Does anyone know any storys from bulgaria?

[bjm]

Hi There,
I plan to move to Bulgaria at the end of this year from the UK.

I know that from a historical point of view it is full of history,but i was wondering if anyone knew of any storys of lost treasure, or any websites where i may start looking?

In England i have done lots of reserch, metal detecting and digs local to where i live,(wirral, cheshire and north wales) My claim to fame is finding the location of a roman villa. But when it comes to Bulgaria i have to start anew so any help will be good.

I have got two houses so far in two parts of the country so far, 1. near pleven,not far from the danube, 2. near the old capital of veliko tarnovo, if this helps.

I know that for years tombs in the hill sides have been plundered by locals just to make ends meet, so there must be lots to look for.

Does anyone know of how the country was used during the world wars?

Sorry for asking so much,

Many Thanks
Brian

 

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[bjm]

Hi There

I have heard from people that have gone over to Bulgaria and stayed at sunny beach

that metal detecting regulary takes place on the beach. I no that this does not mean it

is legal though.

Many Thanks

Brian

 

[Montana Jim]

http://www.notsi.com/eng/about-eng.htm

http://www.detectorx.com/news/gold-dagger-found.php

http://www.whatsonwiltshire.co.uk/metaldetector.html

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

When Men Were Men

by Nikolaj Hajtov
(translated from Bulgarian by Michael Holman)



I was a right daredevil in my young days. Bold as brass and blood on the boil. Not big, just tough. A Martini-Henry barked from my shoulder, daggers in my belt - two and sometimes three — and a revolver here at my side. Everyone knew me, and when I took anything on, there was no messing about. If a bride needed stealing, it was me they called in. No time for cooings and wooings in those far-off days when men were men.

This neighbour of mine had took a fancy to a young lass in Nastan, and one day he called me round.

'What would be your price,' he asked, 'for getting her to the hodja?'

'A hundred levs each for me and my two mates, plus a couple of hundred extra for drink. Five hundred and she's yours.'

He agreed to it and a few days later off we went to Nastan. When us four strangers turned up in the village, the news soon got about. 'They're coming to get you,' the girl was warned. So she stayed inside. And her brother loaded his rifle. 'Just let them try!' he said. 'I'll blow their brains out!' A whole day we waited, then another, but still she didn't come out.

On the third day along came Shoukri, an old friend of mine from Nastan, and told us what's up. 'Look sharp!' he said. 'They've gone ploughing up at Blatnishte.' 'And the girl?' 'She's with them,' he said. All the better! Out there in the fields she wouldn't stand a chance. Her brother was a tough nut it's true, but there were four of us and only one of him.

We stocked up with wine and rakiya and crept off along the road to Blatnishte. When we got there we hid by a spring under some huge great pine trees and sat ourselves down to wait. Quite close the field was, so we could see them ploughing, the girl and her brother. 'How about a drop of rakiya?' I says to the others. 'She won't be taking them oxen of hers to the water till midday. We can grab her then.'

That's what I said anyway, but things turned out quite different. A young goatherd spotted us creeping around at the edge of the field, shinned up a pine tree and began yelling for help.

'He-e-e-ey ! Aga Sheba-a-a-an !' (Her brother was called Sheban just like me.j 'They're hiding in the hollow!' he yelled. 'They're after your sister! Watch ou-u-u-ut!'

'That's torn it,' I says to my mates. 'Come on, into the open!’

Her brother caught sight of us, shoved his sister behind him, grabbed his axe and stood there, waiting.

'Get you back where you came from!' he hollered. 'Or I'll have your guts for garters!' And he started pelting us with stones to keep us off. We kept moving forward though - it needed more than stones to stop us — and I hollered back at him:

'You haven't a chance! We'll wipe the floor with you! And if anybody's guts get used for garters, it'll be yours. Drop that axe,' I tells him, 'and scram! She won't come to no harm, your sister. She's coming to town with us.'

'Get back !' he yelled. 'Or I'll hammer your swedes!'

My mates went weak at the knees, but I kept going. One hand on my dagger, the other on my revolver.

'We'll see whose swedes get hammered,' I yelled back, and threw myself at him. Down came the axe - nearly took my head off, it did - but I jumped to one side, and it got me in the arm, just below me elbow. Clean through the sleeve it went, right to the bone. That was my left arm done for, so I grabbed him with my right. I got him round the neck and threw him on his back. Aye, I was tough in those days. There was no holding me! I pinned him down with my knee, grabbed hold of a lump of wood and clobbered him over the head. Split his head right open. Then I took off his sash and we tied him to a tree, so he couldn't move. Bandaged his head with the sash too, just like a turban. But when we got to looking for the girl we found she'd done a bunk. Scarpered. While we was dealing with her brother. What to do next?

I laid into the bridegroom. ‘Got eyes in your head, haven't you?' I shouted. 'What do you think they're for, you miserable donkey!'

Anyhow we hunted around a bit and found her in a copse of hornbeam. Lying there quiet as a mouse, with her veil pulled over her head. We pounced on her, but she fought like fury. Four against one it was, yet she gave as good as she got. In the end we caught her by the plaits and she gave in. Then we took her back to her brother in the field. He'd had enough and wanted us to untie him.

'Please let me go!' he begged. 'Please don't leave me to die tied to this tree! ‘

So we let him go. Took pity on him. You should have seen him run! Like greased lightning. He forgot his plough and his sister, and in a flash he'd disappeared in the hollow.

'All right then,' I says to our bride, 'come along my little rabbit, we're going to marry you to this fine young fellow here.'

To that little slobberchops ? Never!' she said, and spat in his face. 'You'll never catch me marrying him!'

We threw ourselves onto her again and started dragging her up the hill. She had other ideas, though. She didn't want to come at all. So we got hold of her nice thin plaits and yanked half of them out by the roots. She still wasn't having any. In the end we caught her by the arms and legs and heaved her up in the air. And we carried her like that, all arms and legs, right the way to the Djindjov pond. I've stolen a fair number of brides in my time, but never a woman like her! Tough, I'll say she was, and stubborn as a mule. But a fine piece of woman, broad in the beam and firm in the waist. Well stacked up front too, drive you wild just to look at it all. I could hardly keep my hands off her.

Once into the wood we turned off towards Grohotno. We was expecting her brother back with extra helpers chasing after us, so rather than take the direct route to Dyovlen we cut through the forest. We got tired of carrying our bride, so we put her down and took to dragging her instead. Her trousers got ripped to shreds. At one point the bridegroom was all for jacking it in.

'Might be better to let her go,' he says. 'She's a wild beast, not a woman.'

'What! So she can tell everyone how she got the better of us? You must be going soft in the head!' So off we went again, downhill this time, all the way to the river near Grohotno. We was wanting to turn off by Hamam Springs for Dyovlen, so we needed to get over t'other side. It wouldn't be easy though, not with the river almost bursting its banks and the water seething and frothing something awful. The nearest bridge was in the village, so that wasn't a lot of good to us. Like it or not, we'd have to take a dip. My two mates, the ones as was helping, they didn't fancy the idea, so they turned back. Scared of the water! Can't say the bride was too keen on a swim, neither. So I said to the bridegroom: 'Toss her over your shoulder,' I says. All very well, but she was a big lass and he hardly came up to her chin. Not built for 'tossing', he wasn't. So I told him to kneel down. 'Kneel down,' I says, 'and get her on your back.’ He knelt down, but still she wasn't having any. I tried to shove her onto him, but with my gammy arm, I couldn't budge her. She'd dug her heels in and wasn't moving. So out comes my dagger and up against her breast it went! 'Right,' I says, 'see if spilling a little blood won't help!' I presses the dagger and she bends back, I presses harder and she bends further, till she's lying right across the bridegroom's back. Then up he gets and into the river with her! Holding on tight now, she was - didn't have much choice.

