Vampire in Serbia

Once, when spring was about to give way to summer and the valley was filled with the fragrance of chestnut trees in bloom, I was about to learn a lot about how easy it is to deceive people. Above the town, the intense smell of locus tree flowers threatened to render a person unconscious. The fine scent

of spring and proximity of summer was not the only cause of restlessness in school children. The whole small town of Vranjska Banja was edgy because in the near village of Zlatokop, a vampire was on the loose.

The townspeople could not stop talking about it. The local newspaper featured and article about it. An elderly man spoke of a choking sensation in his sleep the other night. There was heaviness on his chest. When he finally dared open his eyes, he saw his dead neighbor above him. Needless to say, it was scary, but what the deceased was about to say was most surprising. The vampire was wondering how come there were no dinner leftovers for him on the threshold of the house. If they were there, he would not bother coming in. The article went on to say that, from now on, the elderly man dutifully placed remains of his meals on the threshold, but as an insurance policy he also goes to sleep with a wreath of garlic around his neck. The picture in the newspaper was in fact that of the grandpa posing with his garlic talisman. The old man was endowed with huge whiskers and, as most elderly Serbian men, he was religiously wearing shubara (a wooly sheep skin hat) in the warmest of weather.

Everyone in the little town offered their opinion on these strange events. Some said that the best thing to leave for a vampire was a leavened loaf of bread with some salt on the side. Others said that it was hopeless without some wine. And yet the elderly ladies insisted that oil was just important as salt.

All the happenings were especially unsettling for my classmate Ivica. He was from Zlatokop, the very place where the vampire was spotted. His family had moved away from there, but still visited the elderly relatives left behind. A four-day weekend in honor of St. George was coming up and it was almost guaranteed that Ivica would find himself back in the once beloved, now fear-inspiring rustic surroundings.

We all sort of envied the fame and attention bestowed upon his birthplace. Sure enough, in a few days, the holiday weekend was here and we all wished Ivica luck. For once in our lives, we could hardly wait for school to begin again so that we might get some news from our comrade. We imagined him returning startled: with gray hair and perhaps without an ear or, at least, all scraped up from trying to outrun the living-dead man. I had a vision of my battered friend approaching down Main Street which is lined with blooming wild chestnut trees. A breeze will rain flaky white petals over his blond hair; blue eyes would be glazed with tears as he stumbles about drained.

He returned rattled but safe and with news. The homecoming was not as scenic as I imagined it, but there was some drama. Ivica was running late that Monday. The class noise featured a gypsy kid Hristijan trying to convince our mountain dweller Dejan that he was doing community service over the weekend by fearlessly defending the town with drums:

--A bre, brother don't you know that vampires and wolves are afraid of loud music?

The mountain kid just carried on with cynicism:

--Oh yeah, your gypsy noise tickles the werewolves in the balls whenever they hear it...

--No, the wolves shit themselves and run away from [Vranjska] Banja.

My friend Daniela, for once, took the gypsy's side:

--Da (yes) be, the forest is teeming with them. Guns in Bosnia scare them our way. There was no pause for effect. Hristijan just piled on Dejan:

--You stupid shop (mountain person), if it was not for us musicians your dumb ass would have been dinner for a wolf five times over now.

Such spirited discussions on merits of gypsy brass band music in homeland security kept us from noticing that the teacher had walked in. Right behind him, our emaciated friend Ivica tried to sneak in.

The teacher noticed him and promptly slapped him a couple of times while exclaiming: Did you not get enough time off you lazy donkey!?!??!

We somehow managed to appear studious through the first period math class. Quite a contrast with the anarchists, we were outside of school. As soon as the teacher stepped out for our five minute pause between learning, there was some odd seismic activity. Ivica became an epicenter who instead of radiating waves outward, attracted concentric circles of classmates towards his spot in the first row next to the wall. Questions abounded:

--Where have you been? What have you been doing? Did you see the vampire?

--What have I been doing? I have been drinking Turkish coffee by the pail so that I could be on the lookout. Ich nishta ne vido. (I have seen nothing).

Our pal Milan would have none of this:

--You shitter. So, incompetent.

--In competent, what incompetent, my own ma; Bozhana saw the vampire in the dusk on Saturday (the day people usually go to the cemetery) and the same night a cow mooed in agony as the bloodsucker bit her tit.

--Your mothers name is Bozhana? Wait a minute, Hristijan, doesn't your uncle have a dancing bear

Bozhana?

Ivica's neighbor Biljana neglectfully mentioned:

--But, your dad's name is Bozhidar...

Then it was as if thought Ivica became a center of an explosion with people jerking their heads up and grabbing their bellies in unison. Everyone was laughing so hard that we began to stagger away. My friend Pedja’s eyes teared up from the giggles; he was in a trance:

---His parents are Bozhidar and mechka (bear) Bozhana??!?

While the schoolchildren continued their blissful existence, the frightening occurrences went on as people left all sorts of groceries outside their homes to appease the vampire. The fact that the food was gone in the morning was proof of the existence of the unnatural.

Soon school ended and we all went back to our respective villages. I, myself, returned to Masurica. My own valley was well sheltered by the hills of mountain Vardenik. So maybe we will be vampire-free and happy. But I had the hardest time walking by the graveyard. It is quite possible that my heart had turned into that of a chicken and was beating at a rate not suitable for humans.

As the summer went on, vegetables became ripe and my friend Cale and I decided that it would be good to have some salt and oil handy in case we got hungry, while out roaming the fields. The very next day, I snatched a kilo of salt and a whole liter of oil from my family’s basement. I hid the condiments in the crack of an ancient tree by the muddy field road. In record time, Cale and I forgot all about our plan for self-sustenance.

About a week later, it was reported that our own village was being haunted by a vampire. A man said that his cement mixer was unusually heavy as he was dragging it through the same muddy road I mentioned earlier. Lo and behold, a vampire of the deceased village school teacher was sitting on top of

the machine with legs crossed and grinning at the poor peasant. The man just ditched the cement mixer in the middle of the road and ran home to the wife who gave him a shot of plum brandy to calm down from his frightened and possibly delusional state of mind. Shortly afterward, a mob of brave villagers armed with garlic, holy water and basil went on to retrieve the cement mixer and search the area of the encounter. They found the salt and oil hidden by me and concluded that this must be the vampire’s stash.

A couple of days later, it was revealed that the vampire of Zlatokop was in fact a sham. A desperate peasant, without means to get by on his own, frightened villagers into leaving food and other necessities outdoors for him. This was probably the strangest outcome of United Nation’s economic sanctions on Serbia. Anyway, the people of my village concluded that those honkies from Zlatokop did not know their asses from their heads and that we had the true vampire. After all, they had the salt and oil to prove it. How else would those things find their way out there? However, for better or worse, this calamity was ignored by the local paper. Apparently the Southern Morava region of Eastern Serbia had their fill of vampire stories.