Wolf Hunt

by Ivailo Pretov

  “Just so long as he’s alive and well, leave the rest of it to God. He’s not in another world, once time passes, just you wait and see, he’ll be back before we know it. These countries won’t be fighting forever, we might even find ourselves making matches with them after a while.”

  “You’re talking as if you’ve already written him off,” Kiro Dzhelebov said. “But I’m telling you again that Marko couldn’t have run away. But who knows! You have to be ready to expect anything from a person…”

  His unshakable faith in Marko came not from his reason, but from his blood. He believed blindly and wholeheartedly in the family’s blood ties, just as his forefathers had believed in them, and that was the only consolation that could fortify him in the times ahead; even if he had defected, Marko hadn’t run away out of light-mindedness and in his blood he would always remain with his own people. As a matter of fact, deep within himself he was unsure, he reproached Marko for having shown cowardice in spite of everything, but his conscience would not allow him to judge his son. He was offended by the authorities, he would think, and with good reason, since they wouldn’t let him finish his education and turned his life upside down. But the insult alone wasn’t enough to shut his eyes. Here we’re talking about a harsh shock to the soul. A shock to the very depths of his being that makes a man go right off his head. Like what happened to me last year. Why did I go to end my own life? Even now that whole business isn’t fully clear to me. It was like I was split into two people. I realized very well that it was high time to join the co-op, and since it was, I should accept my situation and swallow Stoyan Kralev’s insult. His lot can’t be easy either, he might have jumped out of his own skin as well. That’s what I was thinking, but my heart was being torn apart by rage and helplessness. How can somebody order me to hand over my property down to the last acre on such and such a day, and to insult me on top of everything, and I’m not able to defend my honor! Keep ahold of yourself, I kept telling myself, but I couldn’t control myself, my whole body was shaking as if feverish, I felt nauseous and my legs were going out from under me. I was thinking what would happen to my sons from now on and since I knew that I couldn’t help them with anything, I was seething with anguish and hatred. You’ll have to sign that membership declaration, I kept telling myself, and to bring it to him right now and get this all over with. This business won’t pass me over, if not now, it’ll have to happen next year at the latest. I got away for a year or two because of my sons, but now it’s clear that I won’t be able to dodge it any longer. More or less everybody has joined the co-op, am I going to be the only one left sticking out like a sore thumb? I sat down to write my membership declaration, but as soon as I wrote two lines, my hand froze up. I couldn’t go on, I couldn’t swallow back my will and bow my head. I’ve got to bow my head, I kept telling myself, it’s necessary. The times necessitate it. Fine, but why by force? In whose name are they trampling me like a worm, spitting in my face and grabbing at my property and my honor? In the name of goodness, they say. So why is this good for me, if they have to thrust it into my hands by force, good that’s been forced on you is worse than evil. It’s like in school – they beat and punish the children to teach them sense and reason, then when they grow up, every child becomes the person he was meant to be. The smart one is smart, the foolish one is foolish. But who knows, I would think on the other hand, maybe it really will be better under socialism than it is now. It hurts now, but tomorrow it won’t, just like after an operation. Today they cut out a chunk of your living flesh, tomorrow you’re healthy. But I wonder whether after today’s operation things will be better for people? If it’s not a success, some will die, others will be maimed for life.

  And that’s how the two Kiros in me were fighting. One thought one way, the other, the opposite. After that, everything was like a dream. I knew that I shouldn’t do it, but I did it. I wasn’t wanting to end my own life, yet I was going off to do so. There was only one thought in my head: that only death would fix everything. Where that thought came from and why, I don’t know, but I kept repeating it in my mind as I was digging the pit. I had often dreamed of being buried alive before and those dreams were agonizing. But now I was going to do it myself and I wasn’t afraid. My heart was light and peaceful, I felt some sweet relief washing over me. And when I had buried myself to the waist, it crossed my mind that I might get scared and try to dig myself out, so I threw the spade and the hoe far away. I knew that no one would find me and save me now, and my soul felt so nice and calm. I wonder if Marko didn’t have two souls in him, if he didn’t throw some things far away from himself so that there was no way he could come back?