'Keep going!' I yells, 'and don't turn round! I've got her feet!'

He took a couple of steps and then - oops! he tumbled into a hole and disappeared under the muddy water, bride and all. And I was left holding her stockings! 'Bloody hell!' I thinks, 'that's the end of our beautiful bride!' And I dives into the water after them. I wasn't a bad swimmer, so I wasn't afraid of water. But there wasn't only water in that river, there was rocks and bloody great lumps of wood as well! Terrible! One branch stabbed you in the belly, another cracked into your shoulder and a third nearly broke your back. If anybody's life needed saving, it was mine. With two hands I'd have been all right, but with only one. . . . Anyhow, I managed to get my teeth into the girl's leg, caught hold of a tree-root with my hand and heaved myself onto the bank. Two hours we lay there without a word, black and blue and numb with cold, with the moon looking down at us. ... Midday, it was, when we'd dealt with her brother, the whole afternoon we'd spent catching the girl and lugging her through the forest, and by the time we got to the last bit the moon was up. A good while we sat there.

Then I said to her, 'Come on,' I says, 'we'd best be getting along.'

But the girl still wasn't having any. 'I'm not moving from here!' she says. 'You can drown me in the river for all I care.'

So I tried being nice to her. 'Come along Emine, my little chicken. Don't make things difficult for us. We could get rough, you know. . . .'

Still it was 'No!' Then she started telling me about her brother being a robber over the border in Greece and how he'd shower me with gold if I let her go. Begged me to let her go, she did, because she'd never agree to marry that little wretch over there, so I might as well give up trying to make her.

The bridegroom, he'd properly got the wind up. Sitting and waiting, and looking to me for help.

'Up you get,' I says to her again. 'It's marriage for you, my girl! To this fine young man here.'

'Him? Never! Fine young man indeed! Let me go! You can kill me, but I'm not moving from here.'

Then I got out my revolver and pointed it straight at her.

'Eight's my score so far - you'll be number nine. On your feet, I say, or you'll be joining the rest!'

That scared her, and she got up. On and on we walked, and soon it started getting light. I could see we'd already passed Hamam Springs and were going down Crooked Hill towards Dyovlen. All night we'd been walking, up hill and down dale, through bushes and bracken till we was properly tousled and tangled. It was all right for us men to walk about in rags - or in nothing at all for that matter - but the girl couldn't be seen in town looking like that.

So I had a word with the bridegroom.

'You get along and bring her some clothes,' I says. 'We can't go taking her into Dyovlen all dog-eared and torn.'

But he took me to one side and started whispering in my ear:

'Fine,' he says, 'but how about leaving us on our own for a moment. So I can try a bit of the old charm like, to soften her up.'

'Why not,' I says, and a bit further on I loosened me belt and called over to him. 'You keep going,' I says. 'Got something I must see to - call of nature.'

They went on, and I stayed back. I kept an eye on them though. A bit further up the road they stopped. It looked like the bridegroom said something to her and then he trips her up, throws himself on top of her and tries to get her legs apart. But she isn't having no nonsense. She bends her knees and gives an almighty kick. Arse over head goes the bridegroom — one, two, three somersaults in the air, I can't rightly remember how many it was. You stupid young twerp, I thought to meself. Shouldn't go messing around if you don't know how. Anyhow, I caught them up and off we went once more. I sent the bridegroom to fetch the clothes, and me and Emine, we sat ourselves down just above Dyovlen to wait for him to come back. She was glaring at me, real wild.

'What's the big idea, letting that little driveller come slobbering over me?' she says. 'I won't have him! Kill me, if you want, but I'm not going to Dyovlen!'

'Oh yes you are,' I tells her, 'I'll make damn sure of it! Getting paid good money for it, I am.'

'You'll get your money, all right,' she says. 'My brother will give you all the gold you need. You just let me go, that's all I ask."

'No,' I says, 'I've promised, and promises are something money won't buy. You're going with me to Dyovlen!'

'With you,' she says, 'I'd go anywhere. But I'm not going nowhere with him!'

'Good God!' I thought, 'that's quite a change of tune!' Got a wife at home, I had, but this little piece was something special. White as milk and eyes like two daggers searing your flesh! And those breasts! Two great mountains of fire sizzling through her blouse!

'Do you want to?' she asked. 'Take me then!' It was a sin, but it was sweet, my friend! I up-ended her on one side of the meadow, and we was right over yon side by the time we was through. Not a blade of grass left standing. 'So far, so good,' I says to meself. 'But where do we go from here? If you keep her for yourself, you'll bring shame upon your trade. If you give her the push, it'll be like a knife in her heart.'

She could see I was having second thoughts. 'Well, am I going with you?' she asks, with those eyes boring into me. Got me on the hook, she had, bloody woman' It's times like that two hearts come in handy -one for honour and the other for love. But however much you hack it and slash it, the damned thing will never split'

In the end I plumped for honour and I told her ;

'You're not coming with me,' I says. 'You're going with him! . . . And that's that!'

'Not with him, I'm not!' she says. 'Oh yes you are!' I tells her.

'Never!' And she made a run for it. She was looking into my eyes one minute, and the next she'd scarpered. I threw myself flat and grabbed hold of her foot. And before I could get up or turn round, she was off, curving and twisting like a regular whirlwind, dragging me after her, over the stones and through thorns and prickles. She threshed the whole field with me, poor lass, but I'd hooked on to that ankle and I wasn't letting go. In the end she tripped and fell, all foaming at the mouth. I'd taken quite a bashing too, but there was nothing I could do about it. So we sat ourselves down and had a little rest. Then I said to her:

'Well, now are you going?' I says. 'Ouf! Do what you like with me !' she says. A bit later the bridegroom turned up again. We got the girl dressed and set off for Dyovlen. Over the bridge, and we'd be home and dry, as they say. Another good job done, I thinks to myself, that's the life for me! Bring out the flags!

No, not flags, not yet awhile, my friend. . . .! Just coining up to the bridge, we were, when some character with his jacket pulled over his head jumped out and started screaming at us.

'Stop! One step further and I'll blow your brains out!' There was a dirty great gun staring me in the face not ten paces away. And a bandaged head as well. Aha! I thought, her brother again. He must have known we'd be coming over the bridge into Dyovlen, so he'd been waiting for us by the river. My neighbour the bridegroom was walking along behind and when he saw what was up, in a flash he was over the hedge. That left me standing there in the middle of the road. One arm in a sling and my revolver right round the back where I couldn't reach it. He'd blast me to kingdom come, that devil would, before I'd be able to get anywhere near it.

'Stay where you are!' he shouted, pointing his gun straight at me, and moving forward to grab his sister. And then, believe this if you will, that young sister of his, who we'd spent all night hauling through the bushes and tearing to shreds, went and jumped in between us! All on her own, with no help from me.

With my good hand I grabbed her round the waist and called out to her brother:

'One step further and we'll be in the river, me and your sister!'

