by Maria Genova
Despite such pitfalls my integration went well. At first I didn’t know what a diary was, but I finally bought one. And if someone wanted to make an appointment, I would flip through the pages in concentration looking for a space, just like the Dutch. I couldn’t find a good Bulgarian translation to explain to my parents what a diary was used for. In southern countries where chaos, intuition and spontaneity ruled, there was no use for a diary.
Everything in advance and planning things as much as possible, this lay in the nature of the Dutch people. Many people booked their summer holiday a year in advance. One year! You had to have superior brains to be able to look that far ahead. I was just happy being able to plan two months in advance.
The pinnacle of Dutch planning was a computer programme with Frank’s work shifts. It was an overview from 1990 to the year 3000. Steelworks Hoogovens apparently believed in the loyalty of its employees, till death do us part.
‘Oh, it’s always nice to be able to see from Heaven that you were actually supposed to be working on a certain day, but that you now have a day off,’ Frank replied. ‘And this is also a nice coincidence: the day I turn 50 I have a day off.’
Thanks to my light skin I wasn’t discriminated against that much, except on the labour market. All my job applications received a reply that they had chosen someone else. A car dealership told me that, despite my good credentials, I wasn’t suitable because I was a foreigner. What would his customers say if his secretary spoke with a foreign accent? I was a little bit angry for his reasons for turning me down, but on the other hand I appreciated his honesty. At least he said what the other employers thought, but didn’t dare to say out in the open.
At my wit’s end I applied for a position as a freelance employee for the North Holland Daily newspaper. Not that I believed I would be hired after one year in the Netherlands. But my covering letter impressed them. Later on, I heard it was not because of the content. ‘We all wanted to see which idiot had written their job application on pink paper,’ the editor-in-chief said.
Not knowing the rules of a country apparently had its advantages, because I was given the chance to prove myself. After a few test stories I was allowed to work for the newspaper. As the newcomer, I was of course given the stories no one else wanted to do. A report about an animal show, a story about an association of elderly ladies, a couple that had been married for 50 years, the annual harness racing and the jumble sale on Queen’s Day. I slowly started to see my opportunities grow. For interviews I often went to places that no regular person gets to see: from a prison to a chocolate factory and from receptions at ministries to the deck of a tanker navigating through the ports of Rotterdam.
Journalism accelerated my integration, but even though I tried as hard as I could, I still wasn’t accepted as ‘one of them’. Dutch people looked at me in surprise when I said my Dalmatian ate the same food as we did. ‘Doesn’t it make his breath stink? No? But surely it can’t be healthy.’ And I in turn was surprised that they bought all kinds of colourful dog and cat biscuits. Cats can’t recognize shapes and they are nearly colour-blind, but apparently, the pet food industry ignored this. As long as the pet owners believed that the colourful plant-based biscuits were better for an animal that was a natural carnivore. All that artificial food resulted in 40% of the dogs being overweight and they produced large stools that I had never seen before in Bulgaria.
When I brought my Dalmatian over to the Netherlands and gave him a bowl of dried dog food, he looked at me strangely.
‘Welcome to a prosperous country, sweetie,’ I told him. ‘This is the start of your integration. Lesson 2 is that you are no longer allowed to pee against car tires, because in the Netherlands their car is sacred. Lesson 3: dogs are to be kept on the leash as much as possible, so I will have to put you on the leash from now on. You can also forget running around in the mountains, because there are no mountains here. Don’t look so sad. I also have good news. Seeing as it’s not common for dogs to sleep in doghouses in the back garden, you can sleep in the house. Now that’s a treat, isn’t it? Look at it from a positive point of view and eat those biscuits.’
My dog had to live in a terraced house. I don’t think he thought it was a problem, but when I told my mother the size of a regular family home she replied: ‘Gosh, child, do you live in such a house? Those can’t be rooms, they’re prison cells!’
I had to laugh, but my mother sounded overanxious as usual.
‘Don’t worry dear. Your father and I will sell some land and then you will get money to buy something decent. I’ll also send you some money soon for your study, so you don’t have to depend on Frank. ´
‘Mum, when you live with someone, you are dependent on them anyway. Frank doesn’t care about money and I can spend it as I wish.’
‘It doesn’t work that way, my child. When you don’t have any money, you’re dependent. I want to spare you that.’
I laughed at this old-fashioned way of thinking, but let her pay my journalism training in full. If I had stayed in Bulgaria, my parents would also have bought me a house and a car, because that is what all Bulgarian parents did if they could afford it.
