Wolf Hunt

by Ivailo Pretov

  And so it was until the night of Radka’s wedding. That same night, along with wretchedness over what had happened, for the first time Ivan Shibilev had felt another emotion as well the moment he saw the young man from the other village, whom Mona had brought to the wedding, and that emotion was – let us not beat around the bush – jealousy. To be jealous on Mona’s account, that seemed to him, no matter which way he looked at it, strange and almost absurd. She had grown up and become a woman in front of his eyes, thus he had gotten used to thinking of her as some kind of half child half woman, he had also convinced himself that he had some sort of right to her, just as she owed him some sort of filial piety, as it were, so it seemed unbelievable that one day she would have a relationship with a man. That evening, however, when he saw Nikolin, he also saw Mona in a different light and realized that she was already of a marriageable age (how beautifully that was written on her face!) and that she had long been waiting for the moment when he would ask for her hand, or if he did not want her, when he would “set her free,” so she could marry someone else before she got too old, regardless of whether she loved him or not. She had brought Nikolin, with whom she seemed to have relations, to the wedding to remind him of her innermost longings, of his negligence of her fate as a woman, and perhaps also as proof that, in any case, she had a man waiting in the wings whom she could marry whenever she liked. He also thought to himself that she, alas, had every right to do so, since she couldn’t spend her whole life serving as the safe shore after his shipwrecks, without him having clarified his relationship with her. He told himself that it was humiliating to feel jealous of this simple young man, but every time he caught sight of Nikolin, jealousy pierced his heart, and with great effort he managed to hide it by entertaining the others with magic tricks and musical antics. Nikolin’s presence made an impression on everyone, he attracted their gazes and they openly admired both his clothing, which was slightly different from ours, as well as his face, that of a handsome, righteous young man who emanated charm, bashfulness, and virtuousness. Ivan Shibilev found it unpleasant when some of the women most unceremoniously looked from one young man to the other, comparing them as rivals, while others, likely tipsy and in heightened spirits, spoke openly in the newcomer’s favor. But the most unpleasant and insulting part was that Mona, too, saw and heard them praising the stranger and, instead of showing them in some way that she had nothing to do with him, kept whispering in his ear confidentially and smiling at him. She’s a woman, what can you expect, Ivan Shibilev thought to himself. She didn’t dare admit to me that she had a boyfriend, and now she’s showing him to me in front of the whole village, perhaps without realizing how cruel she is being to me.

  At that moment, with his pride wounded and in a fit of jealousy, Ivan Shibilev went out into the yard and stood in the shadow of the barn. A minute later Mona threaded her way through the crowd and went over to him. From the look he had given her, she had understood that he would be waiting for her outside and she had followed him. Ivan Shibilev took her by the hand and led her toward the garden, and from there through the fields. They walked in silence, from time to time she felt his fingers gently squeezing her wrist, as if trying to tell her something he could not or did not want to put into words. After a half an hour, the winding strip of the path, lit up by the silvery glimmer of the stars, led them to the vineyard. They slipped into the narrow rows between the vine stumps, he walking ahead, and she coming after him, they wound to the left and right until they ended up in front of the watchman Salty Kalcho’s hut. Ivan Shibilev lowered the latch on the door and went inside, she went in after him. Inside the hut there was a straw bed covered with a rug, and a few dishes in the niche of the hearth: a small pot, two earthenware bowls, a gas lamp, a pitcher, and matches. Ivan Shibilev lit the wood in the hearth and the hut filled with the scent of savory, mint, and ripe grapes, which were hanging in bunches from the ceiling. They stood for a while staring at the fire’s living flames, then Ivan Shibilev turned to her, embraced her, and set her on his knees like a little child…