Down below that old river was boiling away something terrible! He froze in his tracks. Backwards we went, step by step, me and his sister, across the bridge to the other side. I'd got her real tight - I wasn't letting her go this time! And all he could do was stand there and gawp. No chase, no shooting, no nothing. . . .! It was the first time in my life I'd seen a real live mummy. White as a sheet, all the blood gone out of his face, standing there like a lump of stone. Then he threw down his gun, put his hand over his eyes and began to blubber. I'd never seen a man blubber. That was the first time. ... I felt like giving his sister back to him and moving out, but that wouldn't have done no good- After all, what you want to do and what you can do is two different things - not the same at all, they aren't. . . .

So in the end we got her to Dyovlen. We took her straight to the hodja to get her wed.

'Woman,' he says, 'will you take this man to be your husband?'

'Him? Never!'

Then the hodja too began cursing her. 'Good God ! You are a stubborn wench! You get yourself torn to shreds, and still you won't say yes. Sheban, take her back to the forest and leave her there for a while. Maybe that will knock some sense into her head.'

That scared her, and she gave in. They were wedded on the spot. . . .

Two months and a bit they stayed together, that's all. One day round came Emine to see my old woman. 'Why don't you take me to the fields with you?' she says. 'So you can teach me to sow maize.' Her husband had let her out. (It was the first time - he hadn't let her out before.) So off she went with my old woman to learn how to sow maize. My old woman came back alone, without the lass from Nastan. She'd got across the river and cleared off back to her village.

A short while later word came that she wanted to speak to me. I went to see her, and this is what she said:

'Help me to get shot of that driveller, and I'll give you whatever you want,' she says. 'What will you give me?' I asks. 'Two gold coins,' she answers, 'material enough for three pairs of leggings, and some leather for tsuruoulis. . .. That's what she said she'd give me.

'If that's your offer,' I says, 'the job's as good as done!'

Then I went back to Dyovlen and had a word with my neighbour. 'Why not throw her over and be done with it?' I says to him. 'Whatever you do, she'll never come back of her own free will. If you want her back, we'll have to go stealing her again, like we did last time.' 'Not on your life!' he says. 'I'm not going through all that again, even if I stay a bachelor the rest of my days.' 'If that's how you feel,' I says to him, 'give her up as a bad job. We'll see if we can't steal you another - meek and mild - one you can get along with, like.'

'And what will be your price this time?'

'A hundred each for me and my two mates, and a couple of hundred for drink. Five hundred in all.'

'Very well!' he says. 'And you can go and tell that wild beast in Nastan that I'm through with her.'

'That you'll have to do yourself,' I tells him. 'Come along to Nastan with me and get the hodja to divorce you. Then you can do what you please.'

So we went back to Nastan, got him divorced, and later we fetched him another one. Money for jam, it was, not like the first time: a tug at her plaits and she was meek as a mouse. . . .

And the first one, she gave me the two gold coins and the other things she said. ... A fair number of women I've stolen in my time, my friend, but that little vixen left the rest standing. Really got under my skin, she did. A whole lot of woman whichever way you grabbed her!

. . . Still I remember and regret the day I lost her. But as I said once before, what you want to do and what you can do is two different things - not the same at all, they aren't. . .

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

The Seed of the Dervishovs
by Nikolaj Hajtov
(translated from Bulgarian by Michael Holman)





To tell you the truth, this knot got into a tangle a good while back. I wasn't yet fourteen and had neither mother nor father. Father had been gored by Mizhou Selihov's cow, and the Spanish sickness carried off Mother, so I grew up with my old grandpa and grandma. But Grandma's right hand went stiff and there wasn't anyone to do the housework, so Grandpa set about finding me a wife. Didn't ask me about it though. In those days they weren't that worried what the young'uns who were getting married thought. Everything was arranged by the old'uns. Just the once I caught him talking about it to Grandma:

'But he's so young!' Grandma said.

'He'll toughen up,' said Grandpa. 'But we'll have to look around for a girl.'

What he looked for and how, I can't rightly say, but one day I got home from the pasture and found a great lanky fellow waiting for me with a huge pair of scissors stuck in his sash.

'Ramadan, my lad,' said Grandpa, 'we've got the tailor in to make you some breeches. How do you want them, dyed or plain?'

That's all I got asked. I was promised in marriage, married off, and all I got asked was : 'How do you want them, dyed or plain?'

Wednesday, it was, when the tailor came. Thursday my breeches were ready - dyed, with pocket flaps and braiding - and on the Friday the drummers were in the yard, thumping the big drums for the wedding. The drums were beating, the meat was boiling in the coppers, and still I didn't know who I'd be getting for a wife. I swallowed my shyness and tried asking Grandma.

'She's from the farmsteads on the hill, not from the village,' she said.

'But who is she? What's she like?' Grandma wasn't saying. And seeing as I didn't have the courage to ask Grandpa who she was and what she was like, I had to wait till evening. The hodja had finished wailing for us, the drums had finished their pounding, and the time had come for me to be alone in the room with my bride. But before we went into the room Grandpa called me to one side and said :

'Whatever you do and whatever happens, there's got to be blood in the morning! If you're a man already,' he said, 'do it like a man! And if you aren't, use your fingers or your fingernails. There must be blood though, or you'll be the laughing-stock of the whole village.' Then he shoved me into the room and locked the door.

I must have stood there about half an hour like a lump of stone, not daring to open my mouth or to take off her bridal veil. Then at last she took off the veil herself and showed her face. I was afraid my old Grandpa might have served me up with some old hag, but what I saw before me was a real butterfly of a girl, as white as milk, with eyes all misty - you should have seen her! I went on staring at her like some wild animal, and she stared back at me. Then she burst out laughing :

'Are you shy, then?' she said.

'Yes, I am.'

'Why are you shy? Just look what huge breeches you've got! And what a sash too! Shall we have a game of spinning the top?' And before I could say whether I wanted to play or not, she had grabbed me by my sash and was pulling me to and fro, winding me up and unwinding me again, like a top. . . . We were having such fun we didn't notice when the first cock crowed. Suddenly I remembered the blood, and my brow creased into furrows. 'Soon it will be dawn and the others will come asking about the blood. And then what?' She noticed something was wrong and asked me what was worrying me. So I told her.

'It's the blood!'

'I'll get you some,' she said. And she puffed herself up so her face turned purple and blood came gushing out of her nose. No point in going on about the blood, where we smeared it and how - everything passed off all right and I settled down with Silvina like we was man and wife. She was still a girl maybe, but she was a woman too. With womenfolk, the woman is already there in the child. Perhaps it's under the eyelashes or under the nails, but she's there all right! Men are different, though. A man isn't a man until he's got enough beard to prickle a woman's cheek. But when his heart gets set on a woman, like mine did, the head and the beard don't matter a bit. While we were winding and unwinding each other, laughing and playing, that heart of mine got itself all wound up too, and when it was given a tug to unwind it again, out it came, roots and all.

