The Angel of Your Life

Sometimes he asked himself: why? No, it wasn’t fear. It was something else. But what? And there was no answer. However, he felt he could hear a powerful whisper: don’t, don’t ever do it!

Still, he took heart. But he still felt the hesitation pricking at him while he was driving towards the village.

He kept asking himself: why go back? To the cave he had crawled out of? Why do it? Many years ago he naively thought that the memory of the camp had been following him closely, like a shadow, like a gun pointed at the back of his neck, ready to spew its fierce fire. But he understood it was inside himself, this memory, like a wound eating into his flesh, it had penetrated into his blood long ago. That there is no salvation from it; that he will take it with him into his grave and they would be together for the whole eternity that was expecting him there, together, grappling at one another, fighting...

He stopped up his ears but the sound of the violent blows grew stronger. And it was scary, and strange – it appeared that others were tortured, the pain was his. The pain was in his face, in his body, in his soul.

Then he realized the hypocritical art of torturing. He realized that when you are a spectator you squirm together with the victim, you suffer and die no less than the unfortunate fellow in front of the line. And when they were forced to pass by the dead bodies, he could see the shock in their eyes, their twisted fingers and he asked himself: am I dead, too? How many times he woke up and he didn’t know whether he was dead, or alive. And how could he forget that sultry June afternoon, when he collapsed on the ditch, and sprawled dead tired on the freshly dug earth. Smokov shouted out:

‘Get up! Double-quick! At my side!’

He did not even make an effort to rise. He knew couldn’t have done it, for all efforts. This was the end, he realized in a second. He could even feel the touch of the soft, merciful, icy fingers of Death on his forehead. And why are we so much afraid of the end, he asked himself, amazed, isn’t He saving us from the terror, the grief, the despair? He frees us! He opened his eyes widely, to see Him, but he saw Ivanov instead, bent over him. He was talking something. And when the bucket full of icy water splashed over him, snapping like a gunshot, he again saw Smokov, And he could clearly hear his yell:

‘On your feeeet!’

They were pulled on their feet, he and Ivanov, and drawn in front of the line. Gergov gazed at the campers but they didn’t move a finger. The cloyingly familiar faces had suddenly become strange and cold. And it seemed to him he could see the relief, the joy even that: there, he was standing in front of them, waiting for his punishment; he, not them. They watched him but he couldn’t meet their eyes. They have written me out already, he thought in despair, from the list of the living ones.

He was seized by Smokov’s voice:

‘Now, Gergov, you are going to execute the punishment I set on Ivanov. For his willful delinquency. Fifty staffs to his body!’ the superviser stretched himself tight and started speaking; moving his eyes along prisoners’ faces ‘The camp is like a school! It is a place for re-education and not a ball, where everyone invites any woman he might like! By hard work and discipline, you are going to compensate for your mistakes and only then, you can get the privilege to live in the fairest regime in this world! And what are you doing?’ and he touched Ivanov with the tip of his stick. ‘You are breaking the order! Somebody’s fallen? ‘But what’s the meaning of a person here’ as one proletarian poet has said, ‘next will come and that is that!’ What about the plan? What about discipline? No, cur, you’ve learned nothing here!’ he turned towards Gergov and said loudly, in a military way ‘Go about it!’ Ivan pulled down his trousers and bent over the barrow.

‘Strike!’ Smokov shouted.

Then Gergov heard Ivanov’s whisper:

‘Strike, Gergov, strike, my friend, or he’s going to kill us both...’

And Gergov started raising his hand. He had to count the strikes loudly – clearly and distinctly and the campers repeated together. Smokov cancelled every strike he deemed to be too weakly applied. He did not close his eyes the whole night in the barrack; he stared at Ivanov and listened to his hardly audible whisper:

‘It’s all right, Gergov, we are living among beasts. You must understand that; we, however, must stay human, despite all, despite them...’
The camp.

They came in one creepy morning in 1949, on 7th of February, at four o’clock. They pushed him into the van with one single explanation: ‘IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE’. In the cell, they counted themselves: nineteen people, traders like him, manufacturers like Ivanov, lawyers, the judge, the school principle, several big land-owners, ex-policemen and military men.

I’ve never messed up with politics, why, whispered Gergov to the manufacturer Ivanov, his closest friend. Here, that is our mistake, Gergov, he answered, that such men like ourselves did not stand against that scum around us, the previous and the present ones, they are tarred with the same brush, and we were dealing with our firms, God, what fools we were! But what is this, Gergov was whispering, why are they doing it? Plague, the communism is a plague, and they hate us because we are wealthy. But didn’t they take everything from us, Gergov couldn’t understand, what else do they want, to pull out our souls? Those who manage physically to survive in this Bacchanalia, Gergov, will be asked to give away their souls, too, smiled Ivanov in a very strange way. No, I can’t understand this thing, that’s madness, Gergov groaned.

For four years, each night before falling asleep, Gergv gave to God an ardent prayer of gratitude for having got through another day. And each morning, he quickly crossed himself, as if he had been summoned to his death, not towards the quarry. It was not very different, actually. So much death Gergov had seen in this camp that he stopped fearing it, but still, he didn’t want it in his way.

He knew that He could come any moment, the same way he took many of them in his fatherly embrace. Every day, Death reached out his fingers now for this one, now for the other. Some cried with terror at his touch. Some smiled, as if they had met their happiness, bliss, or just peace. Others met him with fierce indifference, they did not tremble. Those are heroes, Gergov whispered, amazed and filled with admiration, but Ivanov hissed: no, they are not living, Gergov, they are dead long ago. How so, Gergov gave a start. Easy, answered Ivanov with his strange smile, how few are those among us who are actually still living... He couldn’t understand that at the moment but later, in the long sleepless nights he realized the deep meaning of those words.

