that Nađa didn’t send you here to get some dirt.”
“She didn’t. I told you, I need help.”
“C’mon, woman, how can I help you? I can’t even get up from this chair. If I could, I’d throw you over the fence right now. And how can you, when you’re so—” She was about to say cadaverous. “How do you even have the strength to run about, move metal sheets, sneak around, and harass—”
“I’m sorry. I have to.” Vera’s facial expression doesn’t change even when she apologizes. “Mara has disappeared. I’m begging you to help me find her. It’s urgent.”
“Who the fuck is Mara?”
“The peasant from the market, from the other day. I have to find her.”
“Then get yourself to the market and find her.” Harijeta has really had enough. For the umpteenth time this morning.
“She’s not there. The day before yesterday I insisted that she move in with me. She didn’t show up. She wasn’t at the market yesterday, nor today. Her phone is out of service.”
“Insisted? To move in with you? What right do you have—”
“What right do I have?” Vera barks. Then she goes silent, thinking for a few seconds, and continues, “Okay, I’ll explain it to you.”
“Just be quick, I need to lie down soon.”
“I’ve been buying fruit from Mara for five or six years. We got to chatting, almost became friends. I was already alone at home at that time… And so we made an agreement that on Mondays, when the market is closed, she would stay in Belgrade and clean my house.”
“Wait, you were already alone? You divorced?” Hari is unaware that she’s entering the standard routine. Interrupting the client with more questions.
“No, I never married. I don’t have children. My father left us when I was a child. My sister died. Mother before her. Before Mother, my aunt. The four of us lived together ever since I can remember. And they left, one by one. Breast cancer. Now me, it’s genetic. I won’t be long now… That’s not important, but Mara…”
Harijeta is speechless. And her scar burns, it burns terribly. It’s the nerves, she thinks to herself, staring at Vera. Genetics? There was this woman who was in the same room with her during pre-op, deeply sedated and babbling about genetics, murders. There was chaos in the hospital that morning, the body of Dr. Milošević had been discovered, already decomposed… But she can’t remember anything clearly!
“Mara’s family ordered her to leave Belgrade, they needed her to work in the village. Then she appeared at my door, with a lump in her breast the size of a child’s fist… just around the same time you and I were running into each other in the hallways of the oncology clinic, waiting for surgery.”
“I don’t remember you,” is all Hari can say.
“And it’s better that way. But I remember you, it was hard not to notice your red mane. Sorry, you’ll grow a new one. Anyway, I wrote her first referral to a specialist, and somehow I expedited her surgery.”
“You bribed someone? Someone from the newspaper?”
“No. It doesn’t work like that with doctors — bribes are taken from patients, rarely from colleagues. Doctors are a mob.” She goes silent and then corrects herself: “We are a mob.”
“I figured that out on my own even without your help, a long time ago. What you’re saying doesn’t absolve you from—”
“I didn’t come for forgiveness, I came to look for Mara. She’s had her surgery. She has a chance, chemo started on time, but those criminals—”
“You doctors?” Hari brazenly interrupts again.
“No, her people, from the village, they solved the problem of her chemo by sending her to the market, to sell grapes. Between treatments. No wasted time. That’s why I insisted that she move in with me — I see you’re frowning at my interference. As if I care. She’s only halfway done, but soon she’ll feel sick. She needs to rest, she needs to eat, and not be like you.” Vera waves her off, as if Hari is a lost cause.
“And you think you’ll look after her? Look at yourself, woman, you’re like a twig.”
“And do you know where the sellers from the market sleep? I’m not talking about wholesale merchants, but peasants, the ones who lure half the city to Kalenić Market. Authentic, I heard one nouveau riche cow say in passing, how she only buys from authentic peasants. Do you know where all the boxes and carts of vegetables and fruit that can’t remain in the stalls disappear in the evening? They move to Vračar basements, along with the sellers. Have you ever walked around here at twilight? Or at six in the morning?”
“Frankly, no. Or I don’t remember. Neither did I look around. Sometimes Laki and I drink beer at Kalenić… Is it okay to drink beer, doctor?”
“You can, if you’re able to. Mara. She sleeps in a basement with her grapes. Half of the old buildings around the market stay standing by renting basements to peasants. That’s how they supplement their budget. Maintaining these houses has become too expensive. People sell them and leave Vračar. Lila might do that too, someday. Who knows what they could build in this spot then? A spa. A casino. A villa for some criminal, a villa even older and more beautiful than the one they demolished.”
“If you thought we’d go around nearby villages and look for her, forget it. I can’t drive.” And you even less so, you phantom, Hari thinks to herself.
“No. I wanted us to look for her together down below. In the basements. To be honest, I’m afraid to set out alone, maybe something has happened to her, she got sick or—”
“Which one of them is her basement?” Hari makes an effort to get up and look for her bandanna. She’ll take the skeleton to the fucking basement and be done with her.