How Did All This Happen?

by Bishop, John

  It was the fourth day on the road in Bulgaria and the grey skies had soaked us in rain when we pulled into what we thought was a café but – as we were now becoming accustomed to – was actually a café without food. There seemed to be food shortages everywhere we went, so we asked the lady who was trying to run a café without food the best place for us to go. She indicated a position on the map, which had no town marked. We both thought she was possibly a bit mad due to the lack of food but, rather than spend the rest of the day in the company of a hungry, mad woman, we rode in the direction she suggested.

  From the main road, we found a smaller road, again unmarked on the map, but which seemed to be in the direction of the phantom town. We rode slowly down the empty road till we arrived at an unmanned checkpoint. Lifting the barrier, we rode into the town of grey, square, pre-fabricated buildings that we were to learn later was called Belene.

  The town felt like it had been plonked there no longer than 10 years previously and, looking at the buildings, it seemed unlikely that it would be there in 10 years’ time. As a place, it provided an ugly contrast to the old country villages that we had been progressing through.

  Amongst the characterless buildings, we found a small, empty café and quickly ordered hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches before we lost the energy to talk. When the food and drink came, the relief was immediate and we ordered a repeat.

  Whilst we sat there drying off and wondering if one of the square boxes was a hotel, four middle-aged men entered the café. Before Joe or I had time to think what their intentions might be, all of them sat at our table.

  ‘Hello. My name is André. Where are you from?’

  The speaker had a warm face that held the friendliness of a child in a school playground meeting new friends, although his greying hair was testament to the fact that it had been some time since André was in a school playground.

  Before I could speak, Joe had once again become the Ambassador of the West and told the four-man greeting party that he was from New York. As expected, this was received with approval, and one of the men leant forward to slap Joe on his back as if to congratulate him on the fact that he was born in one of the most famous places in the world and was now in one that didn’t even feature on the map.

  André then turned to me and asked, ‘Are you also American?’

  For a moment, I almost lied so that I could be greeted as somebody whose place of birth was a personal achievement rather than my mum’s decision. However, a thread of patriotism found its way through beyond my desire to be a hero in Belene, so I confessed to being from England.

  There was audible disappointment, so I decided to be as specific as Joe and mention the city of my birth in an attempt to gain some kudos from being best friends with the Beatles.

  The reaction was immediate. As soon as the word ‘Liverpool’ left my mouth, all four men in unison said, ‘Kenny Dalglish!’

  Joe sat bemused whilst I was slapped on the back and given the wide smiles of approval that had so far been reserved for members of the Stars and Stripes brigade.

  ‘Who the fuck is Kenny Dalglish?’ he asked me, as other people in the café came over to shake my hand.

  ‘He is a footballer who used to play for Liverpool and then became the coach,’ I informed him, before elaborating, ‘He was a great player and is a really nice guy, as well.’

  ‘A nice guy,’ André interrupted. ‘So you know him?’

  ‘Yes, I know him quite well,’ I lied. ‘We are not best friends, you understand, but I do see him occasionally.’ I flashed Joe a ‘stick your Robert De Niro up your arse’ look and enjoyed, for the first time, being the main man of our double act.

  André told us of his passion for football and that Liverpool was his favourite team. Before reporting restrictions were lifted in 1989, André and his friends would risk severe punishment to tune in to foreign radio stations and listen to games on the radio. Occasionally, the state television would show a match, but things were much easier now for distant supporters because, as André announced with pride, English football was so popular, Bulgarian newspapers were printing the results.

  It had grown steadily dark outside and Joe and I needed to make some arrangements for the night. I asked André if the town had a hotel. Like everything else we had said to André apart from the words ‘Kenny Dalglish’ or ‘Liverpool’, this had to be, in turn, translated to the men.

  A short discussion began amongst them that involved a lot of pointing, shrugging of shoulders and nodding of heads. André eventually turned to us and said, ‘I have a place for you to stay.’

  We followed him out into the cold, wet night and the three other men said their goodbyes with vigorous handshakes and mentions of Kenny Dalglish in the middle of sentences in Bulgarian. I assumed this was them telling me to say hello to my mate Kenny next time I saw him. Alternatively, it could have been them shaking my hand and saying, ‘We know you’re a lying bastard and that you don’t know Kenny Dalglish. But, luckily for you, it is not the old days when we would have shot you.’

  We followed André through the dark streets to another ugly building, where a man stepped out of the shadows and approached us. He was six feet tall with dark hair and a clean-shaven, pale complexion, and was wearing a pair of grey canvas trousers with a crease so sharp it would have cut paper. Either he had learnt to iron his clothes with the precision of an army recruit, or he had an obsessive wife with a new steam iron.

  ‘Hello, I am Jordan Jordan. You will be staying with me.’

  We spent two days in Jordan Jordan’s apartment. In the past, he had been a senior party member but now, like everybody else in the town, he was adjusting to a new life. He was clearly still held in high esteem around the town and, in his small apartment, he had begun using his party contacts to sell ‘things’. We were to learn that these ‘things’ ranged from potatoes to parts for Russian tanks.

