Wolf Hunt

by Ivailo Pretov

  “Perhaps your exile will come to an end very soon and you will return to Hungary.”

  The two of them exchanged surprised glances, murmured something to each other in Hungarian, then Ms. Clara asked: “How did you know we were exiled?”

  “From my deceased father.”

  “And how did he know?”

  “From the police, madam. A few days after you arrived at the estate, the police came looking for you. My father took care of the whole business with the district constable, whom he knew, and he struck you from the list of ‘undesirables.’ My father was not interested in politics, but he was a democrat by conviction and had no love for the monarchy.”

  That evening Nikolin learned the secret the family had been hiding for many long years. Janos Malayi had just graduated in machine engineering and had started work at a factory in Budapest when he met the famous revolutionary Bela Kun. This happened in 1918. Bela Kun had secretly come back from Russia to take part in the founding of the Hungarian Communist Party. In the following year, a Soviet-style republic was established in the country. Bela Kun was appointed People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs and took on the young engineer as his assistant. The republic lasted only four months. After its defeat, Bela Kun emigrated to Austria, while Malayi was arrested and sentenced to death. His comrades, including a Bulgarian student by the name of Karov, helped him escape from prison. He hid in underground safe houses and communicated only with Karov, whom the authorities did not suspect of being involved in revolutionary activities. He had married Clara a month before the revolution, without her parents’ knowledge. Her father was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Education and flatly refused to allow his daughter to marry the young engineer, whom he knew to be an active communist. Clara had graduated from a French college and her father had plans to marry her off to someone from the highest society. After Malayi’s escape from prison, Clara kept in touch with him through Karov and went to see him at the safe houses. Karov managed to arrange for Malayi to flee to Bulgaria with the help of a railroad worker. Clara decided to follow him and started living with him in his underground apartment. Karov found a fake passport for her as well and the three of them left for Bulgaria in a freight car…

  Karov was from the Pleven region and took them to his home village. They spent a few months at his house, then they found work for Malayi at a steam-powered mill in another village near Pleven. There, in a shanty by the mill, they lived for almost three years; their son and daughter were born there. The September Uprising broke out in Bulgaria and after it was crushed, the authorities came after Karov. Now they hid him, as he had hidden them in Budapest. He often spent the night with them, and sometimes would stay for several days at a time. One night he told them that he was leaving for the Soviet Union, they said their farewells and never saw or heard from him again. It seems that the police had been keeping him under surveillance and several days after he disappeared, a pair of policemen came asking about him and searched their home. They found no trace of Karov, but their visits grew more and more frequent, the police interrogated them and claimed that very soon they would bring Karov back to visit them. Thus several months passed, there was no sign of Karov, and the police never brought him back – had he managed to cross the border or had he been killed? Being kept in the dark was agonizing and made them extremely edgy until they finally decided to take a most desperate and foolhardy step, which would give them away to the authorities – they decided to set out and go wherever their path might lead them. One day off they took a stroll with the children down to the railway station which lay half a mile from the village and got on the first train that came through. A man was sitting alone in a compartment, they asked whether they could sit with him and he politely invited them in. The man was the elder Devetakov.

  The blizzard was still raging. It was no longer snowing, only a strong wind was blowing, scooping up the snowbanks and turning them into white dust clouds. During the lulls, the air grew clear and only for an instant Nikolin could see how down in the Inferno the white dust cloud would settle and at the next gust of wind would swirl up again like boiling milk, veiling everything before his eyes. His feet were not yet numb with cold, because he was stamping them on a thick layer of fallen leaves, but his fur coat was short and the cold was piercing his thighs. Mela’s got the house all warmed up, when I get back tonight I’ll soak my feet in salt water, I’ll go to bed and get up tomorrow morning as good as new, he thought to himself and a sharp pain jabbed through his chest like a knife. I mustn’t think of her, I mustn’t think of what happened a few days ago. If I keep going over it in my mind, my heart will give out and I’ll collapse here and die under the snow. With tremendous effort he redirected his imagination back toward his memories of the past, which, thanks to the years, had lost their sharpness and did not cause him any anguish. He had never made sense of these memories as clearly as he did now, while standing blind in that white blizzard, or perhaps it was precisely because of this that he grasped them, because he was blinded and was seeing his past with his spiritual sight. He realized that something unusual had happened to him, as if he was having some intellectual revelation, just as fervent believers at a given moment or hour receive divine enlightenment. Only now, amidst this raging winter storm in some inexplicable way, he suddenly understood and made sense of all the events, words, and conversations between Devetakov and his numerous guests on all sorts of questions, which he had heard, seen, and experienced, but due to his youth and near-illiteracy he could not then understand. Those memories had slumbered in his mind like a seed in the ground throughout the long winter and now they came to life and sprouted from the warmth of his anguish, fresh and clear down to the smallest detail. And thus, thanks to the revelation that had overcome him like a divine blessing on that difficult day, he was able to transport himself back into the past and to alleviate his pain. There was only one event from the past that he didn’t understand – why did Devetakov take his own life?