Did you get it, man, how stupid we were, when we were free, Ivanov whispered feverishly in the nights. Why, we lived, we did, Gergov answered. But we knew nothing, absolutely nothing, Ivanov’s words babbled devilishly in the pit of darkness, we didn’t know anything about freedom, or death. I wished I had never learned about it, damned it, Gergov moaned. If we refuse to learn it, this will go on and on the same way, forever, if not with you; with your son, with your wife, see, man, we’ve got it all wrong with our lives, and we were cheated at school, at the university, that we know, that we can and look what we did with out lives; we are guilty for the existence of such people like Smokov!... No, it’s not true! Gergov was panting with anger, have I ever lied, have I ever stolen, or killed anyone? It is not enough, Gergov, no, man, people like Smokov we had to win on our side, to investigate into their souls, to help them out if we could, and what did we do? We laid up money! The money were not for us only, have you forgotten that, Ivanov, what about the orphanage, the school, the allowance for the three students in Germany, what do you mean we haven’t given enough, Gergov was trembling in a protest. No, it wasn’t that, we should have done different things, if God had allowed all that to happen to us, so, we have not given enough, we are guilty, we have sins to atone for... and Ivanov was crossing himself feverishly and stretched out both hands towards the Almighty... and Gergov shook his head: confused, desperate; for a long time now he had started to believe this world was a creation of the Satan.

One day, they pushed him into the van and returned him back home; as unexpectedly as they had stolen him. Without any explanation. They had just warned him to keep silent, and if not: he’d be welcome there again, he’d be gladly accepted. Authority. Or madness? Why did they do what they did? With such unflinching certainty that they were absolutely right; that they alone were aware of the whole truth about past, present and future. What was that truth? Or probably, Ivanov was mumbling, they just know THERE IS NO TRUTH?

Did they not fear retribution, Gergov asked himself. What retribution, man, they have the power. What about their children, aren’t they afraid their chidren will know and judge them? Their children will be like them –they will shape them after themselves, Ivanov snapped.

His wife started crying silently when she saw him – skin and bone, white-haired and he hadn’t turned thirty yet. He had had a bath, caressed his son’s blond head and unnoticeably dozed off. He dreamed he was there again – lying on the ditch. Terrified, he opened his eyes to see his wife, on her knees, thanking God silently.

The first days he couldn’t sleep. The moment he closed his eyes he found himself in the camp. He cried, half-asleep: ‘Yes, comrade commander!’ He shook his wife and screamed, furious and terrified: ‘Where is my spade?!’

In a few months, he learned to sleep, but he always woke up at four in the morning. It was the hour of his arrest. Every little noise in the night made him spring out of his bed: he ran in the corner or he crawled under the table expecting them to burst in and say: ‘IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE’ And take him away. So passed the rest of the night, until the morning.

His wife didn’t dare speak a word, she was just crying in bed, curled up beneath the blanket.

During the day, he got scared every time his opponent raised his voice, he moved back quickly; rose his arms in front of his head to protect himself against the eventual strike but nobody stroke him any more. Everyone spoke to him without punching him in the face, without kicking at his loins, without pulling at his hair.

He slowly got used to that ‘new’ he found after his return. Although, it seemed strange to him, absurd, even grotesque at times. While he was at the camp, something had happened to those people, they had accepted the changes. Or at least they appeared to, they did not discuss it. It was as if the former life had never been...

And things somehow turned for the better without any help of his own. It was as if he was repaid double for his suffering. Therefore, Gergov told himself dreamily, there is God, there is justice and he felt he could hear the tender waft of an angel’s wing. He looked around him, startled, and saw his wife. He found her working at the shoe factory, once belonging to Ivanov, now nationalized. His wife suddenly went up into the hierarchy, after the endless ‘purge’ of Bourgeois elements, then after the settling of accounts with the so called: ‘enemies with a party ticket’. She had been assigned as a sub-manager and after a few months her chief was transferred to another job and she took his place. Absolutely unexpectedly, one of his cousins, now a big shot in Sofia, made him the proposition to take the vacant place of a trade manager in an enterprise that deal with export of agriculture products. It so happened that, in a year and a half, the general head of the enterprise resigned and Gergov took the managing of the whole enterprise, whose center they arranged to be now in their town.

One by one, the camp survivors returned. Gergov and his wife were the leaders of great enterprises, they had a wide circle of acquaintances and for everyone who returned, they found a job easily. The ex-campers felt simultaneously grateful and certain with them. They called on them, they used to be guests at their house and there the table was always heavily laden with food, appetizers and drinks. They listened to BBC radio, Free Europe, and The Voice of America.

And conversations and wrangles started and never ended until the morning. They felt they were trapped. Ivanov, who was assigned as a head of storage department in what was once his own factory, now kept repeating they must fight. Gergov wasn’t of the same opinion. We fell into the trap at the time when Chirchil negotiated with Stalin, we were, and we are, doomed, brother, what fight are you talking about, you never got over the loss of your factory in the first place! What about you, didn’t you regret about your stores, Ivanov got aroused. No, no regret at all, this could be for people’s good, how could you know, Gergov shook his head. What, and the camp, did you forget the camp, Ivanov raged. But, understand, brother, understand, Ivanov, the Western democracies, to assure their peace, made the deal with Stalin, and at the same time, urge us to fight, while they keep strictly their arrangement for the sale of our skins: why did they never enter the conflict in Hungary at 1956? We heard Imre Nagi calling them on the radio, and they – what – they left the Russian tanks to crush them like green stuff...

His argument with Ivanov never stopped during the years.

His wife was silent all the time.

And Ivanov kept repeating: we are guilty, Gergov, we are to blame for all that, us and nobody else!

And suddenly, the most frightening thing came: Ivanov was accompanied by young men and they were furious and desired madly to fight against the regime. They edited illegal newspaper, they got guns. Ivanov revealed to him his idea: we are going to an armed struggle. Gergov sheepishly judged: madness. His wife, who became a witness to all that, went towards Ivanov, crossed him, started kissing his hands. As if she knew what was going to happen.

And it happened: they arrested Ivanov and the boys, all of them.

Then something happened that quite amazed Gergov – Ivanov was released. And the boys disappeared. Obviously where. Forever.

Ivanov was a wreck, he died in a month.

Now, Gergov, they have invented something else instead camps, spoke Ivanov, his eyes closed, only his two withered arms were visible under the cover, they have implanted informers among us. You know who was our camp supervisor – Ivan Smokov, now he’s the boss of National Security. They have moved the camp here, in town. Everything is a camp now. And somebody among us betrayed us; take that from me and keep your eyes open, Gergov! He was dying and the terror was springing from his eyes: now the supervisors are among us, they have appointed our own people to do their despicable job; do you understand what happened, but we have no idea who they are, I told you they will snatch our souls, they did it!...

There were only three people attending his funeral: Ivanov’s wife, Gergov and his wife. He couldn’t take his eyes off his friend’s harrowed face. Now it was magnificent and seemed to ask: who, Gergov, who is the man that gives us away to authorities?

