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beside it that had sat there for three years? Maybe
because of the pile of yellowing newspapers in the corner
of the living room: a room without a TV, a radio or a
wooden bookcase full of hand-me-down ceramics and
china? Or maybe just because there were no curtains, no
cloth over the dining table, no vase in the living room,
just two empty cigarette packs and a small ashtray. A few
worn-out shirts in the open wardrobe in the bedroom, a
pair of jeans splayed across the floor beside it. The living
room was anchored by a stained green rug; and the
bathroom by a foul-yellow shower curtain. It was the
sort of space that a normal person would only occupy
against their will. I wondered if Tomislav Zdravković saw
this place as a prison cell, which is why he never
bothered to make it any nicer. Maybe he thought that by
living in this dump, opposite the retired municipal
official, he was repaying his debt to society, and that
maintaining its unpleasant décor was a mild form of self-
flagellation? Or was he just such a miserable son-of-a-
bitch that he didn’t even notice all the mess and
rustiness of his world? Whatever it was, we couldn’t call
spending time in a two-and-a-half bedroom flat the
equivalent to solitary confinement.
I was pulled out of my strange lethargy, moving
hypnotized around this so-called apartment, wading into
the story of Tomislav Zdravković, by a surprising sight:
Sudoku puzzles, cut from newspapers and carefully
filled-in with pencil, which lay on the floor by the