But perhaps every time was strange — wasn’t it strange that he was now riding with Elena’s father, the Beautiful Elena, she was surely the only person who had seriously threatened the unity of their trinity. Maya had brought her to them. She had introduced her ecstatically as her best friend from grade school. Damn, said Sirma. Elena was pretty, artistic and a half-Slav. Her father had once been the guitarist in Euphoria, and now he was really rich. They had learned all that gradually, however. Sirma didn’t like her right from the start, or perhaps she sensed that her presence would create problems. They had long since stopped hanging out at the monument to the Scythian Army, the gathering place had shifted to the Terres Garden and Elena showed up there regularly. She brought all kinds of strange people with her: guys with dreadlocks, Slavic girls with blonde braids, they played folk instruments, gadulkas and kavals, while the rastas thumped on their djembes and blew into their didgeridoos. The first time he saw a didgeridoo, Spartacus didn’t realize it was a musical instrument. The long, twisted wooden tube looked more like something the Titans would have used to play cricket. But Elena’s friends had somehow figured out how to extract a bass-heavy, monotonous, hypnotizing sound from it, which spread like fog at the foot of the trees. Spartacus had tried one once out of curiosity — he couldn’t get a peep out of it. They explained that you make the sound by vibrating your lips quickly. That seemed exhausting and he gave up. Then at some point the rasta guys and the Slavic girls gathered up their instruments and quit coming, but Elena stayed. Maya often showed up with her at their meetings, their trio seemed to be tending towards a quartet. Spartacus and Sirma argued several times. You can’t ask Maya not to have any other friends, Spartacus would say. I’m not asking anything of the kind. Don’t you have any other friends? Don’t I? It’s just that us three, what the three of us are, is different. I don’t bring my other friends along when I’m with you. But come to think of it, why not, Spartacus objected, if your idea is for us to share everything, then we should share our friends, too. I’m gonna share one thing with you, Mr. Friendly, Sirma would say, you’re into that little Slavic kitten, when she starts yowling and making eyes at you, it’s like you’re not even there anymore. Are you already screwing her? Listen, Spartacus would say, do I stick my nose into who you’re screwing or not? We made a deal about that waaay back when, I really hope you remember. Then Sirma would shut up and back off. Her nameless Philippopolis fling from the seaside was the original sin in their alliance, the step that had made their threesome possible, it was only then that they had realized what threads they had woven between them and how they could continue on from there. Except that — Spartacus now thought in the car (and funny that he hadn’t given it any thought earlier) — that original sin had stayed between him and Sirma, what did it have to do with Maya, viewed objectively, she simply did not share that tie, her foundation was missing the first thread. Perhaps that explained her sudden ecstasy over Elena. Where had she found her anyway? Some German lessons? Nice fucking place to meet, Sirma would snort. Hey, you go to drawing lessons, Spartacus would counter. Just imagine meeting your best friend from grade school there. Oh, and I’d just pinch her cheeks with joy! Sirma would say. Of course, he hooked up with Elena and then not only Sirma, but the two of them simultaneously went crazy with jealousy. He, in all sincerity, didn’t understand it: until then they had never gotten jealous over those sorts of things and at the end of the day, wasn’t it at Elena’s last party, in the house of the person who was now driving them to the sea, that Maya had thrown herself at that blond Slavic guy and for a whole week they had supposedly been going together, even though she surely had not told him exactly how things stood in their trio. I’m not jealous of your hook-ups, I’m not even jealous of your boyfriends, Spartacus would fume, but Sirma would reply, what, is this a signed and sealed contract? You’re the one, Spartacus would strike back, who wants to make it like a contract and if you keep this up, you’ll ruin everything. No, you’re the one who’ll ruin it, you’ve already ruined it, she would growl, while Maya stood aside, glowering, her arms folded across her chest. He should have trusted their female intuition even back then. They seemed to have realized that, between him and Elena, things would get serious before he himself had even realized it.
Maya and Krustev discussed the advantages and drawbacks of the resorts on the three seas, which the authors of The Outline had dreamed about during the nineteenth century. Krustev preferred the White Sea, thanks to its Mediterranean ambience, while Maya preferred the Black Sea, because it still had wild and untouched beaches. Spartacus had grown up with the Sea of Marmara, his grandma and grandpa’s village was there, and when he was little they had always gone somewhere around there, by the way, Krustev said, now everything is totally different from when I was your age, I’m not sure if it’s for better or worse. Sirma spewed out a caustic diatribe against runaway construction. They’ve destroyed a lot of places, Krustev agreed, on the other hand, you’ve got to keep in mind how much richer the country has grown thanks to tourism. Spartacus at least kept it well in mind — at the moment wasn’t it his job to drag fat American retirees and ruddy German grannies around to Thracian sanctuaries, Hellenic acropolises and Roman baths? The retirees and grannies looked, clucked with forced enthusiasm, and asked when they would eat, while at the same time their children and grandchildren drank themselves blind on the astoundingly cheap alcohol in the big concrete resort complexes. Spartacus, along with half of the country, earned a not-half-bad salary from these people’s boredom. But unlike half of the country, Spartacus could not fathom the fun in being dumped with a load of tourists in some poison-green hotel, frying on the beach and buying trashy souvenirs by the bagful. It’s the same all over the world, Krustev shrugged. Mass tourism… They’ve got to have everything organized for them, right? Sirma said. Even their free time is regimented, hup-two-three-four! Breakfast at nine, one hour on your stomach, one hour on your back, an hour of swimming, lunch at noon, a two-hour nap, an hour of TV, cultural attractions at five, dinner at seven, a bottle of brandy at nine, a cheap Thracian whore precisely at midnight. Krustev snorted. At the end of the day, Maya said, you keep them under control that way. The question is, however, said Krustev, who is doing the controlling? Society, Maya said. That society looks a little hazy to me, Krustev said. We all know that our personal life is under threat, that they manipulate us, that they make us clones. But who are they, the ones doing it? Just show them to me and their game is up. But how can you fight an enemy who is invisible? Well, you don’t fight, Sirma says. That’s precisely the trick: you refuse to play their stupid game. I’m out, man, I’m just out and I don’t give a shit. Which, in fact, is hardly the best choice, Krustev noted. But it’s the only possible one, Sirma said. I can’t change the world, Spartacus agreed, but I can change myself. And when you’ve changed yourself enough, Krustev asked, but everybody else stays the same, what do you do then? There are exceptions, Spartacus said. Here are two exceptions and that’s enough for me. He hugged Sirma and pinched Maya lightly on the neck. And with that he managed to put an end to the subject. Krustev’s question was worth pondering, however: he asked himself the same thing quite frequently.