  “That man speaks with the sky,” Halil Efendi had said when leaving the estate for good.

  He was around forty-five years old, broad-shouldered and strapping as a wrestler; he was as wise and fair as he was strict and merciless to lazy and careless workers. He attached lead ballast to the plowshares and if a tractor driver plowed too shallowly or tried to rush through the plowing too quickly, he took him down from the tractor, gave him a good couple of slaps, and threw him off the estate immediately. He dressed like a European, spoke Bulgarian like a Bulgarian, read books, and wrote with his left hand. He kept the estate’s ledger using that simplest of folk accounting systems – “give and take” – which consisted of a notebook with hard covers. On the left page he wrote the worker’s name and on the right, who had done what and what he was owed, what had been sown and what was produced from the land, what was sold and what was left over, expenses and income from the threshing machine, the livestock, and the fowl. On Saint Dimitar’s Day he opened up the notebook and gave every man what he was owed down to the last penny, and after that “a little something extra, from the master,” according to the worker’s merits – a few pounds of wool, a change of clothes, a bushel or two of grain. This payout was done in front of all the workers, so that no one could complain he had been wronged.

  Halil Efendi left the estate because there was no longer any estate. A month after he had come back from abroad, Devetakov donated seventy-five acres of land to the village municipality, leaving only twenty-five for himself. He paid off the servants more than handsomely and let them go. Halil Efendi was the last to leave, because he had to hand over the ledger of accounts to Devetakov. The two men said their goodbyes without shaking hands, Halil Efendi bowed to Devetakov and quickly left the room. Nikolin went to see him out to the front gate and it was then that the Turk said that Devetakov spoke with the sky. Nikolin didn’t understand what he meant by these words, and he didn’t dare ask, but from his face he could see that he did not pity or reproach Devetakov for giving away
his land, and that showed that he didn’t consider him mentally deranged, as word in the village had it.

  Nikolin didn’t think he was deranged either, because his master seemed livelier, more cheerful, and more spiritually sound than ever. Before, Devetakov had worked in the fields with the hired hands, but only for a week or two, and somehow in a lordly way, as if for amusement or, as Nikolin thought, so people wouldn’t say he was lazing around in the shade while the common people baked in the heat. Now, however, it seemed he had decided to become a true villager, and the two of them were in the fields from early spring until late autumn. Even though they plowed with a tractor and threshed with a threshing machine, farming twenty-five acres was no small feat for two men, they had a lot of manual work to do, they had two horses, two dozen sheep, and fowl that they had to take care of. Devetakov was baked like a brick from the sun and wind, husky and sprightly as a young man, sociable and affectionate, he had a hearty appetite, and at night he slept soundly and deeply. And so it was until the spring of 1945.

  The biggest event during that time was the arrival of the Red Army. They didn’t pass through Orlovo, so people from the surrounding villages went to see them in Dobrich. Nikolin went to see them as well, along with Clara and Malayi, Devetakov went too. The previous evening Malayi had come to the house and announced that the Soviets had crossed the Bulgarian border, then he brought Ms. Clara over as well. They were dressed in their holiday best and so excited that they spoke over each other and laughed loudly. Nikolin served dinner and brought out a bottle of wine, they toasted the Red Army, Ms. Clara played the piano, they listened to the news, and in the morning Nikolin drove them to the city. Devetakov’s house was on the main street, Ms. Clara and Malayi stayed on the balcony, while Nikolin went down into the street. The troops came on tanks, in trucks and horse-drawn carts, the people blocked their path, everyone was shouting “Zdravstvuyte, bratushki!”* and giving the soldiers flowers, bread, and wine…