On top of the world
My parents didn´t want me to be co-habiting for too long, because it still wasn’t accepted in Bulgaria.
‘Don’t you two love each other enough?’ my mother wanted to know during every telephone conversation. It was only when she finally gave up five years later, that we started to talk about marriage ourselves, but then only in the way of jokes to test the water. Our relationship was so perfect that subconsciously I was worried that marriage would ruin that. Could a marriage ruin the magic?
Frank wasn’t worried: ‘Infatuation eventually turns into love and that is just as nice a feeling.’
‘If you look around you and see the number of divorces, then you might understand why I’m scared,’ I told him. ‘Before you start declaring that something like that won’t happen to us, I would like to point out that all newlyweds think like that. Apparently, the infatuation soon dies after a marriage, because you are bound to each other and gasping for freedom. It would be a nightmare living with someone I was no longer in love with.’
‘Mer, there’s no 100% security in live. You could lose everything you have tomorrow.’
I didn’t believe Frank, because I felt like I had everything under control. I wasn’t aware that my life was made up of lots of pieces of a puzzle until I lost one of the most important pieces. It happened so suddenly that at first I didn’t know how to react. I knew one thing for sure: my life would never be complete after the unexpected death of my father. There was just one ray of light: my father’s age didn’t give him the right to leave this earth, but his life did. Not many people had lived such an intense life by the age of 44 that they could close their eyes with peace of mind. Why do we measure a person’s life in years? I wondered. It’s the most worthless scale there is. Some people are already dying from their 30th onwards due to lack of ideals and courage. At least my father had made the most of every opportunity not to live a boring life. He was like a candle burning at both ends: it burned quickly, but gave a stronger and nicer flame.
Frank didn’t scrap marriage from his wish list. I was still hesitant, but from everything that had happened I was better able to put my doubts in perspective. It seemed I would have to accept that I could never be certain if we would still be happy with each other after 20 years. Perhaps that was the charm of such a commitment, because without doubts a relationship would become boring and predictable.
‘Mer, infatuation is like a firework that lights the night sky, but disappears soon after. Do you choose the fleeting splendour of a firework or the solid foundation of a legal commitment?’ Frank asked.
Previously I would have sworn that I wanted the fireworks, but I seemed I was able to radically change my mind. I had now experienced true love: it was not just a burning desire, a close friendship or a drug that you can become addicted to, but it was the
sum of all these things combined with an invisible force that held them together.
‘Frank, if you want me to be your wife, then you’ll have to think of an original proposal. Otherwise it won’t happen.’
He laughed confidently, because he was never short of creativity.
I had no idea when Frank had planned his proposal, even though I had the sneaking suspicion that he was up to something. We flew to America to ski in the Rocky Mountains and after that we stopped in Las Vegas to warm ourselves up. I suddenly realized: I want to get married in this fairy tale city. Everything was possible here. A sea of light in the desert, a place where rich business men felt just as much at home as a carpenter did, where you were accepted both in a gala dress and a pair of jeans, where you could see a fake volcano erupt in the main street and see ships sink, where the Eiffel Tower, the Venetian canals, the New York sky scrapers and the pyramid of Giza were replicated and where on the rotating top of the 350 meter high Stratosphere the prettiest lit up city in the world lay at your feet.
Frank dragged me along many different wedding chapels to see what they looked like inside. I had a strange premonition that something was about to happen.
‘Frank, no joking,’ I warned him. ‘As long as you don’t get it in your head to marry right here and now without family. My side would never forgive me; besides I wouldn’t even want to.’
‘Relax, baby. I just want to ask something in this wedding chapel. Perhaps you could wait outside?’
Wait outside? Before I could say anything, Frank went into the white wedding chapel. I walked around the garden in circles, constantly checking my watch and asking what was taking so long. I was that nervous, it was as if I was about to get married.
Frank finally came out.
‘Done,’ he said. The lights of Las Vegas reflected in his eyes.
‘What’s done?’
‘You’ll see. You’ll need to wait until 8 p.m. tonight. Wear something nice, because it’s going to be a special evening.’
My heart was in my throat, but no matter how much I pressed, Frank wouldn’t divulge his secret.
At exactly 8 p.m. the hotel reception called to let us know there was someone waiting for us. I had no idea who that could be. A very long white limousine was parked outside.
‘For you,’ Frank said.
At the moment, the driver came towards to us and opened the door for me. I slid into the supple leather upholstery and sniffed the air of luxury. The bar, the champagne, the television, the partition between us and the driver, the tinted windows….it was such a peculiar feeling to sit in a car like this and not know where you were going.
