Best European Fiction 2014 by Drago Jancar

Author:Drago Jancar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2013-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

TRANSLATED FROM ROMANIAN BY ALISTAIR IAN BLYTH

[Montenegro]

LENA RUTH STEFANOVIĆ

The New Testament

It was Veseljko’s first day at work, or rather his first night. Bedewed with sweat, he stood at his post in front of the premier’s residence in his black boots and blue woolen police uniform, a size too big. The premier was in fact on annual leave and Veseljko had just been temporarily assigned to replace the regular security guards until his return. That morning he’d been to a meeting with the commander, who explained to him the significance of the position and the responsibility it involved. The commander also made it clear to him that he owed a debt of gratitude to his relative from the north of the country for recommending him in the first place. Veseljko now knew that he owed his relative a favor, while his relative owed one to the commander; that’s how these things work.

So at ten in the evening Veseljko arrived at his new workplace for the night shift. He and the guard from the evening shift passed each other without exchanging a word, and Veseljko took up his post. He’d been given a short briefing about the setup there and told that the head of security would explain his duties to him in detail later.

The guard at the high-impact first checkpoint and the one at the rigorous second checkpoint considered Veseljko’s duties at the third and last to be purely ceremonial; to date, no undesirables had ever made it past the tough guys at the first two checkpoints, so you could say that Veseljko was just at his post pro forma—a job for which he was indebted to his relative from the north after his poor marks in the final exams at police academy.

Veseljko was of medium height, chubby, with a belly that hung over his leather belt; his neck was short and thick, and his whole appearance, including his large, square head with bristly light brown hair, was reminiscent of a big, sluggish animal, perhaps a castrated old bull, for whom frisky heifers had long ceased to present any challenge, and for whom the proverbial waving of a red cape in his face would have been a minor and ignorable irritation at best. His big, bulging forehead seemed to overshadow his tiny, deep-set blue eyes. A prominent nose and full lips rounded off his figure, which the Almighty appeared not to have made too much effort on—possibly He had more important work to do, or maybe Veseljko’s turn came right at the end of the working day, when it’s a known fact that people and gods alike try to knock off as soon as possible and don’t worry too much about the finer details.

Veseljko was born on the slopes of a gray mountain in the far north, the fifth of seven children; contraception was still not widespread in the Kingdom of Black Mountain last century, and the birthrate in those poverty-stricken regions was enviable. The same couldn’t be said of the

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