East of the West

by Miroslav Penkov

  Almost every night, I dreamed of Elitsa.

  “I saw her just before she left,” I would tell my mother. “I could have stopped her.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Mother would ask.

  Sometimes I went to the river and threw stones over the fence, into the water, and imagined those two silver earrings, settling into the silty bottom.

  “Give back the earrings,” I’d scream, “you spineless, muddy thief!”

  •

  I worked double shifts in the mine and was able to put something aside. I took care of Mother, who never left her bed, and occasionally brought bread and cheese to Father at the distillers. “Mother is sick,” I’d tell him, but he pretended not to hear. “More heat,” he’d call, and kneel by the trickle to sample some parvak.

  Vera and I wrote letters for a while, but after each letter there was a longer period of silence before the new one arrived. One day, in the summer of 1990, I received a brief note:

  Dear Nose. I’m getting married. I want you at my wedding. I live in Beograd now. I’m sending you money. Please come.

  There was, of course, no money in the envelope. Someone had stolen it on the way.

  Each day I reread the letter, and thought of the way Vera had written those words, in her elegant, thin writing, and I thought of this man she had fallen in love with, and I wondered if she loved him as much as she had loved me, by the cross, in the river. I made plans to get a passport.

  •

  Two weeks before the wedding, Mother died. The doctor couldn’t tell us of what. Of grief, the wailers said, and threw their black kerchiefs over their heads like ash. Father brought his drinking guiltily to the empty house. One day he poured me a glass of rakia and made me gulp it down. We killed the bottle. Then he looked me in the eye and grabbed my hand. Poor soul, he thought he was squeezing it hard.

  “My son,” he said, “I want to see the fields.”

  We staggered out of the village, finishing a second bottle. When we reached the fields, we sat down and watched in silence. After the fall of communism, organized agriculture had died in many areas, and now everything was overgrown with thornbush and nettles.

  “What happened, Nose?” Father said. “I thought we held him good, this bastard, in both hands. Remember what I taught you? Hold tight, choke the bastard and things will be all right? Well, shit, Nose. I was wrong.”

  And he spat against the wind, in his own face.

  •

  Three years passed before Vera wrote again. Nose, I have a son. I’m sending you a picture. His name is Vladislav. Guess who we named him after? Come and visit us. We have money now, so don’t worry. Goran just got back from a mission in Kosovo. Can you come?

  My father wanted to see the picture. He stared at it for a long time, and his eyes watered.

  “My God, Nose,” he said. “I can’t see anything. I think I’ve finally gone blind.”

  “You want me to call the doctor?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but for yourself. Quit the mine, or that cough will take you.”

  “And what do we do for money?”

  “You’ll find some for my funeral. Then you’ll go away.”

  I sat by his side and lay a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning. I’ll call the doctor.”

  “Nose,” he said, “I’ve finally figured it out. Here is my paternal advice: Go away. You can’t have a life here. You must forget about your sister, about your mother, about me. Go west. Get a job in Spain, or in Germany, or anywhere; start from scratch. Break each chain. This land is a bitch and you can’t expect anything good from a bitch.”

  He took my hand and he kissed it.

  “Go get the priest,” he said.

  •

  I worked the mine until, in the spring of 1995, my boss, who’d come from some big, important city to the east, asked me, three times in a row, to repeat my request for an extra shift. Three times I repeated before he threw his arms up in despair. “I can’t understand your dialect, mayna,” he said. “Too Serbian for me.” So I beat him up and was fired.

  After that, I spent my days in the village tavern, every now and then lifting my hand before my eyes to check if I hadn’t finally gone blind. It’s a tough lot to be last in your bloodline. I thought of my father’s advice, which seemed foolish, of my sister making plans to go west and of how I had done nothing to stop her from swimming to her death.

  Almost every night I had the same dream. I was diving at the drowned church, looking through its window, at walls no longer covered with the murals of saints and martyrs. Instead, I could see my sister and my mother, my father, Grandpa, Grandma, Vera, people from our village and from the village across the border, painted motionless on the walls, with their eyes on my face. And every time, as I tried to push up to the surface, I discovered that my hands were locked together on the other side of the bars.