How it happened, I tell you, nobody really noticed. Everything was going along nicely, smooth as water, as they say, and no one had the faintest idea that there was a rock under the water, waiting to hole our boat and smash it to pieces. Silvina used to spend most of her time at home looking after Grandma, and she always had some soup waiting when we got back from the fields. She swept up, did the housework, and our old house shone like the sun. Even the rafters joined in the merriment, decorated by Silvina with all kinds of flowers and herbs. She washed the little window in our room and polished it three times a day, and in the morning she looked at herself in it when she did her hair. What hair she had! From one position it was fair, but shift around a bit and it was kind of reddish, like it was glowing. Move again, and it was alive with yellow and gold! When she began to comb it, I Just stood and watched. And I'd go on gazing at her till Grandpa brought me back to earth again :

'Come along Ramadan! The goats will be starving!' What a torment it was with those goats! That lazy old summer sun would stand still in the middle of the sky and wouldn't come down! It didn't give a damn that I had a wife in the village and was itching to jump up and fetch it down with my crook, and then bury it in the ground so it would never rise again! Then it would always be night and I would always be lying next to her or blowing on her eyelashes. It was a little joke we had, a kind of game, really: when I woke up in the morning I used to blow on her eyelashes till every hair was in place. I'd promised Silvina I'd bring her back a horn comb for her eyelashes when I went to the market in Filibe with Grandpa. But it never got any further than a promise. . . . We'd been out hay-making. Grandpa and me, and when we got home in the evening we found the house dark and empty - no wife anywhere. Grandma said Silvina's brothers had taken her away. She'd tried to stop them, Grandma had, but they'd shoved her aside and taken Silvina. They wanted her to collect the rest of her dowry they said, bundled her onto a horse, and before anybody could stop them, they thundered off in the direction of the beech woods.

No point telling you what a state I was in, but when Grandpa saw me grab a knife he caught hold of me and shouted to Grandma :

'A rope, give me a rope!'

Grandma fetched a rope, and Grandpa tied me to a post and said :

'I want you for seed, so you're not going nowhere! Not until Assan Dervishov hears the cry of his great-grandson will he let you go. Then you can kill yourself wherever you like!'

Then he jumped on the mule and dashed off, shouting to Grandma:

'Mind you protect the seed of the Dervishovs, or I'll carve the head from your body!'

Grandma knew her old man too well, so she didn't untie me. It was like a hundred leeches clinging to my heart. I felt that weak I was almost dead, and my only hope was that maybe Silvina's brothers had really come about her dowry. They were her brothers, after all, not complete strangers.

In this way I managed to kid myself till morning came and Grandpa returned. The mule was all foaming, and Grandpa was tattered and torn where he'd been through the bushes. He shoved me into my room and locked the door. Then he and Grandma went off to their room. There was a wall between the two rooms with a chimney in the middle, where the wall was thinner, so I could hear what they were saying. I crouched down in the fireplace and listened. Grandpa was speaking very softly, but I could hear everything.

'He's lost his wife,' he said. 'Her brothers, good-for-nothings that they are, have discovered she's still a virgin and have given her to Roufat in exchange for a couple of billy goats.'

'What's happening now?' asked grandma.

'Now they're dragging her off through the woods,' said Grandpa. 'Heaven only knows when they'll get back. . . . And even when they do, she'll be little use to me with a stranger's seed in her belly!'

'So what are you going to do about it ?' asked Grandma.

'Do you know what I'd like to do?' Grandpa said. 'I'd like to get to work on those Roufats with my double-barrelled shotgun and crack them like lice! And I will too! But not yet. I'll get Ramadan married off first and I'll wait for my great-grandson to come along, and then I'll make Roufat's mother rue the day she was born!'

These were the exact words Grandpa used, and they drew me further into the fireplace. I crouched down completely still. And that's where they found me early next day - lying in the ashes ! That same morning Grandpa brought the hodja and they made me swear I wouldn't hang myself, nor drown myself in the river, nor quarrel, nor fight. . . . and that I'd provide Grandpa with a great-grandson before I blew out my brains. . . .

From then on everything that happened hit me right here in the heart. It plunged into me like an old packing needle. The first needle was driven in when Silvina returned to the village. The Roufats lived next door. There was just the single fence separating us, but nobody saw them return. For a month and more Silvina didn't show herself. The brute had messed her about and had bitten her cheeks to shreds, and she didn't dare show her face. Then the story got round about what had happened to her and how.

Roufat had taken a liking to her the first day he'd seen her walk into the courtyard, and he'd made a hole in the wall so he could watch her. He was seven years older than me and a right good-for-nothing. He didn't go to the fields or collect wood, but gave his father a hand in the butcher's shop instead. He drank plum brandy, bared his teeth and made a great show of his money.

They had two billy goats, the Roufats did, with beards, and two huge bells round their necks, and when the bells rang you could hear them ten hills away. Redjep and Yumer, Silvina's brothers, were a greedy pair. Shepherds they were, and mad about bells and billy goats. So they bargained with Roufat - they wanted his goats, and he wanted their sister. They realized she still had the Belly of a virgin and they gave her to him.

I wanted to see Silvina very much, but that brute kept her locked up, so it was impossible. I worked out how I could manage it though, and when it got dark I climbed onto the roof of our house and hid behind the chimney. From there I could peep through a tiny window into the Roufats' place. It was only a weeny little round thing, that window, but when they had the paraffin lamp lit inside, I could see everything. Well, nearly everything, anyway. ... I could see them sitting at table . . . clearing things away, making up the bed and then lying down to sleep. ... I could see Roufat untying his sash. . , . And . . . I couldn't see her eyes, but her head hung down like her neck was broken. . , . And he kept grabbing hold of her head, propping it up on his thumbs and then biting her like a wild animal. . . .

So long as they had the light on, my heart melted like a candle. How it didn't melt right away and vanish completely, I don't rightly know, but there was always enough for another evening, and another. . . . Grandma found out I was hiding behind the chimney and she told Grandpa, but he didn't let her finish:

'Let him sharpen himself up,' he said. 'Get some malice under his belt! That'll learn him to go taking a woman's blood from her nose!'

Whether Grandpa was right or wrong, it's not for me to say, but he was certainly right about the malice! When your sorrows are too many to bear, it's only the malice that keeps you going. Ever seen a scarecrow stuffed with straw? No heart, no bones, just straw holding it up? Well, that malice was my straw! Nothing else holding me up -just the malice I'd stored up for Roufat. Always on my mind - under the blankets and in the fields. Night and day I thought how I'd hack him to pieces with an axe, or stab him in the belly with a knife so he wouldn't die immediately, but would suffer. . . . And I thought how I'd drag his guts over the ground, and trample them with my feet and tear at them with my fingernails. Later even that was too good for him: the knife would be too quick and he wouldn't suffer enough, so I thought up a new torture for him : I'd throttle him, very slowly, taking rests in between. But then I realized that once I got my hands on him I wouldn't be able to let go, so I gave up the throttling idea as well and thought up different tortures instead. Three hundred times I killed him and brought him back to life again. My head was on fire. A thousand times I slaughtered him and flayed him alive. My hands were shaking, and I gnashed my teeth, and in the end the straw in the scarecrow burst into flame. I fell ill and went down with a fever.

Then Grandpa got scared - not about me, but about the seed of the Dervishovs. He bundled me up and took me off to Trigrad to see big fat Aishe. She stuffed me full of bitter potions and rubbed me with all kinds of ointments, and in a week my fever went down and I was cured-Grandpa didn't take me back to the village. He left me in Tigrad with Deli Yumer's goats. And he told Aishe to give me all the potions she wanted, only I wasn't to come home till I had a beard and moustaches. And that's just what happened: whether it was the potions did it, or my age, a few months later moustaches and a beard darkened my face. . . . Not much of one, but it was a beard all the same! My heart softened a bit too - must have been the same herb : the herb of life, it's called, and you take it for love. Then Grandpa came for me :

'Come on,' he said, 'I'm going to get you married. Because my hands are itching to make Roufat's mother rue the day she was born !'

'Marry me off if you want,' I told him. 'Bury me in the ground! Do whatever you like, only you're not touching Roufat! He's for me!'