At first, he banished it angrily, furiously, but it always came back – the obtrusive thought about Ivanov’s release. Why release him? Why kill the others and let him live? Because they knew he’ll die anyway, he calmed himself. And perhaps... crawled the nasty suggestion, like a snake into his mind. No, he answered himself and chased it away. But it never stopped following him: day and night, everywhere.

The suspicion nestled itself in everyone’s soul. Gergov felt their inquisitive looks over himself, too. The way everyone smiled, shame-facedly, as if caught in the act, when they felt the looks of others on their faces, made Gergov tremble. Me! But he also suspected each of them, asked himself: who among them? They still gathered but it was not the same. Ivanov’s death robbed them and destroyed everything.

Suddenly they felt guilty; they tried in every possible way to conceal the warm of suspicion that was eating into them day and night. In vain. In each smile now they were looking for a hidden sense, in each, even involuntary gesture, a confirmation of their fears. It turned out that what had been making them close, had been Ivanov; and now that he was gone, they suddenly realized they were strangers to each other.
Great was their amazement at how intimate they had felt before. They still gathered, but by sheer habit now, and spoke of everything else but of what really was bothering them at that moment. Now everyone hid his thoughts behind the mask of empty jokes, gossip and slanders about colleagues, acquaintances and friends.

And when at 1989 the system collapsed like a paper tower, everyone was confused. It was so easy after all. They were offended. Therefore, Ivanov was right, somebody muttered. We had to stand up, like him, all of us, to march against the wicked system, but since we are cowards and rascals, we couldn’t, said another, enthusiastically and guiltily.

Bullshit, Gergov broke in, the Great Powers made an arrangement again; now the communists are out of the stage, our life passed between two agreements, he signed. And we don’t know what have they prepared for us this time but this time, we should really fight, to take things in our own hands, understand, and he stared at their faces and they looked down.

And there was no joy, no elation; they just waited, day after day, to see what was going to happen.

Somehow, without realizing it, they scattered. Some, like Gergov, went into politics, some, crying, started kissing their returned properties; others ran abroad to relatives never to be seen again.

Then Gergov took his decision: to find out the truth about the lost years. And he shared this idea with his friends from the camp and they told him: don’t, let the past die; it is over, thank God, what more can you demand? But I want this never to repeat, that’s why, I want to go into the truth, the whole truth of what and why exactly it was, he answered angrily and they kept a cold and guilty silence.

Gergov knew where the truth about the past years was hidden. In the endless files of National Security. And they were hidden, those files, because now there was nothing in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but the truth was lurking somewhere, like a time-bomb, waiting for its hour to come. It’s true; there was an explosion from time to time. But where it came from, he could only guess. For a long time now, he knew one thing only: that the shortest way for detecting the truth about his life, about the camp, about Ivanov, is hiding behind the face of Ivan Smokov, the ex camp supervisor, now a retired man. He was the man who took away, together with his resignation, all the information of the local filial of National Security. It so happened, that as he had been holding their throats before, he was holding them today, because he was keeping the information. He took the ever-winning card, that son of a bitch, groaned the ex-campers.

Gergov was always intending and never finding the time to go and meet this man.
Sometimes he apologized, and he knew it was so, to the angry shadow of Ivanov, and that entire political wrangle he rushed into. But when his son at last overcame his fears and ran into the politic and soon sat on a minister’s seat, Gergov took heart. There was no way to delay any more and he went; he was driving the parliamentary Mercedes himself. He released the chauffeur on purpose, who knows why; he wanted to be on his own.

He found the house in the village without much wandering. He parked in front of the small iron gate and wooden fence, dyed in yellow. In the bottom of the yard, he could see a massive, two-storied building.

His hands started shivering. But he pushed the gate open and walked down the cement alley. Suddenly he stopped, petrified.

Even older, pulling his left leg after him, there he was, in front of him: Ivan Smokov. He’d have recognized him even in a thousand years. The way he used to stare at this impudent, red face, the way he used to see in the night the fists, heavy as iron, landing on somebody’s back and the man sprawling in the mud and Smokov trampling, kicking, swearing, raging... Once. At the camp. And now he was coming towards him.

‘Who? Who are you?’ asked Smokov in a hostile way.

‘I will tell you – Gergov braced himself and even smiled after his answer, then kept walking forward, throwing out: ‘You’ll understand!’ and he was walking towards him and his legs hypocritically trembled, the blood was throbbing in his temples, red sparkles flashed in front of his eyes...

Smokov was paralyzed; he was watching him in surprise, but fearfully, too. Then his wide face ran into a sweat and he heaved a noisy sigh.

He had recognized him and was rooted to the spot, bowing his head.

He’s like a bull, Gergov thought, half in disgust and half in fear and passed by him, walking towards the house. He turned his head back and asked:

‘What? Won’t you let me come in?’

‘Yes, yes, please!’ Smokov started babbling and followed him, shuffling his left leg ‘Here, let’s take a seat, here! Under the shadow, eh?’ and pointed to the small table under the apple tree.

‘Let’s sit’ Gergov agreed and pulled aside a branch, laden with huge, blood-red apples.
‘A coffee or some rakia?’ Smokov asked, his hands trembling. When he sensed his guest was following him with derisive eyes, he hid his hands behind his back and grew even redder.

‘I’d rather we talk!’ Gergov answered, his voice vibrating with emotion. ‘I have to pull myself together, I must!’ he commanded himself.

‘That we shall talk, that’s more than clear. But never on an empty table, I say!’ Smokov said and vanished into the house.

Gergov took out from his pocket the box of cigarettes and long time clicked the lighter. At last, he lit the cigarette. He tried to knock the ash out of his cigarette and hardly hit the ash-tray. Why am I so frightened, I should pull myself together – and he clenched his left hand in a fist.

‘Here you are!’ Smokov brought out a jug of coffee and two bottles: one-of glass, the other – plastic, full of mineral water. Tears welled up out of the two bottles: he had taken them out of the freezer.

He poured into the glasses standing, concentrated, and only then did he sit in front of him. He slumped heavily in the chair, as if all his bones had suddenly broken; the chair gave a creak.

‘What the hell – cheers!’ said Smokov in low voice and sipped at his glass of rakia.

