The ad appeared on a Tuzla website for secondhand goods on Tuesday morning: for sale, walnut wardrobe, full wall, five compartments, each with its own lock, lightly used, once. By noon four thousand people had looked at it. By evening all of Tuzla knew which wardrobe it was, and half of Tuzla claimed to have seen it already, on television, as its doors opened one by one.
It all began five weeks earlier, when the police rang the doorbell of Mersija's brother Jasko at six in the morning. Jasko worked as a night guard at a construction company's warehouse in Bukinje. That night four hundred meters of copper cable had disappeared from the warehouse, and the camera above the gate, according to the report, had not been working. Jasko insisted the camera had been working and that he had seen who drove out through the gate: the owner's son, with a trailer. Inspector Šobot wrote this down with great patience and took Jasko into custody, because the story, as he put it, was a little too convenient.
Mersija was thirty-four, had a flower shop near Freedom Square, and had a habit of solving problems in order, like orders from customers. First she went to the inspector. Šobot received her in an office with a ficus that needed water, listened for ten minutes, and then got up and closed the door. He said the camera footage might be found, if someone searched hard enough, and that he searched best in the evening, over dinner, in a quiet apartment, without witnesses. Mersija watered the ficus from his glass. "Friday at seven," she said. "At my place."
Rodić, the pretrial judge the case had been assigned to, did not even close the door. He told her in the courthouse hallway, with his hand on her elbow: the custody order could be reviewed, but he reviewed his cases thoroughly, thoroughness took time, and time was best spent over a good meal. "Friday at half past seven," said Mersija. "Bring the order. I don't like unfinished business."
The company whose warehouse had lost the cable was building a new sports hall for the city, and the owner's son, the one with the trailer, was the best man of Deputy Mayor Đekić. Đekić received her in an office overlooking the Pannonian Lakes, offered her juice, and said the owner might withdraw the complaint if someone asked him nicely, and that he would ask him even more nicely if she asked him in the right way. "Friday at eight," said Mersija. "Bring the withdrawal of the complaint, signed."
That left the minister. Hrustanović, the minister of the interior in the cantonal government, was the only one she did not have to look for, because he found her. The day after her visit to Đekić the phone rang in her flower shop, and a warm, measured voice said he had heard about her problem, that these were ugly things that were easily settled among people who understood each other, and that he had time on Friday, later, around half past eight. Mersija said that was perfect. And she meant it.
There remained the question of the wardrobe. Ahmo, a craftsman from Slavinovići, made furniture for half the city and never asked why. This time he asked. Mersija wanted a walnut wardrobe across the whole wall of her living room, with four tall compartments, each deep enough to hold a grown man in a coat, and each with its own lock that fastened from the outside. "For preserves," she said. Ahmo looked at her, then at the sketch, then at her again. He said the wardrobe would be done by Friday and that, since things were going this way, he would like to come to dinner some time too. "Then make it five compartments," said Mersija, "and come at six."
Ahmo came at six, freshly shaved, with a box of baklava and a screwdriver in his pocket. Mersija praised his locks and said she had doubts about the fifth compartment, that it seemed shallower than the others to her. Ahmo took offense. The compartment, he said, was the same as the others, and to prove it, he stepped inside, turned around, and spread his arms. Mersija closed the door and turned the key. "You're right," she said through the walnut. "It is the same." For a while nothing but breathing could be heard from the wardrobe, and then Ahmo said that for the first time in thirty years his own work had locked him in.
The inspector rang the bell at five past seven, with a bouquet that Mersija's professional eye told her had been bought at a gas station. He had also brought a USB stick. "The footage," he said, and set it on the table like a trump card. Mersija played it on her laptop right away. In the footage, at two seventeen in the morning, the owner's son drove out through the gate with a trailer full of copper. Šobot took off his jacket, put on the slippers she gave him, and had just begun to tell her how lonely he had been all his life when the bell rang. Mersija went pale. "My neighbor," she whispered. "He has a key and a terrible temper." Without a word the inspector stepped into the first compartment.
Judge Rodić brought wine and an order lifting the custody, signed and stamped, because he was, he said, a man of his word. Mersija read the order twice and put it in a folder next to the USB stick. The judge took off his jacket, put on the slippers, and sat down on the couch closer than the couch required. A cough came from the first compartment. "The pipes," said Mersija. At five to eight the bell rang. "My ex-husband," she whispered. "He works in security and he is jealous." In his slippers the judge stepped into the second compartment faster than he had ever reached any decision.
Đekić brought a box of chocolates and the signed withdrawal of the complaint. When Mersija told him to feel at home and gave him slippers, he was moved and said he had no slippers at home, because his wife told him he did not deserve them. Someone sneezed in the first compartment. "The cat," said Mersija. Đekić did not have time to ask since when cats sneezed in wardrobes, because the bell rang for the fifth time that evening. "My cousin from Germany," Mersija whispered. "He hasn't slept for two weeks." The deputy mayor stepped into the third compartment.
Minister Hrustanović brought nothing, because ministers, he explained, do not carry things, they solve them. He said he had spoken with people, that her brother would be released, and that they could now move on to pleasanter subjects. Mersija gave him slippers. The minister put them on with the expression of a man taking an oath of office. Then she went into the kitchen to check on the pie, as she put it, and from the kitchen she sent two messages. When she came back, she said she was terribly sorry, but her aunt from Gračanica was arriving that very minute, and her aunt could not stand men in the house. Without asking, the minister stepped into the fourth compartment, apparently convinced that this was standard procedure.
The first message went to Aldijana, a reporter for a local news site, who had gone to high school with Mersija. The second went to the television station. Aldijana arrived within eleven minutes, with a cameraman and two colleagues, and after them came a television crew. Mersija met them at the door with the folder: the camera footage, the order lifting the custody, the withdrawal of the complaint. Then she led them into the living room, stood in front of the walnut wall, and began unlocking the doors, in order, like orders from customers.
From the first compartment came the inspector in slippers, who said he was there on official duty. From the second came the judge, who said he had no comment, and repeated it three times. The deputy mayor claimed he had come to look at the wardrobe because the city supported local furniture making. The minister came out last of the four, straightened his tie, looked straight into the camera, and said this was a fire safety inspection. Ahmo, in the fifth compartment, did not wait to be asked. "I made it," he said proudly. "The locks are mine."
By midnight the video had more views than any other video from Tuzla that year. Jasko was released the next day at ten, and the owner's son was brought in at eleven, with his trailer. The inspector was suspended, the judge asked to be recused from all his cases, the deputy mayor resigned for family reasons, and the minister gave an interview about media pressure. Mersija sold the wardrobe in three days. It was bought by a lawyer from Lukavac, who asked only one thing: whether the keys came with the wardrobe.