  The blizzard blew in a vague, fractured cry that interrupted his thoughts. He stopped to listen, looked ahead, and saw Stoyan Kralev sunk up to his waist in snow. He recognized him by the earflaps of his hat, the ends of which could not be tied and which hung down on the sides like wings.

  “Over here, over heeeere!”

  Stoyan Kralev called out once more and, searching for a path, disappeared again behind the brush. And then Kiro Dzhelebov remembered, for the thousandth time already, but, as it seemed to him, with new details, their meeting by the barn that morning, when a terrible, insurmountable hatred for that man had suddenly flared up in his soul. He had hated him earlier as well, especially when he had deprived his sons of their education, but deep in his soul he had tried to justify him as an administrative figure who was carrying out orders from higher-ups, thus he didn’t hate so much him personally but rather the party’s policies as a whole.

  That morning, after he hadn’t slept a wink all night, he went to the horse barn even before the crack of dawn. They were housed in an abandoned shed at the edge of the village that had been refashioned into a barn. At the far end of the unfenced yard stood several carts. One was painted in bright colors, which made it look brand-new, and an old leather bench seat taken from a scrapped truck or some other vehicle had been mounted in its bed. Stoyan Kralev used it to drive around the fields, to go to the neighboring villages and sometimes even to the city. Kiro Dzhelebov noticed him only when he passed by the colorful cart – he had set his bag on the leather seat and was leaning against the cart rails.

  “Good morning, I must be late,” Kiro Dzhelebov said, and for some reason, his heart shrank at this unexpected meeting.

  “You’re not late, I’m early so as to catch the bus in Vladimirovo. They’ve called me in to the regional committee first thing this morning.”

  “I’ll hitch it up right now,” Kiro Dzhelebov said, and went into the barn.

  He brought out the horse collars, then led out the horses and started hitching them up. Stoyan Kralev was still standing there, leaning against the cart rails, turned to the side and silent. When everything was ready for the trip, he spryly leapt into the driver’s seat. As soon as they felt the reigns in his hand, the horses started off, but he stopped them and turned toward Kiro Dzhelebov.

  “Well, look now, I almost forgot. Congratulations on your new daughter-in-law!”

  “What new daughter-in-law?”

  “There’s no way you don’t know that your son Marko has married a German girl?” Stoyan Kralev’s clean-shaved face went pale, grew longer, and took on a repugnant expression.

  “I don’t know any such thing,” Kiro Dzhelebov said, a strong spasm squeezing his throat.

  “Well, if you don’t know now, you’ll find out.”

  Stoyan Kralev started up the horses but they soon stopped and Kiro Dzhelebov saw that the rotted gate was closed. He ran over, pulled open the gate, and stood behind it.

  “This isn’t the end of our little chat!” Stoyan Kralev said as the cart went through the gate.

  On top of everything I had to open the gate for him like a servant, Kiro Dzhelebov thought; the spasm in his throat gripped him to the point of suffocation and a hot wave washed over his body. And it was precisely in that instant that he felt a terrible, staggering hatred for Stoyan Kralev, a hatred so stron
g and uncontrollable that he was scared of losing his will and reason and hurling himself at him. I’ll kill him, he said to himself, and this thought wedged so firmly and permanently in his head that even now, as he stood in the blind, numb to the cold and the blizzard, with an aching relish he remembered even the smallest details of their meeting that morning. The sun had half appeared over the horizon, like half of a well-baked loaf of bread, beneath it the field glowed bluish, cold, and desolate, some bird darted forward, leaving a streak on the pinkish dawn, and as he went through the gate, Stoyan Kralev momentarily blocked the fiery half-sun with his body. The horse on the right kicked up a pebble and Kiro Dzhelebov noticed that the shoe on its left front hoof was missing. The horse is barefooted, how did I not notice until now, he thought, and his eyes passed over the tailgate of the cart, where Rayna Knyaginya* was painted with a green flag and a sword in her hand, then his gaze stopped on the back of Stoyan Kralev’s head, where the hair was trimmed short and was almost covered by his cap of homespun wool. The horses broke into a trot and Kiro Dzhelebov watched Stoyan Kralev’s back growing smaller and his bag, bulged like a stuffed sack, bouncing on the back seat. The cart hurtled toward a large flock of geese. One of the goslings fell beneath the horses’ feet, tumbled around between the wheels and a moment later came out in the dust cloud unharmed, but scared and crying. Two of the adult geese immediately swooped down on it and started yelling and pecking at its back with their bills. Kiro Dzhelebov understood their language as well as he understood human speech, unwittingly he listened to the geese scolding the gosling: “Why don’t you watch out, what were you daydreaming about, you could’ve been crushed or maimed!” And they went on boxing its ears as they hustled it back to the flock. Then Kiro Dzhelebov looked back at the cart and saw how Mincho Naydenov, who was to drive Stoyan Kralev to the bus stop, jumped into the cart in motion and took up the reigns, while Stoyan Kralev moved to the leather back seat.

