Valley of Thracians (5 page)

Chapter
9

Dear
Grandpa,

I’m
sure you’ve heard by now from Dad and Mom that I’ve applied to serve in the
Peace Corps. I submitted my application, and I’m anxiously waiting to hear if
they’ll accept me. I hope they send me to some exotic tropical island, like
Fiji or Guam. But I know that if they do take me, I’ll go wherever I’m needed.

I’m
kind of worried because I don’t speak any foreign languages. If you remember, I
flunked Spanish back in high school. I wasn’t too good with the grammar and my
accent, well, it was quite atrocious. The Peace Corps’ website says that
knowing another language is not a prerequisite for being accepted, so we’ll see
what happens.

Does
it come as a surprise to you that I would want to do this? Dad and Mom, well,
they were shocked, to say the least. Maybe it would be a shocker after some of
the wild things I did in college, especially since no one, not Dad and Mom or
anyone, believed I would ever graduate. But I did it! I have my degree (thank
you again for that generous graduation check by the way), and now my college
years are behind me.

No,
I don’t want to continue studying for another degree. A bachelor’s degree is
quite sufficient, I can tell you. Dad keeps hounding me about this, saying that
I would have better chances in the job market if I had a master’s degree under
my belt. But what would I master in? I barely got through these studies as it
was, and I don’t particularly know at this point in my life what I want to be
doing when I grow up.

Yeah,
you read that right. I may be twenty-two years old, but I still need to come to
terms with what I want to do. I have done some things of which I’m not very
proud, things that you don’t need to know or worry about, but hopefully I’m
past all that. Now I want to get out and see the world.

It
wouldn’t hurt anyone, not even me, if I managed to do good things for once in
my life. I guess that along with the bad things I do sometimes, there’s a
positive side of me as well, hiding deep inside and waiting to prove itself.
Maybe that’s the reason I’ve applied to the Peace Corps. Maybe I’ll be able to
show Dad and Mom, and you, that I’m really a good kid after all. If they take
me, I’ll do anything they want. If I’m smart enough to speak English, I assume
I’m also smart enough to teach it.

So,
now I’m waiting for them to accept me.

Grandpa,
I hope you’re ok and managing on your own. You’ve announced your retirement, so
what happens next? Maybe you should apply to join the Peace Corps as well, and
then we can volunteer together in Fiji.

Grandpa,
don’t worry about losing touch with me. No matter where I end up in the world,
we’ll still be able to talk, I promise you. I’ll write to you all the time and
Skype you so we can chat and see each other. Just remember to get dressed
beforehand because I don’t want to see your pajamas again. LOL! (Do you remember
what that means?)

I
guess that’s all for now.

Scott

Chapter
10

 
“Alexander Nevski Cathedral,” Sophia announced
with a flamboyant wave at the lavish gold domes towering above as they took to
the shade outside the church.
“Sofia’s most important
landmark.
It’s named after a Russian tsar who came to our assistance
back in the
Middle
Ages. The Russians have often
helped us Bulgarians, and this church is dedicated to them. The church’s
construction started in the 1880s, I think, and continued for quite some time.
We in Sofia are very proud of our cathedral, even though we’re unlikely to ever
pray inside.”

Simon followed his guide up a short set
of steps to a weathered plaque that informed visitors of the church’s
completion in 1912, honoring the Russian and Ukrainian casualties of the 1877
War of Liberation from Ottoman rule. Simon took off his baseball cap but
refused to go inside.

“Don’t you want to see the interior?”

“No, I’m supposed to meet this man
outside, on the steps.”

“Do you know what he looks like?”

“No, but I’m sure he’ll recognize me. I
stand out from the crowd, easily recognized as an American tourist,” he said.

The name of the man he was due to meet
was Bogdan Kamenov. Simon was thankful to Sophia for escorting him to the
church, but he wondered whether he should talk with Kamenov in private.
Remembering the interest Sophia had taken when he explained why he had come to
Bulgaria, he dismissed that thought. He was glad that she was with him.

A bent-over old woman approached Simon,
one hand shakily offering a bouquet of colored flowers and the other extended
in a plea for charity. Attired in a gray, ankle-length smock that had seemingly
been worn for time immemorial, the woman’s face was wrinkled to an extreme and
her gaping mouth was cankerous and toothless. She mumbled words in a tongue
that could have been Bulgarian but may just as likely have been a
long-forgotten Slavic tongue. Simon shook his head as an indication that he had
no desire to give the hag any money.

The woman smiled and moved steadily
closer, her open hand nearly touching his sleeve. Again he shook his head but
the old beggar drew closer still.

Sophia stared at Simon and then at the
woman and broke out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Simon asked.

“You’re just encouraging her!”

“What do you mean?”

“In Bulgaria, we shake our heads from
side to side, just like you’ve done, to indicate a ‘yes’ answer. To say ‘no,’
we nod our heads up and down.”