I made him promise, and I got married too, right there in Trigrad. No playing around this time: the nightdress was done properly and everything happened the way it should, and I had a child born not in the ninth month, but in the seventh! He must have known Grandpa was in a hurry, so he popped out a couple of months ahead of time.

It was years since I'd seen Grandpa laugh, but he laughed this time. . . . And then he laid himself down to die. Laid himself down, he did, three days after the child was born. Walking to and fro and laughing one minute, then he flopped on the bed and his left eyebrow started bouncing about. He called me over.

'Ramadan, my boy,' he said, 'my eyes have seen the seed of the Dervishovs, and now I shall take the good news to your father. And as for Roufat, I'll leave him for you.'

And with these words Grandpa passed on, leaving me to deal with a wife, a child and Roufat too. Come on Ramadan ! I said to myself, now let's see how you can manage three things with one pair of hands. Three things: an enemy, a wife, and a child. All straw to hold up the scarecrow. So he can walk straight. You graze the goats, plough and eat, but Roufat the butcher has got your heart and your liver, and he can squeeze and twist them whenever he wants!

At first I told myself that the child needed to grow a bit, to be weaned from its mother before I slit Roufat's belly open. Then I said to myself: let him learn to walk first! But before he got to walking Silvina started going about the yard with the baby in her arms. Very slowly she walked, like she'd walked a long way already. Her face was hidden by her yashmak, so I couldn't see it, but her eyes turned this way and that, seeking to catch a glimpse of me.

I bored a hole in the hay-loft and began to watch her. And while I watched her from the hay-loft, Roufat kept an eye on her from the window, and my wife kept an eye on me. Good thing she was meek and mild, my wife, no shouting and arguing. She shed her tears in silence and didn't say a word.

The days slipped by, always the same: whether I was ploughing or digging or grazing the goats, I always hurried back before dark. I stuck my eye to the hole in the hay-loft and waited for Silvina to appear. If I saw her, the poison and the weariness melted away. But if I didn't, I'd think of Roufat and grind my teeth in envy the whole night long. I throttled him, poisoned him and flayed him alive, and my soul could find no peace. Many's the time I decided to finish him off, but then I remembered that prison walls had no holes for me to watch Silvina through, and I weakened and put things off once more. . . . And so life went on, day after day, year after year. If my children hadn't grown up and got married and had children of their own, I wouldn't have known how many years had passed. The oak fence between us and the Roufat's place rotted away, but our worries didn't change. And it can't have been easy for Roufat bedding down each night with a block of ice and waking up every morning with an icicle at his side. For though he'd already been drinking a good bit he began to drink even more. Whatever he thought about it, his reign was over. His butcher's shop was taken from him and that crushed him still further. And since he couldn't make good the loss with anything else, he made it up with plum-brandy. And that plum-brandy cut clean through to his backbone and landed him in bed. His daughter got married in another village, and Silvina was left with Roufat, all by herself.

About a month ago I did away with the rotten fence and walked round Silvina's yard like it was my own. From there we went into Roufat's room and sat down. For the first time the three of us were together! For the first time in forty years Roufat and I looked each other in the face, with Silvina between us. I have a sinful soul, my friend, and I don't mind telling you that I wanted to clasp Silvina in my arms there and then, in front of Roufat, so he could see her in my arms, like I'd watched her in his, my whole life through. But she wouldn't let me.

'It's enough that we are here,' she said. 'Because he was an animal is no reason for you to behave like one too!'

And now what? you might ask.

Well, this is roughly the way things stand. Roufat is always cold, and seeing as Silvina doesn't have a donkey, rather than her bending her back and carrying wood for Roufat's stove, I get it for her. A donkey-load of wood every day and still it isn't enough. The forest wardens have already reported me once, and now they're threatening to report me again. So I go out at night. I strain my eyes, rip my hands with the chopping, and when the wardens are asleep I drag the wood home along the gully. I'm breaking my back, for someone who burnt out my soul! Here am I, warming the body of a man who for forty years held me either in ice or in fire. But I can't stop! If I do, Silvina will have to get the wood herself. So you can forget about stopping. Only sometimes I even have to help him with his food; and he's that heavy to lift, when I change his bedding and, if you'll pardon the expression, get rid of his piddle. But she's a woman, she hasn't the strength to go lifting like that, so who helps Roufat? Ramadan, of course! And I have to do it, or it'll all be left for Silvina to do. ... I hear what people say in the village : 'Look at that, what a neighbour! What a man!' But they can't see what's going on here, inside. . . . Inside, my friend, there's boiling pitch, boiling and bubbling! I'm waiting for Roufat to pass on, so I can get married to Silvina, but the old brigand keeps putting it off. And that gets the pitch bubbling worse! I want to lie under the same blanket with her, like man and woman, and to hell with everything else. . . . Wife, children, a whole pile of grandchildren - I'd walk over the lot of them to go to her, but there's Roufat sprawled on his back like a lump of wood between us! And time is flying, my friend, and my knees are getting weaker. And if I lie with Silvina like man and woman, there's no saying we won't wake up like brother and sister. Sometimes I get to thinking: he's suffering, we're suffering, why not open the gates of hell for him? After all he's been knocking at them himself for a year or more. I wouldn't strangle him or drown him : just leave him in the cold for a couple of nights - that would do the trick. That's the way out, it seems to me, but when it comes to doing anything, I see Silvina's eyes looking at me and so I let things slide and head for the forest to collect firewood for Roufat. . . .

So here I am marking time at this crossroads and not knowing which way to go. If you can tell me, please do, but if you can't, just lend a hand with loading these branches onto the donkey. Because that old brigand is waiting, and his teeth are chattering with cold, and I really must be on my way.

 

[Montana Jim]

I knew someone would do that...

LOL

Nice one Sherm...

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Ibryam-Ali

by Nikolaj Hajtov
(translated from Bulgarian by Michael Holman)



He was a real man, make no mistake about it! A bandit he may have been, but a fine fellow all the same! We met a good few times, me and Ali. He used to call on me at the sheepfolds, looking for bread, and the more I saw of him the more I admired him. A game cock if I ever saw one! He'd come creeping up, and you'd be tripping over him before you knew he was there. And even the dogs never caught his scent. Delissivko had four guarding his place, but Ali got into the yard, climbed into Delissivko's bedroom, stuck a red-hot trivet over his head and made off without a woof or a whine from a single one of them. After that Delissivko chained them up, took his double-barrelled gun and shot them dead, for not raising the alarm.

Once I asked Ali how he did it:

'How is it the dogs never notice you?' I said.

'I rub myself down with a paste made from billy-goat's balls,' he told me. 'That kills any smell I may have!'

Whether he was telling the truth or only joking, I couldn't say, because he never laughed. In fact you never knew when he was joking and when he wasn't, for his face always stayed the same. Only once did I see him show any feeling : when he was caught the first time. They confronted him with his mother and tried to make her say he'd brought Delissivko's money home with him. She denied it, and Fandukli the field-keeper grabbed her by the plaits and hit her. Ali may have been bound hand and foot, but a twist of his body sent three policemen tumbling to the ground and a crack from his knee up-ended the field-keeper over t'other side of the room.

People said that later, up at the police station, the field-keeper burned Ali's neck with blazing straw and tried to break his leg with a lump of wood.

And what was all the fuss about?

Ten Turkish liras!

Ali worked as a farmhand for Delissivko, and one day Delissivko announced that Ali had robbed him of ten liras. Ali got locked up in the police station and was given such a thrashing the skin hung in strips off his backside - if you'll pardon the expression. The thrashing wasn't all though - for nearly three whole weeks they dragged him from one police station to the next, till he got the chance to give them the slip. Just taking him across a river, they was, when he shoved his escort into the water and made off into the mountains.