  I would wake up with a yell, the voice of my sister echoing in the room.

  I have some doubts, she would say, some suspicions, that these earrings aren’t really silver.

  •

  In the spring of 1999 the United States attacked Serbia. Kosovo, the field where the Serb had once, many centuries ago, surrendered to the Turk, had once again become the ground of battle. Three or four times I saw American planes swoop over our village with a boom. Serbia, it seemed, was a land not large enough for their maneuvers at ultrasonic speed. They cut corners from our sky and went back to drop their bombs on our neighbors. The news that Vera’s husband had been killed came as no surprise. Her letter ended like this: Nose, I have my son and you. Please come. There is no one else.

  The day I received the letter, I swam to the drowned church without taking my shoes or my clothes off. I held the cross and shivered for a long time, and finally I dove down and down to the rocky bottom. I gripped the bars on the church gates tightly and listened to the screaming of my lungs while they squeezed out every molecule of oxygen. I wish I could say that I saw my life unwinding thread by thread before my eyes: happy moments alternating with sad, or that my sister, bathed in glorious light, came out of the church to take my drowning hand. But there was only darkness, the booming of water, of blood.

  Yes, I am a coward. I have an ugly nose, and the heart of a mouse, and the only drowning I can do is in a bottle of rakia. I swam out and lay on the bank. And as I breathed with new thirst, a boom shook the air, and I saw a silver plane storm out of Serbia. The plane thundered over my head and, chasing it, I saw a missile, quickly losing height. Hissing, the missile stabbed the river, the rusty cross, the drowned church underneath. A large, muddy finger shook at the sky.

  I wrote Vera right away. When Sister died, I wrote, I thought half of my world ended. With my parents, the other half. I thought these deaths were meant to punish me for something. I was chained to this village, and the pull of all the bones below me was impossible to escape. But now I see that these deaths were meant to set me free, to get me moving. Like links in a chain snapping, one after the other. If the church can sever its brick roots, so can I. I’m free at last, so wait for me. I’m coming as soon as I save up some cash.

  •

  Not long after, a Greek company opened a chicken factory in the village. My job was to make sure no bad eggs made it in the cartons. I saved some money, tried to drink less. I even cleaned the house. In the basement, in a dusty chestnut box, I found the leather shoes, the old forgotten flowers. I cut off the toe caps and put them on, and felt so good, so quick and light. Unlucky, wretched brothers. No laces, worn-out soles from walking in circles. Where will you take me?

  I dug up the two jars of money I had kept hidden in the yard and caught a bus to town. It wasn’t hard to buy American dollars. I returned to the village and lay carnations on the graves and asked the dead for forgiveness. Then I went to the river. I put most of the money and Vladislav’s picture in a plastic bag, tucked the bag in my pocket along with some cash for bribes and, with my eyes closed, swam toward Srbsko.

  Co
ol water, the pull of current, brown old leaves whirlpooling in clumps. A thick branch flows by, bark gone, smooth and rotten. What binds a man to land or water?

  When I stepped on the Serbian bank, two guards already held me in the aim of their guns.

  “Two hundred,” I said, and took out the soaking wad.

  “We could kill you instead.”

  “Or give me a kiss. A pat on the ass?”

  They started laughing. The good thing about our countries, the reassuring thing that keeps us falling harder, is that if you can’t buy something with money, you can buy it with a lot of money. I counted off two hundred more.

  They escorted me up the road, to a frontier post where I paid the last hundred I’d prepared. A Turkish TIR driver agreed to take me to Beograd. There I caught a cab and showed an envelope Vera had sent me.

  “I need to get there,” I said.

  “You Bulgarian?” the cabdriver asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well, shit, it matters. If you’re Serbian, that’s fine. But if you’re a Bugar, it isn’t. It’s also not fine if you are Albanian, or if you are a Croat. And if you are Muslim, well, shit, then it also isn’t fine.”