“What? You mean, exactly the opposite
from the rest of the world?”

“Yes, the head gestures here are
inverted,” she told him. “You thought you were telling the woman to go away,
but in reality, you led her to believe that you would give her something. In
Bulgaria, a nod means no and a shake of the head means yes.”

Before Simon had a chance to protest,
Sophia dropped a coin in the woman’s hand but declined the proffered flowers.
He was going to say something else but heard his name being called from the
church’s entrance.

“Professor Simon Matthews?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Hello, I’m Bogdan Kamenov.” The
Bulgarian was in his thirties and wore faded blue jeans and a short-sleeved
white shirt. The strap of a black briefcase was slung over his head; one of the
case’s zippers was half undone, exposing sheets of lined paper. He looked
harried, as if he was running from one appointment to the next, but he smiled
when he saw Sophia at the professor’s side and waited anxiously for an
introduction.

“Sophia Ivanova,” she said in greeting.

“Nice to meet you.
I’m
sorry,
Professor, but I only have a few minutes. Can
we talk here?”

“Yes, of course.”

Kamenov led them to a shadowed recess
where they were not bothered by the stream of pilgrims heading into the
cathedral. He held his head low, as if afraid that someone would eavesdrop on
their conversation.

“I thank you for hiring me as your
private investigator,” Kamenov began, handing Simon three typed pages. “I’ve
completed the assignment, but unfortunately I haven’t anything significant to
report.”

Sophia gave Simon a quizzical look, but
he didn’t offer her any explanations. Instead he asked the investigator, “What
exactly have you done? I wired you payment, and I’d like to know what you’ve
accomplished.”

“I spoke to the hotel manager in Varna,”
Kamenov continued, but he was immediately interrupted by Simon.

“You spoke to him? Or did you go see
him?”

“I spoke with him on the phone. We had a
short conversation, but the man wasn’t helpful providing any clues about your
grandson.”

Simon’s face reddened and his hands
crumpled the investigator’s report into a small wad. “I paid you quite a bit of
money, and all that you did was
speak
with him on the
phone? I’ve been in Bulgaria but a few days, and I’ve already managed to travel
to Varna to confront him in person.”

“Well, it’s all a matter of priority and
time,” the investigator said. “If you would like to increase the range of my
services, I will take a more active role concerning this case.”

“What else have you discovered?”

“Nothing else as of
yet.
Before we continue, I would like to finalize the
payment issue.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,”
Simon said with finality. There was no point paying someone who wasn’t
providing any assistance at all. “Thank you, but that’ll be all.”

The private investigator shrugged and
retreated down the steps to the cobblestone plaza. As he walked off toward the
city center, Sophia turned to Simon and saw that he was seething from the
encounter.

“What was that all about?”

“I should have known. I contacted him
over the Internet, hired him to investigate Scott’s disappearance. I didn’t
want to miss a single clue. I thought a professional could get to the bottom of
this much quicker than me. I paid him in advance, and he’s produced absolutely
nothing. That was certainly a waste of time and money.”

“You must be very disappointed.”

“I’m too angry to be disappointed. I was
very hopeful for the information he would provide me, and in the end our
meeting lasted less than five minutes. Well, live and learn. I will just have
to continue on my own.”

Seeing that Simon was still upset, she
suggested something to change the subject.

 
“What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

“What? I don’t know.” His mind was still
reeling from having wasted money needlessly.

“Some of my colleagues are coming over
to my apartment. They all speak English, and I think it would be an interesting
experience for you to meet them. I will be cooking traditional Bulgarian food.
Would you like to join us?”

Chapter
11

“
Nazdrave!
”

“
Nazdrave
!”
Simon said in return, clinking his own small glass of the Bulgarian
rakia
liquor with
those of the others seated around the dinner table. He was getting used to the
word, pleased to see that there was a “
Le’chaim
”
in every language. Somehow, the spirited expression made the alcohol easier
to swallow.

“
Rakia
is our national drink,”
Sophia said to him as she continued pouring glasses for each of her guests. He
had intended to refuse the drink, but he didn’t want to offend his hostess, so
he had reluctantly accepted the shot she held out to him.

“Do you know about
rakia
?” she
asked.

“
Rakia
is an alcoholic drink
produced by the distillation of fermented fruits and is popular all across the
Balkans.” The explanation was coming from Dimitar Damianov, a lecturer in
chemistry at Sophia’s university. “It can be made from plums, apricots, grapes,
even pears in some cases. Or it can be a mixed-fruit drink.”

“There are different names for
rakia
,”
contributed Stanislav Petrov, another lecturer. “You’ve probably heard about
grappa in Italy. Well, this is similar. There is also
pálenka
in
the Czech Republic,
pálinka
in Hungary, and
palinca
in
Romania.”