After Ali got away it came out that Delissivko's eldest son Marin had pinched the ten liras and had run off with the songstress from up at the pub. When Marin got back and found out what had happened he went like a man to his father and confessed it was him took the money. Ali was still at the police station then, and that's where Delissivko made his big mistake. Instead of letting Ali go and saying he was sorry, he ordered Marin to shut up and keep quiet.

Ali's first victim was the field-keeper who'd tried to break his leg. He caught him out in the meadows by Azmak and killed him. Then he sent Delissivko a note. He couldn't write himself, so he got a wood-cutter to do it for him:

‘Just you wait!' Then he cut his finger and instead of writing his name, he signed with a cross of blood at the bottom.

Delissivko got the wind up good and proper but seeing as he was rich he had plenty of friends in high places, and got the whole police force out looking for old Ali. When they couldn't find him they got hold of his mother. They tortured her and tormented her, but she wouldn't give her son away and in the end the old woman died. If they hadn't done this, most likely Ali would have made his peace with Delissivko and called it a day, but when his old mother was killed the final link between him and the world snapped. He turned wild, like a wolf, and became, as they say, a real desperado. He set fire to Delissivko's sheaves, burned down his sheepfolds, attacked his shepherds and destroyed the creamery where the cheese was made. Two hundred head of sheep he stole from Delissivko and drove them over the border. Later he began stealing from others as well, but never from the poor. The roads weren't safe. The authorities were at a loss what to do and in the end a five thousand lev reward was placed on his head. And money was worth something in those days!

Delissivko added another thousand, but still no one wanted to go after Ali and try and bump him off. Except for one Karakachani, who got hooked on the money. He tried to do the dirty on Ali, but Ali got wind of it, caught him and spiked him with his dagger. Then he chucked him on an ant-hill and let the ants gobble him up alive.

At one point I was accused of giving him bread. But what would you have done in my place, up there in the mountains with his knife at your throat ? You'd have done what he told you or you'd have danced the horo. And besides, we knew he hadn't always been a bandit. Delissivko made him into one. And he had such a beautiful voice too ! Nobody could match the songs Ali sang. There was one in particular: 'Roufinka lying sick and fading'. When he sang that song and his voice spread over the fields and meadows, the mowers laid down their scythes and the reapers their sickles - just so they could listen to his singing. Many a heart had beaten faster at that song of his, and the heart of Djinko's daughter Fatma from Kozlouk was one of them. She had been ready to become his bride, but her father wouldn't let her marry a farmhand. She had even been ready to defy her father and run away with Ali, and they had already agreed on the time and place, but Ali was not to know then that fate had other things in store for him: instead of 'snow-white Fatma with eyes so black', clubbings and whippings were to be his lot!

So Ali became a bandit. He was hunted beneath every blade of grass and wisp of straw, but he never forgot that song. Folk told how they'd heard him sing it on the barren hillsides and how the head forester from Belitsa had once followed Ali's singing and had wounded him, even killed him perhaps. To prove it the forester had brought back a blood-stained leather bag, embroidered with little blue beads, and with thirty gold napoleons inside. Ali would never have parted with a bag like that! Not unless he'd been in danger of his life.

That's what the fellow from Belitsa said, anyway, and everyone agreed with him. Delissivko, the old fox, believed the story too. He breathed freely once more, paid his thousand levs to the head forester and settled down to a life of peace and quiet. He started going out again, went to church, turned up at the village hall in a big fur coat and cursed and swore at the farmhands just as if nothing had ever happened. . . . Little by little us shepherds also began to think Ali must have died from his wounds, 'specially as not a single wood-cutter or shepherd had seen him around.

Things went on like this till one morning we heard that Ali had got into Delissivko's place during the night. And the best of it was, no one knew quite what he'd done. Delissivko hadn't been hurt - I saw him myself a couple of weeks after, walking round his yard : straight back, no limp, and no groaning and moaning neither. But his eyes never left the ground, and he no longer shouted and cursed.

Delissivko spent close on a month shut up in a room with three others - two keeping watch while the third slept - but he himself, or so the story went, never slept a wink the whole time. If he started to doze off, something would jerk him awake. He'd leap from the bed and start crawling round the floor, crying out: 'He's here! He's come !'

'There's no one, Master, no one's come,' the servants told him. But he kept on: 'He's here! He's here!'

One evening he told the servants to leave the room for a moment so he could put on a clean shirt. When they went back they found he'd hung himself.

It was about a week after Delissivko's funeral when the big hold-up took place and Ibryam-Ali was wounded a second time. Father Basil's son Kecho was there and he told me what had happened. He and about ten others, cattle-dealers mostly, were on their way to Karamoushitsa to do some buying. Up by Karakoulas they stopped for a drink of water and two characters with red scarves over their faces came leaping out.

'Hands up! One move and you're dead! ‘

One was holding a pistol and the other a grenade. The one with the pistol was Ali and he was giving the orders. He told the cattle-dealers to file past and throw their money at his feet.

'That money belongs to the poor!' he shouted. 'The miserable price you pay for their cattle, it's downright robbery !'

Two filed past, then three more, but when it came to the sixth, instead of taking out his purse, he took out a dagger, hurled himself at Ali and tried to kill him. There was one hell of a fight, but no one felt like getting involved. The cattle-dealers were afraid of the grenade, and the fellow with the grenade was afraid of the cattle-dealers, so they let the two men get on with it and waited to see who was killed first. The cattle-dealer cut the belt holding Ali's trousers and, if you'll pardon the expression, got a fistful of bollocks and started twisting and squeezing. Well, even Ali could see he was in a bit of a fix and he shouted to his mate to let fly with the grenade.

'Throw it!' he yelled. 'Even if it kills us both!'

His mate threw the grenade at the struggling pair. The grenade went off, and when the smoke cleared the merchant lay dead on the ground and Ali was sitting up right as rain. Just a splinter in his thigh, that's all. But it still gave me a fright when I saw the wound. About ten days later, it was. I'd just got back to the sheepfold, done the milking and shut the sheep up for the night. I sat meself down outside the hut and was about to boil up some milk for supper when I heard someone call my name:

'Becho-o.'

I got up, looked round - not a soul! 'Must have imagined it,' I thought and went back to the fire. I'd hardly sat down when I heard it again:

'Becho!'

I went into the hut, just in case someone was hiding there. No, no one. I looked round outside - it wasn't quite dark yet - no one there neither. Just the sheep standing as quiet as could be, and the dogs lapping up their bran swill from the trough without a care in the world. I was right scared, I don't mind telling you. Then there was a rustling above my head, and a thud, and out of nowhere Ibryam-Ali appeared in front of me! He had a wide leather belt with brass buckles round his waist with two or three daggers sticking out the top, a knitted cap on his head and a pair of sandy moustaches twirled down and almost meeting under his chin. He'd got a pistol on a small chain slung over his shoulder and proper revolver stuck in his belt. His face was brown, and a bit thinner than before, I'd say. Anyhow, he made me jump that much I clean forgot to wish him 'good evening' or ask him in.

'Seems I gave you a bit of a fright,' said Ali.

'What d'you expect, flying down out of the sky like that?’

'Call a pine tree the sky! When you sit down and make a fire and boil up some milk, don't you first look and see if it's all clear up the pine tree?'

