She was heading out of the city, jammed between delivery vans and lorries, and was looking for a place to stop. To her right the roadside sloped steeply away, with a gravel verge and a chain-link boundary fence. On her left were the tram tracks, which cut the dual carriageway in half. It was there that the tram stop was located, on a narrow, slightly raised concrete platform, totally deserted. Milena checked her rearview mirror and slowed down.
The empty bottles rattled in the boot and her bag bounced around on the passenger seat. But a low kerb like this presented no problem to a Lada Niva with raised suspension. She put the car in gear to stop it rolling, switched the hazard lights on and glanced over to the Law Courts.
She only knew the building from the outside, having passed it many times. The glass and concrete façade was thoroughly devoid of any stylistic flair and typified the 1980s, the time after Tito, when everything stagnated and this kind of architecture was built to give the illusion of modernity. The dark-tinted glass doors on the ground floor opened. Milena flashed her headlights, but the guy coming out wasn’t Siniša. She switched off the engine, rolled down the window and lit a cigarette.
It was now several years since Siniša had taken up his first post as public prosecutor. He had been fairly young at the time and was imbued with an innate sense of justice that bordered on fanaticism. He never let go, and prosecuted everybody and everything. Corruption, nepotism and unfair competition were only the minor offences he pursued. With his activism and ambition he was a totally loose canon where the authorities were concerned. Milena still admired the courage and tenacity with which he had pursued the case of the son of the dictator and his clandestine involvement in some shady real estate and drug deals. With hindsight, the fact that this only cost him his job and not his health or even his life bordered on a small miracle. A disciplinary transfer to some regional court in the Kosovo region had been Siniša’s punishment, along with the dreadful boredom that entailed. He resigned after only a few years and returned to Belgrade as a lawyer intent on becoming a scourge of those in power. He didn’t miss an opportunity to present himself as the champion of the underdog – preferably amid a flurry of flash bulbs or in front of rolling cameras. It bothered Milena that he sometimes twisted the facts to his advantage, something she regarded not only as dangerous but also as aping the tactics he accused his adversaries of using. However, according to Siniša, this kind of legal jiggery-pokery was part and parcel of what he did.
Suddenly there he was, weighed down by a heavy pile of documents as usual. Milena leant across the passenger seat and pushed open the door for him.
‘Sorry, darling,’ he huffed and puffed, putting his bag behind the seat and throwing his folders in the back, ‘but at least it was worth it.’ He flopped down next to her. ‘Remember that bunch of professors from Nikšić who were flogging off doctoral titles? I know it’s a few years ago, but they’ve reopened the case.’
‘Congratulations!’
He pulled the door shut and tugged on the safety belt. His bitter-smelling aftershave, always rather too strong, was as much a part of his image as his permanent suntan, his silver hair and his big signet ring bearing the Montenegrin coat of arms.
‘I’m glad you’re coming along,’ Milena said, starting the engine. ‘Driving to Avala now on my own and questioning the refugees – well, I’d feel a bit uncomfortable.’
With a smile he stretched out his arm and flung it round her headrest. ‘You know I’d travel to the ends of the earth with you. Any time.’ He looked at her from the side. ‘You’d only have to ask.’
The Lada lurched forward, and the bottles in the boot rattled as Milena accelerated. She had found out at the Migration Centre of the Ministry of the Interior that Miloš and Ljubinka Valetić’s last address had been the refugee reception centre at Avala. Unfortunately no other information had been available, and it was difficult to ascertain whether that was a result of ignorance or arrogance.
They drove along a poplar-lined street, past the Red Star football stadium and Byford’s Forest, the site of a notorious Second World War concentration camp, where a memorial now commemorated the thousands who had been killed there by the German occupation forces. The drizzly rain had stopped and the spray from the cars in front produced a smeary film on the windscreen. Milena switched on the windscreen wipers – to no effect, as the water reservoir was empty.
‘Bubanj Potok.’ Siniša used his sleeve to clear the condensation off the passenger window. The name of this town was inextricably linked with their time at school, with the subject of ‘Self Defence’ and with the M48 rifle, made in Yugoslavia. For Siniša the obligatory rifle practice had been a source of delight, whereas for Milena it had been a torment. The weapon’s recoil caused massive bruising on her right shoulder, and her fear of firing a gun meant that she hit her neighbour’s target more often than her own. That all was decades ago. The state that had to be defended then had long since disintegrated, and the new entity which had taken its place could be observed on both sides of the country lane they were driving down: little markets for electrical goods, bathroom supply shops and wooden kiosks where old people were selling their meagre crops of fruit and vegetables. Each shack and each new building represented an idea that was implemented without any overarching plan, often with limited resources and, in most cases, without specialist knowhow. These people were the antithesis of those others who had quickly grasped how the new system worked, who had grown rich over the past twenty years and made every effort to barricade themselves away from the people left behind, the losers. The only visible evidence of their villas were the electronically operated, cast-iron gates and pillars topped by stone lions or faux Greek amphora.