Gergov hesitated, but took his glass and raised it to his lips, too. He was surprised by the aroma. He sipped and asked, cordially, as if accosting a close friend:

‘What is it made of?’ and bit at his lip. To drink with a killer! With Smokov!

‘I mix many things. To get what you see. It’s rubbish to drink rakia made only of grapes or plum. I add some herbs, such things, the village people taught me here.’ And he gave a resounding laugh. Gergov watched him in astonishment. Acting like a normal human being and what a beast was he there, at the camp! Is it fear? Or just years? Could it be that he believes everything was already forgotten?

‘I live here. In the country, I resigned, patched up my father’s house. What patching – I built it anew.’ Smokov was speaking very fast. It was obvious he was confused and he was trying to hide it behind the flow of words.

‘Is that so?’ Gergov nodded with deliberate indifference ‘So, you are living in the country?...’

‘Here, here! One has always something to do here: some tomatoes, pepper, this and that, some animals, too. And so... what about you? Your son became a minister!’
‘He did’ Gergov uttered dryly and drank This rakia, beside its strange taste, was tickling at the palate, inviting, appealing. Good, but treacherous; it could draw you unnoticeably to whatever realms it wished.

Gergov suddenly felt the great force of the country silence. For long, for many years he hadn’t felt a peace so powerful. Since the time he roamed in the mountains like a starving lone wolf. It is the perfect place, here, for a fasting, prayer and forgiveness... came the strange thought to Gergov.

‘Everything got wrong, Gergov’ broke the silence Smokov and sighed noisily.

‘Do you now why am I here?’ his question was so abrupt that he himself gave a start. Smokov was just pouring more rakia in his glass and he gave a shudder, his hand jerked aside and he spilled the liquid. He reached out, took the white towel flung over the next chair and mopped up the spilled rakia. He pushed the liquid towards the end of the table and it leaked down the cement in heavy drops.

‘No matter! To the dead, as we say!’ mumbled Smokov.

‘To the dead you say? Why, how many liters should you spill on the ground, Smokov?!’ Gergov shook his head derisively. ‘Everyone knows for himself!’ Smokov snapped and started tapping on the table with his fingers. ‘That’s true...’ said Gergov thoughtfully ‘I came to ask you certain things...’ he didn’t finish, because his opponent grinned. Suddenly, his grin disappeared – as quickly as it had come.

‘Ask!’ stretched Smokov in a military way, clenching his fists ‘Ask and I’ll answer! But!... do you kno...’ he stared at the man in front of him ad fell silent.

‘What? What do I know?’ Gergov asked curtly.

‘I have an answer to everything!’ replied Smokov with a sudden calmness ‘I’ve been a pensioner for a seven years: all I do is sit here and think. What happened, why happened, this I think and think! Now I’m ready for everything! I’ve found the answer to any question you might ask! Go ahead!’ and he leaned back on the chair, his belly swelled under the white shirt and his left eye filled up with blood.

‘Why talk about the camp. You were young, inoculated with your idiotic ideology! You were a monster!’... Gergov discovered, amazed, that he was at a loss for words. That he was unable to continue! The camp is something he can’t talk of any longer! It is just a subject of forgetting! However, the unclean sheds stink, Gergov groaned in his mind and listened to what the ex-supervisor was talking to him with enthusiasm.

‘I believed we were right! You can not imagine how I believed! To the simple peasant boy, such a power is given out of a sudden – complete, absolute power! Even the kings in the past did not have such a power! I thought naively that when there is no longer such people like you, and then everything’s going to be all right! Let Rivers of blood flow, it is of no consequence if a paradise is to be built! Later, I saw it wasn’t that way. No, not that way at all!’ Smokov shook his white head energetically.

‘When? When is that ‘later?’ he was curious to know what such kind of people might have thought or felt. We have lived our lives together and we don’t know each other at all! And if we get to know each other, isn’t it possible that we forgive each other? Should we? No way! He jumped, as if emerging from some deep, dark and muddy water. He looked about him, trembling, as if the ex-supervisor could have read his stupid thoughts. Because that’s what they were, and hypocritical on top of that! And again he stared hungrily at Smokov’s old face.

‘When did I understand? When the camps were abolished. I returned to the city and, you know, I started in National Security. And to find what? In what have they been transformed, those so called ‘heroes’, and I believed them to be such at those days – the guerillas, came down from the mountains, the communists, released from the prisons. Those who were brave yesterday, were crawling today before each young party chief. And why? Not to lose what they had stolen from people like you, or received illegally from the state, meaning, from such people like me. So? But it was not only them that made me so confused, so scared and disappointed. I saw the others – your, Gergov, your people! They weren’t any different from the ‘our’. And then, what could I do then? My wife helped me a lot, she was a saint, God rest her.

‘Since when have you believed in God too, you murderer?’ Grgov broke in ironically.

‘If I believe or not, is my own business, and why do you now, just like us, take the monopoly, as if God’s having his breakfast with you only!’ Smokov snapped, shook his bald head and went on quietly and dreamily ‘She, my wife, slowly, meekly, started to uproot that fury that possessed me. It did not get in the way of my business, I just got smarter. We had an agreement between us, me and my woman – to retire here, in the country and built our own, personal paradise, because there could not be any other. However, she died two years before retiring. And the son and the daughter, they went and became doctors, both of them. My wife used to say: ‘They, at least, will help people, if you have tormented them so... Let them atone for your sins, healing people’s wounds. So, my family’s attitude towards me was interesting... they both respected me and never forgot to reprimand me...’

Smokov fell silent and somewhere close by sparrows squeaked merrily, flew above them like a jubilant wheel. The apple branches, laden with fruit, were quietly whispering something unintelligible, as if some unknown music was pouring itself over them.

This one here’s trying to make a fool of me, thought Gergov, seething with rage.

‘Have you ever, Smokov, made an account of the people you’ve killed?’ he was watching him with sincere hatred. No, he couldn’t conceive how after so much blood spilled by his own hands this man can stand in front of him and babble old wives’ tales! Almost claiming to be normal, he, the murderer!

‘Many are those destroyed by me...’ Smokov moaned ‘I’ve killed, I’ve tortured, I’ve shot, I’ve strangled, I’ve drowned...‘ he spoke with his head bowed, then suddenly looked up and shouted: ‘Want more?’

And Gergov was shocked and said nothing.

