Wild Tales

by Nikolai Haitov

  ‘Villagers, young and old!’ he shouted. ‘If they’re made by a man who knows his job, wooden hoops are second to none! Wooden hoops are best of all!’

  I was paid what was owed to me and was loaded up with wool, honey and wax too – all for a single barrel with nothing inside but air! When Father saw me and I told him why I’d come home loaded up like that and wearing somebody else’s breeches, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  After that they was all wanting me to make barrels for them. Business blossomed, and the orders and the money rolled in so fast I didn’t know which way to turn. Over a hundred and twenty other master-coopers in our area, there were, but folk gave the old ones the go by and came to me instead.

  A hundred and twenty of them, but not one had ridden a mad barrel bareback round the gorge, nor shaved the hodja of Hambardere.

  Paths

  Yesterday it was, this roadman came round and asked if I was called Blasho. ‘Director Georgiev of the Highways Department told me to bring you in to see him,’ he said.

  ‘If that’s what he told you, take me to him!’

  So he took me right to the director’s door. ‘Knock,’ he says, ‘take off your hat, and in you go.’

  I knocked, took off my hat and went in.

  The director was sat at his desk with his nose in his paper.

  ‘Good morning Director.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ asked the director, still stuck in his paper.

  ‘You sent for me,’ I says. ‘I’m Blasho.’

  When I said ‘Blasho’, he put down his paper.

  ‘So-o-o! You’re the one who has been laying footpaths gratis all round the district.’

  ‘Aye,’ I says, ‘that’s me.’

  ‘You from these parts?’ the director asks.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, well, strange I haven’t seen you before.’

  ‘Ah, the town’s a big place,’ I says, ‘and I don’t come in that often. I usually work at home. I’m a shoemaker, I mean a cobbler.’

  ‘How come?’ the director exclaims. ‘A shoemaker and you go making paths?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? No law against it, is there?’

  ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘that’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Because,’ I explains to the director, ‘the roadman said there was an order out to “have me brought in”, so I thought I was for the high jump….’

  ‘The stupid ass!’ the director exploded. ‘I didn’t tell him to “bring you in”. I told him to ask you to come. So we could meet and have a chat, and I could pay you what we owe you. I’m responsible for all State-maintained roads in this area,’ he says, ‘so tell me, how much is it we owe you?’

  ‘But Mr Director, sir,’ I says, ‘I don’t make paths for money.’

  When I said I didn’t work for money, he got annoyed.

  ‘That’s something the State won’t tolerate!’ he says. ‘What do you mean by it? You’ve done the work and you must be paid.’

  ‘All right then, let them pay if they want to!’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I never signed on. Whatever the rate is.’

  ‘How long did the job take you?’ asks the director.

  ‘I didn’t count the days. I only work in the afternoons.’

  ‘What do you do in the mornings?’

  ‘Mend shoes.’

  ‘Make a lot mending shoes, do you?’

  ‘One lev. One sixty. Sometimes two…. Just depends. The wife gives a hand as well. She does the laundry at the restaurant. Gets her food free, too. And the boys are all grown up. Married, they are, got places of their own.’

  The director stared at me. He even took off his specs so he could get a closer look.

  ‘Well, well now, that is interesting!’ he says. ‘But you don’t look that old.’

  ‘I’m sixty, near enough,’ I says.

  ‘And you do this path-making every day?’

  ‘Every afternoon!’

  ‘And you never take money for what you do?’

  ‘Who’d I take it from? Who’d give me any?’ I says. ‘I like making paths, so I make them. No one forces me, so why should I be paid? There was a time though, when the old age pensioners wanted a path in their little park. Promised me two levs, they did, but once the path was ready, they forgot all about the money.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the way things are,’ says the director, ‘what would you say to making a small path for us?’

  ‘Fine! Why not?’

  ‘How much do you want for it?’

  ‘Whatever you give.’

  ‘Do you have the tools?’ he asks.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Explosives?’

  ‘What would I be doing with explosives now? I’ve got no call for them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Frightens everything in the wood,’ I says. ‘And it scares away the birds.’