  Years later, Mona superstitiously thought that the night in Radka’s father’s hut was a bad omen for her, because that same night Radka and her father had been the unhappiest people in the world, while she had been the happiest. Fate had been trying to give her a sign that it was unfair and unnatural for her to be so insanely happy when her friend was standing on the edge of the abyss that was death. But she didn’t notice this sign…That is also what she thought when she saw Nikolin coming up the road from Orlovo and she decided to take the most desperate of steps. She told herself that she shouldn’t deceive such a good and innocent person, but she nevertheless put all her effort into making him feel at home and keeping him by her side. She had already realized two years ago, after speaking to him for only half an hour, that he was a good man, inexperienced with women and a virgin, she realized it even more clearly that night when she seduced him in her bed. She knew she shouldn’t make him a sacrificial lamb, but her desperation, stronger and more ruthless than any moral inhibitions, was leading her toward deceit and treachery just as surely as one leads a blind man to the other side of the street. Her desperation also contained a measure of vengeance toward Ivan Shibilev, the pathetic and pointless vengeance of a woman in love, who has no other means to fight her beloved’s indifference.

  After that night in the hut, Ivan Shibilev had disappeared for months, but he would let her know where he was, what he was doing, and when he was thinking of returning. The village councilmen had opened his first letter and the whole village knew its contents, so from then on Ivan Shibilev came up with a code that no one could break. He sent her books of plays, magazines, old newspapers, and all sorts of printed materials, in which certain letters were underlined very lightly in pencil. Mona copied down the individual letters, arranged them into words and sentences, and thus pieced together his letters. In every letter Ivan Shibilev promised her that he would be back soon and then they would talk, and to her that meant that he would finally propose marriage to her. When he did return, he would indeed talk to her, but about completely different things: how he had acted in some theater group, how he had helped some artist or played at some restaurant. Every evening he came to pick her up from home, or, if the weather was bad, he would sneak into her room through the window. All their meetings ended with the slaking of his unquenchable passion and that was all they had to “talk about.”

  Over time, Mona began to gain some confidence where he was concerned and reminded him that the years were passing by for her and that it was time they settled down. Tormented by anticipation, doubts, and fear that someone would see them sneaking through the gardens and fields at night, she would sometimes become hysterical, kicking up a fuss and giving him an ultimatum – either they get married or they split up. After such scenes, Ivan Shibilev would not come to her and she would set out looking for him in the village. She doubted his devotion, she suffered heretofore unknown fits of jealousy, which, together with the anguish of loneliness and uncertainty, ate away at her soul. She knew that marriage would be a heavy burden for a scapegrace like him, yet she nevertheless believed him when he, flustered and frank as a child, would tell her that no matter what happened, he would never leave her, ever. She believed him and even felt guilty for offending him with her mistrust, she sought and found reasons to justify his wandering and thus created a vicious circle of illusions from which she could not escape.

  In the two months since she had realized she was pregnant, she had had no word from Ivan Shibilev, she didn’t know where he was and when he would return. It was a difficult pregnancy – her breasts swelled and hardened, certain smells made her nauseous, she slept only a few hours until midnight and then would get up every hour to throw up. She felt better in the afternoons, but even then she didn’t dare go out into the village, because every woman would see that she was pregnant as soon as she looked her in the eye. The season protected her from curiosity as well, the villagers were harvesting their m
elon fields, followed by corn and grapes in the vineyard, such that none of her girlfriends stopped by to see her, but this also meant she had no way of finding out whether Ivan Shibilev had come back. At other times only one person from the village need spot him and within a minute everyone knew of his arrival, she would know it too from the face of the first person she met. No matter who that person might be, man or woman, on their face would be a strange expression of treacherous sympathy, scorn, and malice: “Your little boyfriend is back, go run to meet him!” Happy news, but also a sign that everyone made sport of her feelings, that the glorious time was long over when she had sent away her most brilliant suitors with a capricious grimace like a king’s daughter, and when those same people had looked at her with bewilderment and reproach, but also with respect.

