Zagreb Noir Read online

  XV

  And that’s how I was cast out of paradise.

  They let me out of the hotel and I strolled down the street once again free. I have no idea what I’ll do with my life, but I think everything will be easy from now on. I’m not going back to my old business. I assume I’ll never see Zaza again.

  I have no plans to go back to the Raspašoj, or to Košmar or Rusvaj. I no longer have friends there.

  I’ll never attend that meeting, and I don’t want to, not even if it’s held in Jajce. It doesn’t concern me.

  Right now I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not lost. From down here, on this sidewalk, everything seems easy to me again. What will be will be. Maybe I’ll leave Zagreb for a while and travel. I love this city, and I’m sure I’ll come back to it.

  Though others prepare for trips with lots of stuff, I plan on carrying my provisions in my heart.

  A flock of wild ducks.

  A flock of swallows.

  And one more flock of pigeons.

  I’ll release them along the way, when it’s necessary: the wild ducks and swallows in endless expanses. The pigeons I’ll release so I can follow them as I wander through cities, so I won’t get lost again. I’ll follow the birds.

  The Gates of Hell

  by RUŽICA GAŠPEROV

  Downtown Central

  Translated by Will Firth

  I have to find out the truth before my cirrhosis deals its final blow. I’ve been a coward, hiding behind the excuse that the past is over and done with. I’ve lived for forty years trying to avoid the issue, but now there’s nothing more to lose.

  The tram stops at Jelačić Square. I get out. The rain has just stopped and the sidewalk is wet. I turn around and look at the main square, a stone’s throw from where I spent the most beautiful and most ugly days of my worthless life. Everything has changed, but then again, in a way, everything is still the same.

  Here are the buildings I used to look onto from my little subtenant’s room on the nights I stayed up studying, when the world was waiting for one young economics student to become its academic citizen. Yes, that’s how it was, up until that day.

  I light a cigarette and draw the smoke deep into my lungs. The doctor ordered me to stop smoking. He banned a lot of other things too, but I don’t want to give up my vices in the few months I have left. The smoke burns my throat. I let out a wheezing cough. I throw the cigarette onto the wet sidewalk. It hisses and goes out.

  I cross the tram tracks. The statue and the fountain weren’t here back then. Two obese women go into the City Coffeehouse. They’ll indulge themselves in a moment of rest, a way of breaking up the day between boss and husband, work and home, hammer and anvil. I walk past them. Once I used to ask myself if people could see my monstrosity, but those days have long passed. I left them here four decades ago.

  I enter the cathedral. The hushed semidarkness calms my thoughts. I try to pray, but prayer doesn’t help. Nothing helps anymore.

  “Jesus be praised,” the priest greets me quietly.

  “Jesus be praised,” I reply.

  “Would you like to confess?” he inquires with a smirk.

  “I guess I would if I knew what to confess. But it’s too late now, at any rate,” I say, and head down the long aisle toward the exit.

  The day has darkened. The colors are ever drabber. A soft rain drizzles down. I walk up to the marketplace. Here I used to do everyday shopping for Elza. Madam Elza. I called her Madam but what went on between us was far from dignified and ladylike.

  * * *

  She stood at the door of my room in her silk housedress, a belt tied lightly around her waist. She lifted her arms and took the little comb out of her hair. Her peroxide-blond curls spilled over her shoulders like rubbery tentacles. She came slowly toward the bed and sat down next to me.

  “It must be hard being so far from your family,” she said.

  “I’m used to it.”

  “I know very well what it’s like to be alone,” she sighed.

  “I study a lot. Time flies,” I replied politely, like a good girl.

  She caressed my shoulder. I enjoyed that touch after months of separation from all those I loved and who loved me. I didn’t move away even when her hand slid down my back and stopped at my waist. She pulled me toward her and I leaned my head on her shoulder. She kissed my hair. I felt safe, and when she began to caress my face, a wave of warmth passed through me. She felt me tremble. She gently took me by the chin and turned my face toward hers. Her lips gently brushed my forehead, and then they glided with little kisses down the ridge of my nose. I shamelessly tore off my clothes, kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone before, let alone afterward, and encouraged her to give me pleasures I didn’t know even existed.

