Kombucha stopped playing his guitar and started chatting with Ira. I felt jealous, as if that tiny girl belonged to me. I could hardly restrain myself from interrupting them and acting ignorant. Ira was delighted when she saw a Kropotkin book and an issue of a literary journal devoted to Bakunin.
“Look, they’ve published his letters.” She showed the journal to Jerry. She bought both the journal and the book.
Kombucha has been a drug addict for a long time and he needs a lot of money to feed his habit, so he visibly livened up after taking the money from her.
I asked her whether she had collected enough signatures against trash culture. The smell of roasted meat came from a nearby fast-food kiosk, and the beggar Drago was drinking rakija from a bottle. She had, she told me, succeeded in collecting a thousand signatures, but she had a problem. She didn’t know who to send the petition to.
“Is there any point giving trash a petition against itself?” she asked me. Clearly this was a rhetorical question. The problem always comes down to that. And I told her so.
Kombucha went back to playing guitar, an older man tossed a few coins into his case.
Last night at the main train station a man without documents was stabbed with knives, today on Knez Miloš Street a transvestite threatened to blow up a whole building…
Not for a single moment did I doubt the correctness of my decision, but I still didn’t know who to kill. A young person or an old one? Woman or man? Someone I know or a stranger? A friend or…
Peppy, I don’t have any enemies. I never did have any. In ’91 and ’92 I fired a gun because that was the current practice. Someone in a high place had declared the Croats my enemies, on the TV they talked day and night about their crimes against the meek Serbs. I killed them cold-bloodedly, although I had nothing against them personally. The commander told us that all the great nations had committed great crimes, that ours can’t always be someone else’s prey either. You believed that and rolled up your sleeves, they called you Peppy the Beast.
But I was different. In my heart, I kept on rooting for Hajduk, the Croatian soccer team from the beautiful city of Split. If I didn’t hate anyone on the battlefield, then clearly I wouldn’t hate anyone here either, in Belgrade. And I know a lot of people. And because I don’t have a bad relationship with anyone it’s hard for me to choose a victim. But I have to take someone’s life, that’s the trend, we can’t live as if the world doesn’t involve us.
Last night someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the house of a turbo-folk music star, two children were seriously burned…
Along with everything else, I haven’t decided how to carry out the murder, either. Tenderly or sadistically? In my apartment, I have a Kalashnikov with seven full clips, a CZ 99 pistol with ten bullets, a bayonet with a long blade, and five hand grenades. The grenades are on my table in a crystal fruit bowl, the other weapons are locked in a wooden trunk. It won’t be easy for me to choose the means either. I know that you, Peppy, would surely use cold steel.
That day the sun beamed hot, I was in a shirt and jacket, all sweaty. A tie was squeezing my neck. I can’t be poorly dressed, what would that look like? I have to be different from the beggar Drago.
Red fireflies played before my eyes. If someone had asked me why I didn’t go home, what I was hoping to find in that crowd, I wouldn’t have known how to answer. But that person wouldn’t be able to tell me what I should do by myself in a basement studio apartment. I think anyone who spent two hours in my apartment would understand why first thing in the morning I take my blue footstool and come to this place, out among the people.
I heard that they’re going to repave the bulevar again. I have the impression, Peppy, that the spaces of beauty and freedom in Belgrade are quickly shrinking.
A man with a beard down to his waist was explaining to his hunchbacked friend that Faulkner was a Serbian writer, that only a Serb could understand The Sound and the Fury. An older woman in a blue blouse offered me a ten-dinar coin. I took the coin, but I didn’t thank the woman. I don’t have time for that, nor for explaining to her that I’m actually doing fine financially. I receive a monthly disability check and it’s enough for me. Whatever I earn unexpectedly I always give to Oliver, the kid who washes the windshields of cars that stop at the traffic light by the Vuk Monument. Washing windshields is the best job this state can offer a person who isn’t a party member. “The authorities have a tremendous capacity!”
Kombucha was running madly out of the market, knocking cabbages off stands, bumping into people who swore at him as he passed. His hands were empty, he had probably tried to steal something and hadn’t succeeded. A farmer was running after him. It would be better for Kombucha to be chased by the Sicilian mafia, I don’t believe that anyone can get away from a Serbian farmer, especially one who has the nerve to sell his produce in Belgrade.
Kombucha was hoping he could reach the bulevar and we would protect him. Everyone here who sells, begs, and picks pockets has some kind of cold steeclass="underline" a knife, an awl, a hatchet… Even Miljana, the little woman who sells handicrafts, has a chunk of rock at her feet. Only Drago is weaponless, he stinks so badly that surely no one would touch him. I don’t have anything on me either, but I look dangerous.
The two young police officers were patrolling the area. The proprietors spoke to them sweetly. As I had expected, the farmer caught up with Kombucha. He grabbed him by the hair and pulled him backward. Kombucha fell down, the enemy sat on his chest, put his hands around his neck, and started strangling him. At first, Kombucha resisted, then he went limp. The young policeman started walking quickly in their direction, but the policewoman pulled on his sleeve and they went off in the other direction. Afterward, the farmer went back to his stand. Kombucha lay there without moving, and it wasn’t until half an hour later that he painfully got up and staggered toward us. His face had gone dark, unrecognizable, his neck was blue, with broken capillaries.
In Dedinje a terrier bit off a woman’s hand, four elementary schoolchildren beat a math teacher to death with baseball bats…
Did I imagine it, or did someone among the passersby mention Iron Butterfly? I concluded that the American rock band must be coming to Belgrade: lots of older musicians have gotten back together in order to tour here. I got the urge to go to a rock concert after not having gone to one in the past twenty-five years. The authorities have a tremendous capacity! I shouted with all my strength that the authorities had the capacity and snickered, satisfied. I knew what kind of person I should consider as a victim, the circle was narrow. The farmer who throttled Kombucha had helped me. I realized that I didn’t want to kill him, but I’d be glad to bump off Kombucha.
Peppy, I want to feel grief after the murder. That emotion lasts longer than others. This society, along with every individual in it, lacks continuity. Therefore I’m going to kill someone who’s dear to me. The first one I thought of was Ira. Then I thought the best thing would be to kill Oliver. I like him the most. Oliver is nice-looking, lively, and cheerful until a limousine with tinted windows stops next to him in the evening. Then he gets unhappy and reluctantly climbs inside.
Oliver is forced to prostitute himself because he’s supporting his sick mother and two younger sisters. I’ll definitely kill someone I like, someone whose death will make me suffer for a long time. The grief will help keep me from drowning completely. I don’t believe in the torments of conscience, just the way you didn’t believe.