Fireflies and discrimination
Meanwhile Olga lived on cloud nine, but she finally fell off it with a thud.
‘He’s married and she’s pregnant,’ she mumbled nearly inaudibly through a sea of tears.
I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Is that why he doesn’t want to see you anymore?’
‘Yes,’ Olga nodded and almost choked on her tears.
This was a delicate situation. A philosophical chat would not help her now and I did not know how to comfort her.
‘Love is a gamble,’ I heard myself say. ‘You lost this time, but next time you’ll go home with the jackpot.’
Olga looked up: ‘Do you make this rubbish up on the spot or did you read it somewhere?’
‘I’m making it up on the spot because I don’t know how to comfort you. Perhaps you need a break. An acquaintance of mine has a nice house on the Black Sea and has invited me to stay with him for some time. He’s a pianist. I have no idea if he’s musically gifted, but he is physically. He once confided in me that his penis is 26 centimetres long. Man are natural boasters when it comes to their best friend, but there has to be some truth to it. I think Vladimir is waiting for a beautiful young woman like yourself. He just doesn’t know that you’re coming, but I will let him know.’
‘Wait, do you mean that I am just going to go to a complete stranger’s house?’ Olga asked, who has suddenly seemed to forget her heartbreak.
‘You spent time with a complete stranger in the toilets, so in any case the location will be better.’
‘But I’ve never met the guy!’ Olga protested.
’26 cm sounds very interesting,’ she added a little while later. Her eyes shone, but no longer from crying. She clearly saw room for a new adventure.
‘How are you going to get us together?’
‘I’ll tell him I’m coming with a friend. When we go to buy tickets at the station I will suddenly become nauseous and I’ll go home to rest for a few days. You will go ahead to meet him and wait for me there. Once you’re in the train I’ll phone Vladimir to let him know what’s happened. ‘
Olga didn’t have to think about this for much longer. After the disastrous ending to her relationship she was in the mood for some fun. She had come to the right conclusion herself: there’s no point crying over spilled milk.
Vladimir was disappointed that I wasn’t feeling well at the last minute.
‘Better one female visitor than none at all,’ I joked with a pretend weak voice. ‘Just wait until you see Olga!’
Olga phoned a few days later.
‘I’m not sure if you want to know, but 26 cm is better than sixteen,’ she told me excitedly.
‘I didn’t want to know that,’ I replied. ‘The only thing I want to know is why you sleep with men so quickly. It doesn’t show much self-respect. It’s like you don’t realise your own worth.’
‘On the contrary, ‘ Olga retorted. ‘Only women who know their worth, allow themselves such pleasures.’
Olga obviously did not believe in monogamy.
Our holiday home in the mountains was the perfect place to forget all problems and ethical dilemmas. My sister and I ran through the tall grass on the fields, plucked bright red poppies and purple irises and passed the time catching beetles with shiny wings. If we found hedgehogs, we would find them a meal of grasshoppers. I loved chasing the chickens on the street, until one time a brave rooster attacked me. That aggressive animals picked at me three times in a row and after that I was frightened of those unpredictable village animals. Especially the sheep. When I ran, the whole herd would gallop after me. The farmers yelled, like I was trying to take their herd away, while I was actually trying to make those stupid animals go away.
When we couldn’t be bothered looking for insects, we usually played war: Russia against America. We didn’t throw nuclear bombs, but apples, pears and plums. There were fruit trees in abundance in the village. They often grew next to the road or in fields that weren’t owned by anyone. The communists had expropriated all the land from its owners, because no one was allowed to have more than his neighbour. Everyone was equal and everyone earned roughly the same wages, if you were a welder or a professor. Despite this my parents would never let me marry a welder. They didn’t want some foul-mouthed labourer in the family, who would wolf whistle at every attractive girl.
My well-educated parents thought it unfair that a brain surgeon did not earn more than a hairdresser. This didn’t worry me. I still hadn’t decided if the inside or the outside of a head was more important. Olga was convinced that it was more beneficial to take care of the outside. And if both were equally important, then equal pay seemed fair. Besides, not many people complained about their wages, because everyone could make a decent living. That is why a profession was often seen as a status symbol instead of a source of income.
There were officially no social classes in Bulgaria, but villagers, low-skilled and Turkish people were not held in high regards. The gypsies were seen as the garbage of society. They stink, they lie and they steal.
The low-skilled were also discriminated against. Under communism everyone was able to study free-of-charge and if you did not profit from this then you were not smart. Prejudices are always black and white. If you did not continue your education, you were immediately labelled. I was discouraged from having low-skilled friends.
‘Ignorance is not contagious!’ I protested even though I knew there was no point in discussing this type of topic with my parents.
‘It might not be contagious, but it is hereditary,’ my parents said, who always stuck to their guns when it came to upbringing.
This didn’t worry me, because I was not yet ready to settle down and raise a family. I liked playing with different types of boys and make a game out of trying to guess from which social class they came. The difference could usually be found in the use of swear words. The rough types had mastered the art of regular swearing without repeating themselves. Sometimes they sounded awful, but they compensated their foul-mouthed vocabulary with their well-trained bodies, aggressive courting techniques and beautiful guitar playing.
In the evening, we would often sing English songs on the village square. Western music was sold everywhere, even though we were not allowed to watch English-language television channels. We played Queen, sang Beatles songs and thought we were the happiest youth in the world. We walked hand-in-hand, listening to the crickets chirping and enjoying the beautiful views when we climbed the hills. It was an innocent type of romance: so pure and unspoiled as could only be possible in a village. The big city had different rules. Romance was much tougher there and usually happened in bars and disco’s. We didn’t need disco lights in the village: we would catch fireflies and stuck them to our foreheads with a little bit of spit. The fireflies would go on and off the whole night and when we were bored of them we would let them go.
Travelling with a secret weapon
The magical slot machines in Las Vegas had no time to be bored. A shower of falling coins created a unique sound. Thousands of hands pulled the handles of the slot machines in fluid movements in the choreography of this modern music video. I saw Las Vegas as a form of art, as an ode to the human search for happiness.
Through the flashes of my childhood memories Las Vegas could not be seen as an art form but hell on earth. Life in a capitalist country had to be awful. The labourers were exploited, the politicians fought and no one was sure they would still have a job the next month. The only achievement of the Americans had been the invention of the dollar. The exchange rate was not realistic in Bulgarian banks, but it was on the black market. On the streets, Western tourists would get as much as five times more Levs for their dollars. Of course, that was prohibited, but the traders had already bribed the police to look the other way.