Keep November 2027 free in your diary. Why? Dark Winter
Press will be publishing The Dead Crows of Velika Plana by Neil Randall.
The sequel to 2025’s acclaimed The Professional Mourner and the second
part of The Yugoslav Trilogy; it takes up the story of a much-changed Milica
Stanković. Disillusioned by everything she has witnessed during the Balkan
conflict, she no longer sees anything good or worthy in mankind anymore. When
tragedy strikes her hometown of Velika Plana, it triggers a bizarre and deadly
chain of events that threatens not only the lives and well-being of everyone who
lives there but the whole Balkan region – and beyond.
Here is the
opening chapter to whet your literary appetites:
Tragedy in the Park
The people of Velika
Plana had got out of the habit of promenading on fine summer days. Whether the
dire economic situation was to blame, the harsh sanctions following the war, they
tended to stay indoors in front of their televisions. The tatty, litter-strewn
streets and derelict buildings, the once thriving businesses, now no more than
boarded-up shells, were the exclusive province of gangs of snarling street
dogs. The near-empty cafes and bars on the main street, home to morose drunks
who did little more than puff on cheap cigarettes and stare into their empty
glasses, willing them to miraculously replenish themselves. The rundown bus
station, a graveyard to rattling coaches that spewed out black diesel fumes
into the already tainted air of a town no one ever wanted to visit anymore.
Why on such a swelteringly hot July day,
when temperatures had touched forty degrees for three consecutive weeks, some
of the town’s more prominent families decided to put on their best clothes and
take a stroll through the park could never be satisfactorily explained. There
was certainly no special occasion, a traditional celebration, that would have
justified such a rare foray outside their homes. Still, the younger children
raced around the designated play area, clambered upon the swings, slides, and
roundabouts, their voices and laughter shrill and excited. Dogs barked. Crows
cawed. The younger couples, the husbands and wives or those soon to be married,
walked hand in hand or with arms interlinked. Some wafted fans to escape the
desperate humidity, others had treated themselves
to ice-creams. While the older people stopped in the shade of the towering linden
trees which dominated the leafy space and talked casually amongst themselves, just
like they had in far happier times, when not just Velika Plana but the whole
nation was flourishing. The passage of time, the course of history, however,
had not only eroded the fabric of the community, but embittered people against
each other. When you don’t have much to look forward to, it’s easy, almost
natural, to blame somebody else for your predicament.
That’s what made this July scene all the
more intriguing.
Those who didn’t hold each other in
particularly high esteem, warring in-laws who may not have exchanged a word in
anger for years, were amongst those who had decided to take a stroll through
the park. Families like the Darkovićs and Mijatovićs, the Bobans and Brozovićs
occupied the same space for the first time in months. But rather than show any
outward antipathy towards each other, they exchanged pleasant greetings, shook
hands, even embraced. If first-hand accounts are to be believed (and they were
corroborated by many sources), even the surly, tyrannical Lazar Darković, one
of the town’s most respected figures, a man who had built up a thriving auto
repair business, was seen deep in conversation with both Uroš Mijatović and
Robert Boban, estranged best friends, men who had badly wronged each other in
the past, men who had openly brawled in the street, and uttered the most
hideous curses acted with the utmost cordiality, as if none of those poisonous,
ugly scenes had ever taken place.
“How’s business?” Uroš asked Lazar. “Every
morning, I see you toiling away in your workshop.”
“Never been better. Much as it pains me,
I’m having to turn custom away. Still, I work from six in the morning until
seven in the evening. Barely time for a decent lunch and a cup of tea.”
“You should ease up, Lazar,” said Robert.
“You’ve worked hard all your life. You shouldn’t push yourself so hard.”
“Bah!” He smoothed his thick handlebar
moustache down with one hand and waved the words away with the other. “I’m as
fit now at fifty-five as I was at seventeen. Besides, ever since Bojana’s
passing, I like to keep myself busy.”
On a nearby bench, in the shade of the
trees, Uroš’ wife Tatijana was deep in conversation with Ivana Brozović.
“I just don’t know what to do with him
anymore,” said Ivana, with eyes downcast. “Ever since he returned from the war,
he’s been like a ticking timebomb. We’ve tried everything. We sent him to the
best psychologists in Belgrade. We had him put on a course of pills to control
his temper. We refused to let him drink alcohol under our roof – but he can
easily get hold of the stuff anywhere in town. Nothing has helped. Ten years
and he’s still the same mixed-up ball of confusion he was when the army returned
him to us. I know it’s shameful to admit, and I hope God will forgive me, but
I’m scared of my own son.”
“You mustn’t give up on Vladan.” Tatijana took
hold of both of Ivana’s hands. “He served his country like an honourable young
man. He saw some truly horrendous things and it left a mark on him. True, he’s
a troubled soul. It pains us all to see him so at odds with himself. Time will
heal. God will see to that, don’t you worry.”