“No, those aren’t
rakia
at all,”
Dimitar argued, pushing his glasses farther up his nose with his index finger.
“Real
rakia
can only be found in the Balkans. You have
raki
in
Turkey,
rakija
in Montenegro and in Serbia, and something else in
Macedonia I can’t remember.”

“What does the name matter?” Stanislav
said.
“As long as it’s home-produced and more than 50
percent!”

“50 percent!”
Simon almost had to choke back the tears as the pungent drink torched his
mouth, throat, and stomach in turn.

“This
rakia
is from my parents’ village,” Sophia told them proudly. “I
would say that a 50-percent alcohol level is probably a low estimate of what it
really contains.”

Simon’s head was already spinning from
the first round when the
rakia
glasses were
refilled. Before he had a chance to voice a refusal, a second glass was set
before him. “
Nazdrave
!” he piped in as he raised it to join the others.

The moment he had walked into Sophia’s
third-floor apartment Simon stepped into another culture. He had taken off his
shoes in the entrance hall and made his way in stockinged feet to the small
living room where he met Sophia’s colleagues from St. Clement of Ohrid
University. They were delighted to welcome a visiting American professor and
made every effort to make him feel right at home. Simon was pleased with this
warm welcome. Home-cooked meals and encounters with local academics were not
offered on the Hilton restaurant menu.

A wide selection of salads—all of them
prepared by Sophia—was displayed on the table, served in colorful ceramic bowls
and dishes. As each one was passed from guest to guest, the hostess gave Simon
a running account of its name and ingredients.

“This is
shopska
salata
, our national salad,” she explained.

“Don’t let any other country in the
Balkans claim
shopska
as its own!”
commented Rossi Marinova, a wide-eyed woman who worked with Sophia in the
history department.

“
Shopska
is truly Bulgarian,” insisted Dimitar, and the others at the table indicated
their agreement by raising their glasses of
rakia
.

“So, about the
shopska salata
,”
Sophia continued. “It’s a simple salad really, consisting of cubes of cucumbers
and tomatoes, with some onions, parsley, and in this case, grilled red peppers.
Over everything, as you see, is
sirene
, our white
cheese.
”

“What is it, a feta cheese?” Simon
asked.

“Something similar to feta,” she
acknowledged.

He couldn’t help but notice that the
sirene
blanketed the fresh vegetables in the salad like a layer of freshly fallen
snow. There could possibly be more cheese than anything else in the salad,
something that would not be good for his cholesterol, but he politely scooped a
portion onto his plate.

The next salad to be passed around was
something Sophia labeled as
snezhanka
.
It was a bowl filled with cucumbers swimming in yogurt and decorated with
leaves of parsley. This was followed by a roasted-pepper salad and then a
white-bean salad, garnished with green onions, black olives, and radish
flowers. His stomach was filling rapidly, but Simon felt obligated to taste
each new offering brought to the table.

Dimitar pulled out a pack of cigarettes
and offered one to Simon, and then passed the pack to his university
colleagues. With the exception of Sophia, all the Bulgarians lit up as they sat
back to digest the food.

“That was simply wonderful,” Simon said,
nodding in satiated fulfillment to his hostess.

“Save room for the main course,” she
said to him with a twinkle in her eyes.

As they ate, the Bulgarians conversed on
a number of topics, politely speaking in English for the sake of their visitor.
One of them complained about the state of garbage collection in Sofia. Rossi
blamed the situation on the current mayor, while Dimitar argued that it was the
previous administration that had reduced the municipality’s budget. Stanislav
mentioned that the GERB party had yet to fulfill any of its electoral campaign
promises, and this resulted in a quick objection by Dimitar. Sophia tried
unsuccessfully to get a word in edgewise. The more the university colleagues
discussed local politics, the more heated their arguments became.

At first, Simon was able to follow the
discussion, but as it continued, he couldn’t determine if they were speaking in
English or in Bulgarian. After a while, none of it made any sense to him, and
his eyes began to water. It was getting hot, very hot. And it was stuffy.
Couldn’t someone open a window?

The glasses of
rakia
had long been cleared from
the table, and now Sophia was pouring glasses of Mavrud wine for her guests.
Simon reached his hand forward to cover his glass, but he was too late and the
rich red wine was set before him.

He shouldn’t be drinking so much, he
told himself, his eyes beginning to cloud. He had eaten more than he should
have. The veal had been tasty but heavy. The back of his neck was hot, and, in
fact, he was beginning to perspire. He took another sip of water.

“More wine?”

“Another portion of
veal?”

The room was beginning to spin, or was
it his head? Simon took a napkin and dabbed at his forehead, and then he wiped
the back of his damp neck. His eyes closed for a split second, and then he
forced himself awake and tried again to concentrate on what the others were
saying.
Something about taxes.
Or was it something
else they were discussing? It was getting darker in the room. It was hot. There
was no air. His eyes began to shut as his vision faded.

“Professor, are you all right?”

Who was asking? Where was he?

And then everything went dark.