‘I can tell stories, do you want?’ Smokov smiled mercilessly. ‘And you sleep well?’ Gergov exclaimed, sincerely, impulsively. ‘I sleep...’ Smokov shook his head ‘And I don’t...’ The wrinkles on his face suddenly grew clearly visible and for the first time it showed how much had he really aged. ‘It depends. At first, immediately after the Change, I was very afraid. I said to myself – they’ll come now! They’ll come and take their revenge!’

‘And did someone come?’ Gergov leaned on his elbows. He was curious, because Smokov had been through feelings no different from his own after he had returned from the camp and that made him somehow intimate to Gergov; he shuddered when he felt that.

‘No!’ Smokov whispered ‘You are the first!’ and he pointed at his guest ‘Otherwise, I’m waiting. So many years I’ve been sitting here, I don’t go anywhere, just wait. Nobody’s coming.’

‘What if somebody comes?’ Gergov stared at his eyes – Smokov didn’t even flinch. He went on, angrily ‘If somebody of those that you’ve beaten to death appears? Those you’ve crippled? The sons and daughters of the murdered, if they come? What then?’

Smokov’s left eye, filled with blood, started working.

‘They will be right to kill me, I deserve that...’ he was stammering and suddenly a strange half-smile ran across his face ‘No doubt’ he said, again with an even voice.

And Gergov felt, like a paralytic strike, the force of this steel gaze – now he remembered it so clearly he hurt. In the line, in the ditches, in the barracks, on the field, Smokov was everywhere with that look of his. There was mo mercy in that look, it was like a blade. But now it seemed to flinch, some dark grief was stealing into it; it was still frightening but in a different way. Once, one look was enough to make a camper stop, as if hypnotized. Could such beasts change, too, oh, Lord! He cried out in his mind, terrified and shocked; he couldn’t understand. And then he bowed his head, swallowed, feeling the rage rising in him again.

‘And so you sit here and wait!’ and he spoke curtly, to conceal the terror rising in him ‘You wait for someone to come and do away with you? You wait for your punishment! The just punishment!’ and only after he had spoken he realized the meaning of his words. That certainly must be so cruel!

‘Yes’ said Smokov quietly, with resignation ‘I’m sitting here, waiting. So many years – just waiting!’

Gergov felt an inexplicable pity rousing in him for this man. And he shuddered. But he was a killer! End of it! Yes, but the sadist is also a human being, someone said hypocritically in his soul and who said that? He looked down and that meant he was trying to infuriate himself, to get himself back into the previous position of hatred. He was trying and he couldn’t. He gave it up and looked up at the camp supervisor.

Smokov sipped at his rakia and chased the fly away from his hand. But it came back and again, impudently, landed on his wrist. Then he screwed up his eyes, took aim and deftly knocked it with the tip of his thumb. He crushed it. He pushed it away from the table with his fingernail.

‘That way! That s exactly the way you’ve been killing us, Smokov!’ Gergov exclaimed with sincere hatred and clenched his hands into fists. The rage that surged in his lungs almost made him cough.

‘Absolutely true!’ Smokov confirmed pensively. And he cringed in his chair.

He is like a beaten dog, Gergov thought with repulsion.

‘And you built your strength on this fear of ours, that you have our lives in your hands!’ Gergov almost shouted.

‘No, no, not fear only!’ Smokov suddenly came alive ‘Fear was only at the beginning. Then came the other thing.’ And his eyes beamed.

‘What other thing? What?’ Gergov smiled mockingly.

‘You don’t know, too?’ waspish half-smile crawled on the face of the ex camp supervisor. ‘You tell me you don’t know?’

‘I don’t know...’ Gergov got confused ‘What should I know?’

‘I told you – your informers! Your informers, Gergov! They’d break their legs in the desire to report! This one sneezed, that one farted – everything had its political base. Why did they do it? Ve-e-ery simply! To live a little better, that’s all. But on what price? That is the question! Judge for yourself: brother betrays his brother, father – his son, wife – her husband. Do you understand?’ Smokov got heated and started tapping his fingers on the table.

‘You forced them Smokov! That’s the truth and nothing else!’

‘No!’ Smokov waved his finger ‘No, you are wrong! I know and you don’t!’

‘You are lying, Smokov, I’ve been there, I know’ Gergov waved his hand in contempt ‘And, besides, who’s going to believe you today? Who?’

‘See, you are correct on this point.’ Smokov spread out his arms helplessly ‘Now you are going to dress up history. Whatever you decided it was, that’s what you are going to put down! Do you know why the real memoirs of our time are missing?’ he asked and before waiting for the answer went on ‘Because, without my and your testimony, ther is no real history, you know.’

‘You say so’ Gergov smiled in contempt, lighting his cigarette. He had never thought about that, really.

‘Because, in a country like ours, if you decide to write memoirs, you have to stain yourself first. If you decide to write untruth they will expose you! If you decide to write about the truth and nothing but the truth, so it will turn out you yourself had been the greatest villain! And why? Because the others, the much bigger villains, are silent. I tried, Gergov, I tried, you know!’

‘I described my life, I described everything! My memory is as fresh as those apples! I remember everything – day by day! So I write it and give it to my children to read! I say, that’s a must, they should know first! And do you know what they did?’ he shook his head sadly and went on ‘They read the writing and came home. They burned the notebooks before my very eyes. And they haven’t come near since, five years now. I don’t know if they will come to my funeral. They are right! I do not blame them! They were shocked to know what kind of a father they have! And probably they want everything to be forgotten! What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ Gergov reacted with a malicious smile but suddenly, unexpectedly for him, he uttered: ‘I have never imagined we shall be talking like that, both of us...’

Smokov seemed not to hear him, but went on:

‘I’ve been thinking about it. Ok, we die and we took our knowledge about the world with us – good or bad, still knowledge. What we’ve been through, we take way and it’s over! Should it be like that?’ he darted a look at Gergov ‘No, I say, no, no! No, because without the knowledge of our fathers, what are we? There is no history. History is over. But if we don’t have a history, we don’t have retribution, right?’

Gergov did not answer; he was trying to understand where he was driving at and only nodded. Smokov leant forward and said, gasping:

‘And retribution – this is the knowledge of what we have been doing, good or bad, me, you, all of us! But everyone, without exception, chose the other way – let, with my death, all bad deeds I have done, pass away. And it’s not right for one to speak and others remain silent! But if we don’t have the whole truth, the sinner becomes saint and the sinner – a lecher. The insignificant becomes a colossus, and the giant – a dwarf; take that from me, Gergov. You... do you understand me?’ he looked at him hungrily and when he failed to meet his eyes, sighed and suggested: ‘Drink, Gergov, drink, I’m telling you! This rakia is like teardrop!

