The traffic grew worse with every passing slip road. Vans and cars squeezed past lorries on the outside lane, and only reluctantly gave way to the dark limousine with the diplomatic number plate which was speeding into town from the airport with its headlights on full beam.
‘Where would you like me to take you?’ The driver was trying to make eye contact in the rear-view mirror. ‘Straight home?’
Milena leant forward. ‘I need to get to the Music School. Njegoš Street – is that on your way?’
‘When do you need to be there?’
‘Just after seven. My son’s waiting there for me.’
The driver moved over to the left-hand lane. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it.’
Behind the darkened windows of the limo, the Kalemegdan Fortress loomed up on the steep hill at the northern end of the Old City, with its remnants of old masonry and walls, which the Ottomans had erected there many hundreds of years ago. At its far end stood a huge monument, the Pobednik, ‘The Victor’, a hideously ugly sculpture dating from the late nineteenth century. Its outstretched arm holding a dove marked the confluence of the Danube and the Sava. Milena leant back, closed her eyes and tried to relax. Alexander Kronburg’s offer had left her speechless. After the initial shock, she had felt flattered, but now she mainly felt at a complete loss. This was going to turn everything upside down! She had asked for some time to think about it.
Branko’s Bridge, the eye of the needle where Belgrade’s traffic was concerned, was chock-a-block as usual. The driver flashed his lights and used every gap to try and inch his way forward.
‘What do you think?’ Milena leaned forward again. ‘Shall I call my son and tell him that we’re going to be a little late?’
‘We’ll be there in ten minutes.’ He looked at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Twelve at most.’
‘Perfect.’
With dusk falling, the Old City was already illuminated by floodlights. Next to the two small domes, the Seat of the Patriarch and the Palace of Princess Ljubica, the tower of St Michael’s Cathedral shone in a soft green and golden light. A picture-perfect panorama – if you ignored the rest, that is – that huge stone pile, a jumble of preand post-war buildings, with huge advertising hoardings mounted on top of their flat roofs.
‘It is very kind of you to ferry me around like this,’ said Milena.
‘Don’t mention it.’ The driver said, indicating to turn. ‘To her front door – those were Count Kronburg’s explicit instructions.’
‘Don’t even think about it. At Republic Square we can catch the number 26, which takes us straight to Tašmajdan Park.’
‘I’m really happy to take you, Ms Lukin.’
Milena checked her telephone and asked, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Saša Urban.’
‘Do you have any children?’
‘Two daughters.’
‘Already grown-up?’
‘The older one’s just finishing her education at the moment.’
‘Here in Belgrade?’
The man laughed. ‘That’d be nice! No, in Germany. It had to be Occupational Therapy. And now she’s announced that she wants to study Pharmacology.’
‘Sounds very gifted, your daughter. And the other one?’
‘Is in Boston. Working as an au pair with friends of the Kronburgs.’
‘Your children really are spread round the world.’
‘You can say that again. As long as they get ahead – isn’t that the most important thing? Look, up there ahead of us, is this your boy?’
The car stopped and Adam came running, with his guitar on his back. ‘What’s up now?’ he shouted.
‘Where’s your hat?’ Milena had got out; as she was helping Adam take off the guitar, the boot of the limo opened as if by magic.
‘So where’s our Niva?’ Adam asked as they climbed in, not forgetting to politely wish the driver a good evening at the same time.
‘The Niva’s still parked outside the institute,’ said Milena. ‘I’ll fetch it tomorrow.’
‘Is this the German ambassador?’ Adam whispered, sliding onto the back seat next to Milena. ‘The man you’re always getting so upset about?’
Milena shook her head. ‘It’s his driver. Mr Urban is very kindly taking us home.’ She lifted her finger as a warning. ‘So don’t you go telling any tall tales now, d’you hear?’
‘How many horsepower does this car have?’ Adam asked as soon as Urban had settled in the driver’s seat.
‘Two hundred and twenty,’ the driver answered. They passed slowly along Njegoš Street.
‘It must use up a lot of petrol, though?’
‘Especially in town.’
‘That’s not very eco-friendly, is it?’
‘Adam, please!’
‘The lad’s not wrong,’ Urban conceded.
‘No, just precocious.’
Adam grinned and enquired in a rather stilted way, ‘Is the engine at least diesel fuel-injection?’
They passed the market. As Adam talked shop with the driver, Milena thought about Slavujka Valetić, who ran a stall somewhere here with the other women of her company. Hopefully, if she managed to get hold of her on Monday, they might be able to meet as early as Tuesday, maybe even all four of them – Slavujka, Goran, Siniša and herself – for a debrief. If Milena was planning to confront the secretary of state for Kosovo with the situation in Talinovac, she needed backup and had to be sure that she was doing the right thing.
The hurly-burly on Njegoš Street was not unusual for this time on a market day. The market traders were piling boxes on top of each other and blocking half the street with their trailers, vans and carts. The driver reversed a little and turned into a side road, Mutap Street. It was the same street that Milena had escorted the old lady to the other day. In passing, she caught sight of the house, with its mossy windowsills and chipped stucco decorations. Today the big gate was open, revealing an ambulance parked in the dimly lit entrance.
Startled, Milena put her hand on the front seat. ‘Sorry – could we stop for a moment?’
Urban slowed down and pulled over.
‘Ten minutes, OK?’ she asked.
‘Not a problem,’ the driver said. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
Before she opened the door, she said to Adam, again raising her finger, ‘You wait here. I’ll be back shortly.’
She had to backtrack a bit, and hoped that she’d been mistaken, but even before she reached the house the ambulance pulled out of the entrance, with its headlights full on, turned swiftly and drove off at a stately pace.
Concerned, Milena watched its receding tail lights. Every day since, she’d thought about paying the old lady a visit, only to postpone it again. And now it was too late.
A lady in slippers and a raincoat came out of the entrance, most probably a neighbour. Milena went up to her. ‘I’m sorry, but I just saw an ambulance leave and I was worried. Has something happened to the old lady?’
The woman dug her hands into her pockets. ‘Do you know Miss Juliana?’
Milena shook her head. ‘I just met her the other week.’
‘A dizzy spell, at least that’s what the doctor says, but I know her symptoms. I fear that diagnosis is a bit optimistic.’ The woman walked on, and Milena stared into the empty entrance and the gloomy light cast there by a single bulb. Branches of ivy swung in the wind, and behind them everything was pitch black.
‘Are you, by any chance,’ – the woman in the raincoat had come back – ‘the lady who took Miss Juliana home the other day?’
‘She was a bit disorientated,’ Milena nodded. ‘So we walked some of the way together.’
‘And there was me thinking it was just another one of Miss Juliana’s stories! Thank you so much. That was very considerate of you.’
‘Are you looking after the old lady?’
‘I do what I can. Look, I’ve got to go now. Have a nice evening.’
‘Just one more question,’ Milena called after her. ‘Which hospital did they take her to?’
‘Hospital? No, she’s sitting in there, in her kitchen.’
Milena smiled with relief. ‘I thought…’
‘At her own risk. Stubborn as a mule, she is.’ The woman looked up at the house with misgivings etched on her face. ‘The doctor wanted to take her in for observation, but she was having none of it. You know, if you were to believe her, it’s all just a virus of some kind. The best doctor can do nothing when someone’s like that – let alone me, the stupid neighbour.’
Milena’s face betrayed her concern. ‘Is someone with her now?’
‘Who? The beloved family only exists in her head now. The last one, her cousin Sophia, is six feet under, and has been for fifteen years.’
‘She told me about a man, who she thought she saw the other day.’
‘You probably mean Nicola – her cousin. She hasn’t stopped talking about him of late. He upped and left sixty years ago; I think he went to Canada. No, no, Miss Juliana is totally alone, unfortunately, there’s nobody anymore.’ The woman looked back at the house. ‘You know, I can’t stop thinking: what’s she up to right now, what’s she going to dream up next? Has she still got all her marbles, or is she going to set fire to the old place?’
‘It’s good that you care so much.’
The woman shrugged helplessly. ‘What am I supposed to do? The doctor gives her an injection, prescribes a few drops and then clears off. And I have to dash to the chemist’s to get something for when she next keels over.’
‘Of course,’ Milena replied.
‘But I can’t be in two places at once! My husband, for example, has been waiting for his dinner for almost two hours now, and I have to look after my father-in-law, who needs constant care as well, and then I find myself thinking again: no, I’ve got to go over and check whether she’s turned off the gas cooker. Or that she isn’t crawling around the garden picking up old twigs. Believe me, I’m not joking.’
‘Let me know if I can be of any help,’ said Milena. ‘Maybe I could go and fetch the drops?’
‘I can do that!’ came Adam’s crystal-clear voice. ‘I know where the chemist’s is!’
Milena turned around, crouched down and pulled the zip of his jacket closed. ‘I meant what I said about staying put in the car,’ she chided.
‘Look out,’ said the neighbour to Milena. ‘I might take you up on that.’
‘By all means, do.’