  “Martin,” she said to her husband that evening, “perhaps it would be a good idea for me to cook for our student. I get bored sitting around all day, and making a little more money never hurts.”

  My mother was happy, my father grumbled a little about the money, and I was spared the horrors of eating at the student cafeteria.

  * * *

  The market is dark and empty. I walk between the stalls. No idea what brought me here. I raise the collar of my coat to try and keep the rain off. Three men stand in the shelter of the eaves. Maybe this isn’t the time and place to be going up to people, but I’ve got nothing to lose anyway. Except this miserable life that’s in free fall.

  “Do you have a light?” I ask, pulling out a cigarette.

  One of them puts his bottle down on the stall and wordlessly produces a lighter.

  “I used to live near here, you know,” I try again to elicit a response. “Just off the square.” I gesture with my cigarette in the direction. “It was a long time ago. I studied here.”

  “I told ya, bud, this rain ain’t gonna stop,” one of the men says to the others.

  “Nope.”

  “I’m from Šibenik. It’s still summer down on the coast,” I try one more time, although it’s clear they don’t want my company.

  “I oughta be off,” one of them says, then finishes his beer and puts the bottle in his coat pocket.

  I go down the broad, dark stairs toward the square. The chestnut vendor takes a little shovelful of chestnuts out of the fire and wraps them in a sooty cloth. The smell of roasted chestnuts on a fall evening reminds me of Elza.

  * * *

  We sat at the kitchen table eating chestnuts. The weak lightbulb cast a dreary light. Martin’s snoring came from the bedroom.

  “I can’t go on like this. We have to get rid of him,” Elza said.

  “But . . . but . . . why?”

  “I love you. I can’t imagine life without you.”

  “I thought I was just a bit of fun for you,” I said, trying to keep some distance.

  “Just a bit of fun? I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone!” She burst into tears and threw herself into my arms.

  That night my insomnia began. I lay in the dark thinking. I mulled over various scenarios, turning them this way and that, and I didn’t like any of them. Not in the least. What if Elza wrote to my parents? What did she mean when she said we had to “get rid of” her husband?

  I found studying harder and harder, and I came to detest our morning sessions in bed. I tried to avoid Elza. Stealing out of the apartment before she got up, I would spend the days at school and the nights in pubs. I was running low on sleep. I sold some of my textbooks, withdrew into the darkest corner, and drank. Only alcohol would allow me to not push Elza away when she crept into my bed at night.

  * * *

  I hand the vendor a bill and take a paper bag of chestnuts. I walk slowly over the square, eating even more slowly. I’ll delay the inevitable for a little while. Only delay it, not avoid it. Elza is waiting for me at the end of it all. That’s why I’ve come back to Zagreb.

  The storekeepers are pulling down the shutters and padlocking their stores. The working day is over for many
, and the night has begun. The river of people ebbs and flows; some leave for home, others go out looking for a good time. I join the latter. I long for a stiff drink to soothe my mind. Pills don’t help anymore if I don’t wash them down with something. It’s crowded on Cvjetni Square. I find myself a table, with difficulty, and order a double cognac.

  * * *

  Martin used to go away on business from time to time. On those few days, I wouldn’t come back sober. I needed more and more alcohol to cope with Elza’s touch. The more disgusted I was, the more demanding she became.

  “Darling, you know I love you. Why are you so cold toward me?”

  I collapsed in the middle of a lecture. There followed first aid, a neurologist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and three months in a psychiatric ward. Diagnosis: schizophrenia. Medication and the return to Madam Elza. I recovered under her watchful eye for two weeks, and then she was back in my bed.