  Jordan Jordan also informed us that the town was not on the map because it was built to house a nuclear reactor. As it was close to the Danube and the Hungarian border, the authorities had not wanted its real purpose to be known. Then the Soviet Bloc had collapsed, the nuclear reactor was never finished and a town populated with nuclear physicists and party workers no longer had a meaning. It was perhaps the strangest town I have ever been to, and this was made even more apparent on the last day when André revealed himself to be a nuclear physicist who had moved into potato growing, as there was no work in his chosen profession. He then tried his best to get us to carry off 10 tons of over-production on our two bicycles as a parting gift.

  We attempted to get directly from Bulgaria into Romania, but were prevented from doing so as the border crossing was purely for nationals of those two countries. This meant we had to enter Yugoslavia, a country at the time in the depths of a savage civil war.

  We were only there for 24 hours, during which time we could easily have failed to notice anything amiss. In fact, the chaos of war would have completely passed us by had I not attempted to change 20 US dollars at the bank so that we could buy some food. Outside the bank, there was a small crowd, containing mainly men. In our naïvety, we thought that this was because it was the centre of town and people were using it as a meeting point. It was not until I entered the mayhem inside that I saw there was something different going on.

  The small bank was crowded with people carrying boxes, cases and buckets of money fighting to get to the counter. The counters didn’t have the protective barrier glass common in banks nowadays, and people were desperately thrusting themselves over to the other side in attempts to force their packages of money onto the staff and avoid the crush behind them. One man seemed to have been refused service, so he withdrew a shotgun from a bag that also overflowed with notes. This wasn’t greeted with the screaming response you might have imagined, but with a simple nod from the bank teller the man was served and everyone continued as before.

  I decided that changing $20 was not going to be a high priority, so
I forced my way back through the crowd outside to Joe. We were to later discover that the reason for the panic was that as the civil war had expanded, people had withdrawn all of their money in case the banks collapsed. The government had then reprinted all the national currency removing a ‘0’, meaning all previous notes would become worthless. They had given people three days to change the money or lose everything. This was the third day.

  But for that incident, I would have been impervious to what was happening elsewhere: that night, we camped in a sunflower field and, whilst we warmed ourselves by a fire under the starlit night, people were engaged in ethnic cleansing barely a car journey away.

  Camping was something that Joe had convinced me to do. It allowed total freedom and a great sense of adventure and I enjoyed it – until one night in Romania, whilst in the foothills of the Transylvanian mountains.

  We had set up camp beside a forest after a long day’s ride. As the shadows crept out of the forest and engulfed us, we had cleared away the pot from the fire and were preparing for sleep when we heard it.

  A sound raced out of the trees. It resembled the howl of a dog, yet it was almost human. It seemed to come from nowhere, enter my ears, run around my head, jump out and slap me in the face before being replaced with dark silence.

  I realised that Joe had experienced the same sensation. Neither of us spoke for a moment. We just stood there looking in the direction of the noise for some indication of its source.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, partly to draw on the knowledge of my well-travelled companion, but mainly because the silence was becoming as scary as the noise.

  ‘Don’t know … probably a wild boar or something,’ Joe said, trying to sound unconcerned but not managing it.

  For my part, the idea that it was a wild boar didn’t help. I would not suggest I have expert knowledge about the animal, but anything with ‘wild’ as part of its name doesn’t sound too friendly.

  I opened my mouth to talk to Joe, but before I could speak a shrill sound cut through the air again, firing at us from the trees like an arrow. We both stood saying nothing, until this time Joe broke the silence and attempted to make light of the situation. ‘You don’t think this has anything to do with being close to Transylvania, do you?’

  We both laughed weakly and attempted to reassure one another by saying things like, ‘I’m OK, if you’re OK,’ and ‘I don’t mind staying if you don’t.’ Yet within seconds of a third bark/scream we had packed up the tent and were on our bicycles without saying a word to each other.

  I was preparing to start riding into the darkness when Joe stopped me. ‘Hold on, man, what are we doing?’

  ‘Running away,’ I answered.

  ‘Yeah, but look, it’s too dark to see anything. We don’t have any lights, we don’t know where we are, we can’t see where we’re going and that was an ideal campsite.’

  Joe was right. It was ludicrous that two grown men with pretensions of being able to look after themselves were running away from a noise in the trees. We agreed to go back and, laughing at ourselves, began turning towards the forest. Only to see a group of bats fly over our heads.

  We jumped on our bicycles and rode like hell.

  We decided to make for Turkiju, which appeared to be about 20 kilometres away and was the only town within reach.

  It wasn’t a good ride. We had been attacked five times by packs of dogs and were still at least 10 kilometres from Turkiju when salvation came in the form of what we would later discover was a miners’ tavern.

  The only things that suggested we were in a drinking tavern were some crates of beer and the presence of four round tables and assorted chairs and benches. We were the only people in the building, which at 9 p.m. on a Friday didn’t suggest this was the most swinging bar in town. But, within five minutes, it was as if a coach party had arrived, and the tavern echoed to the noise of a dozen men talking and opening bottles. We were greeted with a brief cheer and each man shook our hands. Their wide smiles across their leathery faces revealed the loneliest teeth in the world.

