Suvad Hadžiomerović woke up on Monday with a sore throat and a feeling that something was wrong, though he could not say what. He had worked at the Statistics Institute for thirty years and had never once stayed away without a reason. He called in, apologized in a whisper and lay back down. His wife, Radmila, brought him tea with honey and said to call out to her if he needed anything. Only around noon, when the phone rang, did he understand what was wrong.
It was Predrag Šečić, a colleague from the next office. "Suvad, were you in Ilidža this morning?" Suvad said he was lying in bed with a temperature of a hundred and two. "Strange," said Predrag. "The woman from accounting swears she saw you at the stop with a lady in a red coat. You were arm in arm." Suvad tried to say something, but his voice cracked. Predrag added that he, of course, did not believe it, but that the story had already reached the third floor.
By afternoon Suvad learned that he had also been seen on the tram, and by the Vijećnica, and at the burek stand in Baščaršija, always with the same lady and always in his own gray coat. Someone had even heard him laugh. Suvad had never laughed out loud. Radmila stood in the bedroom doorway with her hands on her hips and looked at him the way one looks at a bill that does not add up. "You've been in bed since last night," she said. "I know. But why does everyone say they saw you?" He had no answer. He tried to get up, collapsed into a coughing fit and went back under the quilt.
On Tuesday, against the doctor's advice, he dressed, tied his tie and went to the Institute. He walked down the hallway as if through a gauntlet. Conversations died when he appeared and picked up again as soon as he had passed. Ramiz Pozderac, the head of the archive, stopped him and pressed his hand meaningfully. "I won't say a word to you," he whispered. "Just know that I'm on your side." Suvad wanted to ask on his side against what, but Ramiz was already gone.
He walked straight into the director's office, which he had not done in thirty years. "Mr. Director, I was not in Ilidža. I have a note from my doctor." The director looked at him over his glasses. "Suvad, nobody is accusing you." "Everybody is accusing me," said Suvad. "Just not out loud." The director sighed and said there was nothing he could do, because there is no appeal against something that was never said.
That evening Suvad sat in the kitchen in front of a cold cup of tea. Radmila washed the dishes and said nothing, which with her was a bad sign. Then she said, without turning around: "The lady in the red coat, was she at least pretty?" For the first time in two days Suvad felt he might cry or laugh. He laughed. Out loud. Radmila turned around and began to laugh with him, and they laughed until the coughing made them sick.
On Wednesday morning nobody looked at him. In the cafeteria the women from accounting were saying that Ramiz Pozderac had bought a tractor, or an estate, or something else, depending on who was telling it. Predrag came up to Suvad with a tray and asked whether he had heard. Suvad said he had not. He sat down, ordered tea and for the first time in three days could swallow without pain.
The lady in the red coat was nowhere to be found anymore. On Friday Suvad saw a woman in a red coat in front of the Vijećnica, standing alone and waiting for the tram. She did not even look at him.