The inside of the police station was dirty and crumbling. It stank. Just like a Latin American police station, I thought. Marko asked a policeman something and the policeman pointed to a door at the end of a long corridor. Savski Venac, said the little label on the door. Suspicious, I asked Marko what it meant and he replied that it was the name of that area of the city. We went in. A policeman with a sour face got up and immediately, instinctively, put his hand on the revolver in his belt. Marko explained everything to him. The policeman took my documents. We have to wait outside, whispered Marko, and we went back out into the corridor. When we were sitting down, he told me not to worry, that everyone from the old regime was high-strung and grumpy. They still believe in intimidation, he added. A woman in pearls and an ostentatious white fur coat was also waiting outside. She looked downcast. She looked worn-out. I noticed that her makeup had run, as though she’d been crying or sweating or something. And I felt like I was in a Tarkovsky film again. Or even better: in a Fellini film — not the Fellini of tangos and flaming tridents, but the Fellini of every man for himself, gentlemen, galloping off on a sea horse. After a while, the same policeman came out, gave me back my documents, and off we went.
The Lecić house — a welcoming little homestead of clay and tiles built at the beginning of the last century — was on Puškinova Street, in an area of Belgrade known as Topčidersko Brdo. The apartment where they were going to put me up, Zdena told me as we got out the car, was very close by, just ten minutes away by taxi, in a neighborhood called Banovo Brdo.
That’s my dad’s studio, explained Zdena, pointing to a small building to one side of the house. We’re both painters, she said. Through the studio window, a few dogs started barking unenthusiastically, out of pure habit.
Slavko Nikolić was lying back on a sofa, his leg in plaster, a pack of Lucky Strikes in his hand. He was a big guy, maybe six six, with long, disheveled dark hair and a face that I thought was halfway between conceited and affectionate, like a piping hot rice pudding without enough cinnamon.
Sorry I couldn’t come and pick you up at the airport, Eduardo, he said in very broken Spanish, holding out his hand (a cyclops’s hand) and with a curious accent that was part Serbian and part Catalan. I told him this. Yeah, I lived in Barcelona nearly three years. In the Barrio Gótico. That’s where I learned Spanish. During the bombings. Sit down, sit down. Marko asked him for a cigarette and then, in English, said he’d go and see how dinner was doing. Slavko poured two small glasses of a light coffee-colored liqueur. It’s called Stomaklija, he said. Welcome, he said. Živeli, he said, and we downed it in one gulp. It tasted a bit like a mature rum, but not as sweet and with some sort of herb added. Rosemary, perhaps. I took a cigarette out of his pack. You a friend of Danica’s, then? he asked me, pronouncing Danica in such an odd way (all the syllables at once) that it took me a while to reply that yes, well, I didn’t know about friends, since I’d only met her recently. Unusually nervous, I asked him what he did for a living, but Slavko just gave a slightly patronizing, mawkish smile. She’s a good girl, Danica, he said, and then he was quiet. We smoked for a while in silence. This is for you, I said, and I handed him an envelope of money for the rent. Taking it, Slavko suddenly started lamenting the country’s economic situation, and the country’s political situation. Making a huge effort, I managed to follow for a minute or two, and then, as always happens when someone launches into some speech about politics and politicians and politicking, I started thinking about naked women. I don’t know why. Maybe just out of habit, maybe to keep myself occupied, maybe because I associate acts of power with sexual acts, maybe it’s got something to do with being Jewish.