  As the smiles relaxed, I could see the cracks in their faces were impregnated with black dirt, like grout separating tiles in a bathroom. All the men had faces full of character, which is a diplomatic way of saying that they looked knackered. They were world-worn and looked prepared to fix a child’s toy or have a fight within the same minute. We learnt they had all just finished a 12-hour shift down the local coal mine.

  As the evening progressed with the opening of more bottles, the fact that we did not speak the same language mattered less and less. Every time someone left they shook hands with everyone in the room, and every time someone arrived they did the same. It was a simple touch of friendliness that I found heart-warming. Then one of the miners remembered that it was 3 July, so it was decided that we would celebrate Joe being American as more bottles were clinked and cheers shouted.

  I then told them about the noise in the woods and the fear it was a vampire, so I proposed a toast to Count Dracula. Joe joined in the toast, but we suddenly realised we were the only people in the room clinking our bottles: the miners just stared blankly back at us.

  Attempts to translate through mime failed dismally, and the point where I pretended to bite Joe’s neck was greeted with chair-shuffling and coughing, their expressions now turning to ones of concern. After all, these men had emerged from 12 hours underground to go to their local tavern to drink beer, talk about manly things and wash away the coal dust. Instead, they were greeted by the sight of two strangers dressed in Lycra shorts, one with his hair in a ponytail, the other pretending to give him a love bite. They had every right to be concerned.

  As I stood there watching lasting friendships dissolve in misunderstanding, Joe had the sense to realise that the story of Dracula meant nothing to these men, since Bram Stoker had written for an English audience. In later life I was to learn how to turn an audience but, at this moment, with Romanian miners looking blankly back at me, I was struck dumb. It was Joe who brilliantly explained the whole thing away by saying, ‘Hollywood,’ while using the gesture that indicates a film in a game of charades.

  ‘Ah, Hollywood.’ All the bottles in the room rose to a clink, and the drinking resumed.

  It was past 2 a.m. when we were eventually led away by the barman to stay at his house. Despite the time, his wife got out of bed to greet us, and we were given a bowl of water each to wash with, and a bed to share. In the morning, there was a feast prepared for us whilst the family – the barman, his wife and their parents – sat and watched us eat. We assumed they had eaten prior to us, but with hindsight I realised that there was every chance their sense of hospitality was to give us everything and see what we left for them which, after a drunken night when our bodies were craving sustenance, was not a lot.

  After breakfast, we thanked them all for their wonderful hospitality and started to walk along the rutted dirt road to pick up our bikes. Our intention had been to head towards Turkiju and then advance throughout the day but, as we reached the tavern, the barman insisted we have a farewell drink.

  After a peppermint liqueur, bottles of beer were opened. In an attempt to avoid having to drink the beer, I feigned a hangover from the night before. It was a terrible mistake as it meant I had to drink the most disgusting cocktail in existence: cold espresso coffee mixed with coke. Within minutes I was drinking a bottle of beer.

  The bar now had a new set of miners in attendance and, despite it being only 11 a.m., beer was flowing freely. The barman explained to us that all the miners worked 12-hour shifts and their first port of call on their way home was the bar: regardless of the time of day, after 12 hours of breathing in the choking soot of the coal face, each man deserved the right to wash their throats clean with a beer. The fact that the miners would need to have eaten the coal supply of a power station to justify the amount they drank was lost in the handshaking and toasting in which I found us engaging once more.

  The day wore on. Then, in the mi
ddle of a toast to Elvis Presley, I had a sudden vision of the future. In 10 years, Joe and I would still be here, coming to this very bar after 12 hours pulling coal out of the ground. Like our friends, we would have complexions that a boot maker would dream of, and before each visit the tooth fairy would have had to have made a withdrawal from the World Bank, as 75 per cent of our teeth would be missing. We would drink a crate of beer before going home to our obedient wives, our noisy pigs, our tasty poultry, our back garden allotments and our 14 children.

  The truth hit me between my unfocused eyes: escape now or stay for ever. The decision was made. I drank the remains of my fourth bottle of beer, thanked the barman for his hospitality, shook hands with everyone in the room and prepared my bicycle for departure. Joe, however, hesitated for a moment: it was clear that he was closer to the pick and shovel than I was.

  I could have left him, but then I would have had to return like Robert De Niro did for Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter (but instead of bursting in on a game of Russian roulette, I would be trying to persuade a zombified old friend not to listen to the crowd and to put that last bottle of beer down). I could see it all ending in tragedy with Joe looking into my eyes for a second, a slight flicker of recognition upon his face when I said the words ‘mountain bike’, before ignoring my pleas and downing the bottle in one before going back to the mine …

  It seemed easier to try to persuade him to leave now, so I told him the truth: ‘Joe, if we stay here for another hour we are going to die here.’

  Slightly dramatic, but effective. Waving to our friends at the bar, we wobbled over the small river bridge next to the tavern and escaped, barely one bottle away from the point of no return. And we paid a price for our excess – it took us two hours to ride seven miles to Turkiju.