As I left the park, I found a welcoming café with a blackboard in the window announcing the menu of the day in Serbian. I chose a table with a view of the street. The waiter came up and tried to translate the menu for me with gestures and faces and sign language that were no less Serbian. It didn’t work. I pointed to the board and nodded boldly and then asked for a coffee. Big, I said to him, holding an invisible balloon in my hands. I lit a cigarette and drank the coffee quickly to warm up a bit. First, a tomato, cucumber and feta salad. Next, a plate of white beans with a couple of sausages on top. Along with my chocolate cake I asked for another coffee and lit another cigarette and spent a while looking out. It was already nighttime. Snow had begun to fall, softly, looking almost fake. A family of Gypsies stopped just outside the window. The boy, who couldn’t have been more than four, was crying while his mother told him off in Serbian or Romany. An elderly woman — the boy’s grandmother, I suppose — was a few paces ahead, fed up with all the fuss. The father watched in silence, his hands in his overcoat pockets. Come on, the mother ordered the boy, or let’s go, or something like that, and she started to walk on, to leave him behind. The Gypsy boy sullenly stayed put. Well, don’t come then, she shouted, or something similar, in Serbian or Romany, then let out a snort like a furious bull and carried on walking with the elderly woman, washing her hands of the matter. Entrenched in his stubbornness, the boy didn’t move. His father simply looked at him, saying nothing, remaining two or three paces ahead. A standoff. Who will outlast whom. Who is stronger. Which horseman is tougher. They could carry him, I thought as I finished my coffee, make him go with them. They could also leave him until his temper passed and he would have to catch up to them. The two women, unconcerned, were already some way off. Father and son remained three paces apart, not speaking. Suddenly, as the snow was just beginning to whiten them, the father held out his hand to his son, gently. The boy hesitated. Then, with the obligatory reluctance, he took his father’s hand, and so they walked away from their stalemate and away from the window. I paid the bill. Quite tired now, I also left.
I was awakened at six in the morning by a hammering on the door. It’s me, he shouted, Slobodan. I sighed. I put on a T-shirt and, still in my underwear and half-asleep, opened the door. I was trying to call you yesterday, but you didn’t answer, he said as he sat down on the only chair. I sat on the bed, on the pillows. I unplugged the phone, I said, yawning. At that time of the morning, freshly bathed, he looked even more like Bob Dylan. He was wearing the same black suit of his father’s, the same black tie. His journalist’s uniform, I thought, and I very nearly said it to him. He lit a cigarette, coughing. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, as though to situate myself, and when I opened them, Slobodan was looking at me, perplexed. I made some calls, he told me, and there’s no accordionist with the last name Rakić in Belgrade. He threw me the cigarettes. Or at least he’s not legally registered under that name, he continued without giving me time to absorb the first blow, because your friend’s father could be using a pseudonym or a stage name, which is very common among Gypsies. He took a few drags on his cigarette. I talked to bar and café and restaurant owners, too, and no one knows anything about a pianist named Milan Rakić, which in a way is understandable. You saw yourself the other night how Gypsy musicians arrive in those places and then leave again without saying anything, without talking to anyone. Also, yesterday afternoon I was able to talk to the new director of the classical music conservatory, a friendly Hungarian guy, who told me that the name Rakić wasn’t familiar to him but that he’d only been in Belgrade a few months and would consult some colleagues. Slobodan puffed out a mouthful of smoke and said he’s a ghost, this Rakić of yours, and he smiled for the first time since I’d met him. He fell quiet then, perhaps waiting for me to talk or explain something. I had nothing to explain. So get dressed, he ordered, we have to get there early. Where do we have to get early? I asked him, standing up and no longer feeling sleepy at all. Sremčica, he said. And what’s that? A Gypsy camp, he replied. Make sure you bring the photo of your friend. And cigarettes. And plenty of money, too.
It was snowing. From a distance, the houses of Sremčica looked like they were built of cardboard, and some of them probably were. Structures made of sackcloth, scraps of wood, bricks, rusted sheet metal, and anything else that might be on hand and might work: a Latin American village through and through. Pick up some stones, said Slobodan, crouching down. I asked him what for, but he didn’t hear me or didn’t want to answer me or didn’t have time, because a few seconds later we already had a pack of wild and rabid dogs running after us and barking and baring their teeth. Just pretend you’re going to throw stones at them, he said calmly, cigarette between his lips. And at the first imaginary throw, the dogs stopped barking and left us in peace. How did you know? I asked him when I got my breath back, but he didn’t answer. A few Gypsy women were already sweeping up and washing clothes on a patio as some children chased a couple of hens. When they saw us, everyone stopped. It looked as though they were barefoot, even though they weren’t. Wait for me here, said Slobodan, and he went to talk to the women. The children couldn’t stop touching his black suit. A row of dead animals hung from a clothesline. Rabbits and chickens, I thought. More women started to come out, just women, and I noticed that each time one walked up to the patio, the other women would grab one of her breasts, just like that, casually, as if it was some sort of greeting. I wanted to smile but I was too embarrassed. Slobodan came back. They say we should wait awhile, that he’ll be up soon. Who? I asked him. Petar, he said, lighting a cigarette. Do you know him? I asked. A bit, he said, but I doubt he’ll remember me. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a groaning sound, like a truck that wouldn’t start. I was anxious. I lit a cigarette. At that moment, the first man came out of one of the shacks and headed straight for the trough without saying a word. The second and third men did the same. What’s going on? I asked Slobodan. Among the Gypsies, he said, you can’t talk to a man in the morning until he’s washed his face. I realized that he knew a lot, maybe even too much, for someone who hated Gypsies. Then I realized that, for someone who hated Gypsies, he was also helping me too much. Why are you helping me? I asked him. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I’d even forgotten I’d asked the question as I watched one man after another wash his face at the trough and then sit down around the table to drink Turkish coffee, when suddenly Slobodan whispered: I like to know the end of a story. He smiled. And also, he said, you’re going to help me with something later. I said I’d be glad to, and guessed that it wouldn’t come cheap. Watching the men enjoy their coffee, I wanted one too. That’s him, said Slobodan, that one there, the one in the brown coat. He was a short and dark-haired man and, like almost all of them, he had a big mustache. He was wearing a worn-out, wrinkled old suit, and I had the impression he’d even slept in it. I guessed that he was between thirty and forty. One of the women shouted something to him while she pointed at us. The man, his face still wet, walked over slowly. Petar held his hand out to Slobodan, who opened the cigarette pack for him straightaway, and the Gypsy took one. He ignored me until we were introduced. They started talking in Serbian and I heard the truck groaning again, only now it sounded more human, like someone in pain, like someone being tortured. We’re going to have breakfast, said Slobodan. And the three of us went out to the street to look for a taxi.