  ‘How do you manage, then, when rocks get in the way of your paths?’

  ‘I go round them! Or I use a pick. When I can, I use the pick, and when I can’t, I go round. You get to know which rocks have roots and which haven’t. There’s some you can’t budge an inch. No veins! Like men stones are -no veins, no good. Nothing to grab hold of. And neither pick nor spade is any help. So you go round and the rock stays put! It couldn’t give a damn about the path you’re making. That’s why my shirts don’t last a month, Mr Director,’ I says. ‘The sweat rots them, and then they’re done for.’

  ‘Don’t drive yourself so hard, then,’ he suggested. ‘I hear you make your paths in the steepest and most difficult places.’

  ‘Not much point having a path where it’s flat, is there? You can make your way across flat ground without a path. Where you needs paths is up in the mountains, where it’s steep.’

  ‘And who’s interested in walking where it’s steep?’ he asked. So I told him. I could see he’d got a thing about paths, like me, so I got going good and proper. I told him that different paths suit different people. One’s for lovers, another’s for cherry-pickers. Pensioners use them most, though. Get up with the sun, some of them do – to give themselves an airing. With some it’s their heads, with others it’s their nerves. All the nerves you want these days! There’s some as are quiet, others as sings and even some as wants to pick a quarrel with me. Only the other day there was one had it in for me – wanted to know why I hadn’t made a path right to the top, because he’d torn his trousers on the way up. ‘What do you want to go climbing right up to the top for?’ I asks. ‘Can’t you wait till there’s a path?’ ‘I’m a dying man, my friend,’ he says. ‘I can’t wait that long. I want to see what it’s like from up there before it’s too late. Because once I go down into that black hole, I won’t be coming up no more, see.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘if that’s the case, I’ll make you a path right to the top.’ And that’s what I’m doing now, making a path specially for him.

  Then there’s Darachev. You must know Darachev. He goes walking for his blood pressure. Because he’s fat and’s got a great pot-belly. The other day he laid into me too. ‘Why are all your paths so steep? They’re a waste of time,’ he says. ‘They are for eagles, not human beings! You better make them level,’ he says, ‘because if I get my hands on you….’ That’s what Darachev said, so I made him a path on the level. Now Doctor Poumkov uses it too. All on the level it is, and it leads to a spring. And I fixed up a drinking fountain, so now there’s water too. You get thirsty, so you have a drink. And then back you go again.

  That’s the kind of customers I get. Very demanding…. But the hikers are grateful. They give credit where it’s due! Only the other day they gave me a whole basket of tomatoes. One of them – from Sofia, he was – said he’d get me awarded a medal. ‘The hikers’ benefactor,’ he called me. Must have been a Party member, that one, because he said I was a man after his own heart, but I didn’t ought to let my enthusiasm run away with me….

  They were a happy crowd, that lot. All of a laugh. They f
air split their sides, they did! Best part of an hour they hung around watching me, and only one of them was a bit grumpy. When he saw my little broom, he asked me what it was for. ‘For the small stones,’ I says, ‘I sweep them up with it.’ ‘What do you do that for?’ ‘Some people walk barefoot,’ I says, ‘and the stones hurt their feet.’ ‘Who goes barefoot?’ he asks. ‘Who goes barefoot in Bulgaria, these days? What do you mean by that, if I may ask? Who goes barefoot in Bulgaria? Come here, you show me your papers! Identity card ! Out with it!’ ‘Here you are,’ I says, ‘Blasho, at your service. No difference to me whether you check on me or not, I’m still Blasho.’ ‘Smile!’ he says. ‘Let’s see your teeth. On the photo you’ve got real teeth, not false ones!’ I smiled, so he could see my teeth, the same ones I got now. ‘Why have you got false teeth?’ ‘My own fell out, that’s why,’ I says. ‘But here you’ve got real ones,’ he says, tapping the picture on the identity card. ‘Ah well, my friend, that’s a 1953 identity card, and a whole lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then….’ Then he left my teeth alone and started on my paths. ‘Who pays you for them?’ ‘Nobody.’ ‘So you do it for nothing, for free?’ ‘Aye, that’s right,’ I says, ‘for free.’ ‘Come along now, my friend – we’re going to the Council offices, you and me. We’ll soon see what kind of a fairy godmother you are!’