‘Really?’ She gave Milena an imploring look. ‘You know what’d be really good of you?’ She came a step closer. ‘If you could keep an eye on Miss Juliana for a little while? That’d cut me some slack.’
Milena looked at her watch.
‘Just half an hour, no more,’ continued the neighbour, ‘then I’ll have taken care of my menfolk and could relieve you. I’m sorry, I know it’s an imposition.’
‘Where do you live?’ Milena asked.
‘Over there.’ The woman pointed across the street and past Mr Urban, who was waiting at a discreet distance. As if he’d been waiting just for this moment, he stepped forward and said, ‘If I may say so, your son made a very good suggestion.’
‘I could have been to the chemist’s and back three times by now,’ Adam grumbled.
‘All right.’ Milena laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Let’s do it your way.’
A few minutes later, Adam and Mr Urban were on their way to the pharmacy, prescription in hand. The neighbour hurried home, and Milena phoned Vera to tell her that they’d be a bit late back tonight. All the rest of the news could be shared over the dinner table.
Milena put away the phone and climbed the little staircase to the raised ground floor with trepidation. ‘Just go in,’ the neighbour had said. ‘Miss Juliana knows the drill. She’ll be pleased to see you.’
The front door was open, but the corridor lay in darkness. The only glimmer of light came through a door on the right, left slightly ajar.
‘Hello?’ Milena turned the door handle gently, hoping she wouldn’t frighten the old lady to death.
The narrow room was a pantry containing a tall shelf unit with a few provisions scattered on it. Milena couldn’t open the door fully, only by a small gap. It jammed against something large and heavy lying behind it.
‘Miss Juliana?’ She pushed and shoved, and tried to see into the corner behind the door. A poker fell to the floor, and the light went off. Milena felt along the wall to find the switch.
It was only a sack of potatoes. Milena bent down and dragged the obstacle out of the corner, then picked up the can that was lying behind it, and switched off the light.
At the end of the corridor was a double door, from which the paint was flaking off. Milena knocked, waited a few seconds and entered a large room with floor-to-ceiling tiles, decorated with blue-and-white Dutch motifs dimly glinting in the diffuse light. To the left of the sink was a huge cabinet full of china, which must have been even older than the service lift and bell in their dusty wooden box with oldfashioned numerals on it. The cook, who once upon a time would have ruled over this domain, must have had very strong arms: a few cast-iron pots still hung above the disused cooking range, which dwarfed the gas cooker – probably the most recent addition to this kitchen. Everything was neatly in its place; only the sideboard was strewn with all manner of things – coins, keys, batteries and a set of dark leather gloves.
Around the corner there was a bed, as narrow as a pallet and covered by a checked blanket. In front of the big window stood a small illuminated lamp, the only light source in this room. Three ugly pieces of furniture had been arranged into a seating area: a chair, a square table that was much too tall and – with its back to the room – a wing chair, occupied by a slip of a person, whose figure was reflected in the dark windowpane. Milena approached carefully.
Miss Juliana was wearing a white nightgown with an embroidered collar and a woollen knitted jacket, over which she had pulled a quilted vest. Her feet rested on a little stool and were clad in thick socks and ankle-high padded slippers. A long thin braid of hair hung over one bony shoulder. Her head was tilted to one side and her mouth was open as she sat there dozing. Milena was about to tiptoe out again when the grandfather clock started to rattle and strike.
‘Good evening.’ Miss Juliana looked up and cleared her throat. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Please excuse me, I didn’t mean to intrude like this,’ Milena smiled apologetically. ‘I certainly didn’t want to disturb you.’
The old lady tried to stand up. ‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘Please don’t get up.’ Milena took her bag from her shoulder. ‘Your neighbour asked me to look in on you. She’ll be back in a little while.’
‘What time is it?’ Miss Juliana looked around inquiringly. ‘Oh my goodness.’ Again, she tried to haul herself up. ‘I have to make dinner. You must be hungry.’
Milena put her hand on the old lady’s arm. ‘You felt weak. You need to rest now.’
The old lady patted Milena’s hand. ‘I knew you’d come by again, but I had no idea it would be today.’
‘You remember?’ Milena pulled up a chair.
‘What has Angelina been telling you? That I’m losing my marbles? Her gossiping will get me into trouble all over the place. Please sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Thank you – honestly, don’t bother. But how about you? Shall I put the kettle on?’
Miss Juliana declined and studied the little plaster on her arm. ‘Heaven knows what the doctor injected me with this time. A really young chap and, if you ask me, still a bit wet behind the ears. You should have seen the kerfuffle here – what a circus! The doctor, an ambulance with blue lights flashing and crew fussing over me. What was Angelina thinking of ? Her nerves are driving everyone crazy here – they’ll send me to an early grave, I swear.’
