As the evening wore on, Neđo, who tossed back brandy like there was no tomorrow, grew increasingly drunk. He babbled about anything and everything, but the journalist could barely concentrate on his words. Instead, she observed how his behavior toward Zumreta was gradually changing. It was, she wrote, increasingly less commanding and increasingly more intimate. At one point, slapping his knees with his open palm, he called her over to sit on his lap.
(Zumreta obeyed that command, like all the others.)
With affection, in which there was at once something of the father and something of the lover, Neđo enlaced his rough soldier’s hands around her thin waist. He kissed her forehead, eyes, and lips, stroked her hair and cheeks.
(Zumreta, so small and slender, bent supplely into his large body.)
Only then did everything become clear, the journalist wrote. She felt dazed as she watched the two lovers, the victim and the perpetrator, exchanging hugs and kisses. Maybe Stockholm syndrome works in both directions under certain circumstances? But then disgust overwhelmed her and all she wanted to do was leave.
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” she whispered to Zumreta in the kitchen as they waited for the coffee to boil.
In the living room, Neđo, already dead-drunk, was singing a sorrowful sevdalinka off key.
Zumreta smiled in response. She reminded M.N. of a stuffed bird. “Why?” she asked.
Zato što će te ubiti, budalo, thought M.N. “I’ll save you!” she rasped.
“No one needs to save me from anything. Or save anyone, for that matter,” Zumreta calmly replied. “Neđo loves me,” she added, arranging the džezva, cups, sugar cubes, and Turkish delight onto a tray. And then she turned and looked straight into M.N.’s eyes. “I’m carrying his child.”
“I’ll save you,” the journalist repeated, though this time less forcefully.
The next day M.N. fled, helter-skelter, from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She felt sick, was out of breath, and thought she was going to have a heart attack and die. But her breathing became much easier, she admits, as soon as she crossed the border into Serbia.
Although she never again returned to the war-ravaged Bosnia, she continued to produce, almost mechanically, article after article on the heroic fight of the persecuted and suffering Serbs against the invasive hordes of Muslim militia.
And then the war was over. And then the years went by. Maybe she was once somewhat scared of possible consequences, but this changed over time. She grew more relaxed and understood that no punishment awaited her around the corner. But she was riddled with a guilt that kept growing stronger. She would often remember the emptiness in the eyes, the blush on the cheeks, and the broad, happy smile of Zumreta Alispahić. Whenever she dreamed of her, and she dreamed of her often, she inevitably woke up in sweat and tears.
She would discover the rest of the short and unhappy fate of Zumreta Alispahić years later, however, from the court testimonies of the Case of the Women at the Korzo Motel. But sparse evidence collected at the court hearing was not enough for her. She acquired permission to interview the two survivors and thus gathered additional data. Here is what she was able to add to the story.
According to M.N., Neđo brought Zumreta, already far along in her pregnancy, to the women’s prison in the early spring of 1993. She was placed in a cell with six other prisoners. She spent her days mostly sitting in the corner and looking out into emptiness. She didn’t eat. She spoke little. The other women didn’t believe she would, in the state she was in, be able to survive the pregnancy. But she did. She gave birth prematurely on the concrete floor of the cell. She screamed to the heavens and back. Her distraught fellow prisoners strove to help her and they called for help but no one showed up. She bled profusely. They stopped the bleeding with the clothes they had. She gave birth to the most beautiful girl they had ever seen. They all cried together in a big group hug. Zumreta smiled wearily. Two guards entered the cell the following day. They snatched the little sleeping child without a word and took it away. Later they came for Zumreta as well. They took her away too.
“And that’s that,” both witnesses said.
Indeed, that’s that, the journalist echoed, adding: Zumreta Alispahić was only thirteen years old when she died.
Zoe and I read “Cries from the Korzo Motel” a million times. Until we knew almost every word by heart. It didn’t take us long, on the basis of various hints M.N. had deftly scattered throughout the text, to figure out the identity of that mysterious “Neđo.” It was a stroke of pure genius on Zoe’s part that brought us to him after she whittled down a long list of suspects to the one and only name: Nenad Pavlović, alias Baboon. He was a well-known member of mainstream society, a successful businessman, a subject of numerous tabloid articles, and a regular guest on various talk shows airing on popular TV stations. We googled him immediately, clicked on the images tab, picked one of many photos, enlarged it, and stared deep into his eyes.
For a few seconds, the world stood still. And then Zoe closed our laptop. We didn’t need any further proof.
Her father had looked back at us from the screen with Zoe’s eyes. Identically green, with a hazel lining.
And that’s that, as M.N. would say.
As for me, I’ve already said it, and I’ll repeat it a hundred times: life with Zoe is not all sunshine and rainbows. Nobody knows this better than I do.
Sometimes Zoe’ll sob in her sleep for nights on end. Or for days she’ll break things in a rage that simply refuses to pass. Occasionally she’ll turn against herself. Scar after scar on her body, mirroring the ones in her heart.
Zoe can also be unbearably harsh and sarcastic toward me. Sometimes I know she can’t help it. The pain Zoe carries in her heart, which has intensified through the course of her entire life, has finally neared the very limits of endurance. It is the kind of pain that nothing but pure exorcism can eliminate.
We had to do something about it as soon as possible.
“Stop here,” Zoe speaks quietly through gritted teeth from the passenger seat. “Here,” she says, “stop here.”
Although she’s a full twenty years younger than I am, it’s crystal clear who’s got the last word in our relationship.
So, I hit the brakes and pull up to the curb. I click on the hazard lights. I switch off the engine. I pull up the handbrake. Who am I, anyway, to object to Zoe’s wishes and commands?
For some time we just sit in the dark and listen to the drumming from the trunk.
Zoe then removes a big hammer from the glove compartment. She squeezes it in one hand, placing the palm of the other over its black top.
I simultaneously pull out a large kitchen knife from underneath my seat. The sharp blade flashes in the darkness.
These are the weapons we chose together as a way to bring everything to an end. Quickly but brutally. Just as, we figured, it should be. For vengeance, of course, is best served cold. But on the other hand, it would be stupid for it not to hurt.