  I sat at the open window trying to understand what I was reading. The summer heat was at its height. The city groaned in the grip of a heat wave, and people went into hiding or left for somewhere cooler. Elza came into my room. She stood behind me without a word and began to massage my shoulders. I don’t know if it was because of the pills or if time had lessened my disgust, but we soon found ourselves writhing on the sheets.

  “You’re back to your old self again,” she told me, gently fondling my breast.

  “Something’s burning,” I said, sniffing the air.

  “Jesus Christ!” She sprang up and opened the door.

  A cloud of black smoke drifted into the room; the corridor behind it was black. Elza charged into the darkness. I was afraid to run after her, so I lay on the bed and waited. I heard the kitchen window being opened. Elza coughed, and I stayed lying there, trying to fathom what I was going to do with my life. Finally the smoke began to disperse.

  The kitchen was ruined, the walls of the apartment were fire-blackened, and I got to see for the first time what Martin’s rage looked like.

  “Chin-wagging with the neighbors again, I suppose? And our meal? Oh, just let it burn!” Martin shouted.

  “That’s not true. I was at home.”

  “How did the damn food turn into a fire then?”

  “I put some oil on to heat up and left it for a minute—”

  “A minute? I know what a minute of yours is like when you go see damn Katica.”

  “I didn’t go to see Katica,” Elza said softly.

  “Then you were seeing some other chatterbox. And the house? Oh, just let it burn. Martin will pay for everything. Martin always pays for everything. Madam strolls the building all day, and Martin works till he drops dead.” His cheeks glowed red and he thumped the table with his fist.

  “I was in the apartment.”

  “In the apartment, huh?! What were you doing that was so important that you didn’t notice the fire?”

  “I was in the bathroom.”

  “The apartment is burning, and Madam takes a nice bath.” Martin reinforced his statement by banging both fists on the table.

  “I wasn’t in the bath.”

  “No?”

  “No, I was washing that new red underskirt—the one you like so much,” Elza said, trying flirtation.

  “Washing? You spent three hours washing an underskirt?” he growled, without matching his words with a blow of his fist this time. The thought of the red underskirt had taken the edge off his fury. “And where was missy here, may I ask?” he sneered, turning toward me.

  “I was . . . I was sleeping.”

  “Brilliant!”

  * * *

  The crowd gets denser. Two young women sit down at my table. I signal the waiter, and he brings me another cognac. I take two pills out of my purse and swallow them together with the booze. The meeting with Elza requires several cognacs and several pills. If there will be a meeting at all. I don’t know if she’s still alive. If she’s dead, I will die too, without sorting out the last forty years of my life. I’ll die without knowing if I’m a murderer or not.

  * * *

  Martin was away on a business trip. Elza threw off her silk and knelt with one leg on the bed, and all the pictures of soppy embraces came back to me: rouged lips shimmered before my eyes; I heard her husky smoker’s voice. And then it simply happened—I jumped up from the bed and started hitting her.

  “Get away from me, you repulsive creature!” I yelled, and my hands pounded her all by themselves.

  She threw herself on the bed and curled up into a ball. I continued to hit her wherever I could. Later I often replayed that scene in my head. She didn’t say a word or let out a single sound. She just lay there like a fetus, protecting her head with her hands, and waiting.

  In the morning I felt ashamed and was afraid to leave my room. What if she reported me to the police? Perhaps she had called Martin? Or the psychiatric hospital?

  “Breakfast is on the table. I’m going out,” she said from the door. She was buttoned up to the throat, and dark glasses covered most of her face.

  That evening I saw what a monster I’d become. One eye was swollen and bloodshot. One lip cut. Her neck—purple. I didn’t remember throttling her, and I didn’t even want to think about the bruises she must have had all over her body.

  “What will you tell Martin?”

  “That I fell.”

  “Just like that? You fell?”

  “I fell.”