‘Your neighbour means well, and she’s looking after you; you can’t reproach her for that.’ Milena took a carafe from the table and poured some water into a glass.
Miss Juliana drank and then leant back, exhausted.
‘How are you?’ Milena asked. ‘Feeling a bit better?’
‘Thank you, I’m well. And how are you?’ Miss Juliana looked around timidly and asked quietly, ‘Is he still here?’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t you know my cousin?’
‘Nicola?’ Milena shook her head. ‘But you talked about him last week.’
‘He’s so obstinate.’ Miss Juliana audibly drew breath through her nose. ‘This afternoon, for instance.’
‘Was that the reason for your dizzy spell?’ Milena interrupted.
Miss Juliana shook her head. ‘Can I tell you what really happened?’
‘Only if it doesn’t upset you.’
‘My dear, I’m calmness personified, believe me. So, I’m sitting here at the window, writing up the household accounts, and I see, out there in the garden in the dusk, some strange people wandering around among the trees. I think to myself, that’s not on, strangers in our garden, and I’m about to call the police when I recognise him.’
‘Your cousin?’
‘Who else?’ Miss Juliana took another sip, and then gingerly put the glass back on the table. ‘Even if I’m only the old aunt, the cousin, part of the furniture here, like that battered pan hanging over the stove there – I’m still here. And I wonder: is it too much to ask that he might come in and say hello, or introduce me to his friends? What kind of behaviour is that?’
‘Are you sure that it was Nicola?’
‘I know what you’re trying to say: all cats look grey in the dusk. You’re talking like Angelina now.’
Milena wasn’t deterred. ‘But your neighbour said that your cousin emigrated to Canada a long time ago.’
‘Angelina’s a chatterbox, but what she said is right. Yes, he did go to Canada, and you could say that he forgot all his manners over there among the lumberjacks.’
‘When did he leave?’ Milena leant forward. ‘Sixty years ago? How old would he be now? Eighty?’
Miss Juliana stared into thin air, and Milena continued gently, ‘I don’t want to be impertinent. But could you have dreamt the story with Nicola, the scene in the garden?’
‘Do you know when I last had a dream?’ Miss Juliana leant forward. ‘That night when German bombs fell on Belgrade. We’d have all been burnt alive if my late mother hadn’t been there and called to me in the dream, “Get out, my child! You have to get out of there!”’
‘My God!’ Milena exclaimed. ‘And then?’
‘A catastrophe. Everything burnt, everything lost. The Albanian in the shed… burnt to a cinder. Thank God Uncle Lazarus didn’t live to see that.’ Miss Juliana propped herself up on the armrest and placed her index finger against her temple. ‘You know his shop? In Balkan Street, up there, on the corner of Queen Natalija Street. Two floors with the most beautiful furs, chandeliers on the ceilings, fifteen employees. We didn’t dare go in there, back then, when my father dropped me off here. We were country bumpkins, the poor relations. You know, if there was one wish I might have wanted fulfilled, I would have loved to have seen the shops in Budapest, Vienna and Paris. But, unfortunately, it never happened. I was only allowed to look at photographs.’
‘Didn’t Nicola want to take over the business?’ asked Milena on the off-chance. ‘Or had that ship already sailed?’
‘Let’s just say he had his mind on other things. He wanted to get away and have nothing more to do with the family. To be perfectly frank…’ She peered about furtively. ‘His gambling debts were probably the reason.’ She sighed. ‘How many years we waited for him to come back! Sophia had already given up hope, but for me it was always a consoling thought that he’d be standing outside that door again one day. And, you see, I was right all along. That’s exactly what happened. Though I’d pictured his return rather differently, if I’m honest. But we’ve all changed, haven’t we?’ She tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. ‘No, I mustn’t grumble. My dear, whatever’s up with you? do you have to leave already?’
‘I’m really sorry.’ Milena wrote her telephone number in large numerals on the back of her business card. ‘My son’s waiting outside and my mother’s at home. But if anything untoward occurs again, like strangers in your garden, or if something strikes you as odd, you call me. Agreed?’
Miss Juliana looked at the numbers, tucked the card into the sleeve of her woollen jacket and said in a chiding voice, ‘But I’ve been rabbiting on – you should have stopped me!’
On the way home, Milena was deep in thought. An eightyyear-old cousin who returns home and strolls round the garden with strangers? That didn’t make sense. The old lady was lonely, was confusing the past and the present and had invented a unique world that most likely didn’t always tally with reality. But had she gone completely senile?
