by Georgi Gospodinov, Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
If I’d stayed, I would’ve turned out like him. I left, played for a year or so, they sent me packing—they really put up with me longer than they should have—so I started driving one of those big, long trucks, as long as a train, with smokestacks up on top. Lots of work, but good pay. You can’t find a wife with a job like that. I take off early at 5 A.M., then sleep at a truck stop somewhere in the evenings. Busting ass from darkness to darkness. Then I sit down, drink four beers, eat two Big Macs, and sleep like the dead. Every day. One night I dreamed about my father. He was driving my truck. And in the morning they called to tell me how it had happened.
H.K., age 48. He had come from Dallas to bury his father and settle his estate.
MALAMKO THE CAB DRIVER AND HIS HAPPIEST DAY
Swarthy, curly haired, a bit over twenty, wearing a pleather jacket, an incarnation of Michael Jackson from the ’80s. And, of course, a picture of Michael himself up by the mirror. This story starts with my getting into the cab. As if he was only waiting for a listener.
Bro (this is my role and name in this story), if you only knew what a babe got into my taxi today! Pushin’ forty, but a babe, I’m tellin’ ya. Maybe she was 38 or 39, who knows. A hottie. When she got in my cab, I felt downright ashamed to be driving this old Opel.
We’re at a stoplight. I, too, cast a glance over the car, the threadbare upholstery, the cracked dashboard, the overpowering scent of vanilla coming from the pine-shaped air freshener.
That woman was not meant for this car, Malamko goes on. She needs a Cadillac, pink. And she’s got tits on her. So she gets into my cab and says drive wherever you want, that’s what she says. She’s just gotten a divorce from her husband. She tells me everything, from beginning to end. How they got married, how many years they were together, how he turned out to be a slug. She’s like, he turned out to be a slug. I dunno what a slug is, bro, but it’s gotta be bad. A snail, I say. Huh? A slug is a snail without a shell. Really? Well, what’s so bad about a snail without a shell, hmm . . . And he’d been messing around with some other women, but she’d found out—in short, he’d screwed up big time, royally. A huge tragedy, like something straight out of a Turkish soap opera. And so I’m just nodding, bro, and driving, I don’t even know where I’m going. I can see she’s in the midst of a spiritual crisis, so I just drive and listen. And the more she talks to me, the more she’s checking me out. She’s givin’ me signals, right that minute she’s giving me signals. I get this kind of stuff. Stop here now. We’ll see each other again, she says, you can be sure of that. Then she starts digging around in her purse, that goddamn, slug-sucking son of a bitch took my cash! She’s cursing, but even cursing fits her to a T, like a fancy necklace, like a brooch, a bona fide babe no matter which way you look at her. No worries, I tell her, money doesn’t matter. Pay me back next time. What’s your name, hon, she asks me. I’m like: Malamko. Let me give you a kiss, Malamko, she says, and leans over and grabs my head and plants one on me right here (pointing to his cheek) before I know what’s going on.
He looks in the mirror to see if there’s still a trace of that kiss. The stoplight has turned green, the drivers behind him start honking. I’ll give you a call soon, she says, slams the door and disappears. Now there’s a real woman for you, bro, the real deal.
Silence. But how’s she gonna find me, I don’t know. She didn’t take my number or anything. Maybe she remembered the number of the cab and will call the dispatcher to ask. There’s no other Malamko working for us.
He falls silent. This question gnaws at him. This is my place to intervene, as a bro.
Listen, Malamko, I begin in my deepest voice. When a woman wants to find someone, she’ll turn the world upside down. In such cases, only clichés help. I’m probably quoting some novel, some bad literature, God damn it. Let it do some good in consoling a handsome young Gypsy.
(The truth is that I’m thinking about how that woman is getting free rides all around Sofia with that sob-story about the slug-husband. But who am I to ruin the happiest day of Malamko’s life? And the fact that I’m even thinking this and he’s not makes me a ten-times bigger loser. Lucky Malamko . . .)