  * * *

  The young women at my table are talking about exams. I listen to them halfheartedly and occasionally sink into memories. One more cognac ought to remedy the situation. I wave to the waiter. Just this one more and I’ll head off for Elza’s apartment. The pills have begun to take effect and I’m ready to face the memories of that night.

  * * *

  The heat became more bearable as September wore on. Martin was heading out on a business trip, and I was studying like crazy and not understanding much. My head was in a terrible muddle. The medication slowed me down and made me sleepy. Elza was becoming almost aggressive.

  As soon as Martin left with his suitcase, she came in and sat on my bed. “Admit it! You’re in love with some man.”

  “I’m not in love with anyone. Can’t you see I’m studying?”

  “Why are you always trying to avoid me then? Don’t you know I cry every night, waiting for you to come home? You’re everything to me. Am I asking too much? Just a little attention.” She was practically begging now.

  I didn’t like that tone. I found it disgusting, just like everything else about her. “It’s over. I’m leaving soon.”

  “Don’t do that to me, please!” she screamed, and threw herself at my feet. “I’d die without you.”

  “You’ll find a new subtenant. Maybe you’ll have more luck with her.”

  “You’re my everything . . . everything,” she cried, rubbing her head against my knees.

  Something in Elza’s devastation turned me on. A tremble ran through my body that I didn’t recognize at first, and then it began to go down and down until it stopped in my groin. I didn’t want her. Her carnality was repulsive. Her layers of fat and flab made me feel sick. I felt disgusted at myself too. It was because of her that I no longer knew what I wanted. Now I’d make her pay for everything.

  I grabbed her by the hair and jerked her face toward me. Tears had soaked her makeup and made it run toward her chin. I stood up and dragged her to the bed. She didn’t resist when I kissed her savagely, putting all my fury into that bestial kiss. I threw her onto the crumpled sheets. I was ready now, readier than I had ever been.

  The springs of the iron bed squeaked as I ground myself against her. Everything around me was red, sweaty, and smelled of musk. That’s how the jasmine smelled in our courtyard. That’s how old Matej’s goat stank. That’s what pleasure looked like—the only pleasure I could still achieve. That’s what revenge looked like.

  “I love you! I love you, darling!” Elza moaned.

  “Shut up, you bitch!�
� I yelled, and slapped her.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you! I know you’ll never leave me. We’re made for each other,” she crooned, one of her lips now bloody.

  Suddenly Martin’s icy voice came from the door: “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you both, you perverted animals!”

  “No!” Elza shrieked, covering her flabby breasts with the sheet. “It’s not what you think.”

  I jumped up and tried to grab my dress off the floor. Martin headed toward me.

  “Fuckin’ dyke, you’re gonna burn in hell!” he hissed through clenched teeth, and then raised his fist.

  I took a step back and tried to dash past him in the narrow room, but I got caught on a chair leg and stumbled. The chair fell in his path for an instant—long enough for me to lunge at him. He howled like a wild thing as my nails left a bloody trail across his face. Then I pushed him and started hitting. I was young and strong, and fear doubled my strength. He staggered and fell to the floor. I didn’t see him hit anything on the way down, but he didn’t get up. A fine stream of blood trickled from his head. The puddle on the floor became bigger as I frantically gathered up my clothes. Elza cried loudly as I whipped on my dress.

  “Stop blubbering, stupid cow!”

  “You’ve killed him! He’s dead!” she shouted through her tears.

  “It’s your fault, you slut!” I yelled in panic, trying to cast off the blame while pulling on my jean jacket over my creased dress. I slipped shoes on my bare feet, snatched my purse and some coins from the table, and rushed out of the apartment.

  * * *

  I drink one final cognac, pay, and leave. I feel a twinge in my stomach. The diner at the train station is still open. I go in and walk down the stairs, and my hunger leaves me. The air is heavy. It reminds me of that day the apartment caught fire. Everything stinks of burnt oil. A few older folks are sitting at the tables and eating in silence. A young couple at a table in the corner are laughing uncontrollably and drawing something on a piece of paper.