‘You, Smokov, demoralize people... You set them at each other, you chased them. And now you are crying! You are the guilty ones, you!’ Gergov reached for the glass, it turned out empty. The bottle turned out empty, too.

‘Hey! We drank it, huh!’ Smokov cried, while he was getting up, and then he scurried towards the house, limping and soon returned with a full bottle ‘I’ve stacked to drink till the ed of the world, if we must! Until the prosecution goes, I mean! And how long it will be, only the devil knows!...’

Gergov turned away. What, really, was that meeting? Just a meeting? Did he really have the right to judge? And why not? He whished Ivanov had been alive at that moment...

Smokov stared at the apple branches and started speaking slowly, as if to himself:

‘At a certain moment, probably ninety percents of the informers were due to jealousy, climbers’ greed, personal hatred, etc. One glanced at his fellow in the wrong way – and here the information, from both of them. He wants to get his chief’s seat – bang: information. The other, of course, does not give in: writes against him and tracks down his family all the way back to the Roman empire to show he’s the right one! And, between us, both are sincere rascals! That was the way it was.’

Gergov gave a start, he felt disgusted, this wasn’t the point after all.

‘Wait, hold! Do you want to say that we, the victims, have built the prison you pushed us in?’

‘The prison was built by us, the foolish ones! Why? I could never understand how it exactly happened. Except if we start to explore the trend of collective psychotics... yes, I have searched everywhere this truth of our lives!’ he sighed and stared again with his eyes of steel at the ex-camper ‘We were soldiers, Gergov! And we acted as such! You know how it is! If you don’t shoot, you’ll be shot! If not by the enemy by that man who stands behind you watching you carrying out his orders... and we were shooting!’

‘But it wasn’t a war!’ Gergov hit the table angrily with his palm. The glasses tinkled sadly and the dove, that had been sitting on the branch above their heads, soared in the silver blue sky hanging over them...

‘Yes, it was! A real war! We, a bunch of men against our people! It was so! Could we otherwise have established our system? With persuasion? Drivel. Only with your hand on the gun, that’s what we did. And after we won the battle, some people, like me, asked themselves: now what? What have we done? How are we going to live from now on? With whom, after we’ve bathed in blood, after we’ve been cursed night and day by the widows of the dead men... So, I suffered, after realizing...’

‘Yeah, I believe you! And how!’ exclaimed Gergiv, grinning.

‘I know you won’t believe me, I know!’ Smokov agreed ‘After killing for years on end, we grew more sophisticated. We understood there is another way. And we started to do the same, but using different hands. Yeah!’

‘Through our people, through the implied agents, huh?’ Gergov broke in.

‘Well, Gergov, ours, yours, in a certain moment it was no longer clear. It all got somehow confused. In the end, why did your friend Ivanov, die?’

‘Because you crippled him; you beat him to death and let him die at home!’ and he raised his finger at Smokov. Now he was really accusing, like a prosecutor ‘You did a dirty job!’

‘But who killed him? I can answer that question! And I’ll answer: we both killed him. Together. Yeah, that’s how Ivanov passed away.’

Gergov watched him, perplexed. Well, that was really impudent!
‘No, it’s not true!’ he said, ready to argue till the end of the world.

‘Believe what you will! However, I, unlike you, can prove my argument – I’ll apply what papers are necessary, every court will acknowledge them! But there is no use. It’s too complicated Gergov, nobody on this earth is either good or bad. If we can understand that, as people, as a nation, as human beings, too, we can be really saved!’

‘Are you going to teach me, now?’ Gergov stretched on his chair ‘I know your philosophy: we are all dirty bitches, we are all guilty!’

‘Well, isn’t that so? Because, I agree, we built the prison. But then we preserved it with both our efforts. There was always someone to throw out: ‘Look, chief, this bar is too weak!’ I’m telling him: mind your own business, I’m the expert in bars, and he persists. So, he wants his bars stronger! So, what do you want? Everyone became everyone’s supervisor, but that’s in man, too.

‘Which one?’ Gergov hissed spitefully.
‘To supervise. If not in man as a whole, in Bulgarians for sure.’

‘So, that’s your defense, You’ve been practicing this speech in front of the mirror, haven’t you, actor?’ Gergov smiled mockingly.

‘Now you’re being foolish. I’m telling you what I think. This could be my last minutes, how could I know?’ he stared at the ex-camper’s steady face and went on ‘You can take out a gun and shoot me. I could be talking in the face of death. And there, you talk truth and nothing but the truth!’ he said that bitterly, with chagrin.

‘And you are not afraid?’ Gergov fixed him icily.

‘I felt ashamed, but now the shame is gone. Now I think that what has been done can not be undone. We are all guilty. Somebody – guiltier, like me, others – less, like you.’
‘Wow, now I’m guilty, too!’ Gergov exclaimed. He had started to enjoy the situation ‘Well, I think I’m not guilty.’

‘Now, you are! If I have gone through what you have, I’d fall over myself but I’d find my revenge I’d revenge myself on everyone who ordered such... such...’ he hesitated, uncertain about the right word and Gergov helped:

‘Yes, crimes! And what did you do, darling? When you returned from the camp, went back into your cave and shut your mouth. You’ve been handed a cushy director’s job and you took it – don’t ever forget – you took that privilege from the hand of the butcher! After the Change, too. Our system collapsed and you never care about your past, why? Why are you afraid of the past? You’ll say – ashes! Yes, but there are ambers in that ash, my man, that burn into the present! Look, I have cleaned the past for myself but for you – no, there is just no way out of it for you!’ he filled his glass and drank it in one gulp.

Gergov was amazed – what was exactly what the ex supervisor meant? He stood and thought in the deadly silence and at last, he uttered firmly:

‘There is a way. Let’s read this page about the past and close it forever at last.’

Gergov uttered the words a little higher than necessary and they sounded false, like a speech on a public meeting.

‘I don’t know. This is personal, Gergov. We can not read anything together. Can you feel you are infected by our ideology, too? Why do you always speak in the plural? Everyone should reach for the truth for himself. Alone!’ it was a different Smokov now – full of enthusiasm and, definitely, honest.

