We were living with my grandpa at the time. Yes, the Olympic medalist. He was also a history teacher, so he managed to stay employed. But Father lost his job and wanted out. He said, we either leave or perish. They woke me up one night and made me pack a suitcase. No, no, they said, no AKs, no grenades — just clothes and shoes. I could hear the mob chanting outside our apartment complex, ravenous, hateful, and the dogs howling, so we used a secret passageway, underground, to reach the cosmodrome at school.
Grandpa picked me up, kissed me on my forehead, and fastened my seat belt in the rocket seat. One day, I’ll come for you, I told him. My mother counted: ten, nine, eight … My father pressed the button and the engines roared. The rocket shook, took off. From high above, I saw a thousand other rockets fleeing, their engines like blooming peonies in the dark.
You don’t know what a peony is. Well, what flowers do you weave into your wreaths and garlands? For celebrating May 24, of course. The day of the Cyrillic alphabet? The Cyrillic … А, б, в …
Yes, it seems to me now that I learned my English through telling lies. Then again, lies have always been more charming than the truth.
THREE
THE BUS ARRIVED with great Bulgarian punctuality — an hour and twenty minutes late. I must have dozed off, because when its horn echoed through the station I started and didn’t know right away where I was. The young husband and his injured girl still sat in their corner, her head resting against his shoulder, her eyes closed. Red Mustache and his wife still hid behind the barricade. But most other peasants had left — on an earlier bus, which I’d missed somehow.
I picked up my backpack and sprinted for the door.
“Hey, funny talker,” Red Mustache called. “Give us a hand, will you?”
Outside, the bus sounded its horn again. I could read its sign well, scribbled on a checkered sheet in blue pen.
“To Klisura, is it?” the young husband asked, while I struggled to pick up the old couple’s sacks and baskets.
“Yes, sir,” I mumbled. “I think so.”
On his shoulder his girl let out a giggle.
“You go to sleep,” he told her, “that’s not our bus,” and covered her face with his thick palm. She laughed again and I could see her eyes, watching me, between the gaps of his fingers.
And then we were outside — me and the old couple. The bus’s headlights cast thick yellow ropes through the sand that hung in the air; its wipers fought to keep the grains away, but for some reason, its doors remained closed for us.
Sand pricked my face and filled my mouth with every breath. I hesitated, then kicked the door. And then again, until it opened. I let the old ones climb in first, then followed.
“A vandal, eh!” the driver said, and clicked his tongue. “A door-kicker.” I paid my fare and dropped off the bags with their owners. “You take care of yourself,” I told Red Mustache, and he showed me his swollen gums, on which glistened grains of sand.
“You are a funny talker.”
There were very few other people in the bus, but even so I walked all the way to the backseat.
“Next stop,” the driver announced, and I could see that he was looking at me in the rearview mirror, “Klisura.”
I tousled my hair, dusted off the collar of my jacket. Sand flew around me and fell in dunes at my feet. Then, as if something made me, I turned around and looked out the back window. And this is how I saw him.
A black figure in the red. A giant with flapping wings.
The bus began to move. The giant waved, his wings flapped, he fell behind and vanished in the fog.
“Stop,” I shouted. I ran all the way to the front. “Open the doors.”
The driver stopped the bus. “Are you,” he said slowly, “speaking in English?” I realized what I’d done in my excitement. “A man,” I said in Bulgarian. “Behind the bus.”
At that moment a fist slammed on the doors. A black figure filled the small window, a Bedouin who’d wrapped a shirt, the color of red wine, around his face. He grumbled and I recognized a few words only, mother, yours, enough to catch the gist.
“Another vandal, by the looks of it,” the driver said, and apathetically pressed the necessary button. The doors flew open and a sheet of sand hurled itself upon us.
“Klisura?” the Bedouin asked from the threshold. The black wings flapped madly on his chest and I realized that he was holding a hen, or maybe a chicken, whose head had been covered over with a tarpaulin pouch.
“Buy a ticket and I’ll tell you,” the driver said, but waved him in.
With the doors closed, the man stood motionless, catching his breath. Sand seeped from his elbows as he held the hen to his chest, from the hen’s wings when they flapped.
“You’re usually two hours late,” he said to the driver.
“Consider it a miracle,” the driver said, and rubbed his thumb against his index finger.
The man turned to face me. “My boy, hold this,” he said, and shoved the hen in my direction. I jumped back, startled. Someone laughed behind me. Not wanting to appear a coward, I seized the chicken, which screamed and slapped me with its wings.
“It’s fine if you’re scared,” the man said, not letting go, and something mocking rang in his voice. I yanked the bird out of his grip. A victorious pleasure — now I’ll show him — washed over me and then, when the chicken dug its talons into my forearm, a blinding pain.
“He didn’t get you with his claws now, did he?” the man said, and his eyes sparkled.
“Can’t feel a thing,” I lied.
“That sleeve’s turning red,” the driver noticed. He snatched the money the man had offered him and counted it twice. I was ready to pass out a little, when finally the man took back his hen.
The floor, seats, windows, and ceiling buzzed and we started rattling down the road. From the backseat I watched the man up front, no longer a glorious Bedouin, unwrap the shirt around his face with one hand and hold the chicken with the other. Layer after layer fell, like a mummy unbandaged, to finally reveal his wrinkled skin, his bony, hollowed cheeks, his sharp and pointy chin.
A heaviness settled in my stomach as though I’d drunk too much cold water too quickly. I had been certain of it all along and all along, it seemed, I had been wrong. This man was not my grandfather.
FOUR
I WAS EIGHT WHEN COMMUNISM FELL in Bulgaria. 1989. My parents and I lived in Grandpa’s apartment, crammed like broilers, because we had no money to rent, let alone buy, our own place. Father and Grandpa fought constantly. Mother wept and threatened divorce. At first they tried to spare me, but then, it’s difficult to yell discreetly in a coop.
At least we weren’t hungry. My grandfather was too well connected for hunger to keep us in its fist. The butcher, the baker, the fruit-and-vegetable seller — they had all been his students once.
“Wake up,” Grandpa would whisper at my bedside, already bundled up in his thinned-out, moth-eaten coat. I’d beg him to let me sleep. The sun was still an hour from rising and it was Sunday.
“I got a tip from an old student.” He’d shove the netted sack in my hand. “Delivery in fifteen minutes.”
We walked the dark streets like thieves. The snow crunched under our boots, the frost bit our faces. No light in any window, and not a soul. Not even the dogs were out this early. The scarf on my mouth was solid ice by the time we reached the butcher’s.