  And everything turned out as Anyo had foreseen. The relevant state security agencies had read the letters from Germany or perhaps they had known about his defection from the very beginning, but in any case they waited for the deadline set by the defector himself for his return. News of his defection instantly swept through the village, and in a few days, through the whole region. To people of these parts, who were used to a sedentary life far from the tempestuous social events in the interior of the country, defection, of course, made a very strong, almost staggering impression, and this circumstance in and of itself already isolated the Dzhelebov family and landed them in disgrace. Everyone avoided them, so as not to be accused of being in cahoots with them, especially since Kiro Dzhelebov and Anyo were put under investigation. They were asked whether they knew of the defector’s plans in advance, what kinds of people he had been in contact with, had these people come to their home, and at the same time, they were constantly conducting searches of their house. There was no way the security agencies could not have known that when a person decides to defect abroad, given the political circumstances of the time, he would not share this even with his nearest and dearest, but they kept calling the two of them in, just as a lesson to the rest of the population. This went on for several months. Marko didn’t write or his letters got lost somewhere. He finally wrote after about a year and announced that, in fact, he had only just now gotten married to Juta. Whether it was the same girl he had written about in his first letters or someone else, they never did find out, just as they never found out how he had managed to slip across the Bulgarian border. For a long time they didn’t dare answer him because they knew their letters would be read, they were afraid of letting some inopportune word slip that would make their situation even more difficult. But Stoyan Kralev soon reminded them, under the most ostensibly pleasant of pretenses, not to forget their son, and in doing so confirmed that the letters coming and going were being counted, since the relevant security agencies still hoped to get their hands on some intelligence.

  “Have you gotten any letters from Marko, have you written him?” Stoyan Kralev asked him once, when they happened to have been left alone for a few minutes after a meeting.

  “When would we find time to write now?” Kiro Dzhelebov said. “We’ll write during the winter.”

  “Come on, don’t be that way, Kiro! Don’t abandon the boy! He went astray, but maybe he’ll regret it. Advise him to come back and to continue his education. Nobody’ll do him any harm. Otherwise the shame of it will weigh on you your whole life.”

  “No one can shame me except myself,” Kiro Dzhelebov said. “My son isn’t a child, whatever he’s done, he’s done it himself, let him pay the piper. Since he doesn’t answer for me, I don’t answer for him, either. The other day he wrote that he’d gotten married, that his wife wanted to study in Sofia, but as far as I could tell from the letter, our folks here won’t give her permission.”

  “That’s not true!” Stoyan Kralev cut in, but then, realizing that with such a categorical statement he was only confirming that he was informed about the issue, he fell silent for a bit before going on. “Perhaps our folks here have dug in their heels a bit. After all, she is a foreigner, from a capitalist county, West Germany to boot. They’ve got to gather intelligence on what sort of person she is.”

  “Her father is a communist, he did time in fascist camps.”

  “Is that so? Well, that changes things entirely. Since her father is an active fighter against fascism, then there shouldn’t be any obstacles to his daughter’s coming to study and live in Bulgaria, and that means that Marko will come too. We’ve got to write to the Interior Ministry in Sofia to look into this question ASAP. What’s the girl’s name, what city does she live in?”

  “The girl’s name is Juta, but I don’t know her last name or the city. It was written in German on the envelope and Anyo couldn’t understand it, since he hasn’t studied German. I’ll give you the letters, send them wherever you need to send them to read the address.”