For dinner we had a salad with tomato and cucumber and spicy paprika, then something called gibanica, which was like filo pastry with spinach and cheese. While we ate, Slavko carried on pouring me shots of the light coffee-colored liqueur and Marko talked to me about his grandfather or maybe his great-grandfather who was one of the most famous painters in the country. I wanted to ask him what country, as the geographical situation still had me pretty confused, but I decided it was inopportune, and besides, I wasn’t in the mood for more conversations about politics. Yugoslavia, I whispered, half-drunk now, but I don’t think anyone heard or maybe they did. Marko said that afterward he’d show me a book with some of the famous painter’s works. Hvala, thanks, I said, and everyone laughed. Slavko got out another bottle and, pouring me out some transparent liqueur, said try it, try it, it’s called viljamovka. It tasted of pear. And without asking, he poured me another. Zdena had prepared a pot of coffee, four cups exactly, and we all started to smoke and drink coffee in silence. A delicious silence. Marko suddenly belched, loudly and without the slightest bit of embarrassment, and as though that were some sort of signal, I told them that I loved Gypsy music, that I loved the music of Serbian Gypsies, and wondered where I could hear some live. Well, on the streets, said Marko, that lot are always going round begging and playing trumpets and violins. And no one said anything else.
I hugged Slavko goodbye and then Zdena and her dad took me to the little apartment on Nedeljka Čabrinovića. Marko waited in the car. Even though I was a bit drunk, I managed to make it up the four flights of stairs and listen to Zdena as she explained how to open the door and how to turn on the water heater. It’s Slavko’s apartment, she said, but we’ve fixed it up a bit for you. I thanked her. Seriously, Zdena, I’m really interested in Gypsy music, I said with a mixture of pathos and pleading that took me right back to being seven years old, standing at the gates of the zoo, and what a tantrum I threw with my mother because I was so bent on her buying me a wrestling mask, the one that El Santo wore. Zdena just smiled. Then she wrote the addresses and phone numbers on a slip of paper and told me that I should take only taxis marked Beo or Yellow or Pink or Lux or Maxis or Bell and no others. Do viđenja, she said, which means goodbye. Do viđenja, I repeated.
I went to bed without getting undressed and without unpacking anything, and I remember that the last thing I thought of before falling into a deep sleep was the word Yugoslavia.
I woke up with a headache, but two aspirins and a long, hot shower made me feel much better. I was about to go out, when the phone rang. It was Zdena. In a sleepy voice, she told me she’d been thinking about what I’d asked her about Gypsy music and that I could walk down Knez Mihajlova Street, or through a bohemian neighborhood called Skadarlija. Write it down. Skadarlija. There are some really nice cafés there where Gypsies play sometimes. I thanked her, and in the background I could hear Slavko whispering something. Listen, Slavko says that he’s going to be here all day, working, so you can come over whenever you like. Working on what? I thought a bit apprehensively, but I just thanked her again. Before I hung up, Zdena listed the names of the genuine taxi companies again, one by one.
It was snowing softly. I was hungry and wanted a coffee, but I didn’t have any local currency with me. Dinars, they’re called. After walking down Pozeska Street for a while, I went into a bank, and a woman who I thought looked like a chubby, Balkan version of Penelope Cruz, although I’m not sure why — her mouth, perhaps — asked me to show her my passport and fill out some forms. I had to wait almost half an hour before she gave me a wad of old bills that, oddly, still said Banka Jugoslavije. What a mess of a country, I thought as I walked out. Next to the bank there was a little café. It was empty. On one wall they’d hung two photos: one of Tito and one, a little bigger, of the CHiPs cops, the dark one and the blond one, holding their helmets. Coffee, I said to the waiter, miming a huge cup of coffee. Kafa, he said, and then he said something else. I just shrugged. I pointed to some ham rolls that he had on the counter and that looked a bit stale. I finished everything quickly, gave him a few dinars, almost nothing really, and walked out. It wasn’t snowing anymore but it wasn’t sunny either. At a kiosk I bought a pack of Lucky Strikes (Slavko’s influence, of course), a lighter, and two bars of chocolate, and then, already on my way to the bohemian quarter that Zdena had made me write the name of, I felt slightly nervous as I realized I hadn’t checked the name of the taxi company. I opened the window, lit a cigarette, and put on my best murderer’s face.