‘Look out!’ Siniša shouted.
She had almost missed the turn-off for Avala.
The narrow road led uphill, via hairpin bends and past footpaths, wooden benches and picnic areas, ever further and deeper into the forest. She shifted into a lower gear and overtook some walkers in hiking boots and anoraks on their way to the castle, which had once been the summer residence of the king and had been turned a few decades ago into a hotel and a tourist café. Halfway up, Milena turned off the main road onto a small gravel track lined by bushes.
‘Are you sure we’re right, here?’
‘Don’t worry.’ She stopped where another Lada was parked, identical to hers – a Niva four-by-four – but with flat tyres, smashed windows and a radiator from which weeds were sprouting. Milena and Siniša opened their doors simultaneously.
After a few minutes on foot, the path grew even narrower. Through the first tender spring shoots on the elderflower bushes they spotted a long, low, one-storey building. In former times it had been a rest and recuperation home for trade unionists, but now it housed refugees. Because they had started arriving in such huge numbers, a row of housing containers now stood where the playing fields had once been. Between their metal walls women had begun to prepare the ground for a vegetable patch. As Milena advanced towards them they snatched up their baskets and disappeared.
She let them go and followed Siniša in the opposite direction, across a sandy square and towards a cluster of trees, which had been linked by a network of washing lines. There, a man was sitting beneath a drying shirt bearing the legend ‘Hard Rock Cafe San Francisco’. He was portly and partly balding, and was probably in his mid-thirties, but could just as easily have been in his early fifties. The lower part of his face was obscured by a five o’clock shadow.
‘May we disturb you for a moment?’ Siniša loosened his tie. ‘My name’s Stojković. And this is Ms Lukin.’
The man crossed his arms and eyed them suspiciously.
‘It concerns the Valetić family,’ Milena said. ‘We’re trying to locate their children. Do you have any idea where we might find them?’
For a few seconds the man’s face disappeared as a gust of wind caught a tablecloth and made it billow out. His checked shirt was buttoned up all the way to the neck but was open over his hairy stomach. ‘Your colleagues have already come sniffing round here,’ he replied.
‘Ms Lukin is from the Institute for Forensic Science and Criminology, and I’m a lawyer,’ Siniša said. ‘We’ll be gone as soon as you tell us where we can find the dependents – for example, the daughter. What was her name again?’
‘Daughter?’ piped up a young woman, still almost a child, who was leaning against a pole. Her hair reached down to her bottom and the legs of her jeans had been cut off as high as possible.
‘Do you know her, then?’ Milena said to the young woman. ‘I believe the Valetićs also had a son.’
‘A son?’ the young woman asked again. ‘But not the guy in the suit and the sunglasses?’
‘You’re an airhead,’ the man on the chair said, without turning to face the girl. ‘You know nothing.’
‘How come?’ She bent down and grabbed a packet of cigarettes lying in the grass. ‘Did you know that Grandpa Miloš had a son and a daughter? No? Well, there you go.’
Siniša lit the young woman’s cigarette and asked, ‘What about this guy in a suit?’
She blew smoke into Siniša’s face. ‘He was fucking hot, but didn’t give me a second glance – even with my arse.’ She tossed her hair back self-confidently. ‘Bloody stupid, eh?’
Milena noticed an old man limping in their direction across the meadow. ‘The man in the suit,’ she persisted, keen not to let that subject drop too quickly, ‘what was he doing here?’
‘He was going on about the houses being built for us in Kosovo. Why are you interested?’
‘But this man wasn’t the son. Or was he?’ Siniša asked.
‘Stella, hand me your mobile phone,’ the man on the chair ordered. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Oh, get off your high horse!’ The girl puffed. ‘I don’t get it. And as far as Grandpa Miloš is concerned, I honestly think anything’s possible. If you ask me, he was completely off his trolley. Always just the one subject. You want to know which?’ She looked at Siniša, and then at Milena, and then Siniša again. ‘Latin.’