  Sometimes deceptive premonitions or noises similar to the multiple signals that Ivan Shibilev had thought up for their secret meetings made her get up and go out late at night, tingling with impatience to peer into the shadow of the trees and to prick up her ears. The deluded beats of her heart echoed in the silence and she would head down the street to see if Ivan Shibilev’s window was lighted up. In those warm, mystically white, quiet nights, her hope of settling down once and for all with Ivan Shibilev grew old with every hour, turning into a dark and ugly desperation. Ivan Shibilev might not return for a whole year or he might return earlier, but she didn’t know how he would take the news of her pregnancy – would he want to get married or would he wander off somewhere again? Deep in her heart she suspected that he was capable of leaving her alone again, even pregnant, because she knew his soul, and it was an incomprehensible soul, angelically loving and demonically cruel.

  The news that Devetakov had willed his books to Ilko Kralev and his twenty-five acres of land, house, livestock, and everything else to Nikolin had made the rounds of the village a couple of days after Ivan Shibilev had left for the city. Anguished over yet another impending separation, Mona had not tried to stop him because she was convinced that this time he would neglect all his other business and stay with her. Only half a year earlier she had sent away Rich Kosta’s matchmakers in the most scandalous way, and she believed that Ivan Shibilev more than anyone would appreciate her gesture, which she had made only because of him. But it seemed that Ivan Shibilev had appreciated it in the opposite sense – since Mona, already compromised and labeled an old maid, had rejected her most advantageous match for marriage, that meant she was so firmly and fatally bound to him that she would never under any circumstances find another man. Wittingly or unwittingly, Ivan Shibilev had taken advantage of her slavish devotion, and wounded by his carelessness, she, for the first time, felt that her heart could not bear this love for him and that she would have to free herself somehow from its torments. And when she heard them talking about Nikolin in the village, she recalled how she had met him at her home and how even then she had sized him up with the insight of an experienced woman – simple-hearted, lonely, and uncorrupted, despite his twenty-seven years. He was more handsome than Ivan Shibilev, and charming in his unawareness of his own handsomeness, while his soft Russian leather boots, wide-brimmed hat, black northern-style jacket, and white shirt, the likes of which no one in these parts wore, gave him the look of a tidy and staid young man. She mentally pictured herself next to him, resting heavily on the unshakable stronghold that he was, and realized that she was calling upon his image for help because it could comfort her in hours of spiritual anguish. But this mental comparison of him with Ivan Shibilev was a fleeting and painful game of the imagination, born of an impulse of subconscious vengeance and hatred toward her beloved, who had caused her such suffering precisely because of her love for him.

  The evening of that same day her father mentioned Nikolin like an old friend or relative. “Well, what do you know, our boy Nikolin has become a real fat and flush landowner!”

  “What’s this ‘our boy Nikolin,’ ” Mona snapped at him. “You had a drunken chat with him and now it’s ‘our boy Nikolin.’ ”

  “That’s how it is!” Grandpa Kitty Cat said. “Sometimes you spend your whole life talkin’ with someone and you still don’t understand him, but other times you can understand a man’s soul from a single word. May the good Lord give you such a man to live with, then…”

  He wanted to say something more, but he prudently fell silent out of fear of making her angry. After the numerous matchmaking fiascos and especially after the incident with Rich Kosta, even the accidental mention of some bachelor’s name drove her into a fit of fury, and his feline nature could not stand such agonizing scenes. Now, however, Mona was not angry with him, even though she had understood his obvious hint, as she was strongly taken aback that her father, too, due to some strange insight, only that very day had suspected as she had – as contrary to common sense as it might seem – that Nikolin sooner or later would somehow become involved in their lives in one way or other. He never spoke of it again, not even on the day when Nikolin became a part of their family, as if he had long since foreseen it as something perfectly natural and inevitable.

