Zagreb Noir

by Ivan Srsen

  “Well, I turn my back to him, and from a distance he fills me with energy from the crystals, so that I just about take off,” he explained to me. Alen rarely displayed any enthusiasm so I became interested. He showed me some of those crystals—nice little things, really—which he always carried with him, as Alastor had recommended. Tanzanite stimulates the third eye and the crown chakra, and helps with linking us to beings from another dimension; tiger’s eye, “a very powerful stone,” is for inviolability and strengthening personal power; black tourmaline, for the transformation of negative energy. (“It’s excellent for cleansing the aura and for defense against black magic.”) Great, I told him, at least that would protect him against Alastor and his “positive influence.”

  Still, the whole thing intrigued me, and Alen promised to arrange for me to be present at the next Sabbath up in Mirogoj. I actually think that real Satanists, all perfect gentlemen, walk around in suits and ties, don’t sell T-shirts to their followers, and don’t cut the throats of chickens in Maksimir; instead, they can readily afford to indulge themselves with a random kid and throw real money around. Alen’s “coven” was third class just like his old lady’s “church,” but hey, Zagreb wasn’t the center of world Satanism. Presumably.

  When he had finished with the spider, we went down to McDonald’s to eat something. I ordered a Crispy Chicken Caesar McWrap, and he ordered a Double Cheeseburger.

  * * *

  My parents are normal. I mean, compared to Alen’s. Rationalists and atheists, although my old lady keeps up an appearance of the traditional Catholic woman because she needs it for some reason. Whatever. I was baptized, had my first communion, and was confirmed. It all has to be “observed,” right? I see the old man from time to time, he doesn’t live with my mom and me anymore. Last year after they got divorced, he left Bijenička to go live in Zaprešić with my grandmother and uncle, and now he travels every day to the Institute. The old man is some sort of harmless muddle-headed character, a typical nerd who is not quite certain what to do with himself, not to mention how hard it is for him to deal with me. He has never hit me, but then neither has he ever really hugged me. Ha. From Alen’s perspective, I shouldn’t complain, but still, I feel some sort of emptiness inside me. He didn’t get along very well with the old lady. She would always begin the argument, he would reluctantly accept it; I almost felt like he did it just to satisfy her. She harassed him with constant rebukes, and if he wasn’t there, then she harassed me. Which meant that now she harassed only me. She compared me to him, which I hated. He of course was a genius in his own narrowly professional way, he knew all about bosons, leptons, and string theory; in the Institute he was in his element, he was even some sort of head of a department, but how to come to terms with marriage difficulties or how to be a role model for his son—of these things he had no idea whatsoever. Clueless. Like it was embarrassing for him to be a father. Well, it was embarrassing for me to be a son too. More than once I asked myself: How is it possible that those two people at least once—I’m living proof—made love? I spent the first two years of my life in Zaprešić and then—the old lady got a job in the children’s hospital—we came here, across from the Mirogoj Cemetery, so that I had a nice view of the future from my balcony, ever since I was small. We lived right on the border between the town of the dead and the town of the living, and sometimes I felt like those tens of thousands of dead people—as though the old lady was not enough—were hanging around my neck, like the graves were expanding, metastasizing. On Google Earth, Mirogoj looked just like a skin eruption, a big gray mole which was slowly, grave after grave, cross after cross, penetrating into the tissue of the town.

  Alen lent me some books which he was all fired up about, the novels The Angel of the West Window and The Golem by Gustav Meyrink, and told me I had to read them. I guess he wanted to make sure I was ready for the soon-to-be Sabbath. I can’t say I didn’t like Meyrink, but when I remembered that team of Alen’s, that mixture of aspiring Zagreb pagans, druids, wiccans, death metal lovers, wannabe Satanists, and members of various ecological societies, all of them left-oriented vegetarians, with old Alastor at the head, a man who sold tea cups with his own sad ugly face on them, I wasn’t at all sure how seriously I should prepare for the awful occult ritual which was soon to be held. But since I was only a guest-spectator, and the performance would unfold in the neighborhood, just across the way, it would be a shame to miss it. After all, there was always the possibility that I’d get to know some attractive little witch, like the one with the swastika tattooed on her breast. Man, for that you really needed balls; or whatever the female version is!