‘No, we’ll read together, buddy, all of us! Let the society know who I am, who are you! Who are the victims, who are the butchers! The name of everyone! Let’s read and judge. And after that – forget. Only then could we move on.’

‘Ah, no! If we start to read this way, we can’t stop. We’ll kill each other. After what happened with my children, I understood we should read nothing. Everyone should read into his soul. There is every document one needs. And that’s that.’ said Smokov curtly.

‘You are not right, but that’s best for you, so I can understand you!’ Gergov gave a malicious laugh.

‘No, I know already that if we start reading – we’ll grow mad. We’ll kill each other. We are one bunch of a people. If everyone learns the truth about everyone, OUN must send all its peace-making forces here!’ and he laughed heartily.

‘Your philosophy is very convenient, isn’t it!’ sighed the ex-camper in contempt.

‘That’s all from me! We reached the line! To go further will be dangerous!’ said Smokov and stood up.

Gergov was watching him, perplexed. Suddenly, the village church bells started tolling someone’s death. Smokov lifted his hand and started crossing himself: passionately, whole-heartedly, obediently, his fingers trembling all the time.

Smokov sat back and moaned:

‘It’s death, somebody’s blessed death again!... We are dying, Gergov!’

The ex-camper and at present member of the parliament waved his hand, bored.
‘They die! Old people! They can’t live forever!’
Smokov suddenly grew enthusiastic again:
’They die from lack of hope, mister! There is no light in the heart of man and he dies! Their children are abroad or drinking in the pub, wasting their lives! Unemployed, in other words, useless! And when the children are useless, what about the old men, mister? And they die, they die!’ He rose his voice angrily ‘Genocide and fascism is what you do, mister! You deserve the bullet, too!’ and then he started speaking thoughtfully again, even tenderly: ‘They quarreled with God, too, beside the fact they are eating at each other! And they hang each other, drown each other! Every day and every night! Father killed his son, son slaughtered his mother! They lead a war among each other! You brought this on them, to execute themselves alone! You don’t need camps, why should you need them?

The toll ceased as unexpectedly as it had began and Smokov was still crossing himself from time to time. Suddenly, he asked:

‘Cross yourself, you unbeliever! You do it on TV only, for people to see!’

Gergov smiled and said:

‘You cross, you have sins to atone for! My job is easy!’

‘You are a real fool!’ exclaimed Smokov angrily.

Gergov drank and said:

‘I hear, you’ve repaired the village church. You make your bed, in a way, bribing that one up there, oiling his hand! Is he going to take it, huh?’

Smokov got embarrassed and uttered:

‘Well, I saved up a little from my pension and gave them to repair the roof, you know, it leaked... it would have fallen if I... But anyway, no one is going there in the first place. Only me from the men and two or three crazy old women! That’s the local congregation, all of it! Now I’ve made some orders... for a cross and an icon, because they are stealing them all the time, you have no place to pray!’

‘So, you pray! And does he hear you?’ the ex-camper gave a wink.

And Smokov gave a start.

‘He!’
Smokov raised from his chair:

Smokov sat down again and waved his finger:

‘Don’t mock, Gergov. I talk to God, day and night I’m telling him about my life. I have things to say to him, he have things to say to me, too. What are we, without God, man?’

‘If there are no gods, you’ll make them up and adore them: Stalin, or Christ, it makes no difference for people like you! Well, then, Smokov, have you made an account before God how many people have you killed, name by name? How many have you crippled? Just the number? How many have you broken the legs of, the arms, or destiny? How many have you left without soul, curse you!’

Smokov’s face fell and he bowed his head:

‘Yeah, not very few of them. I’ve killed, I’ve crippled, I’ve raped the souls of many!’ suddenly his eyes flashed ‘I’ve confessed it. I’ve confessed everything to God.’

‘And he did what? Did he forgive you? Did he judge you? Or, probably, you won Him over your side?’

The ex-camp supervisor only shook his head, then stood up, picked two apples, rinsed them in the sink outside, put them on the table and pointed his finger at them:

‘Here, the forbidden fruit. Nice apples, aren’t they just magnificent?’ Gergov nodded, this one at least was true ‘But if eat them, you die.’

‘What are you blabbering?’ Gergov asked, very angrily; he grew tired of hints; he wanted everything cleared up in simple words. Actually, what could he want to learn from this disgusting person?’

‘The forbidden fruit, mister Gergov’ smiled Smokov enigmatically’ Has given men the curse of knowledge.’

‘What are you blabbering?’ Gergov snarled in a hostile and at the same time, condescending way.

‘Have you read the Bible? I’m giving you this fruit but you don’t dare touch it!’

‘You are grudging it!’ Gergov smiled and reached out for one of the apples.

‘No! Don’t do it! What if it contains the knowledge you mustn’t posses?’ the ex supervisor screwed up his eyes and laughed.

Gergov had already bitten at the juicy fruit.

‘I suggest’ Smokov said ‘that everyone should live his life as one knows it. Let’s stay with our illusionary view of ourselves, and of the others, if you like! And our souls will stay unmourned, misunderstood, as orphans, lost among rocks and heaths. That’s the way it should be!’

‘No!’ Gergov answered with a full mouth ‘You are running from retribution!’

‘I said’ the ex-supervisor shook his head, bored ‘I’m sitting here, waiting. So many years have passed. No one wants to hear, let alone take the other’s truth. You too, Gergov. You too, accuse, without even listening to the other. ‘he waved his hand in despair, took his glass again, played with it for a while, then drank.

‘What will I lose, if I know everything? If I know everyone who reported me? Or Ivanov and the rest of my friends?’ Gergov spoke passionately but felt the crawling fear of the coming knowledge. What could he possibly learn? And what should he do after that?
‘And their truths, the truths of those informers, will you take them, dear?’ Smokov was fixing him, his left eye still filled with blood, still working ‘Because you are going to loose everything, honey! I wanted the knowledge not for myself, but for the others! And I told you what happened!’ he was still smiling so strangely.

Gergov reached out and took the second apple. He was about to bite it when Smokov handed a knife to him.

‘Cut it, it could have a warm!’

Gergov split the apple in two equal halves and began to cut it in little slices. It was juicier and tastier than the first one.