  “Just take me to this address.”

  The cabdriver turned around and fixed me with his blue eyes.

  “I’m only gonna ask you once,” he said. “Are you Bulgarian or are you a Serb?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, well, then,” he said, “get the fuck out of my cab and think it over. You ugly-nosed Bulgarian bastard. Letting Americans bomb us, handing over your bases. Slavic brothers!”

  Then, as I was getting out, he spat on me.

  •

  And now we are back at the beginning. I’m standing outside Vera’s apartment, with flowers in one hand and a bar of Milka chocolate in the other. I’m rehearsing the question. I think of how I’m going to greet her, of what I’m going to say. Will the little boy like me? Will she? Will she let me help her raise him? Can we get married, have children of our own? Because I’m finally ready.

  An iron safety grid protects the door. I ring the bell and little feet run on the other side.

  “Who’s there?” a thin voice asks.

  “It’s Nose,” I say.

  “Step closer to the spy hole.”

  I lean forward.

  “No, to the lower one.” I kneel down so the boy can peep through the hole drilled at his height.

  “Put your face closer,” he says. He’s quiet for a moment. “Did Mama do that?”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  He unlocks the door, but keeps the iron grid between us.

  “Sorry to say it, but it looks like a big deal,” he says in all seriousness.

  “Can I come in?”

  “I’m alone. But you can sit outside and wait until they return. I’ll keep you company.”

  We sit on both sides of the grid. He is a tiny boy and looks like Vera. Her eyes, her chin, her bright, white face. All that will change with time.

  “I haven’t had Milka in forever,” he says as I pass him the chocolate through the grid. “Thanks, Uncle.”

  “Don’t eat things a stranger gives you.”

  “You are no stranger. You’re Nose.”

  He tells me about kindergarten. About a boy who beats him up. His face is grave. Oh, little friend, those troubles now seem big.

  “But I’m a soldier,” he says, “like Daddy. I won’t give up. I’ll fight.”

  Then he is quiet. He munches on the chocolate. He offers me a block, which I refuse.

  “You miss your dad?” I say.

  He nods. “But now we have Dadan and Mama is happy.”

  “Who’s Dadan?” My throat gets dry.

  “Dadan,” the boy says. “My second father.”

  “Your second father,” I say, and rest my head against the cold iron.

  “He’s very nice to me,” the boy says. “Yes, very nice.”

  He talks, sweet voice, and I struggle to resist the venom of my thoughts.

  The elevator arrives with a rattle. Its door slides open, bright light out of the cell. Dadan, tall, handsome in his face, walks out with a string bag of groceries: potatoes, yogurt, green onions, white bread. He looks at me and nods, confused.

  Then out comes Vera. Bright, speckled face, firm sappy lips.

  “My God,” she says. The old spot grows red above her lip and she hangs on my neck.

  I lose my grip, the earth below my feet. It feels then like everything is over. She’s found someone else to care for her, she’s built a new life in which there is no room for me. In a moment, I’ll smile politely and follow them inside their place, I’ll eat the dinner they feed me—musaka with tarator. I’ll listen to Vladislav sing songs and recite poems. Then afterward, while Vera tucks him in, I’ll talk to Dadan—or, rather, he’ll talk to me: about how much he loves her, about their plans—and I will listen and agree. At last he’ll go to bed, and under the dim kitchen light Vera and I will wade deep into the night. She’ll finish the wine Dadan shared with her for dinner, she’ll put her hand on mine. “My dear Nose,” she’ll say, or something to that effect. But even then I won’t find courage to speak. Broken, not having slept all night, I’ll rise up early and, cowardly again, I’ll slip out and hitchhike home.

  “My dear Nose,” Vera says now, and really leads me inside the apartment, “you look beaten from the road.” Beaten is the word she uses. And then it hits me, the way a hoe hits a snake over the skull. This is the last link of the chain falling. Vera and Dadan will set me free. With them, the last connection to the past is gone.

  Who binds a man to land or water, I wonder, if not that man himself?