  Maybe that team of Alen’s was off-kilter enough that they should be given a chance? Though the old man used to bore me every night, from the time I was very little, with stories about the beauty of the physical world, in the style of Carl Sagan, with the hope that I would follow in his footsteps. And the old lady let me know indirectly that religion should not be taken seriously. Still, I would continue to give other approaches to reality a chance; for example, an interest in esotericism—if that’s what you can call Alen’s thing. Hmm, maybe, in a very broad sense. At the end of the line, thanks to the old man, I hadn’t even begun school when I heard about black holes and Madeleine L’Engle, but it happened that literature was more attractive to me than physics. My peers mostly ignored books like they were something impossibly outdated, but in primary school I was already reading Hoffmann, Poe, Kafka, and sending Mrs. Micok, my literature teacher, into raptures. Sometimes the old lady in her frustratingly boring way tried to persuade me to enroll in law school, which would be “so nice, right?” Because, you see, “Basic’s daughter is already in her second year; and one day you could have your own office and make a lot of money.” Not to mention the prestige. Truthfully: I couldn’t give a fuck about prestige.

  * * *

  A bell rang. Alastor appeared, covered in a black cape which looked like a sheet. On his head he had rammed some sort of helmet on which were mounted goat’s horns. It suited him, the old billy-goat, along with his beard and his bristly eyebrows. He held himself with dignity, as well as he could with his rather large beer belly, and darted sullen glances all around. Everyone became sort of agitated when he appeared, like, Here is our Great Priest, Lord Alastor! Oooh, bow to him because He—a neighbor from our district—will bring us the latest news from hell. Hmm, at times like this my father’s little scientist awoke in me, and I looked at this sort of phenomenon not with scepticism, but with irony. Whatever, old Alastor just about made Alen cheerful; obviously he needed a father figure. Okay, so do I, but I doubt Alastor would be willing to adopt the devil’s advocate as a son, I thought with double irony. I was turning around in my head some questions I wanted to ask him. Dad had made me read Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World; I couldn’t help it, I was immunized early against characters like Alastor. Still, the spectacle in front of me was interesting in its own twisted way. Everything was there: black candles (actually, I realized later they were blue, when Alen explained to me that “because of pressure from Christians you can’t get black candles anywhere, not even at the candlemaker in Marija Bistrica, but Lucifer’s color is blue so that’s acceptable too”) and a circle drawn with a pentagram inside it. Everything just as it should be, as my old lady would say. We all took our places. Alastor began to slowly turn around, counterclockwise, and then in a hoarse voice rattled off: “In nomine Dei nostri Satanas, Luciferi excelsi, ave voluptatis carnis!”

  Not bad, I thought. Maybe something would happen here after all. You could almost feel how all those present trembled.

  “In nomine Dei nostri Satanas Luciferi excelsi. Satan, Lucifer, Belial, Leviathan. Rege Satanas. Ave Satanas.”

  I doubted that anyone there knew Latin, but the names he spoke were general knowledge. Still, it sounded effective, especially with the graveside backdrop. We had gathered in the bottom right-hand part of the cemetery, I could almost wave to Mama. The place had been chosen b
ecause allegedly it had special “potential energy”—presumably one of the Dragon lines dropped down there from the Sljeme mountain. Alastor swallowed from the silver goblet he was holding in his hand. Drugstore Plavac, without a doubt. He continued to invoke Lord of the Flies.

  “In the name of Satan, the All-Powerful and Almighty, who made man in his own image and conception, I call on the Dark Forces to transfer their hellish power to me. Open, Gates of Hell, and greet me as your brother and friend!”

  The coven members murmured in a sign of approval.

  “Free me, oh powerful Satan, from all my delusions, fill me with truth, wisdom, and understanding, strengthen me in my service and faith, so that I will always live in you, in your glory and splendor, oh Torchbearer!”