I’m a really lucky guy, eh, Malamko says after a short pause, as if having read my thoughts in the mirror. Such a pretty woman, and she likes me, Malamko, of all people. Who cares if she’s 30 or 35, she might be even younger. I’m a player, I don’t go looking for faults.
I gave him the biggest tip I’ve ever given. Actually, it wasn’t a tip, I bought the story.
I add it here now, in the capsule of this book, who knows, maybe that babe will read it or someone else will tell her that Malamko is waiting for her, she should give him a call. Let literature do some good, goddamn it.
THE STORY SELLER
What exactly are you? A writer? I’m always running into writers. My grandfather was one, it must be karma. A month ago I was invited to a wedding. And who do you think turned up at the same table? Can you guess? They put me right next to Salman Rushdie himself. Yes, yes, the man himself. With the little round glasses and the goatee . . . To tell you the truth, I’ve always thought that the people they show on TV, the most famous ones, don’t actually exist in real life, they must be some kind of computer animation or hologram. Don’t you doubt the existence of Madonna or Brad Pitt even a little? Anyway. I sat down next to him, we shook hands, he said his name and my mouth hung open. The writer? As if a whole slew of celebrities lurked behind this name. He was even a bit flustered and mumbled something—you could say that, yes.
Know what I felt like the whole time? Like cannon fodder. Jesus Christ, I thought this guy didn’t even dare poke his nose outside. I must admit I haven’t read any of his books, but I watch TV from time to time and read the newspapers, for God’s sake. I mean, they burn this guy’s books, he’s got a death sentence, a fatwa. And those dudes who issued it, you know they aren’t messing around. So I had this strange feeling at that wedding, both proud and on edge. And I was constantly looking around to make sure none of the guests at that joyous event made any sudden movements. I was ready to dive under the table any second. I was more scared than he was, he’s surely gotten used to it. I wonder if he had anything under that dress shirt and bowtie? I mean a thin, elegant, cutting-edge bulletproof vest, with fibers made from a totally new and lightweight material. I thought about asking him, but decided not to. I could just pat him goodbye on the back and see for myself. Actually, the guy behaved very decently. He never once asked me what I thought of his latest novel. Begging your pardon, since you’re a writer. Insofar as I know them (present company excluded, of course), they never fail to ask that question. They have it in their heads that the world lives and breathes with their books. I was afraid that he might ask me and realize that I hadn’t read anything of his. But now there’s a great writer, he didn’t even ask. Either he’s sure you’ve read it or he doesn’t care. He was quietly cutting his steak, spearing his carrots. He exchanged a few pleasantries about the joyous event, about how adorable the newlyweds were, how they were made for each other, blah blah blah . . . Small talk you could make at a wedding with any ordinary neighbor to your left or right. I thought that writers talked more, well, you know, only about important things, about life and death . . . Anyway. I was a friend of the bride, he had known the groom since childhood. We both swore by our people. And in the end, I told him one of my stories. I never did figure out whether I’d really impressed him or if he was just pretending. I don’t know, people with glasses throw me. I’ll follow his writing from now on. Do you think he’ll use it?
I finally managed to get a word in. Writers are never innocent. They’re as thieving as magpies. Still, it’s important who steals from you.
But no, I gave him the story as a gift.
Well, then we’ll wait and see.
If you’d like, I could tell it to you, too.
I am curious.
But you do understand that it is already sold.
Didn’t you say it was given as
a gift?
Yes, that’s right . . . given, sold. We didn’t sign a contract. If you really like it, you just need to work out with him who’s going to use it. I’ll sell it . . . in exchange for two large Four Roses.
So, for eight roses, I laughed . . . Deal. (That’s how I met the story seller.) And after the first bouquet of roses landed on the table, the story began.