After dinner, once Adam had gone to bed, Milena made herself a cup of tea and went to her room. She closed the door, sat down at her desk and took out the magazine Prominent! from her bag.
As she was looking for her lighter, she suddenly remembered the gloves she’d noticed on Miss Juliana’s sideboard. Dark leather, and far too big for the hands of an old lady, surely? They were a man’s gloves, no question. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
The door opened, Fiona walked in and Vera asked, ‘Do you have a moment?’
Milena lit a cigarillo, blew the smoke into the air and watched the cat jump onto the desk as Vera strode across the room and pointedly opened the window.
‘I know,’ Milena said, ‘we shouldn’t have come back so late, with Adam having to get up early tomorrow. I’m sorry.’
‘Cruising around in a limousine, with a chauffeur! Congratulations, Adam’s really got a taste for that kind of life now.’ Vera bent down, picked up a book from the floor and put it on the bedside table.
‘Mum’, Milena sighed, ‘it’s almost eleven. And I still need to call Tanja. The driver and the delay in Mutap Street – well, it just happened that way.’
‘Interesting.’ Vera plumped up a cushion, energetically pummelling it into shape. ‘How exactly do things just happen that way?’
‘Look, I had a meeting with Alexander Kronburg. We talked and talked and lost track of time. So I went with him to the airport, so as to continue the conversation, and afterwards the driver took me back to town. It’s as simple as that.’
‘May I ask what you had to discuss at such length – you and His Lordship?’
Milena shook her head. ‘It’s complicated, and I haven’t had time to digest it yet.’
‘How could you have? You had to look after an old lady in Mutap Street. Like you had nothing better to do. But what am I getting so het up about anyway?’ Vera said, folding a T-shirt and hanging it over the armrest of a chair. ‘Here everyone just does as they please anyhow, so I’m not going to get upset about it anymore.’
‘Now listen to me,’ Milena said. ‘Miss Juliana’s an old woman. She spends her whole day just sitting in that ancient house, which is going to fall down around her ears soon, she only has one neighbour who looks out for her, and she’s clinging on to a life that doesn’t exist anymore, and the sheer effort of doing that takes everything out of her. When she sits in her vast kitchen she fancies she can see strangers in her garden, and whenever she leaves the house she can’t find her way back.’
Milena proceeded to tell Vera about her encounter with Miss Juliana in the market a few days previously, and how she’d spotted an ambulance in the driveway this evening.
‘Mutap Street’, Vera repeated pensively. ‘Do you mean that old, semi-derelict mansion, with the stucco work on the façade, which makes you wonder whether it’s still inhabited?’
‘Apparently, the family once owned a pretty big store, selling furs.’
‘Spajić’s, the furrier?’
‘Balkan Street. Did you know it?’
‘Your father’s grandmother had a muff that came from Spajić’s, I believe. Aunt Borka’s still got the moth-eaten thing. After all, it was from Spajić’s, where only the very best people shopped. Not to mention royalty.’ Vera picked up the magazine and looked at the picture on the cover. ‘Not our world. We’re partisans, always have been, but if you think you need to fraternise with these people – so be it. You’ll have your reasons, I don’t doubt.’
‘Mum?’
Vera, whose hand was already on the door handle, turned around. ‘I know. I’m jealous. But what did you expect?’
‘The magazine.’ Milena held out her hand. ‘I still need to check something in it.’
Vera closed the door behind her, and Milena turned to the ‘diary’ page. April seventeenth, Thursday – that was tomorrow. She pushed the cat aside and reached for the telephone.
When Tanja picked up, Milena asked, ‘Were you sleeping already?’
‘Sleeping? How could I? I’ve listened to my voicemail three times, but I still can’t make head or tail of your message. What’s up?’
Milena leant back. ‘I was thinking it’s time we went out again.’
‘Then we should go to the movies and have a drink afterwards – anything but Slobodan Božović’s fiftieth birthday party.’
‘So you’ve got an invitation?’
‘Of course I have. How do you think I pay for my plane tickets? His wife is a loyal customer of mine.’
‘Right then.’ Milena extinguished her cigarillo. ‘I’ll be your plus-one. It’ll be a laugh, and while we’re there –’
‘Those parties are no laugh,’ Tanja interrupted. ‘You know how these events are: women rabbiting on about their interior designers and personal trainers, while the men stare at their boobs and play pocket billiards.’
‘It has to do with the old couple who were murdered two weeks ago. Their house is a ruin, practically uninhabitable. I just have to find out –’
‘Sweetie, you never give up, do you?’
‘Does that mean we’re going, then?’
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Tanja said, ‘Absolutely not.’