Belgrade Noir

I didn’t believe the neighbor about duplicate keys, but then again, how had he unlocked my apartment without breaking in? Instead of ceilings, I was now occasionally studying corners in search of hidden cameras. They tell me today’s technology in that field is cheap, available, and efficient. I found nothing.

“Here they come,” Gigi said, smiling, when we got to the park.

She sat down with me, put a tablet in front of us, and pulled up a virtual chess game. Choosing the white pieces, she played her first move.

Beside us Kozma set up the folding chair he’d started carrying to the park, and lay down in the sun. He said he would take a break from the game for a while.

“That thing with me being in a gang, that was funny,” Gigi said.

“Hilarious,” I said.

We agreed that the winner had to win two games. I was telling her about the Slav defense, but I somehow got the feeling she already knew all about it.

An Ad in Večernje Novosti by Kati Hiekkapelto

Translated from Finnish by Aleksi Koponen

Fontana, New Belgrade

It’s all Mom’s fault. I’m lying in a big double bed with a tall, squiggly iron headboard. That’s the only furniture in the entire apartment. Nothing in the living room or in the kitchen. Windows without curtains. The sky outside looks the same as back home in the village, the fluffy gray clouds float by, heavy with rain, water pours down the windowpane. Everything’s quiet and I feel like I’m about to cry.

The bed’s covered in satin sheets with a bit of a sheen. Or they had a sheen, but not anymore. Mom chose them from the ones in her chest, saying she’d only used them a couple of times. First time away from home and in a new place, won’t hurt to have something that smells of home, she’d said. It will help you sleep.

I can’t move. If I try to lift my head, the fog comes down with a terrible pain that rips and burns everywhere. I can’t feel my hands but I can see them above me, dripping with blood. They’re cuffed to the iron headboard and my mouth is stuffed with some type of leather gag. It’s difficult to breathe. Every part of me is broken. Mom’s fine sheets are rumpled, doused and dappled in brown and red blood and feces and other bodily fluids.

It’s the morning after my wedding and my wife’s gone, having left me tied to the bed. She told me as she was leaving that she was never coming back. She said it with an evil laugh. I know Mom would save me, but she can’t because she doesn’t know where I am. I can’t call her with a gagged mouth and tied hands, and besides, I don’t have a phone. Mom wouldn’t let me have a mobile phone. She told me I’d get brain cancer from any radiation near my head.

This was all Mom’s idea. It wasn’t me who wanted to get married. I was happy with my quiet life in our village. She became obsessed with marrying me off. Yesterday was the same, she was fussing outside the courthouse where we got married, having packed three bags full of food so that I’d last until the morning. She told my wife that I’ve always liked to eat. And made us swear that as soon as we were awake we’d return home so that she could make us a proper breakfast. She saw I was nervous and said I’d be all right, nothing would change, except now I had a wife and she’d live with us. Only one night away from home and we’d see each other in the morning as usual. Oh dear, did she get that wrong? I haven’t had a single bite to eat. My wife started torturing me as soon as we got here. It’s likely that before starving I’ll bleed to death or my wounds will get so infected that I’ll die of blood poisoning. There’s no one who knows where I am and I doubt anyone will come until my corpse starts to smell. It’s not my wife’s home and the marriage ceremony was just an act. That’s what the woman said before she left.

I’ve slept next to Mom every night until now. She wouldn’t let me go on class trips or to church camps even though we did go to church regularly. When I turned eighteen I asked her for a room of my own but she just laughed and pooh-poohed me, reminding me how scared I am of thunder. She said that somebody had to make sure I didn’t masturbate, pour my seed into the ground. She made such an awful face that I didn’t mention my own room again. I was scared she might really get angry. And, of course, I knew she was only thinking of what was best for me. She’d always told me I was very sensitive, not like other people, that I need to be protected from the evils of this world, from temptation and sinful thoughts. How did she not see this coming? The first night away from home and this happens.