Maja writes: take me back to dear old Belgrade.

Julian played me his song today. Yes, that song, the one he has been rehearsing with the concentration of a monk and the emotional stability of a startled rabbit.

And while I was bracing myself for whatever chaos his voice was preparing to unleash, something… unexpected happened. A memory. A smell of old amplifiers, cigarette smoke, and cheap plum rakija. A feeling I haven’t felt in years.

I remembered Duo Trojica. Most girls my age at the time were obsessed with glossy pop stars. I, however, fell in love with two men from a smoky bar in Novi Sad who played one battered guitar, one battered accordion, and three chords between them (also battered).

Duo Trojica were… chaos set to rhythm. Their concerts were never planned, just announced spiritually. Sometimes they showed up at cafés and started playing. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they played for hours; sometimes for one song and then argued about onions. But oh, when they played!

The room would swell with melancholy joy, the kind of Balkan sadness that makes you smile because at least you’re all miserable together. I wasn’t part of the band. Officially. But during a summer festival I ended up holding their spare accordion (it smelled like regret), translating their jokes into English for a confused group of Danish tourists, and accidentally singing harmonies when one of them temporarily lost his voice to a particularly emotional cigarette.

For one blazing moment, someone shouted:

“Duo Trojica i Maja!”

I wore that moment like a crown. Even if the band forgot it immediately and resumed arguing about onions. So, when Julian played his… creative… song, I expected only confusion. And yes, there was confusion. And concern. And a brief moment when I genuinely feared he was going to injure a chord.

But beneath the chaos, beneath the wobbling, aching attempt at emotion, there was something raw and clumsy and true. Something just earnest enough to spark the echo of Duo Trojica. Men who loved music more than they loved tuning. Men who believed that feelings mattered more than melody. Men who sang like their hearts were slightly broken but proudly alive.

Julian reminded me accidentally and mistekenly of that spirit. The spirit of trying. Even when the voice cracks. Even when the rhythm collapses. Even when the meaning gets lost in translation. Even when the audience is one unimpressed Serbian intern.

I will never tell Julian this, because he would turn it into a three-part opera, but the truth is that for a moment, as he sang, I remembered being 16 in a smoky room with Duo Trojica in Belgrade and a borrowed microphone and the feeling that life was tragic and hilarious and full of unexpected songs. And I felt… something gentle. Something old. Something warm. Something dangerous. Julian will never know this.  Julian must never know this or he will know it too much. Both are terrifying.

But today, just for a second, the boy with the off-key heart sounded almost like home.

Wondering what on earth Maja is talking about? This might help: