Valley of Thracians (15 page)

Chapter
30

By the time I regain consciousness,
whoever threw a stone through the cabin window is long gone. I don’t know if
anyone saw me lying on the cot with my foot bleeding from the broken glass. I
limp around the room, avoiding the shards as I assess the damage. The front
door has been jacked open, and someone has forced his way inside. My belongings
are scattered. Shirts and sweaters have been thrown from their drawers, and my
paperbacks are lying everywhere on the floor, their pages bent back and
exposed. Smashed dishes clutter the sink. The garbage pail is overturned.
Unbelievably, my laptop is where I left it on the kitchen table. I have no
other valuables in my possession—no money or documents to steal—so I guess I
have gotten off quite lucky.

I take in the mess for a few minutes and
worry that the disorder will set off a debilitating migraine. I look for my
bottle of pills but don’t see it anywhere. I search under the cot, behind the
table, in the entrance hall. When was the last time I took my painkillers? I am
getting a bit edgy, fearful that my medicine may have been stolen by the
intruder. Why would anyone take a bottle of prescription pills? How will I
manage without it? I return to the bedroom and lie down, waiting for the waves
of darkness to engulf me. Surprisingly, they never arrive. My head remains
clear, and my thoughts remain focused.

I get up and begin sweeping up the shattered
glass. Katya will know how to go about switching the window pane, I tell
myself.

And that’s when I began to think
seriously about Katya—possibly for the first time. She has been caring for me
for so long, coming to the cabin regularly from her home in the village, yet I
know absolutely nothing about her. She must be in her mid-thirties. She’s about
my height, has a slim figure and curly brown hair. Her face is pleasant enough,
not overly beautiful, but then again, she’s the only woman I’ve seen in a long
time. In other circumstances, I might have been attracted to Katya. Perhaps if
my life in the cabin was a work of fiction, I would have fallen in love with
her by now. But, in this real, very strange situation, I haven’t had a sexual
thought in months, maybe longer. I suspect that my libido was also damaged when
I was struck in the head.

I continue to clean the cabin, surprised
that the severe headache I’d been expecting does not arrive at all. My mind is
sharp, refreshed. It’s as if I’ve woken from a long slumber, and I’m
re-energized. I return the books to the shelf, gather up my clothing, and
remove the fragments of broken dishes from the sink. I set the garbage pail
back in place and sweep up the last of the mess. By the time I finish, it is
starting to get dark. I go outside to breathe in the pure mountain air, filling
my lungs and feeling very light on my feet. It’s quite chilly and I shiver.

I touch the silver chain strung around
my neck. The chain and its Jewish symbols played an important role in my
childhood; I am convinced of this. If only I could figure out the chain’s
meaning I would be able to fully piece together my past. I believe it’s a vital
clue to regaining my memory. The way I’m feeling now, with a lucid mind that’s
free of pain, I’m sure I’ll be able to figure everything out very soon.

I stare up as the clear sky fills with
more stars than could ever be imagined. A bitter cold is descending with the
night, and I’ve never felt more alive. I’m fully confident that I can free
myself from my addiction to the medication. How could I have been so blind to
the fact that I’m perfectly capable of coping without the pills?

I look forward to sharing the good news
with Katya. She’ll be extremely happy to learn that I am recovering at last
from my head injuries.

“What happened here?” Katya asks me the
next day, coming inside with a big bag of groceries.

“Someone broke into the cabin,” I tell
her. “They threw a stone through the window and jimmied open the door.”

“Are you all right? I see you’re limping.”

“It’s nothing. I stepped on some broken
glass.”

“Let me take a look at your foot.”

She sets down the groceries and kneels
to examine my injury. My sock is bloodied, but my foot is no longer bleeding.
Underneath the stained cotton we discover an insignificant cut, nothing
serious. When Katya pushes the skin to the sides, searching for slivers of
glass, it’s quite painful, and I force myself to refrain from crying out.

“We’ll replace that windowpane,” she
says, bandaging my foot. “Scott, other than the foot, how are you feeling? Did
you take your medicine?”

 
“I didn’t, but I feel just fine,” I reply,
eager to share this news with her.

“You must take the pills, especially
after the trauma you’ve just been through with this break-in,” she says. “Yes,
I insist on it.”

Before I have a chance to respond, I
notice her staring at me with a strange look in her eyes. “Scott, do you know
what day it is today?”