The younger members of the families, the
teenage boys and girls who used to play together at birthday celebrations and
religious festivals and who were now forbidden from spending much (or any) time
in each other’s company, seized the opportunity to catch up. In particular,
Jovana Darković and Ivan Brozović. Secret sweethearts since not long after they
were out of swaddling clothes, everybody in Velika Plana knew of the extreme
lengths they went to to see each other without the express knowledge or permission
of their parents. Common was the sight of the handsome, athletic,
seventeen-year-old boy sneaking out of his bedroom window and racing across
town to be with his betrothed. Hiding behind a derelict kiosk abutting the
park, the couple held hands and pressed their foreheads close together.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said Ivan.
“In six months, I officially come of age. Already, Igor from the tennis club
has promised me a coaching position. And not just for the summer season, but
all-year-round. Once I start earning a regular wage, we can declare our
intentions to our families.”
“Declare out intentions!” Jovana spluttered,
but not in a harsh or dismissive manner, even if that was how Ivan initially
took it. But because she was as scared as she was excited by the prospect.
“Why do you laugh?” He was hurt and
offended. “Everything I just told you is so close, we can almost reach out and
touch it.”
Jovana looked away from him. There was a
brief yet heavy silence.
“You know what our parents are like.
They’ll never allow it. It’s pointless to try and fool ourselves into believing
anything else.”
“Then we’ll run away. I’ll get hold of some
money. We’ll be together. I promise.”
As for the more grown-up of the younger
people, the husbands and wives who had been enjoying the fine weather and the
refreshments on offer, they all began to gravitate in one direction. A few
weeks ago, Dusan and Sladana Mijatović, son of Uroš and Tatijana, daughter of
Nemanja and Ivana respectively, welcomed their first child into the world, a
fine, healthy boy they had named Mihajlo, in honour of a paternal grandfather
who had distinguished himself in the Great War. Naturally, relatives and
neighbours who hadn’t seen the child before crowded around the pram.
“What a beautiful child!”
“He has his father’s eyes.”
“And his mother’s cute button nose.”
Like all proud parents, the couple wanted
nothing more than to talk about the new arrival, how he was such a good baby,
how he slept through the night, how he hardly ever cried, and how he drank the
last drop of his milk during every feeding time.
“I know every new mother says the same
thing,” beamed Sladana, “but this gift from God has truly made our lives
complete. It was no secret that we’d been trying for a baby for many years. Why
we couldn’t conceive was as big a mystery to the specialists in the city as it
was to us. But despite all the painful disappointments we endured, I now know
that we were fated to have our first child in just the way we had him. We’re so
lucky and have got so much to look forward to.”
“You’re not wrong there, girl,” said the
grandfather, Nemanja Brozović, “every seed knows its time. We’ve truly been
blessed as a family. I couldn’t be happier for the two of you. It’s about time
we had some good news round these here parts.”
At this point in the afternoon, the sun
was hotter still. Even more local people, perhaps encouraged by the sight of
the town’s notable families outside enjoying both the fine weather and each
other’s company, came and sat on benches, cracked open a cold beer or dribbled
a little rakija into a plastic cup, and chatted and reminisced with their
neighbours or former school friends. Some set up chess boards on the picnic
tables and dividing out some cheese and hunks of bread, started to move the
pieces across the board with as much deliberation as contentment.
A more pleasant or convivial scene, the
most skilful artist in Serbia couldn’t have captured.
But all of that was only moments away from
being shattered forever more.
As Dusan and Sladana thanked Nevena Boban
for a bag of baby clothes the kindly middle-aged woman had just rushed home to
fetch, the most savage, extraordinary, and tragic event that had ever taken
place in the history of Velika Plana destroyed both the peacefulness of the
summer’s day and the lives of so many of its residents. Without warning, one of
the crows that nested in the trees high above, swooped down and attacked the
baby in its pram. Before the parents or anyone in close proximity could react,
before the first anguished howl of pain had registered from the infant himself,
the bird had pecked away at the baby’s face, gouging both eyes from their
sockets, stabbed deep into the child’s heart with its beak, piercing both
clothing and skin, reducing the innocent soul to no more than a bloody, barely
recognisable pulp.
“No!” Dusan rushed over and tried to grab
the bird amidst this violent frenzy, only it was far too quick and simply flew
up and away, back to its nest in the trees.
Like a delayed reaction, a little girl and
a hunched-over old pensioner nearby started to scream. Duly alerted, every man,
woman, and child rushed over to see a pram awash with blood.
“Whatever is going on?” Lazar Darković
pushed his way to front of the crowd. “In God’s name,” he cried. “How did this
happen?”
If you liked what you read so far, why not take a closer
look at the first book in the series – The Professional Mourner?
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