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I was a shepherd and not a bandit like him, and the trees were no concern of mine, but I thought better of teasing him Just then.

'Can you spare me some milk?' he said.

I put the whole pail in front of him. Then he took the pistol from his belt and pointed it straight at me.

'Catch me a ram!' he said.

'All right, I'll get you one,' I said. 'You don't have to point that thing at me!'

'It'll be better for you if I do,' he answered. 'Because when you go down to the village hall tomorrow evening you'll be able to say I was here and forced you to give me the ram. Otherwise they'll accuse you of trying to help me. No point you getting into trouble on my account.'

We spent the whole night roasting the animal, and while we sat there we talked about sheep and rams. He wanted to know about the bells, what kind I'd got, where I'd got them from and whether they had a good ring. He even started giving me advice:

'This one, and that one there need changing. They don't go with the others. And that one needs beating out a bit to "freshen it up".’

While he'd been hiding in the pine tree he'd heard all my bells, sized them up, so to speak, and had worked out what to do to get a perfect peal.

'You need two new bells,' he said, 'one for a deep bass "dong", and the other, with a drop of silver in it, for a gay light tinkle. They'll spur each other on,' he said, 'and do a useful job of work at the same time. If I'm in danger, tie the large bell on the big ram. And rub his belly with stinging nettles so he starts scratching and rings the bell, and then I'll know to keep out of the way. If I hear them both ringing, I'll know it's all clear. And if you should need me for anything, tie the small bell to a mule, jump on and ride from here to Chamjas. And if I'm alive and well I'll answer your call.'

‘Do you find it difficult,' I asked, 'being a bandit?'

'It wouldn't be so bad,' he said, 'if I could only sing where and when I liked. Come on, let's sing something now - very quietly !'

And he began to sing. He'd got these hard, very stern, gravelly eyes, and when he looked at you it was like having your belly-button shaved with a pair of scissors, but when he started to sing they went all kind and tender - soft and smooth like olive oil.

'Singing quietly like this,' he said, 'is like lying with a beautiful woman with your hands tied together.'

These were his last words. The forest rustled and he was gone. I didn't say a thing to anyone in the village, but I did what he said about the two bells. They both rang out just like we'd agreed, signalling that all was well and the coast was clear, but Ali never came back. People said he'd gone over the border and been killed somewhere in Greece.

He'd been a bandit, I know, but I don't mind telling you I felt right sore about it. So I went and tied the bell with the silver in it to my biggest ram. I rubbed his belly with stinging nettles and turned him loose. Off he went and the bell rang out: 'ding-ding-ding! ding-ding!' from one peak, then 'ding-ding!' from another opposite, over meadows and mountain pastures, through forests, up steep ravines, now higher now lower, all day long ringing like a church bell, till the whole mountain and the whole forest knew that Ibryam-Ali was lost and gone for ever. (Ibryam was his bandit name, but sometimes he was called by both.)

Then my troubles really began. First came the coup in '23, when they came after us with bared sabres and I was thrashed good and proper. After that the slump, when a lambskin cost more than a lamb. I got rid of my sheep, bought a couple of mules and set up as a carrier. A load of planks for the trip down and back up with salt and paraffin. One Saturday I had to go down to the station at Stanimaki to fetch a load of Sunlight soap. 'Just right,' I says to myself, 'I'll wait for the train so I can tell the kids what a train looks like.' The train came in, and a whole crowd of fine ladies in fancy hats got off. All kinds, there were, and I got quite carried away looking at them. Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned round and saw a character with moustaches, gravelly eyes, and an astrakhan hood with a red lining.

'Not a word!' he said. 'What are you doing down here at the station?' 'Fetching Sunlight.' 'Good! Get your mules and we'll be off!'

I touched his breeches: no getting away from it, they was real all right! I looked into his face. It was him: Ibryam-Ali!

When we got to the edge of the town I asked him:

'How did you do it?' I says. 'Coming back from the dead like that?'

'Shut up and keep going!' he says. 'I'll tell you further up.'

'Where are we going?'

'To Chepelli.'

So that was it, back to our village ... I felt a stab in my heart.

'Won't you be recognized?'

'Just a moment,' he says, 'wait here and don't look.'

He got off the mule. After a while I turned round to find out what had been happening, and d'you know what I saw? A big sturdy fellow with a black beard and a knitted cap. Sitting just a couple of paces away. 'Well, I'll be jiggered!' I says to myself. 'Wonders never cease! Where did he spring from?'

‘And who might you be?' I asks.

'Ibryam!'

When he said 'Ibryam' he laughed, and I could see it really was Ali. And when he took off the beard I was quite certain of it. How was I to know they'd started selling false beards in the shops!

'In that outfit,' I says, 'you'd get by in Chepelli all right. And in Pashmakli too! You could call at the police station and take coffee with the commandant, and there's not a soul as would know it's you!'

He stuffed the beard into one of the saddle bags and only put it on again when we were getting near Chepelli. In the meantime he told me that he'd come up from Odrin on the train. He'd been in Greece before that and then in Turkey. All the way he kept saying what a stroke of luck it was, meeting me at the station. Going by what he said, what he'd needed most just then was someone he could trust.

'Hold on,' I says to him, 'no blood now, mind !'

'There's only the one thing I want doing,' he says. 'Give me a lift into the village, and if anyone asks who I am, say I'm the head shepherd at Stoichoolou's farm in Shoumnatitsa. I've got a bad leg and that's why I've hired your mule. It shouldn't take long, and there won't be no blood.'

'Will you come back to my place?'

'No! That's only for friends and relatives. Drop me off at the inn.'

When we passed some trees he pulled off a few beech leaves and started chewing them.

'Around here,' he said, 'leaves taste better than a roast sucking lamb! In Anatolia there isn't a leaf to be seen, and the water, it's worse than pig-swill!'

Whenever he saw a drinking fountain he stopped.

'Let's have a drink,' he'd say.

He'd get off the mule, have a drink, put his head under the spout, cup both hands in the trough and splash away at his face with the water. . . .

When we rode into a pine wood he stopped by one of the trees, touched it with his hand like he was stroking it, and hugged it tight.

'My pine, my tree! You on the mountain-top, And me by the sea!'

We reached the village and made for the inn. He with his beard and knitted cap walking down the street as cool as a cucumber, and not a soul as stopped to take a second look at him. There was any amount of beards in those days and half the village was wearing knitted caps, so we arrived at Gugritsa's inn without any trouble, just like we'd planned.

'You go off home and settle your mules,' All said. 'Come back this evening for a meal at the inn and keep me company for supper.'

So I went home, settled the animals, told my wife to have supper and go to bed without me, and went back to the inn. The windows were lit, plenty of noise, shouting, and lots of people. . . .

'Ibryam!' I says to Ali. 'Best not go in! I'll bring you some bread and cheese from home. It'll be a good sight more tasty than in there.'

I might as well have been talking to the wall. In he went and I followed after. It was hot inside. Full of smoke too. Meat was being roasted, bagpipes were playing and people were singing. You'd never have thought that at such a busy time - threshing time, it was " so many people could get together to enjoy themselves. . . . What was all the excitement about? Well, the men had shot a wild boar and were grilling great hunks of meat over the fire. They were eating and singing, Droulyu from Levochevo was playing the bagpipes for them, and a whole crowd of people were standing round looking on.

We sat down at a table in a corner. Ali ordered beans and salted meat and started his supper. And all the while the songs rolled on. . . . Every possible song you could imagine. Meanwhile Ali went on with his supper and every now and then looked over towards the men. They sang and they sang until someone - I can't rightly remember who - called out to Droulyu :

'Hey! Droulyu!' he shouted. 'Let's have "Roufinka"!'