“No,” I answer truthfully. I don’t have
a calendar, so there is no way for me to track time.

“I brought you a
martenitsa
!” she exclaims, rising to her feet.

“What’s that?” The name sounds vaguely
familiar, but I can’t connect it to anything specific.

“Don’t you remember?
Baba
Marta
?”

Baba
is the Bulgarian word for “grandmother” and
Mart
is the Bulgarian word for the month of March. Saying the two words together
refers to a certain day of the year, but the meaning escapes me.

“Let me remind you about the holiday,”
Katya says patiently, tying red-and-white strings around my right wrist. “Baba
Marta is a very moody woman, just like the month of March. When she is happy,
the skies are blue, but when Baba Marta is angry, rains and winds sweep the
countryside. On the first of March, this is how we welcome the arrival of
spring.”

The words bring back recollections of exchanging
the traditional tassels. The colorful string ornaments are also pinned to
lapels, I recall, and everyone has them. Perhaps they are worn as an amulet to
ward off evil. I’m not sure.

 
“How long do I need to wear this?” I ask,
regarding the string around my wrist.

“Until you see a stork or the first bud
on a tree,” Katya said, reminding me of how the custom plays out. “If you see a
blossoming tree, you can take it off your hand and tie it on a branch.”

“Well, the snow is gone, and, as you’ve
seen, the first hiker of the year has visited the mountains, causing all this
damage,” I reply. “I’m sure spring will come early this year.”

“You seem agitated. Let me get your
pills,” she says.

I hadn’t noticed that a new supply of
the drug was included with the other items in her delivery. Before I have a
chance to refuse the offer, she is handing me two of the small blue tablets and
insisting that I pop them one after another into my mouth.

I almost gag, nearly choking as I try to
spit out the first pill. Don’t swallow it, I tell myself, but then my
resistance fades and my throat relaxes. Could it be that despite my realization
that these pills are harmful to me I’m still addicted to them, and more
importantly, to how they affect me?

I try to mumble some words to Katya, but
I’m incapable of saying anything understandable. Soon the pounding in my head
becomes unbearable. I make my way to the cot where I collapse, relapsing into
the tortured condition from which I cannot escape.

When I awake, it is dark and Katya is
gone. I wonder who tied the
martenitsa
around my wrist.

Chapter
31

We’re at Sin City, our heads spinning
from Red Bull and vodka, watching the Bulgarians
bounce
to the strange but hypnotic beat of their revered
chalga
music. I don’t get it. How can this crass form of pop-folk,
which I find both degrading and degenerate, appeal to otherwise seemingly
mature adults? I see no value whatsoever in the pulsating beats, the blasts of
high decibels that reverberate across the crowded dance floor. The spiky-haired
deejay pumping the sound seems like a freak to me, only slightly more
respectable than the female Bulgarian pop star clutching the microphone on the
stage at the far end of the hall.

Our Bulgarian friends had invited Lance
and me to attend Andriana’s performance, and they were full of warm praise for
this popular
chalga
singer. She
certainly makes an impression, with her full mane of bleached, stone-white
hair, her skintight black leather pants and jacket, and a low-cut dress
revealing a massive pair of perfectly sculpted breasts. As for her voice, well,
it is more throaty than sensuous. I don’t understand what she’s singing, but
the lyrics probably relate how desperate she is to have someone ravish her—and
at that very moment on the dance floor, if at all possible.

The air is thick with cigarette smoke,
and the only sound I hear other than the disruptive music blasting from the
loudspeakers is the clink of glasses. Alcohol is poured freely and consumed
quickly, as if there is an imminent threat that prohibition will disturb the
party. Lance says something to me, but I cannot hear his words even though he
is nearly kissing my ears with his mouth. I grin in his direction. The hall is
dark, interrupted by a roving spotlight that briefly illuminates clusters of
chalga
groupies as they drink, dance,
and mingle.

As much as Lance and I have tried to fit
in with the Bulgarian youth with whom we’re working, both in the
English-language classes we give and in the after-school group activities we’ve
been organizing, I still feel quite out of place in this beat fest of Bulgarian
pop culture. I find the music and the top-heavy singer tawdry and shocking; I’m
surprised that the locals seem to love it. Andriana launches into yet another
top-ten medley that the crowd immediately recognizes from the MTV-rip-off
channels. The hall is too crowded to allow for real dancing, so all that the
clubbers can do is stand and sway like a tin of tormented sardines.