  Again he took a swig from the goblet. Then he pulled out a large knife from somewhere (an “athame,” Alen explained to me later. Its main role is to “guide and channel psychic energy, the Essential Fire.” Yeah.), and began to turn to the left, quite slowly—which was wise, given that I was sure he was not exactly sober—and invoke the “Princes,” the just-mentioned Lucifer from the east, Beelzebub from the north, Astaroth from the west, and Azazel from the south.

  I didn’t notice if any of those called upon appeared, but demons are spirits, are they not, so everyone could imagine they were there. Those present evidently did imagine it; I felt a feverishness overcoming the group. You could hear euphoric invocations from all sides, and old Alastor started chanting some Satanist passages “in Enochian,” Alen informed me, the language in which spirits like to communicate. Then everyone went quiet and—similar to that time in Jordanovac, in those intimate meditative moments—they itemized all their life problems related to colleagues at work, partners, finances, and health, to the entities they had supposedly called forth. Hmm, Azazel in Zagreb? A suitable time for someone to invoke a curse on someone else. Several of them were kneeling, some were raising their arms in the air. Alastor stood in the middle of the circle with his cup and knife; everything was progressing in the proper way.

  “Glory to Satan!” shouted Alastor, and slowly began to turn to the right. Bells could be heard.

  “Glory!” responded those present. Oh Jesus, I thought.

  The ritual of initiation was supposed to follow. The girl with the swastika on her breast had bought a set of Alastor’s cup and T-shirt, and had buried the sticks of hawthorn around her building, and in this way had qualified to be a serious candidate. Alen had explained to me that one could not very easily become a member of the coven. You belonged to the coven body and soul; the ties were tighter than family ties (for him, no doubt about that). The devil is in the detail: in order to join the coven, the candidate before that had to ally him or herself personally with Lucifer; then the demon who was the protector of the coven—in this case, Asmodeus—“in some way” indicated whether he agreed that the person in question could join the coven. Alen could not tell me in exactly what way, but in any case I think Alastor accepted anyone who parted with the money for the crystals and the other paraphernalia. And obediently performed some sort of nonsense à la that with the hawthorn sticks. The initiate had to convince the members that they were on the same wavelength, that their interests were in accord with those of the whole coven. We are all one big, happy family—something like that. Generally speaking, the initiation of a new member was a happy occasion for the coven, because Satanists were happy when there were more of them.

  “Come forward, novice!” Alastor tried to exude authority.

  The girl, she looked to be about twenty, twenty-two, in a long black dress with a deep neckline—in the light of the candles you could only see a dark speck instead of the tattoo—went into the circle and approached the Fat . . . oops! the Great Priest.

  “If you have one, call now on your personal demon, let him join us!”

  The future “sister” lifted her head and her arms, and in a shaking, melodramatic voice—presumably you couldn’t invoke the demon in a normal voice—began the invocation: “Ohh, great and powerful Lilith, my Protector, your obedient servant begs you to augment this sacred act with your presence!”

  Lilith, of course. Commonplace. I saw how the female members of the team spontaneously joined in with raised arms. Girl power. This was the fifth wave of feminism. Patriarchy and lower pay for the same work were a thing of the past. Here comes Lilith. Lilith has arrived.

  Alastor pulled out a piece of paper from somewhere and held it out to the girl. “Read, novice!”

  The young woman took the paper and began to read, irritatingly, pathetically, as called for by the situation. “I, Bozena Skomrak, before the Almighty God Lucifer, before Asmodeus, Protector of this coven, before the mighty Lilith . . . before those assembled here, of my own free will, solemnly swear that I will always keep our secret . . . I solemnly promise that I will work to expand the influence of Satanism in the town of Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia, in every way possible . . . I understand that I am Lucifer’s warrior and an earthly member of the army of Hell, and that this coven is my army detachment . . . I promise to use my power and energy, together with the other members of the coven, to destroy selected enemies of Satan . . . I promise to use my power and energy for the good of every member of the coven, knowing they will do the same for me, if it proves necessary . . . All this, I swear on my life, now and forever, and may all the power I possess turn against me, if I betray these sacred promises. Lord Lucifer, all the Demons and Powers of Hell, count me worthy. Ave Satanas.”