  Whenever they met (and this happened often in the fields or at the brigadiers’ meetings), Stoyan Kralev would inevitably bring up the defector. He knew that Marko wasn’t coming back, but he kept asking about him to morally torment his father. The two of them had far tenser and more difficult conversations, especially in the first year after Marko’s defection, when Stoyan Kralev threatened to kick him out of the co-op and send him to a labor camp. “I should have smashed your face in back in the day,” Stoyan Kralev would say, shaking his fist under his nose, “and forced you into the co-op. If I’d done it, we wouldn’t have to bother with this squabbling now. But certain people misled me, and plus I thought you were an honest man too. And here you were the lowest, dirtiest enemy of the people’s power!” From time to time they searched the house as well. Unfamiliar plainclothes agents would come long after midnight and rush in to rummage through the house. They would turn everything upside down, then they would go into the empty barn, they would even slip into the henhouse, saying that they were searching for saboteurs.

  This was the sorry state their youngest son, Dimcho, found his family in. Like every young man, he had developed certain habits in the army, where he had spent two years in a strictly limited world of obedience and state-enforced optimism, thus some time had to pass before he forgot them and adapted to life in the village. Under the influence of these habits, he brought to the family an irrepressible gust of cheerfulness, which is found in every young man deprived of freedom and the pleasures of civilian life for a long time. The very next day after his return he joined one of the co-op brigades and began working alongside the others, as assiduous as a soldier, inexhaustible, and accommodating to everyone. In the evenings, when the youth club was open, he would go straight there from the field, happy that he could spend the night out and about until as late as he wanted, and that he could go to bed without the bugle and evening inspections. In the army he had learned to smoke and drink a bit, so on days off he would visit the tavern with some of the younger men. During the New Year’s holidays,
the college and high school students would come back, and as always, this livened up the village greatly. Parties were organized at the community center, discussions and theatrical performances were held. Dimcho took part in these youthful initiatives and began to banter with the schoolgirls with the ferocity of a grown man who had not yet come into contact with a woman. He fell in love with every girl who paid attention to him, courting them with his soldierly lack of ceremony, and his fame as a skirt-chaser soon spread throughout the village. On the whole, Dimcho showed tendencies that in another time his parents would have judged as vices, but now no one reprimanded him. Everyone could see that he was intoxicated by the freedom of civilian life and had not yet truly realized the situation his family had fallen into, as well as the limitations facing his own future. His natural, youthful impulse to live life to the hilt to some extent filled the vacuum in the family, collapsing as it was under the weight of isolation and uncertainty as to what tomorrow would bring. Kiro Dzhelebov and Auntie Tanka even began to think, and since they thought it, they began to believe, that their youngest would grow attached to life in the village, would get married and stay with them. Let him horse around with the girls, let him drink and smoke a bit, as long as he doesn’t start looking toward the city. Like his elder brother. Because Anyo already had one foot out of the village and they had resigned themselves to this. They tried to keep him there, yet they themselves realized that he couldn’t and shouldn’t stay in the village any longer.

  Anyo was very depressed and lonely. While Dimcho was getting together with the village young people, Anyo would spend holidays and weekends in his room, rereading old books and textbooks, mentally returning to his short-lived student days. Since he knew that he would never again set foot in the university, he fell into a deep despair and this despair made him bitter and withdrawn. He couldn’t find a common language even with his brother, and even though he was only three years older, he looked upon Dimcho as a mere kid who was still wet behind the ears. Dimcho could sense this and saw him as a snob who had gotten a taste of life at the university and who now was angry with the whole world. When they were together at lunch or dinner, the two of them would always find reasons to toss barbed, indecent comments at each other, while their father cringed with anguish. What have we come to, he would think, his heart heavy, that my sons, who until yesterday lived together in love and harmony, now are at each other’s throats at the dinner table in front of their parents! He could sense that sooner or later some row would break out between them, undignified and shameful for brothers, spurred on by nothing but despair and the inability to deal with the current situation, which had turned their lives upside down and cut off their paths to the future. He didn’t know how to guide them and in the end he himself suggested to Anyo that he look for work somewhere in the city.