. . . AND HIS STORY
Naturally, it’s about a woman, the storyteller began slowly. I appreciated that opening a la “naturally, a manuscript,” but for a moment I wondered whether he wasn’t trying to resell other people’s stories, trying to foist off Eco on Rushdie, hence sowing the seeds of unrest and discord in literature. I let the story unfold.
I had to get away from her if I wanted to live. I had to leave her, leave the city in the most literal way. I wandered around Europe for several months. To forget a relationship, some try promiscuous sex, I tried promiscuous geography. I picked cities at random, usually travelling by train, I changed stations and hotels, all the other tourists were in groups or couples, I wandered alone around the squares, which at a certain point all started to look the same. I looked like a person who wanted to abandon his own abandonment around some corner. Like someone looking for a distant and unknown place to release the cats of his sorrow, so that they would never find the way home. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of cats? They possess an incredible homing instinct, astonishing memory. Once my grandpa tried to get rid of all the housecats that had multiplied in the house and yard, he stuffed them in sacks and let them go a few miles outside of town, near the graveyard. When he got back home, the cats were there waiting for him. That bit about the cats is a bonus, I didn’t tell it to Rushdie, the storyteller said, taking a sip of his second Four Roses.
I soon realized that Europe was far too close, it was full of this woman, it reminded me of her. I needed more space, empty and unfamiliar. So I caught the first plane to the Americas. I needed to get lost like Columbus, but amid long-since charted lands. We don’t ever stop to think how difficult it is to get lost nowadays. Almost as difficult as it was not to get lost back then.
When I got home a year and three months later, I spread the world map on the floor and connected up all the places I’d been with a marker. It was a real round-the-world journey, I traced the route with my finger, saying the names of the towns and megalopolises aloud. The best mantra for forgetting a woman.
Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Wrocław, Berlin, Hamburg, Aarhus, Bremen, then down to Rouen, Dijon, Toulouse, Barcelona, Malaga, Tangier, Lisbon, across the Atlantic and up to Long Island, New York, Ontario, the North Hudson Bay, and back down to Minneapolis, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Phoenix, San Diego . . .
I got up, put the map on the wall, and only then noticed . . . The lines of my journey perfectly traced out a letter. Her letter. A big, clear M. An exquisite monogram of a foolish man. The cats had beaten me home.
It wasn’t a bad story, even if he had swiped it from a third party and already sold it once (certain phrases like “the cats of his sorrow” and others were definitely not his own). The bouquet of roses flourished. He looked satisfied, like a man who had managed to sell the same goods twice. But I, too, was satisfied with the deal, because I had bought two stories for the price of one—the one he had told me and the previous one, about his meeting with Rushdie, which I suspect is even more made-up than the second one.
TWO MEN BET ABOUT WHOSE WIFE IS MORE FAITHFUL
First, they decide to check up on one wife. The man announces that he’ll be going away for a few days. He and the other man hide in the yard and wait. The husband has even gotten a gun from somewhere. The first night—nothing. His heart lightens up a bit. But the very next night, once the darkness has become impenetrable, the woman steps out of the house, opens the door and a man slips inside, silent as a shadow. No lights go on inside, however. The two friends go over to the window, the scanty moonlight reveals the movement of two bodies, but even that is enough to see what is going on. How the woman is winding around him, what movements, the husband is downright thunderstruck, he has never seen her like that, the dirty bitch. His friend also looks on, open-mouthed.
We’re going in, the husband says quietly, and they slip into the house like thieves. The next scene is such a classic in cinema, literature and real life, that I don’t know how to describe it. The husband has opened the door, taken a step inside and to the right, standing with his legs slightly apart for support, that’s what he’s seen them do in the movies, and is pointing the gun at the tangle of bodies that is now lying there stunned. His friend is standing six feet away from him, his stance slightly ridiculous, because the situation itself is quite ridiculous, he doesn’t know where to look. He feels uncomfortable looking at his friend’s wife, because she is naked and had been having sex just moments earlier, it’s uncomfortable to look down, as if he himself has been caught in the act, he’s too embarrassed to look at his cuckolded friend, so as not to embarrass him all the more. In a word—awkward. The lover, who has been caught red-handed—or rather red-panted, in his red-and-black striped underwear—keeps glancing from one man to the other, as if not yet sure who is the husband, the one with the gun or the other one. The woman’s body is a complicated mixture of slowly waning desire, rage toward the intruders who barged in out of the blue, and growing fear. Sometimes seconds have immeasurable lengths and volumes.
