We Trade Our Night for Someone Else's Day

for everything, especially for agreeing, at the meeting with Ilinčić, to him representing her if the investigation resulted in her suspension. She went along with the story that she was the victim of a resurgence of Serbian hostilities, even though she knew for a fact that this was the work of one crazy woman and several brainless, impressionable parents. Deep down she knew Ilinčić and his crowd were the ones who needed this story the most, and she could clearly see how such stories begin. On the other hand, Ante was drinking more and growing increasingly aggressive, and she hadn’t lifted a finger to help him. And moreover, she had a powerful desire to push him even deeper down than he’d ever been, to a place he’d never come back from. Most of all she hated herself because Dejan’s company felt so good, although she’d reached the point of nausea at least twice daily since that day.

“Kristina, I love you,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Come on—you ‘love’ me,” she shot back sarcastically. “You have no idea what you’re saying.” All her bitterness came pouring out against him, mostly because it could, but this didn’t sway him in the slightest.

“We have to get away from here together.” He could think of nothing else.

“But where? How? What would we do? Have you thought about that? Do you imagine he wouldn’t find me? Come on—this would be too much for him; he’d kill me for disgracing him like that. I can only hope the drinking kills him, somehow.”

Dejan hadn’t given much thought to all this; he felt something would turn up for resolving things, but only if they were together, and her mistrust hurt him. All his strength deserted him when she was so cold. He moved up to the edge of the sofa where he could reach her and took her hand. He was afraid she might push him away, but she made no effort to resist. He kissed her hands, then moved over to the armchair and, hugging her, he took her in his lap. Then everything was good; the sum of all forms of love and hate in their exchange was equal; they canceled each other out, and in the process they were able to approach—perhaps not together, but each separately—a place that drew them away from where they had just been.

“I’ll come up with something,” he promised, whispering in her ear, while they lay on the alcohol-soaked sofa. He nuzzled up to her, while she stared at the ceiling, turning her face away from the fragrance of his hair.

“I won’t leave you alone, not ever.” Damp and sweaty, he pressed up against her.

“Go now,” she said, leaving no room for doubt, looking him straight in the eye.

“Fine, I’ll go; don’t worry.” He was trying to give her everything he had.

“Oh, come on; this will sort itself out somehow.” This was the most tenderness she could allow herself and the most she had for him. She saw him to the front hall, suffering the little shards of glass in her bare feet without a sound. She didn’t want him there anymore, just as strongly as she wished herself somewhere else. She could even disappear, whatever. When she shut the door behind him, her eyes went to the safe in the hallway.

7.

Money in hands

buy me sell me

money in hands

then, recent (fall 2010)

On the cell phone screen there were twenty-seven missed calls. There had been at least as many every day, sometimes more but never fewer, ever since the daily papers published the transcript of the conversation, and then the most riveting parts of the recording were played on the evening news. Brigita had expected the mayor’s reaction and that it would be violent, but the leader of her political party promised she’d be protected in every possible way and she could count on a term of office at city hall, later maybe even in the Assembly, and he tripled all the mayor’s other offers. All she had to do was keep her head down for a time until the worst of the storm blew over. But the mayor did not give up, no surprise; first he denied everything, then he declared the recording doctored, then he claimed amnesia, and finally he began calling her day and night. It made no difference when she changed her number; within twenty-four hours he’d unearthed the new one. At one point she’d had enough; she didn’t feel so much intimidated as irritated and hopping with adrenaline. When the phone rang for the twenty-eighth time that day, she picked up.

“Hello?” she said sharply. All she heard over the phone was silence, likely the mayor’s confusion; no doubt he’d been dialing the number automatically and wasn’t expecting a response. Then he pulled himself together.

“Ah, Brigita, darling little Brigita, where have you been? No word from you for days? Didn’t we say we’d get together for coffee?”

“What do you want?”

“Listen, you were right with what you said about the friendships between men and women; it looks as if this old mule was all wrong . . .”

“Please stop calling. Things are as they are. You didn’t leave me much choice.”

“Really? Not the way I saw it, Brigita darling . . . But know what? I’ll give you what you so nicely call a ‘choice.’” He laughed bitterly.

“Meaning?” She wasn’t about to beat around the bush.

“I’ll leave you the choice of rescinding this in public, admitting you set me up, or of having your kids read in the papers the truth about their mother.”

“No point in threatening me; you’ll get nowhere with that,” she snarled.

“Oh, I’m not threatening; heavens no, Brigita. Just want to be absolutely sure you’re good with a charming little piece coming out in the next day or two about the beginnings of your career at the InterContinental massage salon? So adorable, I must say!” Brigita was about to respond, but she froze. Quickly collecting her thoughts, she waited to hear what else he