  Lucky for me the others stepped in, so he left me in peace. Seems he hid somewhere not far away, though, so he could keep an eye on me.

  Anyhow, I told all this to the director, and he listened.

  ‘Go on!’ he says, ‘go on! This is all very interesting. And while we are chatting here I’ll get on to the accountant, so he can issue you with some working clothes.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll agree to that, Mr Director, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’ he says. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Not him exactly,’ I says. ‘But I had something to do with an accountant once in the forestry.’

  And I told the director how one day the forest warden had come and asked me to work for him. In the summer, it was, when you couldn’t get labourers for love or money. How he wanted me to work for him! ‘Please, I beg you, for money or for free, please say you will! Water from the ravine has washed away part of the road and sooner or later a lorry will overturn or someone will fall in. How I’m going to get it fixed, I really don’t know.’ I said I’d help and started work. But the very next day the warden comes up to me and says I must pack it in. ‘Why?’ I asks. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he says, ‘but keep it quiet. The accountant said he wants nothing to do with raving lunatics. If anything happens, it’ll be us that catches it, he said, for using unofficial labour. We can get along without men like you, he said, and told me to chuck you out.’ And that’s just what the warden did, he chucked me out. I could have gone on, they told me, but only with a certificate from the doctor.

  ‘But I still don’t understand,’ says the director, ‘why you work for nothing when you could get paid for it.’

  Then I told him about the trouble this had got me into only the other day. Some navvies stopped me up by the ravine. One of them collared me: ‘You blockhead, you! What do you mean by working for nothing and undercutting us? We get paid for it and you do it for nothing! What’s the game, eh?’ And one of them, right fierce, he was, says to the others: ‘Come on, let’s chuck the little twerp in the river! One fool less won’t be the end of the world!’ And they would have chucked me in too, but some woodcutters came along just then. ‘People like you belong in the loony bin, you skunk!’ the fierce one shouted. ‘We’ll show you what’s what!’ ‘You can do what you like with me,’ I says, ‘but I enjoy making paths, so I make them.’

  You walk through the wood, just bushes and weeds and stones, and then suddenly there’s a path winding along! At first there’s nothing, just a wilderness, and then someone walks by, listening…. A couple passes and everything comes to life. It’s not the same when you do it for money. No pleasure in it. Only the other day a young fellow went by with his girl. They saw I was lopping off branches to widen the path and shouted across to me: ‘Keep it up, comrade, but don’t cut off too much now! Proper nosy parkers some of the old ‘uns are….’ Wanted to be alone they did, some place they wouldn’t be seen. We’ve all got our likes and dislikes. And the woodcutters need the paths too. It was them saved me from the navvies, I told the director, from the blokes who get paid for making roads for the State. Sometimes the woodcutters bring me dry wood and kindling, and when I was down with the pneumonia they gathered herbs in the forest and made poultices for me till I got better. ‘We need you,’ they said. ‘Can’t have you snuffing it!’ A happy lot, they are, and very thoughtful. If it weren’t for them, I’d be pushing up the daisies by now. The wife’s not at home, you see. She works at the restaurant, eighty levs they pay her and free food too. My boys aren’t much good at poultices neither. They’re more interested in other things, their houses and things like that. Still, live and let live, that’s what I say.

  ‘Tell me,’ says the director, ‘what are the paths like? Crooked, straight? Good, bad?’ He really was interested, I could see.

  ‘You’ve got it a bit wrong, Mr Director, sir,’ I says. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad path. Even the tiniest path goes somewhere, so it can’t be bad. Where it goes, that’s something different. There’s one goes right up to the Kale peak, for example. Up and up, till it reaches the very top and tells you to look round at the plain and the whole town spread out below. Where else can you see the whole plain from, all at once? And another goes on and on until it leads you to the spring and the drinking fountain. “Stop and drink,” it says. “Rest a while, take it easy, what’s the hurry? Whether you hurry or not, we all end up at the same place!” Last year I even made a special path all because of a single lime tree. An old lime, it was. Old and big – and a mass of flowers! You sit beneath it and the smell fair makes your head go round. You see : no path, no lime tree! I called it “Lime Tree Path” and all, and the name stuck. When I see anybody on their way back I always ask where they’ve been. “Along Lime Tree Path,” they answer. Sometimes I even go out of my way to ask. Does me a bit of good to hear that answer, old sinner that I am! Still, live and let live, it’s the only way!’