  “I’ve never felt so good before,” I say, and mean it, and watch her lead the way through the dark hallway. I am no river, but I’m not made of clay.

  BUYING LENIN

  When Grandpa learned I was leaving for America to study, he wrote me a goodbye note. “You rotten capitalist pig,” the note read, “have a safe flight. Love, Grandpa.” It was written on a creased red ballot from the 1991 elections, which was a cornerstone in Grandpa’s Communist ballot collection, and it bore the signatures of everybody in the village of Leningrad. I was touched to receive such an honor, so I sat down, took out a one-dollar bill, and wrote Grandpa the following reply: “You communist dupe, thanks for the letter. I’m leaving tomorrow, and when I get there I’ll try to marry an American woman ASAP. I’ll be sure to have lots of American children. Love, your grandson.”

  •

  There was no good reason for me to be in America. Back home I wasn’t starving, at least not in the corporeal sense. No war had driven me away or stranded me on foreign shores. I left because I could, because I carried in my blood the rabies of the West. In high school, while most of my peers were busy drinking, smoking, having sex, playing dice, lying to their parents, hitchhiking to the sea, counterfeiting money or making bombs for soccer games, I studied English. I memorized words and grammar rules and practiced tongue twisters, specifically designed for Eastern Europeans. Remember the money, I repeated over and over again down the street, under the shower, even in my sleep. Remember the money, remember the money, remember the money. Phrases like this, I’d heard, helped you break your tongue.

  My parents must have been proud to have such a studious son. But no matter how good my grades, Grandpa never brought himself to share their sentiments. He despised the West, its moral degradation and lack of values. As a child, I could read only those books he deemed appropriate. Party Secret was appropriate. Treasure Island was not. The English language, Grandpa insisted, was a rabid dog, and sometimes a single bite was all it took for its poison to reach your brain and turn it to crabapple mash. “Do you know, sinko,” Grandpa asked me once, “what it is like to have crabapple mash for brains?” I shook my head, mortified. “Read English books, my son, and find out for yourself.”

  The first few years after my grandmother’s death, he staye
d in his native village, close to her grave. But after Grandpa had a minor stroke, my father convinced him to come back to Sofia. He arrived at our threshold with two bags—one full of socks, pants and drawers, the other of dusty books. “An educational gift,” he said, and hung the bag over my shoulder and tousled my hair, as though I were still a child.

  Every week, for a few months, he fed me a different book. Partisans, plots against the tsarist regime. “Grandpa, please,” I’d say. “I have to study.”

  “What you have to do is acquire a taste.” He’d leave me to read but then would barge into my room a minute later with some weak excuse. Had I called him? Did I need help with a difficult passage?

  “Grandpa, these are children’s books.”

  “First children’s books, then Lenin’s.” He’d sit at the foot of my bed, and motion me to keep on reading.

  If I came home from school frightened because a stray dog had chased me down the street, Grandpa would only sigh. Could I imagine Kalitko the shepherd scared of a little dog? If I complained of bullies Grandpa would shake his head. “Imagine Mitko Palauzov whining.”

  “Mitko Palauzov was killed in a dugout.”

  “A brave and daring boy indeed,” Grandpa would say, and pinch his nose to stop the inevitable tears.

  And so one day I packed up the books and left them in his room with a note. Recycle for toilet paper. Next time he saw me, I was reading The Call of the Wild.

  From then on Grandpa listened to the radio a lot, read the Communist newspaper Duma and the collected volumes of his beloved Lenin. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes on the balcony and recited passages from volume twelve to the sparrows along the TV antenna. My parents were concerned. I was truly amused. “Did you hear, Grandpa,” I asked him once, “about the giraffe who could fly?”

  “Giraffes can’t fly,” he said. I told him I’d just read so in Duma, on the front page at that, and he rubbed his chin. He pulled on his mustache. “Perhaps a meter or two?” he said.

  “Did you hear, Grandpa,” I kept going, “that last night in Moscow Yeltsin fed vodka to Lenin’s corpse? They killed the bottle together and, hand in hand, zigzagged along the square.”