The European Enigma (LSD, #9)

38. The Serbian Singer

The Serbian Singer

The young man woke up with a headache and a sore throat. He felt depressed.

«That must have been one hell of a party last night. Why don't I remember anything about it?», he thought.

After many hells of a party, you wake up either in your own hotel room or in somebody else's. You don't wake up in a cell without windows and a heavy metal door, locked on the other side. Perhaps you do, when you're a criminal or a heavy drinker, but the young man was neither. He was a singer. He was to represent Serbia during the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, and he had all the good qualities that any country would like their representative to have.

"Hey! Anyone out there?"

He tried the door, but it was as locked as it promised to be. A stretcher with a blanket and a battery-powered light were the only articles in the room, which looked like the freezer of a butcher or a meat factory. He felt like dead meat.

He was thirsty, he wanted to go to the bathroom, and he wanted to take a shower too. How long had he slept here? How did he get here? What time was it?

The young man didn't have a watch. When he wanted to know the time, he used his mobile phone. He checked the pockets of his dinner jacket. Everything was there: his wallet, his silver fountain pen and the little notebook that he carried everywhere, the key of his hotel room, everything, except his phone and the keys of his rental car.

He banged the door and shouted a few times, but it was in vain; nobody answered. He sat down on the stretcher. He needed to think. What were they trying to do to him? Think! There must be a reason for this. He could only think of one: the two favourites for winning this year's Eurovision Song Contest were Luxembourg and Serbia. Serbia sent a handsome singer with a beautiful song. Luxembourg sent a pink elephant, dressed in a tutu. Nobody had ever sent a pink elephant before. According to the bookmakers, it wasn't even necessary to sing, entertain, or vote: nobody stood a chance against an elephant. But, against all bookmakers' odds, somebody found it necessary to take the Serbian singer out of competition...

He had to get out of here.

But how?

With a click, the steel door opened. A woman, a beautiful woman, entered. She pointed a warning finger at the young man and said: "Don't move. I'm a trained killer. If you behave well, nobody will harm you. I've brought your breakfast."

"I need to go to the bathroom. I feel sick."

"I'll bring you a bucket."

She turned to leave.

"No, please, don't go. The bathroom can wait, and breakfast too. Please, tell me where I am, and why you're keeping me as a prisoner here."

The beautiful woman, who looked like Katniss Everdeen meets Catherine Zeta-Jones with a short haircut, came in with a small table, filled with enough food to keep a school class quiet for half an hour. She put the table in the centre of the room and went out for two kitchen chairs. One, she put on the young man's side of the table, with an inviting gesture to sit and enjoy. The other chair, she put on the other side, with its backside against the table, so she could get off quickly.

"Eat. We won't harm you. We're just keeping you here for a few days, until next Monday, and then we'll give you back your freedom. This is nothing personal. It's just business."

The young man took a sip of the fresh orange juice, smelled the warm croissants, and poured the hot coffee into a cup. There was a fine selection of sliced meat, cheese and marmalade, there was Swiss butter, English tea, milk, and muesli, and he was hungry. Of course, there was the risk of poison, but the woman could easily have killed him already, and she was too beautiful to be an antagonist. He started to eat, while she watched him with pleasure, sitting sideways on her chair.