Prologue

The name of the painter Nikola Matovic as a modern Raskolnikov is still on everyone’s lips. Only a few months ago, the named artist killed a Swiss Countess who was nearly three times older than him in a manner that all debauchers would call the best ‒ with an orgasmic heart attack. Except for the fact that the silver-haired lady wearing a witch costume died during sexual intercourse and left her enormous wealth to her young husband, there weren’t many proven details about Mrs. Vanfonherden’s scandalous tragedy. All sorts of speculations circulated in the media, some even claimed that Nikola was poisoning his wife and intentionally exposing her to too much excitement. But the autopsy didn’t find any traces of illicit substances in her system and the aforementioned excitement couldn’t be the basis for prosecution since you can’t bring a man to trial just because he was making love to his wife.

Matovic called me and said that he would like me to write a book about him. I have no idea how he came across my phone number, but I do know that I’m not an established writer and that a novel linked to any kind of publicity would launch me to a better position than the one I’m in now. The painter moved to a house on the outskirts of Belgrade. Without a trace of hesitation, risking to become the victim of a practical joke that my idle buddies schemed, the next morning I went where I was told to. I walked through the open gate, crossed the stone pathway framed with weeping willows and ringed on the door of the large two-story stone house covered with dark wood.

After a few moments, the artist appeared. He was dressed casually in a Hawaiian shirt, swimming trunks and flip-flops. Matovic greeted me kindly, “Sorry for waiting. I wish you a good day. Follow me to the studio, don’t ask any questions and close the door behind you.”

With those words, he turned and hurried forward. We passed through the anteroom, a narrow corridor, a huge living room full of books and paintings, climbed the spiral stairs to the dark attic and ended in the place where we will actually start ‒ in his studio.

“This is my little private gallery. My favorite. It is called Stories from the Brothel,” he said. “And you are the first who has seen it, after the Countess.”

I made a few hesitant steps on the creaking floorboards to take a look at his works. There were no women on the paintings, which was unusual. I could see high school students with backpacks and bottles of rakia, cabbies, priests with babies, cookies, buildings, strange white hills and many more objects that seemed randomly thrown together, but there wasn’t even one hint of a female being. I opened my mouth to say something about that, but he preceded me.

“Answer my question with a short yes or no,” Matovic said curtly. “Do you hear me clear enough to understand what I’m telling you with crystal clarity?”

“Yes,” I answered confusedly.

“Okay. First of all, you have to keep in mind that it is crucially important to protect my identity. Whatever you decide to do, write and publish ‒ my identity must remain completely hidden! Am I clear?”

“Yes,” I replied briefly, although I couldn’t understand why this eccentric man who was dancing on the edge of a knife between sanity and insanity was insisting on secrecy? He surely knows that his name is on everyone’s tongue on TV and in the papers for days now.

“Okay,” he said. “The next thing I want is authenticity! Am I clear?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Answer with a yes or no!” Matovic shouted. “If you don’t understand, then I wasn’t clear enough. I will clarify! These paintings are true stories from Belgrade brothels. And there must be no blanketing. Everything must be the way I tell you.”

I looked at him cluelessly.

“Vulgarity! I’m talking about crudity. If a man is able to put souffle in his mouth, turn it into shit and push it out as feces, then he is a being of vulgarity. And in his pants, he doesn’t have a penis, but a dick. His life is a fucking show in which he scores a success only when he shags the people he has been jerking off to. We exist because someone fucked our mothers. And that happened long before we had a brain to think. So, dear Descartes, rest in peace, but you thought and existed only because someone screwed your mother. And the history of humanity created by sex without condoms is a long orgy that is slowly yet unquestionably losing control...” he kept talking. “And because of these irrefutable facts, my stories must be real. Or vulgar. Am I clear now?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“The next important thing is to explain why I chose you, Nikola Misovic.” He took a deep breath and clarified. “I have read your novel ʻThe Murder of Santa Clause’. While reading the conversation on the bridge between virtuous, moral Vasilii and the potential suicidal guy, I felt that spark. I felt that we share the same passion for women. For whores!”

“I don’t have such a passion.”

“Don’t interrupt me. It doesn’t matter what you say. What I think matters and I think that a literary character whose decision to commit suicide is triggered by the lack of money to pay a whore must be the creation of a man who is squirming in a quicksand of brothel passions,” he said. “And that’s why I am offering you the chance to write the manuscript as well as the money for the first circulation of five thousand copies and aggressive marketing.”

“But I have no passion for...”

“You can’t say,” the artist interrupted me again, “that you have never been in a brothel. I can see it in your eyes. How they light up when you hear the word whore! You love them! Because you know the truth. And the truth is that no work of man, however great it was, throughout the centuries can’t be raised to the heights a woman’s beauty can reach in the blink of an eye. There is no reason to waste time any further. I was completely clear about everything I wished to say. Absolute secrecy and certain vulgarity. Are you ready for that?”

“Yes,” I answered resolutely.

“Good. They say that a painting is worth a thousand words. And if a painting can’t speak for itself, then it isn’t good. I don’t agree. Actually, I believe in the very opposite. Speech is for mouths. A painting should be silent because it has its creator who can talk about it. You don’t see a pussy on the canvas, but I will explain where it is hiding. Behind each painting is a story which embellished the canvases with paints through my hand,” Matovic concluded.

Then he approached the first painting, showed me the name under it and, emphasizing that I shouldn’t interrupt him no matter what, began his story.