  No guests from the city or from Sofia had come to the estate in a year or two, and after the Soviet Army’s arrival on September 9, no one came from the village, either. Only Ilko Kralev from Ravna would drop by from time to time to bring back or borrow some books from Devetakov. Two years earlier another young man from the village of Zhitnitsa would come as well – Alexander Pashov, and he and Ilko Kralev often dropped in at the same time. Both were students in Sofia, Pashov was studying medicine, while Kralev was studying law. Pashov would arrive by train, but Ilko Kralev came and went by foot along the highway. During vacations and especially over the holidays their visits would last several days, as Devetakov would not let them leave. The three of them would sit in the room with the books, or if the weather was nice, they would stroll through the fields or sit on a bench in the garden, and they were always talking, always reading some book. Since Pashov had left to go abroad, Ilko had come to the estate on his own. Devetakov was extremely fond of him and had told Nikolin to give Ilko the key to the library in his absence so he could take whatever books he needed. The last time he had come, around the New Year, Ilko had been spitting into a flat tin box which he kept in the pocket of his coat. He and Nikolin were the same age, and upon leaving he said: “Don’t be fooled by my well-fed look, mate, I’m rotten on the inside, this consumption is eating away at me like a worm.”

  But lo and behold, in the spring a guest came to visit them. They had been sowing corn and came back home late in the afternoon. As soon as they entered the yard, a woman came down the steps from the veranda and walked toward them, stepping lightly and somehow stealthily through the wide yard, she greeted and gave her hand to Devetakov. Nikolin recognized her immediately – the wife of Alexander Chilev, a merchant from Sofia. She was every bit as pretty and slender as he had remembered her from several years ago, yet her beauty seemed somehow worn out and sad, while her clothes were simple and dark, as if mourning a loved one.

  “Oh, Michel! We shouldn’t have to meet this way!” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  Devetakov said nothing, just kissed her hand and led her toward the house, but she continued: “Alexander is in prison. And Lily is not doing well…”

  That must be her little daughter, Nikolin thought, and remembered a little girl, dark-eyed and pretty like her mother, who had come to the estate with her parents. She was a curly-haired, rambunctious, and mischievous child, she roamed around the yard and the garden all day, climbing the fences and the trees, and not giving the birds a moment’s peace, so her mother had made Nikolin keep an eye on her. He washed up, changed clothes, and went into the parlor. Devetakov and his guest were sitting at the table across from each other, talking. He passed behind them and set about lighting the stove, their visitor didn’t seem to notice him. She had propped her chin in one hand and was holding a cigarette in the other. She spoke softly and her voice carried through the room, gentle and sad like the rustling of fall leaves.

  “Pork lard is a thousand leva for half a pound and still there’s none to be found. Which would be fine if there was cooking oil, but there’s none of that, either. If only I were in Sofia, I’d manage somehow, I’ve got friends and relatives there. Here it’s like I’m in hell. Everyone flees from me as if I’ve got some disease. They’re far better off, those women whose husbands are working and earning a little something. Did you know that Elena’s here too?”

  “Elena who?”

  “Sarmashikova. She’s been here for ten days, but I only found out yesterday. Looks like she hasn’t so much as poked her nose out of doors. That lawyer Malinov’s wife told me. I thought he’d come to visit you. He was working on some construction site. Lots of our people have been sent to this region.”

  The woman fell silent, lost in thought, her pretty face darkened, tears glistened in her eyes. Devetakov was silent as well, and when Nikolin finished with the stove, he told him to prepare dinner.

  “We do our own cooking here,” he added. “Nikolin is the head chef.”

  “I’ll cook,” the woman said, getting up. “Just give me an apron or a towel to put on.”

  Nikolin led her to the kitchen, gave her a leg of pork and everything else she needed, and asked her if she wanted help, but she told him she would prepare everything herself. He left the kitchen as if banished and went out under the awning to chop wood. Well, look how far she’s fallen, the poor thing, he thought to himself while chopping wood. There’s no lard, she says, there’s no oil, there’s no meat, prices are sky-high. But we’ve got everything here, as much lard and flour and oil and meat as you could want. He pitied her and felt some kind of superiority over her. This feeling seemed indecent to him and he told himself that he shouldn’t be acting “bigheaded” with her, yet at the same time he was pleased to see her cooking for him with her “dainty little white hands.” Then he reproached himself again for thinking such a thing about a helpless woman, and again he remembered that of all the women who had come to the estate back then, she was the most pretentious and snobbish, she hadn’t known his name and had merely told him: “Hey, boy, go see where my daughter is!”