The cuckolded husband is the one who had to make a decision. Matters (and the gun) are in his hands . . . It is up to him how everything will unfold, but he still doesn’t know what to do. He only knows that he needs to decide quickly, time is not on his side. The man has never before found himself in such a situation, he knows them only from movies and books. And none of that is helping him now. He pulls himself together. He points the gun at the man. That’s right, squirm, you dirty little rat. The rat has nestled into his very own bed. He has even left his watch on the nightstand. People kill someone just for setting foot onto private property, those kinds of signs are everywhere, so what should happen when someone enters into the holiest of holies, not just your home, but your bedroom, and not just into your bedroom, but into the woman you sleep with? On the other hand, what fault of it is his, he didn’t force his way in, someone let him in, what’s more, someone even called him over, gave him a sign. Isn’t that someone the guiltiest party in this situation? The guiltiest one—the woman. That is the radical decision, the adulteress must atone for her sin with death. Jesus, what melodramatic lines, is this Greek theater or a second-rate bourgeois play? To kill your wife over nothing, okay, well, it’s not anything, but she’s still your wife . . . And after he kills her, then what? Decision-making has never been his strong suit. Ever. If he has to pick out a pair of slippers from the store, his whole afternoon is shot. Black or brown? After he has mentally counted all his pants and divided them into two piles—those that go with brown and those that go with black—then he glances at the furniture in the room, because it would be good for the slippers to match it as well. After all of that, an hour has already gone by and he’s decided on the brown ones. But, horror of horrors, there are two types of brown slippers—with braid and without. On top of everything, there is darker and lighter braid. That’s how bad it is with slippers, but here we’re talking about murder and doling out justice. Who is guiltier in a case of fornication?
He lifts his gaze from them and sees, as if for the first time, their wedding photo above the bed. How could they do this right beneath it? It occurs to him that it would be very effective if he were to shoot their wedding picture, he imagines how the glass would shower down on their heads. What a metaphor. You, woman, have shot dead our married life itself, so our past gets a bullet to the head. Where should he aim, though—at himself or at her? We’re talking about the picture, but still. If he shoots at his own portrait that will be suicide of sorts.
The next moment, he turns and does the most unexpected thing before everyone’s astonished gazes—he
pulls the trigger and shoots his friend. No external witness, no crime.
SCHEHERAZADE AND THE MINOTAUR
Usually stories are told by the one in the weaker position. This is clearest with Scheherazade. One doomed woman tells story after story to gain night after night. The thread of the story is the only thing leading her through the labyrinth of her doom. Inside the stories she tells, the most frequently tendered coins to buy someone’s life are again stories. It’s enough simply to recall the first—about the poor merchant who accidentally kills a genie’s son with an olive pit, and three passing sheikhs each buy a third of the merchant’s life from the fearsome father (here we really are talking about direct trade) by telling (selling) him stories. “O Genie, thou Crown of the Kings of the Genies! Were I to tell thee the story of me and this gazelle and thou shouldst consider it wondrous wouldst thou give me a third part of this merchant’s blood?”
If your stories are good and you really do impress me, replies the genie, then it’s a done deal. And it’s a done deal. The genie gives them the merchant’s blood, and Shahryar, who is listening to the story, gives one more night to the storyteller, Scheherazade. Blissful times. “By Allah, I will not slay her, until I shall have heard the rest of her tale.” But the story is endless. Just as the labyrinth is endless.