The setting is foreign to me, almost as
foreign as the Rhodope village in the south where Lance and I have been trying
to help residents organize the building of a playground, which will be the
first in their village. I smile to myself as I think of what Lance and I have
been doing together on this project. The budget has already been approved, but
before the order can be sent to the company that provides the lumber and parts,
we need to make sure the villagers are aware of what lies ahead. Building the
playground for their children is the end goal, of course, but doing it together,
with everyone pitching in, is the real objective of our community mission. Not
all the village residents realize that they’ll have to participate in the
physical labor. What do they expect—that Lance and I will do all the work for
them?

After our latest stint of volunteering,
Lance and I traveled to Sofia for the weekend to get some much needed rest and
relaxation, except that clubbing is more important to Lance than actually
catching up on lost sleep. I would have preferred to stay at the apartment, but
Lance convinced me to tag along to Sin City. The place turned out to be a
complex of clubs and venues, all under the one roof of an ultra-modern,
red-walled building standing out in stark contrast to the run-down buildings of
central Sofia. The security at the entrance was tight and selective. The
broad-shouldered thugs on duty were there to weed out not only teenagers but
also anyone deemed unworthy of entering such a high-level establishment.
Luckily, Lance and I were easily identified as foreigners, respectable enough
to get by with only a perfunctory inspection. The security guards feigned
interest in my American passport picture but then waved us into the noisy club.

Standing in the mayhem, the vodka and
Red Bull mix gives me a nice buzz, but I find that I need something more. I
pull out a joint from my pocket and wave it at Lance, but he shakes his head to
indicate that he’s not interested. A tall, thin guy about our age grabs my hand
and starts pulling me toward him. I immediately think it’s someone wanting to
share a puff of my weed, but it turns out he has a more powerful offer for me.

“You want to get really high?” he shouts
in English, and I barely hear him in the commotion.

“Sure,” I respond. What’s he got? Blow?
Freebase coke? Crack? I’m not particular to the exact name as long as it
produces the desired effect.

I follow him into the men’s bathroom,
which is a glistening, mirror-filled corridor bordered by stainless-steel
stalls and a row of urinals, each capped for some strange reason with a mound
of glistening ice cubes. There’s a couple in one of the stalls banging each
other and shaking the dividers. I don’t have a clue as to what sexes are
involved. My head is spinning, and I feel like my feet aren’t even touching the
floor. It’s only when the thin man pulls out the syringes and alcohol swabs
from his pocket that I start getting nervous.

While I smoke weed recreationally—well,
maybe excessively—and while I’ve been known to snort coke at parties and among
friends, I’ve never shot heroin before. I don’t know if I’m ready for this. I’m
a bit reluctant to try this for the first time in the restroom of a flashy
Bulgarian nightclub.

“Give me some cash, and I’ll give you
the ride of a lifetime,” the guy says to me, and I notice in the florescent lights
that his inner arms are scarred with the markings of heavy drug use. I
immediately don’t trust him at all. I should get back to Lance on the dance
floor. What was I thinking?

“Try it,” he insists, his voice soft and
innocent. “This is the purest high you’ll ever experience.”

For a Balkan drug addict, he knows
pretty good English, I think. “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” I reply, voicing my
refusal and attempting to push past him.

The grunting in the stall continues, the
couple oblivious to the deal being conducted nearby. “I thought you Americans
liked the real stuff,” the guy says, upset that his offer has been rejected.
“This is the best powder, straight from Turkey. Come on and try it. You’ll like
it. You won’t be sorry.”

That’s when two men burst into the
bathroom. Oh, no, busted!

“It’s not mine!” I cry out, distancing
myself from the acne-faced man with the syringe in hand.

But it’s not the Bulgarian narcotics
squad. I almost smile when I recognize the unexpected visitors in the club
bathroom.

“Thank God you’re here,” I greet them.

“You’re coming with us,” Vlady says. My
host father Boris, never one for words, shoves the drug addict to the floor as
easily if he were a thin piece of cardboard. “We’ve got work to do,” Vlady
adds.

As much as I hate hanging with these two
crooks, these no-good smugglers and assumed murderers, I’m glad that they’ve
arrived just in time to save me from making what could have been the biggest
mistake of my life. We leave the bathroom just as an orgasmic cry signals
satisfaction in the toilet stall.