  Guests had come to the estate, most often around the major holidays, all people of means – merchants, neighboring landowners, industry bosses, and scholars. They would take the train to the city or to the station in the village and Nikolin would drive them to the estate in the carriage. When the weather was warm they spent their time outside, eating lunch and dinner on the veranda or in the gazebo in the garden, while in the late afternoon they would go out for a stroll in the fields. In late fall or winter, they stayed in the parlor, where the table was piled high with food and drinks at all hours of the day and night, they would play the radio or the gramophone, bang away on the piano, dance, play games, laugh, and horse around until the wee hours of the morning. Auntie Raina waited on them, but when there were lots of guests, Nikolin would help her. Auntie Raina would set the table and bring food and drinks, while he would bring the full pots from the kitchen, plus pans of banitsa or roasted meat. He was always anx
ious when amidst the guests, especially during those first years, because he instinctively sensed that they felt distrust or contempt for him, he also caught those discreet glances that were exchanged in his presence as a sign that they needed to change or break off their conversation in front of the estate’s coachman. Over time, the regular guests and even those like General Sarmashikov and his wife, the Sofia grain trader Chilev and his family, and other high-ranking people got used to him, just as they had gotten used to the rustic simplicity of Devetakov’s home, with the iron twin beds, with Auntie Raina’s rich dishes, with the homemade pickles and “desserts” of pumpkin with molasses, fried bread, pancakes, rice pudding, and donuts. They jokingly called him “the valet,” permitted themselves a certain looseness of tongue, and acted more spontaneously in front of him – as if in front of a person whose job from then on was to be the sole witness to their encounters and conversations, as all servants are; they had fun with his excessive bashfulness, under the pretext that it gave him a certain “charm” of an immaculate village lad. He, of course, found nothing degrading or insulting in the fact that these ladies and gentlemen and even their children looked down on him. Like every man of the people he was exactly proud enough to realize his place with respect to these people, and that was the place of a servant.

  The lady did not look at him even now, nor did she say anything to him as he lit the stove, she was working at the kitchen table with her back to him in silence. He went out to do some work in the yard and stayed there until late. When it was dinnertime, he passed by the kitchen and saw that the woman was no longer there and went out to wash his hands. She had left a plateful of food, bread, and a fork on the table, and this showed that Ms. Fanny did not want him upstairs in the dining room. He ate alone and when he went upstairs to his room, he saw the lady and Devetakov having dinner in the parlor, he with his back to and she facing the windows. Her face, illuminated by the lamp, was flushed and smiling, her dark, glittering eyes flashed with sparks of happy excitement, she had changed her clothes and her hairstyle and now looked as young and fresh as a girl. He went to bed, but was restless, some vague alarm was gnawing at him and making him listen closely to the muted music and voices coming from the parlor. When these sounds died down an hour or two later, the door to the parlor clicked shut, and footsteps could be heard along the veranda, he leapt out of bed and pressed his eye to the keyhole. Ms. Fanny and Devetakov went into his bedroom. Without realizing what he was doing, Nikolin got dressed and tiptoed into the parlor. Amidst the mixed scent of wine, cigarettes, and food, his virginal senses caught that delicate fragrance of perfume, which female guests to the estate left in their wake. He stepped over to the wall separating Devetakov’s room from the parlor and listened. He couldn’t hear anything but the fast heavy beating of his heart, yet he stood with his ear to the wall as if mesmerized. At one point he thought he heard whispering and stifled laughter, he strained his ears to their utmost and froze. Only the distant sounds of the spring night reached his ears and it was then that he realized that behind the wall was not the bedroom, but Devetakov’s library. He went back to his room and lay in bed. Some wild curiosity was tormenting him, he strained his imagination to such an extent trying to guess what that unusual and shameful and mysterious thing was that was happening between the two of them in the bedroom that his head felt heavy and he finally fell asleep at dawn. Around nine o’clock Devetakov woke him and ordered him to take the lady to the station. Ms. Fanny did not say a word the whole way, she sat huddled down in the collar of her coat, looking aside. The train station was only a mile from the estate, but Nikolin drove it at a gallop so as to shorten the awkward ride. The buggy bounced along the uneven highway, the lady’s suitcase, stuffed full of food, bounced on her lap, but she kept silent, still looking aside.