‘I have something else for you,’ Frank said and handed me a parcel. It was so large that it could not possibly be a wedding ring.
Out of everything that had come into my mind, a videotape was the last thing I expected. I looked at Frank questioningly, because there was nothing written on the tape. He pointed to the video recorder, which hung under the television.
The first twenty seconds without a picture seemed to last forever. I still had no idea what was on the tape. Suddenly I appeared on screen. I was skiing and Frank was chasing me. A few seconds later we were in Namibia, on top of the highest sand dunes in the world, waiting for the sun to set. Then we were nearly blown off by the strong winds on top of Table Mountain in South Africa, letting ourselves get soaking wet by the Niagara Falls, sitting on camels in Egypt, trying on sombrero hats at a market in Mexico, dancing on a luxury cruise ship in the Caribbean and swinging on vines in the rain forest on the paradise island of Dominica. It has something surreal to see all those quick flashes stuck one after the other. At the end, Frank appeared on the screen: ‘Mer, we have been together and happy for so long, we love adventures and each other. That is why I want to ask you something Will you marry me?’
I was sobbing so much that I couldn’t give an answer.
‘Yes, No, Yes, No,’ constantly flashed on the screen.
Frank hugged me and only then could I say Yes.
The limousine drove past the Excalibur, a gigantic hotel-casino built like a fairy tale castle.
‘Here,’ I pointed. ‘I want to get married here. There is something symbolic, finding your knight in shining armour and getting married in a fairy tale castle.’
After driving past all of Vegas’ attractions for an hour, the driver stopped at the 350-meter-high building The Stratosphere. Frank had booked a table in the rotating restaurant at the top.
The whole of Las Vegas lay at our feet and the rest of the world also.
‘Frank, I don’t know how much it will cost, but we’re going to book this place for our wedding party and show all our friends and family this view.’
Six months later a group of friends and family were singing the Carpenters’ song at 350 meter in the sky, after we had been declared husband and wife at the fairy tale castle. It sounded very off-key, but in any case, we could understand the chorus: ‘I’m on top of the world’. I looked at my diamond ring and smiled contentedly. The Priest’s words still echoed in my head: ‘This ring has no beginning and no end, just like love.’
The next morning my diamond ring had disappeared. There was no one lying next to me in bed. I rubbed my eyes, because I could not believe that this had all been a dream. I was convinced that I had married my knight in shining armour here in Las Vegas. Then why was I not wearing a ring and why was I lying in an empty hotel bed? Had I been so brainwashed during the many years of communist dictatorship that I could only believe in dreams? Dreams only last so long, just ten minutes or thirty minutes, maximum. It was strange that I could have travelled thousands of kilometres’ distance in such a short time. It was all so confusing that I was afraid to look in my suitcase for fear there was no wedding dress.
A little while later I had gathered enough courage to carefully open the suitcase. My mother’s wedding dress was in in. The wedding dress I wanted to wear at my own wedding after some modernization, because this unique example radiated something symbolic: passing on love from generation to generation.
I heard the door of the hotel room open.
‘Good morning, beautiful. I woke up early and I had the jeweller resize your ring.’
I looked at the sparkling diamond ring in Frank’s hand. My emotions were still that confused that I didn’t know what to think. Yet I felt very lucky. My thoughts had not been manipulated, my thoughts were finally free! Free enough to not have to think for the first time ever.
Note from the author
This is the end of the beginning of the fairy tale that reads like a true story, and also of this true story that reads like a fairy tale. This book is based on real events and facts. I have deliberately chosen to consequently use the term communism instead of socialism, because the West saw Russia and her allies as communist countries, even though in practice they were not that far advanced. The names of characters have been changed to protect their privacy. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my father for his wisdom, even if I have not been able to fully exploit it, because he swapped the earthly for the eternal so soon and also my mother who tried to protect me like an angel from unsuitable lovers, fake friends and all possible disappointments.
I thank all my Bulgarian friends who were prepared to share their stories of their youth with me. Although they also had to gather the shards of their broken illusions after the fall of communism and glue them into new ideals, none of us regretted growing up in such a strange society.
I thank all the writers who have enriched me with beauty and inspiration. Writing a book is like exposing yourself, but Oscar Wilde places the risk of lack of understanding in the shoes of the reader: ‘All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.’
Finally, I thank my friend and husband Frank. Without his support this book would nev
er have been written, for the simple reason that he didn’t always switch the lights off when I got inspiration in the middle of the night to write another few pages.
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