  Ivan Shibilev turned up in town after their wedding, disappeared, and showed up again after the birth of their child. He deceived me and humiliated me, I hate him, she would tell herself, feeling such hatred for Ivan Shibilev that she burned and destroyed everything that reminded her of him: his decoded letters, the portrait he had drawn for her and given to her, the shoes, blouses, and cheap trinkets he had brought to her on his every return. She strolled around the village with her “proudly” swelling belly, to show everyone that she was not hiding her pregnancy, but rather was proud of it. To her girlfriends who said that her pregnancy was progressing more quickly than usual, she unambiguously hinted that even if it were born in the seventh month, her baby would be a devetache or nine-monther, alluding to Nikolin, whom everyone at that time called Devetaka. Radka’s wedding, where she had introduced him to many people, was her surest alibi for her relations with him. No one dared accuse her that this hidden affair was unfair to Ivan Shibilev, since it had ended in marriage, all the more so since Ivan Shibilev (here Mona smiled with that cynical and deadly irony which only a vengeful woman is capable of), due to his own, albeit belated, admission, was not capable of doing a man’s duty. This explained the reason for her unexpected marriage to Nikolin and gave the locals the great satisfaction of mocking Ivan Shibilev’s manly feebleness and at the same time censuring him for having given the girl false hopes for so many years. Only the most insightful of the local wiseacres, who had a subtle sense for such things, were skeptical of the Grand Dame’s declarations. They, of course, could not establish whether or not Ivan Shibilev was lacking in manly merits, but from experience they knew that in such cases they needed to reserve the right to the last word on the matter. But there were only a few such doubters, while all the others believed Mona and told her “Atta girl!” for finally giving Ivan Shibilev the boot and becoming a proper wife and mother.

  Intoxicated by her passion to dethrone her one-time idol completely, Mona also gave up her theatrical activities at a time when the stage was most needed to convince the villagers to join the co-op. Despite the promises and cajoling of Stoyan Kralev and his wife, Kichka, Mona’s best friend, she declared that because of Ivan Shibilev she hated the theater and everything that reminded her of it. And so two years passed. One day, at the end of May, as she was coming back from the store, Mona saw Ivan Shibilev go into the community center and she followed him. She didn’t ask herself whether he was alone or not and how he would behave toward her, she simply pushed the door open and went in. A wooden frame stretched with canvas, upon which the dark contours of a portrait of Georgi Dimitrov had been sketched, was leaning against the wall by the stage. In front of the painting was a box of paints, brushes, and scrolls of paper, but Ivan Shibilev was not there. The dark-green curtains were pulled back on either side of the stage and tied with rope, while the stage itself was semidark and disconcertingly quiet with its bare, dirty walls
and uneven wooden floorboards.

  Mona climbed up onstage and walked toward the door of the little room that served as a dressing room and prop storage. There was no other exit from the room and Ivan Shibilev could only be there. An icy chill crept over her body, while her hands started shaking so badly that she could not grasp the door handle. She stood like that for almost a minute, her shaking growing ever more uncontrollable, an inexplicable horror gripped her, as if she was about to hurl herself into an abyss that she could never climb out of. At the same time, some sinister force kept driving her forward and she turned the door handle. Ivan Shibilev was standing up against the wall with his hands hanging down along his sides, so motionless that in the first instant Mona thought he was a prop. She took a step forward and his figure stood out in the dim duskiness. He looked at her with a furtive, concentrated gaze and kept silent. She put her arms around his neck and felt him coming to life, bending his face toward hers, while his hands warmed her body…

  Nikolin found out about his wife’s extramarital affairs about a year after her first infidelity. This affair was so obvious that even his most spiteful detractors didn’t bother whispering it in his ear, so sure they were that he knew about his wife’s dalliances. Judging, however, from their peaceful family life and especially the joyful expression on his face on those occasions when he was seen around the village with his wife and daughter, it seemed that he wasn’t perturbed by these dalliances at all. Such indifference, worse than any imaginable vice, was unnatural and unheard of in the history of the village, so locals began rubbing his nose in his wife’s unfaithfulness, in order to find out why he didn’t want to hear about it – was he mentally unsound, a freak of a man, or did he simply lack the strength to bear the bitter truth? Witnesses to Mona’s infidelity showered him with indisputable proof, but he kept silent or smiled and continued on his way. This confused his “well-wishers,” faced as they were with such a chump of a cuckold, the likes of which had never been seen in these parts.