They walked eight or ten paces in front of me, quickly and without so much as looking to check whether I was following them. I was nervous, and a few times I thought about stopping or running away or finding a taxi to take me back to the safety of the apartment. We passed the Gardoš tower. Then we passed a little park and I thought I saw a white horse tied to the trunk of a tree, bending its head to graze. Impossible, I thought, Bebo’s last words still echoing in my head. But the white shape in the night was still there. At some point, it started to snow. It seemed we left Gardoš and then it seemed we left Zemun and then, somehow, it seemed we left Belgrade. But I could still make out the putrid smell of the Danube or the Sava, whichever it was, and so I was able to orient myself, and for a few blocks we didn’t see a single person. No one. We walked into a dark alley and, of course, they soon stopped. I reached them. One of them asked me for a cigarette by tapping his fingers to his lips. As he lit it, the other felt my jacket and said something in Serbian or maybe in Romany. Then they kept walking and, who knows why, I followed four paces behind them, as if I were being dragged along by some strange tide. I also lit a cigarette, trembling a little. I blew out a mouthful of cold smoke. Sometimes, I suppose, hope is stronger than fear.
We arrived at a huge rusty door in what felt like an industrial district. There was no light. There was no sign. There wasn’t a soul on the street. There was no sound. No music, no voices, nothing. The snow kept falling. One of them banged hard on the door and shouted something incomprehensible at me, and I thought again about making a run for it. They both laughed. Suddenly, I heard the door creaking. A huge mustachioed man dressed in black appeared through the opening and greeted the two Gypsies, kissing them on the cheeks. He stood looking at me. The two Gypsies started explaining why I was there and he shook his head, as though disappointed, while making a clicking sound with his tongue that in every language in the world means no. One of the Gypsies said something to me, something that probably meant: see, we told you. And the guy in black let them past. Dinars, I said, taking out some bills, probably too many bills, and the guy snatched them from me irritably. Then he shouted something, spat a gob of phlegm at the ground (although it was dark, so I couldn’t be sure), and shut the door with a single shove.
I was alone, lost in the middle of who knows where, and almost out of money. It was still snowing. I clenched my jaw to keep from shivering, and maybe to keep from crying. I folded my arms. I lit a cigarette and tried to imagine what was on the other side of the door. I couldn’t imagine anything. I told myself it was probably an abandoned warehouse or a textile factory or just a big rusty door for screwing money out of stupid, credulous tourists. I shut my eyes and, just for a moment, from far off, I thought I heard music. But no. Nothing. Just my imagination.
Twenty or thirty minutes later, the door opened again. The guy in black put his head out and shouted something at me and then went quiet, apparently waiting for a reply. What d’you want? I said in Spanish, raising my gloved hands toward the sky. I thought of giving him my money. I thought of running into the building. He shouted at me again, still furious, still waiting for a reply. I don’t know from where, and I don’t know why, but Stravinsky and San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge came into my mind and so, without even thinking it through, I said to the guy I phuv kheldias. His face softened. He didn’t smile, but nearly. Earthquake, I whispered to him in Spanish, my favorite postcard. I phuv kheldias, he said, as though helping me to pronounce it correctly. I said it again, offering him a cigarette. He took the whole pack, and still kind of annoyed, said I phuv kheldias, I phuv kheldias, like that, twice, as though it was some secret key. Then he moved to one side and, with a generous sweep of his hand, invited me in.