‘He taught here?’ Milena asked.
‘I mean, can you imagine? Latin!’ She flicked a bit of ash off into the grass. ‘I honestly don’t know anybody who gets off on Latin.’
Leaning on his walking stick, the old man joined their circle. He had come limping towards them, totally out of breath. ‘Of course not,’ he interjected. ‘Miloš was just mad enough to think that he could turn you and the others into halfway sensible and educated human beings.’
‘I always found him a hoot.’ The girl burst out laughing. ‘The way he looked at you! See? Like this!’ She grabbed Siniša’s arm and grimaced by pulling her eyebrows down and her lips up to her nose.
The man in the checked shirt made a gesture as if he were about to slap her. ‘If you don’t get lost this instant, I’ll tell your mother what you do behind the shed – and then you know what’ll happen.’
With studied nonchalance she extinguished her cigarette, threw Siniša one last languid look and teetered away, with her bottom less well covered by the fabric of her jeans than by her hair.
With narrowed eyes, the old man fixed his gaze first on Siniša and then on Milena. ‘Which newspaper are you from?’ he asked. ‘Or are you CID?’
‘They say they’re lawyers,’ the man in the checked shirt snorted derisively.
‘Srdjan,’ the old man knocked at the leg of the chair with his stick. ‘Come on. Go and get us something to drink.’
The man got up without another word, spat into the grass and walked away, his fists in his pockets. The old man leant on his stick before slumping down on the chair. ‘His wife ran away,’ he croaked, ‘just a few days ago.’
Concerned, Siniša watched the other man disappear from sight. Milena asked, ‘Did you know Miloš Valetić? Could you tell us something about him?’
The old guy turned to Siniša. ‘Is this your wife?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Siniša smiled. ‘Only my boss.’
The old man nodded knowingly and folded his hands over the crook of his stick. ‘Old Miloš…’ He took his time to answer, staring at an invisible point on the floor. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘he was a strange guy. He didn’t drink or smoke, but he got on everybody’s nerves with his damned humanism. Erasmus of Rotterdam, Kant, Cicero – all these clever dicks became subjects of discussion in this rathole – thanks to Miloš. He was relentless. And then those people from the ministry showed up here and told us about Talinovac and that our future lay there. And then suddenly this beautiful word cropped up: “return”. Miloš’ eyes were not the only ones that lit up.’ The old man sighed and shook his head. ‘Where, I asked them, do you want us to return to? To some strange village, to a house that doesn’t belong to us?’
A loud bang shattered the silence, and a child started screaming. Somebody was remonstrating, somewhere a window was tilted, and the crying became more muffled.
‘Were Miloš and Ljubinka Valetić the only ones who went back?’ Milena asked.
‘They were the first – and now they’ll probably be the only ones. Believe you me, I told him a thousand times. “Miloš,” I said, “stay here, stay where you are, and don’t agree to anything.” But he wouldn’t listen. “It’s our last chance,” he said. And then he simply set off, down that road, with his suitcase and his old girl right behind him.’ The old man blinked and made the sign of the cross.
Siniša leant against the tree with his arms crossed, in pensive mood. ‘Were the children here to say goodbye to their parents?’ he asked. ‘Or to take them to the station?’
The old man remained silent for a while. ‘I only know about the son,’ he finally said. ‘Goran showed up once every quarter – at most. He’s not a bad kid. You’ve got to remember: he was only a child when he lost his home and was uprooted. Like all the children he stood by and watched as the values we’d taught them all dissolved. They no longer believe in our ideals. They think that we, the fathers, are responsible for all the misery and for the bad start to their lives, and accuse us of being weaklings. And the worst of it is, they’re absolutely right. We were stupid enough to believe we could fight evil with humanity, instead of defending our families – with armed force if necessary, and even paying the ultimate price if it came to it. Now we sit here, we look into the mirror held up to us by our children and we see in it the reflection of what we are: men of straw. For Miloš this realisation was a tragedy.’
‘Didn’t the boy try and persuade his parents to stay?’ Milena asked.
The old man was at a loss. ‘Miloš said he had nothing to lose any more.’
It had grown quiet once more. The only thing they could hear was the wind as it rustled the leaves and made the laundry swing on the lines. A checked shirt became visible through the trees, along with a basket from which the neck of a bottle protruded.
Siniša cleared his throat. ‘Do you know where we could find Goran or his sister?’
The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t even know if they still live in Belgrade.’