  The director was hanging on my every word, listening like his life depended on it.

  ‘How interesting,’ he says, ‘how very interesting!’

  ‘The old paths are the most interesting,’ I says, ‘the overgrown ones. Once there was a village – it’s gone now, but the path is still there. You go along one of these paths and you asks yourself : “Where does this one lead ? Which direction does it go?” You keep on walking and come to an open space. Once it was a field : the rains have washed it away, but the path still tells you there was once a field. If you look carefully, you’ll even find a threshing floor. Yes, there are paths like that. Another one will lead you on and on till you come to some holes in the ground, signs that treasure hunters were once there. And another will twist and turn till it brings you to some ancient walls. A fortress!’

  ‘Well, what do you do with paths like that?’ asks the director. ‘Do you get them going again?’

  ‘Just depends,’ I says. ‘There are some as are best left dead and forgotten. The field, for example. Who needs a worn-out field? And a fallen fortress isn’t much good to you, is it? It’s finished…. If the path is any use though, I get it going again. If there’s water, say, or a nice spot of shade: or some dry branches for firewood…. Anything beautiful and worth looking at, then I gets it going again.’

  ‘So if I understand you correctly,’ says the director, ‘for you, beauty is the most important thing.’

  ‘That’s it, Mr Director,’ I says, ‘you’ve hit the nail right on the head! This old life of ours wouldn’t be worth much without beauty, would it?’

  ‘If it’s beauty you’re after,’ the director says, ‘you and me are going to get along fine. We’ll fit you up with some really beautiful
working clothes.’

  Then he reached for the phone and called the accountant.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, ‘Didov? Could you come in a moment. Something I want to show you….’

  The accountant came in.

  ‘It’s a question of getting some clothes for our friend here. He makes roads in our area for free. Blasho, he’s called, Comrade Blasho. Have you got anything with a fur lining? Cold and damp this autumn weather, and he’s had pneumonia. Ought to look after himself.’

  The accountant agreed :

  ‘Quite so, of course he must.’

  ‘Seems you’re making a great fuss about nothing,’ I says.

  ‘What do you mean “nothing” ?’ says the director, raising his voice. ‘You’re not nothing! You’re famous – the whole town knows you! We can’t have you not properly dressed. You’ll catch your death of cold!’

  ‘Who’d have thought it!’ I says to myself. ‘What splendid people they are!’ But the director hadn’t finished :

  ‘And we’ll see about getting you a pension, too,’ he says. ‘If you come and work for us some day, and something happens to you – an accident, say a broken arm or a gammy leg, perhaps – we’ll see you get your pension. You can count on it!’

  No end to their joking, there wasn’t, and I began to smile.

  ‘And what if I, er, don’t have an accident?’ I asks.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you could arrange one, couldn’t you? No need to laugh, you could manage it, I’m sure.’

  ‘Dare say I could, sir. Dare say I could. Do almost anything, people will,’ I says, ‘why not indeed!’

  And there I was, having a good laugh, when the director suddenly started shouting at me. Laid into me good and proper.

  ‘You rascal, you ! You out-and-out rascal! So you would, would you? Arrange an accident, so you can claim a pension! Take a good look at him, Didov,’ he shouted to G the accountant. ‘Hates money, he does, the little saint. Makes roads for free, out of the goodness of his heart! I got hauled over the coals all because of him. Asked me why the Department was asleep, they did, allowing raving lunatics to go building roads in the mountains! Scram!’ he hollered. ‘Out of my sight! Don’t you ever let me catch you in the mountains again. Or I’ll take you to court, you out-and-out rascal you! Move! Scram!’