Droulyu started playing 'Roufinka', and as he played he sang. Bouroushtila took up the melody, and then three or four others joined in as well. The ceiling shook. The window panes crashed and rang like cymbals. Gugritsa was filling a bottle with wine and the bottle ran over, but he didn't notice and went on pouring. The meat in the fire got burnt to nothing, and the wood-cutters stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move for fear of spoiling the song.

Ali pushed away his plate. He took up his glass to drink, but neither drank nor put it down. His fingers squeezed tighter and tighter and turned blue. His face was like stone. Just one blue vein beating behind his ear. The longer they sang, the faster it beat, and his eyes, his far-strewn eyes, looked at everything, but saw nobody.

I sensed that something was about to happen, but before I could discover what it was Ali suddenly stood up. He stood up like a man lifted by a whirlwind, went over to the singers, and before anyone knew what was happening he shouted out and began singing at the top of his voice :

'Roufinka lying sick and fading
On the peak, on the high mountain . . .
Everyone froze and fell silent. Only Droulyu went on playing.
'Wine!' Ali roared. 'A bottle for everyone!'

The inn-keeper rushed off, bottles clinked and rang, corks popped and Ali sang. He sang and Droulyu played, and everyone listened, staring at Ali, exchanging glances among themselves from time to time.

I could see that things were getting out of hand, so I stood up and went off home. When I got in my wife already knew Ibryam-Ali was in the village. I went to bed, but something inside me kept scratching away: 'Go and tell him he's been recognized!' it said. 'Go and save him!'

I got up and went back to the inn. My wife didn't want me to go so I had to stuff her mouth and stop her screaming. I pushed my way through to Ali and whispered in his ear:

'You've been recognized!'

'I feel like singing and no one's going to stop me!' he said. 'If they want to arrest me, here I am!' And he shoved a bottle into my mouth. 'Drink!' he said, and he shouted to the inn-keeper:

'Bring us a barrel of wine! It's on me. And lock the door!'

What happened after is kind of hazy. There was a great deal of drinking and singing and we all ended up flat on our backs, completely sozzled. It was already getting light when Ali stood up and paid the bill.

'Bring the mules! It's time we were off!' he said.

I was still pretty pickled, but the way Gugritsa looked at me I knew what he meant. If I went with Ali, he'd report me to the police and I'd never dare show my face in any village again. It was then I blackened my soul and said to Ali:

'I don't know who you are. I refuse to take you!'

Ali looked me straight in the eye and drew his pistol.

'Move!' he said. 'Or I'll blow your brains out''

'All right,' I said. 'I'm not arguing!'

We mounted the mules and rode off. Me in front and him behind. Going through the village neither of us said a word. When we were clear of the houses Ali whipped his mule on, drew level and said :

'Did you mean what you said back there about not wanting to take me, or was it just an excuse?'

I was ashamed to tell him the truth and I lied.

'It wasn't an excuse. I meant it!'

'Come on now, look me in the eye!'

It was light already and you could see everything, so how could I look him in the eye?

'So-o-o-o!' he said. 'You'd lie to me, would you? !'

Then I told him the truth:

'Yes, I was lying,' I said. 'Because I told myself you'd vanish again and I'd be left in a bloody awful mess. That's the truth, I swear! Anyhow, whose fault was it you started singing?'

'I see,' he said. 'But why not say that in the first place? A fat lot of good you are as a carrier ! And I was thinking,' he says, 'of us sharing the gold liras I've got hidden away. Still, if you've got cold feet, you'd better leave while there's still time. I don't need you to show me the way to the border. So, about turn and off with you! Don't worry, I never shoot people in the back!'

I cursed myself for what I'd done, but too late! Not because of the gold, mind. Not because of his rotten liras. But because I'd blackened my soul and lied.

'Ali,' I said, 'I will come with you if you need me. Honest, I mean it.'

'The liras, eh?'

That shut me up. Nearly choked me. I grabbed one of the mules by the halter and turned to go. I left the other mule with Ali. Before we parted I said to him:

'Just a couple of things before I go,' I says. 'Hear me out and believe me when I say it comes from the heart. The whole village knows you're here, and death by hanging was your sentence. Gugritsa is a police informer, and at the inn I saw Fevzi, the eldest son of Fandukli, that field-keeper who tried to break your leg. Ride through the forest, Ali, keep away from the road!'

'Scram!' was all he said.

I rode off and didn't turn round again. When I got to the meadows at the edge of the village I heard gunfire from somewhere. 'Well,' I says to myself, 'that's that, then.'

I was right scared and didn't go home, but went along to the inn.

'Where's the bandit?' Gugritsa asked.

'Gone.'

'And you?'

'I got the push!'

'So you wanted to go with him, did you?'

'Yes, I did, damn you!' I said. 'I did want to, you little bastard, but he wouldn't take me! Bandits have to be full of spunk, not miserable bed-wetters like you and me, you wretch! Do you understand?' And seeing as I was still holding the halter I lashed him across the face with it, so hard it wound itself five or six times round his neck.

We grabbed each other by the throat and they had to use force to get us apart. Just then a filthy row started up outside. Before I realized what it was I caught sight of my other mule. It was pulling a wooden drag, and tied to the drag was Ibryam-Ali in a white shirt stained with bloody blotches. (After his death that was what got him his third name: 'Blotchy Ali'.) Behind the drag, guns at the ready, came a policeman and Fandukli's offspring, Fevzi. They stopped in the yard and I rushed over to Ali.

'Are you hurt?' I asked. 'Is it bad?'

All's eyes were already misting over. ‘Bad or not, it's all finished! But it's good to know I'll be buried in our native soil. . . .'

Bloody foam bubbled from his mouth and he was cut short with this word on his lips.

'Ali, Ali! Come back!' But he slumped into my arms, his head fell forward and he was gone.

'I suppose you couldn't bandage him up!' I yelled at Fevzi.

'Makes no difference to the price on his head. Dead or alive, it's all the same,' he answered.

Then came militia-men, the police, doctors. . . . Questionings, interrogations. . . . They even had him opened up to see whether he'd got two hearts. No one could understand how two bullets could go clean through his shoulder-blade and he could still be alive one and a half hours after, when he'd been dragged all the way back to the inn.

Afterwards they gave him to me and I buried him in our native soil. And I put a stone on his grave, and flowers. . . , All these years and I've still the same pain aching away inside : if I'd gone with him in the first place, would the same fate have overtaken him? Would it? And when the pain gets really bad I go along to the school-teacher.

'Teacher,' I says to him, 'is there such a thing as fate in a man's life?'

'How many times must I tell you ? Of course there is!' he says. 'Only, fate isn't something outside a man, it's inside him. Take your Ali. If he hadn't started fooling around with his song no one would have recognized him or laid a finger on him. . . . He was tough and he was terrible, but that song was stronger still. . . .'

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

I knew someone would do that...

LOL

Nice one Sherm...

Nothing like a long night of Bulgarian stories

 

[bjm]

Hi There

Just got back from Bulgaria after spending a week there sorting out some loose ends., Love the storeys

lol, guess i asked for that! Good all the same though.

As you have found out for me detecting is allowed, although i was told that there is no laws as yet

concerning there use, as there is so few of them about, they have not caused a problem.

So looking forward to moving more than ever now. Keep the storeys coming.

Many Thanks

Brian