‘Listen, Smokov I don`t have much time. I’m a busy man’ he looked at his watch ‘I was pushed into a parliament commission recently’

‘I’ve decided to reach the truth this time. I named all the scamps in the report. And the strange things began – they gave me some hints that they will reveal something disgraceful about me! I have been thinking a lot but I couldn’t find out anything. They are pressuring my son too -to influence me, if he wants to keep his job as a minister. And he told me – dad, my career is in your hands. What could they threaten me with? I don’t have anything in my past to be ashamed of...’

‘You are fooling yourself. We all have something to be ashamed of. And you have to agree, put out the names of these scamps, you have done this so many times.’ the ex-camp supervisor gave him a wink.

‘So you advise me that… So they really have something… Is that so?’

‘Yes. Since now they had been quiet – you have been stealing like everybody else. How did this ever come to your mind – to act like an angel? Keep on doing what you have done so far!

‘I don`t want to!’ Gergov whispered, becoming pale.

Smokov shook his head and sighed:

‘There`s no other way. You are doomed to be a minor swindler.’

‘You are not right!’ the ex-camper flared up.

‘And what about all those millions you had made, my friend? Were they achieved only by your hard work?’ the ex-camp supervisor burst out laughing.

‘Just like everybody else...’ Gergiev bowed down his head.

‘Well, now you will have to shut up like everybody else. That`s the only advice I can give you.’

‘Tell me, Smokov! Tell me the truth and I will decide what to do with it. Tell me!’

‘You don`t need the truth. Live with the illusions and that`s it’ said Smokov firmly.

‘I’m telling you – I want it. Give it back to me’ Gergov said steadily and clearly.

‘All right’ Smokov heaved a sigh and stood up ‘What you call a file is here, your file. I will give it to you’ and he raised, fixing his gaze on his face. As if he was waiting him to quit it.

Gergov also raised, turned back and went through the garden. There wasn’t even a blade of grass – Smokov laughed silently and thought “He set himself up as a great owner” Bounded to small steak piles, there were big reddish tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The lonesome corn was spreading mightily her leaves.

Suddenly everything turned back in Gergov`s mind – the camp, all the years after that, Ivanov`s smile, his wife’s soft palms. Gergov used to say – God took my youth, but he gave me a woman. She managed with everything – with their home, while he was away, she raised the child and they lived happily. Ivanov has exclaimed once, while he was watching her making coffee – There’s the kind of woman I have always dreamed of, my friend...

‘I have left everything on the table, buddy. So take a look!’ He heard Smokov’s voice behind his back. ‘I will water the garden.’

Smokov held the hose but he couldn’t see the bubbling water. When the water filled the ditch, he took the next. He couldn’t hear the rustling of the plants, that had made him drunk before. Here, he was thinking feverishly, now he would understand why he was released from the camp so quickly, and the others were left to rot for years. And that he had already found out what caused Ivanov’s arrest. It was clear to him why his friends have been disappearing one after another, first from the city, then from the world. Now he would understand the most dreadful thing – that everything he had spoken, during all his miserable life, was THERE, on these pages – day by day, month after month, year after year. A whole lifetime. And the cost of his freedom.

The hours were slipping away, it was nearly sunset.

Smokov put the hose on the ground; it began crawling and pushing up the water in the air. He crossed the few meters that separated him from the table and saw Gergiev – he was smoking, holding his head in both hands.

‘Drink!’ he pushed the glass of rakia towards him ‘You’ve understood it now.’

‘I did’ Gergiev uttered ‘She, my wife, reported everyone – me, my friends. She! And I love her, see!’

The silence hung over them like a snare.

‘You have some gasoline?’ Gergiev asked unexpectedly.

‘Gasoline?’ the ex-supervisor gave a start ‘No, I have some naphtha only… Give it to me!’

’I’m getting it from the cellar this minute!’ limped Smokov.

While he was coming back with the can in his hand Gergiev shouted:

‘I’m pouring, I’m pouring it!’ the ex-supervisor nodded obediently, in a servile way; and the naphtha started flowing down with a grisly gurgle.

‘My lighter! Where is my lighter!’ asked Gergiev, searching through his pockets, still keeping his look at the files soaked in naphtha.

‘Here it is!’ Smoke grasped it from the table.

Gergiev clicked, and the flame belched out. It soared up and licked the bent apple branches. The tree seemed to shudder and an apple fell down on the ground with a thud. Gergiev kicked at it in contempt.

When there was nothing left from the files but ashes, Gergiev made a step forward and started trampling over it. And he kept doing it, as if performing a strange dance.

‘Enough, come here!’ Smoke grasped his elbow ‘Come here and drink!’

Gergiev sat obediently. He snatched the glass with a trembling hand and drank thirstily. He lit a cigarette, drew at it once and threw it on the ground.

‘Jesus, my wife! How can I look her in the eyes now! The informer of my life!’ he clutched at the table with both hands, sobbed and his tears started falling down the table.

‘THE ANGEL OF YOUR LIFE, YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL, Gergov! She only wanted to help you!’ said Smokov in a solemn way, then went on quietly, as if desiring to hypnotize his opponent ‘She started in order to help you and later – to help all of us – you and the others, even me! Now you can’t understand that. You can’t conceive it at all! So don’t judge, just forget it!’

‘No!’ cried Gergiev ‘That can’t be forgotten! To live my whole life with a snake! Have I been blind, oh, my Lord! Have I been so foolish!?’

‘She was doing it for you only. It was love. Understand her! Listen, she turned us all from beasts to human beings. I owe this to her. I admit it. What horrible things we could have done, hadn’t she been there for us! She understands man, she respects man!’ Smoke was whispering dreamily ‘I whish there were more of her kind!’

‘Shut up!’ Gergiev jumped from his chair and snatched the glass bottle.

The ex-camp supervisor held up his arms to protect his head.

Gergiev, for one long dreadful moment, thought twice, and crashed the bottle on the cement.

They felt the strong smell of rakia in the air.

Gergiev went down the cement walk, he was reeling.

Before opening the gate, he turned back to Smoke and cried:

‘Good bye, you rat!’

‘Good bye, you saint!’ and a mocking laughter followed.

On the next day in the local newspaper, the leading issue came out with the headline: A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT DIED IN A CAR ACCIDENT. And followed by: ‘The reason: drinking.’

All content on this site is subject to copyright © 2000/2006If you wish to use anything either text or graphics please ask permission

All content on this site is subject to copyright © 2000/2006
If you wish to use anything either text or graphics please ask permission