Chapter 4 - The Brass Hat

The source of commotion was a small bar, a little to the right across the street, titled the Brioni Bar above a glass front. The DJ skilfully mixed a medley of international and domestic hits, and also served up classic songs spanning several decades. The classics linger on in Serbia. The noise alternated between muffled to crisp as patrons opened and closed the front doors, making it that much more irritating. Browder was not going to get much sleep that night. Then came a fortuitous text from Stefan, saying that he was after all willing to meet up that night. He then wrote that yes, he would come over to Brioni Bar, which was actually an excellent spot for a Sunday night. Browder would have to wait out perhaps half an hour alone at the bar. It would be better than waiting in the hotel room. He dressed and groomed and went downstairs. 

Sliding sideways through a lively dense crowd, Browder found a niche at the bar and ordered a cold lager. The cigarette pack made it quickly to the counter; smoking will be a great aid in looking purposeful. There was a merry, handsome crowd, crammed into a space scarcely bigger than a large hair salon, albeit half of the place had a second floor mounted upon steel framework. Browder was perfectly familiar with the Serbian vibe from his young days partying with the immigrants in Canada. People have fun, but not with abandon; people drink, but handle it well, girls dance, but gracefully. You should not flirt too aggressively. Browder suspected that it is obvious that he is a foreigner, mostly on the account of his clothing style, but casual words he exchanged here and there with other patrons produced completely rudimentary reactions. He was just another dude with a Bosnian accent, and that was all.

Hanging at a bar alone meant drinking at an accelerated pace, and a good three beers later and more cigarettes, Stefan mercifully showed up. He did not change much from his business school days, still sporting the flowing black hair and carrying his tall figure with friendly open shoulders. He was clearly a businessman, wearing a fitted suit jacket over a black dress shirt. He grabbed Browder cordially by the triceps and with a wide grin inquired how his friend was over last several years. He was not too bad.

The catching up went on for the next forty-five minutes, and included updates that they pretended they didn’t know about each other already, from social media. Few more intimate details were peppered in, and by the time the two friends ran out of material in that vein, it was already half past one, and they were both quite drunk. Stefan at some point looked up from his phone and said his friends are on the way, and once they arrive, they can go on to the second leg of the night. They killed the time by dancing, encouraged by a particularly bawdy country song, then Browder tumbled out the front door for a meditative cigarette break. To spark up a conversation, he turned to the first huddle of people and blurted out a polite request for a light.

A female figure turned promptly around and obliged. Browder enjoyed a puff and then squinted to zoom in on her face. At a different angle now, the streetlamp revealed an exceptionally well-arranged face. This girl was beautiful. In fact, Browder - with his judgement loosened by the alcohol – Browder concluded that this woman must be a fashion model. As seconds went by, the lamp light strengthened his hypothesis, and Browder, rather than getting nervous, felt impelled to comment on it in a matter-of-fact way, the way he may comment on a beautiful power point deck, for example. 

-       Wow, you are really beautiful. Are you a fashion model? It was stupid maybe, but it was sincere, and it worked.

-       Actually, I’m a part-time model scout, said the girl with a friendly smile.

She then went on to clarify what that means, and from what Browder gathered from her explanation, he concluded that she was, in fact, a fashion model. The scout thing was just a way to make it sound more complicated and less boastful. So was the part-time thing, though to be fair she was also a university student majoring in languages.

Browder knew that the Serbian university system of education is not divided into semesters. It is partitioned according to a quaint system of oral tests, each of which can be easily postponed, and which involves drawing questions by lot. A free public education system, it enables many young bohemians of Belgrade to drag their studies indefinitely. They can adjust their matriculation to accord with their life situation or perhaps also the business cycle. Talk about a free-rider problem, though Browder, as he recalled his dark years of university struggles.

As they talked, Browder got a detailed look at the woman. There was no Tolkien novel nor a Nordic saga that gave justice to a blonde perfection such was in front of him. This was the real reason why Nazis attacked the Slavs, as did the Turks and Tartars before them; this was another Helen. Browder has been tossed around the world like some Odysseus, and he thought that the girl in front of him would make a great Penelope. Or she was Venus, who in simplicity and grace walked out of the drunken Belgrade night as from oceanic slime.

It was then Browder’s turn to introduce himself. He explained how he grew up in Serbia until the age of thirteen, when his family emigrated. He then humble-bragged about his entrepreneurial career. Just as that wound down Stefan too tumbled through the front door, and loudly smiling towards Browder, he walked right past him and embraced the fashion model, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek.

-       I see you two already met each other. Tea this is Browder; Browder, Tea.

Then Stefan introduced three more acquaintances who had arrived with Tea. Anna was another hottie and Tea’s classmate, and there was a married couple in their early thirties, Miro and Alexandra. They were in advertising. Browder saw that Stefan keeps a classy company.

Everyone was in high spirits, so it was quickly agreed that the party is to proceed to a more spacious and bohemian locale.