  Alastor went up to her and took her left hand. Everyone calmed down noticeably. The sharp edge of the knife flashed in the dim light as he made a cut across the Mount of Venus on her palm. The girl winced, even though she obviously knew the procedure. She pulled a thin stick from somewhere, and holding the paper with her cut hand, she wet the tip of the stick in the wound and signed underneath the text she had just read. Those present did not actually applaud, though they must all have been gratified by the fact that their society had been enriched by a new member, which would surely bring strength to their unholy cells.

  Especially if she knew how to cook, eh? She gave the paper back to Alastor, who put it close to one of the candles, lit it, and held it in his outstretched hand until it had burned.

  “In nomine Dei nostri Satanas, Luciferi Excelsi, amen,” he concluded.

  With that, the official ceremony was over and those present lined up to congratulate the newly introduced “sister” and welcome her. Someone tugged at a bell, and the sound of a flute could be heard. Such considerate people, I thought. We sat around on the graves because now it was time for a short snack. Everyone had brought something, from sandwiches of whole wheat bread with tofu, little plastic containers of miso soup, brown rice, amaranth and algae, unsprayed wizened little apples from some organic farm . . . and hooray: cakes of soya flour covered in sweet barley malt. You could hear the crunching of fresh radishes and the opening of beer cans. If they had been wearing slightly different clothes it would have been easy to imagine those present as picnickers up on the Sljeme.

  * * *

  In the morning my old lady sent me to the fish market in Kvatric to buy sea bream. While I headed that way, I thought about Alen. It was clear to me that he needed company, because in school he was mostly ignored; in the coven he had some sort of team at least, but in the long-term, I counted on his intelligence. Entering the fish market, I noticed a familiar face behind one of the counters. A man in a dirty white apron was holding up a large carp that was struggling, and in his other hand he had a small axe with which a moment later he chopped off its head. Then he threw the lifeless fish onto the scales. I felt like vomiting.

  PART IV

  ON THE LOOSE

  She-Warrior

  by NORA VERDE

  Lanište

  Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

  She had already been awake half an hour. In her mind she was rehearsing the plan yet again, finessing the details. Details matter—how many ti
mes had an action failed that had seemed so fabulous at first?

  She finally pulled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and studied her face and her hair which was braided in short straggly dreads. In a few days, once the thing this evening was behind her, she’d tidy them up a bit, but no time for that now.

  She was alone in the apartment and that pleased her. Her parents had gone to work, her younger brother to school. She loved her solo mornings when she didn’t have to retreat to her room to enjoy a little peace.

  From the food she found in the refrigerator she assembled a sizable meal. All that mattered was filling up on energy for the day ahead. Pickles, peppers, cheese spread, butter, and bread, she set it all out on a large white plate and looking it over she thought that cooking was an overrated and costly pastime for the human race. She ate sitting before a battered HP laptop smeared in dust, shreds of tobacco, and bread crumbs. She logged into her e-mail account. Waiting for her were unopened e-newsletters and from the subject headings she already knew what was worth opening. She would have to clean it out soon—two, three years ago she had subscribed to all sorts of sites that had seemed interesting enough at the time, but meanwhile they had become silly and pointless. She could not resist clicking on I-SYNCHRO-U, the network of intuitive communication. In the e-mail a capitalized English title declared: USE I-SYNCHRO-U NETWORK AND LEARN WHAT INTUITION HAS TO SAY ABOUT YOUR DILEMMA. On with the show, she’d already had enough of messing around on the Net now, so she signed off and sayonara. Left click, right click, the little green light on the laptop stopped blinking, and from the speakers there came a sound like a cat’s plaintive meow. Her HP made that sound when it powered down—her former boyfriend, the programmer, had set it up for her that way.