The guy started giving me shit. “Why didn’t you come back from America to fight with your people?”
My problem with the war was that they were all my people; Nađa was surely more my people than this idiot or Vojvoda, but I had no intention of saying that out loud. I was even okay with him giving me shit — at least then I knew he believed me.
My interlocutor motioned for the waitress to get us two more rakijas, then casually nudged the zombie: “Hey, were any of our guys in Rudo?”
The other guy was silent for a minute, like he didn’t even register the question. Then, without even taking his eyes off the window facing into the dark, he replied: “Stevo was there, with some guy called Vojvoda.”
At first, my guy couldn’t remember who Stevo was. I talked nonsense about how I didn’t know if Bogdan had a tombstone, how we’d like to put together some money to get him a cross — maybe even write up a story since we wanted to publish a booklet about our class for the reunion. After another round of rakija, the guy murmured that I obviously had money for drinks, since stonemasons and printers didn’t work for cheap, so maybe I could jog his memory. I gave him fifty euros, and he immediately remembered that Stevo’s last name was Perić, then asked the waitress for his number. We had another drink.
In the meantime, three other people came into the kafana and sat at an open table. They called the guy from my table to join them. As he stood up he said, “You have what you came for, so you should get out of here. If you call Stevo, tell him Ranko the Leopard gave you the number.”
I was tipsy, but not enough to fall asleep easily, so I returned to KGB. I smiled a little to myself for not realizing that the guy who’d slapped the waitress’s ass owned the joint. Him asking her for Stevo’s number came back to me. It seemed like he was one of those old-fashioned types who didn’t even own a cell phone. I decided to try something crazy. I took out my phone and wrote a message to Stevo: Hey compadre, I’m sitting here with Ranko the Leopard. He gave me your number and says you know Vojvoda. I haven’t seen him for thirty years, and we’ve known each other since we were kids. Give me his contact info if you can.
I didn’t even finish my first White Russian when his reply came: I don’t see him much anymore, but I know his wife owns a flower shop on Ilije Garašanina Street.
My hands started to shake. It was nearby, and not just near me now, but near Tašmajdan Park where Nađa had seen him. I paid for the cocktail and headed for the street. I knew it was too late and there was only a slim chance of the shop being open, but I wanted to see where it was. The street wasn’t too long and not very close to the cemetery, so I doubted there were many other florists.
Sure enough, there it was near the intersection with Takovska Street: a tiny, inconspicuous flower shop with Owned by Đorđe Jovanović written on the glass door. I stood there and laughed aloud. Ah, the patriarchy, I thought. This one wouldn’t allow his wife to formally own the shop if his life depended on it.
Walking slowly to the apartment, I wrote a message to Mirko: Could our “John Smith” be Đorđe Jovanović?
He replied within a few seconds: Fuck if I know. I could swear that was his name, but if you wrote Jovan Đorđević, I’d probably tell you the same thing.
Normally I didn’t make cocktails at home, but I had a bottle of whiskey handy. As I set a glass on the table in front of me, I saw Nađa’s business card. Warmed by alcohol, I texted her: There’s been a little progress in the investigation. See you tomorrow?
She responded in less than five minutes: Are you in Palmotićeva? I’m nearby, and can come right away.
Without even thinking I responded: Come over.
I lit a cigarette and for the first time started thinking about what I really wanted to say to her. I wouldn’t tell her everything, not yet. I’d tell her I had a lead on a guy from Vojvoda’s unit, and explain a bit about how I investigate, tell her a few stories.
The cigarette hadn’t even burned out when I heard knocking on the door. I opened it. She was smiling, had obviously been out, and was a little drunk. She looked younger to me than the last time, in a short skirt and heels with a little too much makeup.
She came in and I offered her a drink. She nodded. I handed her a glass, she took a good long sip, and then she looked at me. “So, did you find him?”
I lit another cigarette. “Not yet, but I’m close.” I told her what I’d been up to, leaving out a few details. I didn’t tell her I already had the number of a guy in Vojvoda’s unit, but that I was going to get it.
When I was done, she dropped her head. I thought she’d fallen asleep, that she was comatose from drinking, but then I noticed her shoulders shaking. She was crying. It wasn’t like I couldn’t really console her from a professional distance. I approached her, kneeled in front of her chair, and took her hand.
“Don’t cry,” I said.
She abruptly stood up, and I stood too. She hugged me and mumbled something I didn’t understand, probably thanking me. I stroked her hair, felt on my cheek that her cheek was wet, and then suddenly, and a little surprisingly, that her lips and tongue were too. We kissed, and I realized that this was why I’d called her.
We stumbled to the door that divided the living room and bedroom, where we fell onto the bed. The rest is history.
When I woke up, it was still early morning, but she was already awake. She acted completely sober, as if she hadn’t drunk anything the night before. She was lying at the end of the bed, flipping through a book. It’s easy being young, I thought to myself. “Want coffee?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, so I got up to make coffee.
When I came back, she’d already gotten up. She wasn’t fully dressed, just wrapped in the shirt she was wearing the night before.
She took a sip of coffee. “You know, last night I wasn’t myself. My emotions got the best of me. Like everything came full circle. Like my dad rose up from the grave to tell me everything would be okay.”
I put my index finger to her lips. “I understand everything,” I said.
She stayed for another half hour. Told me to let her know if I learned anything new, and that she’d tell her mother nothing until it was certain. “You know,” she said, “my mother hasn’t really lived her life since that day. She’s not herself anymore; she’s not a person, not even a mother; she’s just a widow, a widow dressed in black.”
At the door, she asked me if I needed more money. I said what she’d given me was already too much.
When she left I went back to bed. I was tired and thrilled. I lay my head on the pillow that still smelled of her, and slept until two in the afternoon.
When I woke up, I went to Stara Hercegovina for lunch. I didn’t exactly know what to do next. I needed additional proof of identity, as well as another witness, before calling my friends in the police department and prosecutor’s office so they could arrest this guy. Now I was even less in the mood to reveal his identity to Nađa; it was more important to me to make sure he went to prison. If I just told her who he was, the rest would fall on her, and she was a foreign citizen who had no idea how the system in Serbia functioned. She’d already suffered enough.