Having noticed Browder’s amusement with the traditional songs played that night, Stefan and his companions jokingly and then seriously recommended a visit to one of the famous city kafanas, or traditional taverns that serve local food specialties, and more significantly, serves up live music by traditional bands, either Gypsy brass bands or, as a more genteel option, string ensembles playing the old urban ballads of Pannonian plains. Browder, being that he hails from the Bosnian hill country, expressed preference for the brass bands, and off they cabbed to a locale named “The Brass Hat”.

The educated liberals of Belgrade, such as were presumably Browder’s companions, are not frequent patrons of the kafanas, which are associated with the traditionalist elements of the society. However, much like western suburban kids who, after they have had enough to drink, will often reveal a hidden affinity for the grittiest hip hop, so many Serbian liberals will, every now and then, disinhibited with enough booze, show a soft spot for one genre or other of their country’s ethnic music. Perhaps they will do so ironically at first, but at some point in the long party the boundary between ironic appreciation and just appreciation will fade away. 

And so it was this particular night with Browder’s companions, and Browder himself. The party was in full swing at their arrival, with half the guests up from their white cloth tables singing and dancing with arms and shoulder and hips to the music of a raucous band, while the other half sat in their chairs taking a break from dancing, and smoked cigarettes and yelled in each other’s ears. The band, clad in matching bow tied suits, drifted from table to table, delivering brass or violin melodies, as requested by guests. Currency notes were tucked between violin strings and accordion bellows and trumpet pipes, and an elegant lady in Gypsy clothes sang bold melodies with deep emotion and impressive talent.

By this late in the night Browder was completely possessed by the local spirits. It had been a slow and tentative day, but the night took him on its wings and flew him into the ethereal beauties and the intoxication of bacchanal Balkans. Warm and bright childhood memories seeped and then flooded into his consciousness, and Browder remembered that he never forgot the lyrics for many of the romances and ballads. There was dancing and singing along, with his companions and compete strangers, and a dash of foreigners was there too, just as deep into their wine, and just in touch with their inner selves, though still somewhat awkward in movements and mannerism of the kafana.

Tea looked beautiful, and when she looked at Browder she smiled brightly and looked him simply and straight in the eye. In the scuffle and huddle of the dance he touched and held her waist a couple of times, and felt a strange lightness and warmth right near her. But Browder didn’t get worked up or shy that night, nor aggressive nor expressive, and this kafana and all in it seemed like some platonic dimension that he has visited before, and Tea also seemed like an eternal bride that he has always known and always watched in his mind’s eye. Tea reminded Browder of his mother when he was young, and of his wife, which he never had.

Stefan crashed down on a seat besides Browder and spoke.

- Most international tourist that come to Belgrade love this type of party, Stefan started, and all six talked a bit about Belgrade’s tourist offer. Then, Stefan got to an interesting point:

- In fact, I’m getting into the Serbian tourism sector. It’s growing fast; Balkans are the third option for tourists visiting Europe: westerners are coming here for a taste of affordable, traditional European culture; and the government’s rapprochement with the Chinese has caused the number of Chinese tourists to double every year over the past five years.

Miro and Alex were in on it too. Together they are getting involved in a certain ethno-village in the mountains above the Drina river. The married couple are shooting all the promotional videos, which feature Tea and Anna in beautiful traditional clothing, floating through fields by rivers, biting with smiles into country food- local, organic, and made by traditional recipes - and inviting the viewer to experience the spirit of Serbia. Browder watched the video on Miro’s phone.

- In fact, the owner of this kafana is the chief investor. He’s our boss now. I want you to meet him.

- Sounds interesting. Sure, I’d like to meet him. Where is he?

- He is too old to stay up this late, smiled Stefan, but I have lunch with him tomorrow, and you’re coming too.

It then turned out that the merry group of Browder and friends didn’t have to pay for any of the several bottles of wine they consumed at the kafana, the owner having in mysterious anticipation instructed his staff that this particular group of guests, on that particular night, were to drink on the house, even drink liberally as they did.

When Browder returned to his hotel room, he felt like a lucky man. In fact, he felt too lucky. He felt like in the balance of the Ying and Yang, on this particular night he had had a little too much Ying, and too little Yang. Perhaps it was for that reason that he decided to go on the internet and see what the underbelly of Belgrade was like. Drunken but functional, he browsed though the local ads sections, and soon enough stumbled into the “personals” section. He called a few numbers.

The most attractive ad was posted by some sort of a professional agency. They had a whole catalogue of girls. The lady on the phone started to explain to him that if he wanted to see their photos, he would need to go to a convenience store, and submit a payment with his bank card to a certain account number. It was really confusing. When Browder complained that, as a foreigner, he would not be able to figure out the procedure, the female operator on the other end yelled at him. She felt that foreigner or not, it was not up to her organisation to provide any further assistance to the customer. She then hung up angrily.

In the end, Browder settled for an advertiser who turned out to be a Gypsy woman from southern Serbia. Her service turned out to be professional, but perfunctory. Before she left, they shared a cigarette together at the window, looking at the last patrons of the Brioni Bar. The Gypsy lady pointed at some of the drunken girls stumbling out of the bar, and commented how modern youth has turned degenerate. Then she explained how she is in the business that she is in because she needs money for some horrid-sounding spinal disease.

Browder was the happiest when she left. He showered and quickly went to bed.