Milena caught Siniša’s eye. He nodded in agreement. She excused herself, pushed the hanging tablecloth aside and dived under the line.
On the sandy square behind the refugee house stood an elm with a bench beneath it. Bicycles leant against the railings of the steps leading down to the cellar. There was not a soul in sight. Milena ascended the steps to the entrance. There was no doorbell.
Inside the porch a flight of stairs led up to the first floor. Milena walked straight onwards and reached a corridor, which seemed to run the whole length of the building. Weak daylight from windows at the far end provided the only dim illumination. A figure was approaching Milena along the corridor. She walked towards the black silhouette.
‘Excuse me,’ she called out.
The person’s crew-cut hair was dyed blonde at the tips, a ring flashed in his nose and his top lip was pierced with large metallic rings. The young man was wearing huge headphones. If Milena had not stood right in front of him he would have walked past her without stopping.
‘I’m looking for the women who were in the garden a moment ago,’ she said.
He looked at her with a blank expression. Then he suddenly seemed to grasp what she meant. ‘Just down this corridor.’ They passed each other, and over his shoulder he called, ‘Go right to the end.’
The door he’d apparently indicated was set in a niche that was also used as a collection point for recycling paper. There was the sound of music being played on a radio. Milena stopped and thought for a moment – maybe it would be wise not to begin by asking about the Valetićs, and instead to just strike up a conversation with the occupants. She knocked and pressed down on the door handle.
The women were sitting at a table on which a newspaper had been spread out. On it were potatoes, onions, fennel and red peppers. There was also a pot of coffee and some pastries.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ Milena said. ‘I must have lost my way. The young man out there said –’
A woman with a headscarf got up from her chair. ‘Can somebody help me with the laundry?’ Without even looking at Milena, she walked past her out of the door. Two women followed her, and then a third.
‘Please,’ Milena said, ‘I didn’t mean to drive you away.’
A blonde woman in a jean jacket switched off the radio and began noisily piling up the dishes. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I’m here in a private capacity. The matter is –’
‘Let me guess.’ The blonde threw the potatoes into the pot one by one. ‘It’s to do with the Valetićs, isn’t it?’
‘Many years ago Ljubinka Valetić was my uncle’s girlfriend, in fact his childhood sweetheart.’
‘How fascinating. And you now want to rekindle his memories?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Nice story. We haven’t heard that one before.’ She folded up the newspaper. ‘Now it’s my turn to tell you one.’ She started wiping the table vigorously. ‘The main thing about old Mrs Valetić was that she was a stuck-up old bat, really snooty and not very talkative. What I’ll always remember about her are her embroidered handkerchiefs and the dainty little portions of food she put on her plate.’
Milena smiled awkwardly. ‘And where can I find the daughter?’
‘Slavujka?’ She hung the dishcloth over the tap. ‘She works in the market.’
‘Then she’s the opposite of her mother, is she?’
‘Oh no, don’t imagine for a moment that she ever thought to bring any produce here for us – salad, vegetables, you know, stuff that doesn’t get sold at the market. No chance of that.’ She pushed the chairs under the table. ‘But, sad as it is, that chapter’s now closed.’
Milena helped her with the chairs. ‘What about the man who was here and tried to persuade you to return to Kosovo?’
‘I didn’t listen to that claptrap. Now, you must excuse me.’ She closed the window and took down a key from a hook.
‘And what about the son – Goran?’ Milena asked.
But the woman was already gone.
Milena went over to the window. The sun was already setting. Outside, two men with spades and wheelbarrows set about filling the potholes on the path with stones. Children were jumping around a dog that stood taller than the smallest ones among them. An official had come here to offer the hope of a new life to these people, and an elderly couple had taken the word of officialdom as gospel and actually set off back to their old homeland. Their trusting nature had cost them their lives. The people of Avala were in shock.
Milena took a glass from the shelf and held it under the tap. As she did so she had the strange feeling that she was being watched. She turned off the tap and swung round.
An old woman clad all in black, with a black shawl, sat huddled in a dark corner like she’d been put there some while ago and then forgotten. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t notice you,’ said Milena.
‘The girl you are looking for…’ the old woman croaked.
Milena approached her and crouched down. ‘Was Slavujka here?’ she asked. ‘Do you know her?’
The eyes of the old woman were milky, and her bony chin trembled. ‘She’s a good girl.’ Tentatively she stretched out her hand towards Milena. ‘But you need to remember something.’
‘What?’ Milena asked.
The old lady touched her cheek. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything people tell you.’