East of the West

by Miroslav Penkov

  •

  In the summer, Tuesdays and Saturdays. That’s when we have buses running, one in the morning and one in the p.m. When we have school, Saturdays only. Sometimes I skip school just to go, but rarely since Grandmoms sets all over me for turning down the knowledge. She says only men can afford to be uneducated. “Women,” she says, “need to develop their brains.” “Oh, yeah?” I say. “And how about Magda? Her brain is the opposite of developed, but she is always well fed, wears nice clothes and sleeps in nice sheets. Watches a plasma TV.” “Now, now,” Grandmoms says, “don’t be a bitch.”

  At the bus station I pay the driver, Uncle Pesho, and he says, “Mariyke, did you rob a bank?” I shove the money in my pocket. Thirty levs. The other twenty were for Grandmoms, after she sold the earrings. And two are gone for the ticket, there and back. The bus is empty and I’m cold so early in the morning. “Can’t you turn the heat on, Uncle?” He turns and looks at me, then at my shirt. “I see that you’re cold. I like it.” And, laughing, he starts the bus and off we go.

  He is a good man, Uncle Pesho, he’s known me for ten years now. And he’s been driving me for seven. That’s when I started seeing Magda. Before that, I didn’t know about her. Nine years. Days, nights, summers, winters. I’d go to bed and wake up in the morning, I’d swim in the river, work the fields, go to school, clueless. Then, when Grandmoms told me, it was, like, yes, I knew it all along. Like I didn’t know it, but like I’ve known it. Like when old people say their kneecaps hurt so it must rain soon. Only my kneecaps hurt after the rain. I might have shown it because one day Grandmoms said, “Okay, okay, I’ll take you there. Just stop.”

  Magda was this tiny thing. A whole head shorter than me, and her face was like this, distorted. Her tongue was swollen in her mouth. I couldn’t look past her rolling tongue, and the spit trickling down her chin. Grandmoms wiped it with a kerchief as if she’d wiped it time and time before. Later I asked her, “How long?” and she said, “On and off, once a month for three years.”

  “Why three?”

  She said, “I couldn’t go on forever without sleep. I thought I could. But I couldn’t.”

  When we first met, Magda put her hands all over my face. Sticky hands on my cheeks, on my ears. She poked inside my nose. “Quit it!”

  “Now, now,” Grandmoms said, “that’s how she’s getting to know you.”

  You can’t get to know someone by shoving a finger up their nose. But if someone shoves their finger up your nose, you learn some things about them. It’s called a one-way implication. We studied it in Math.

  I try to teach Magda some things. Since we’re not men and can’t afford. I take my books to her and sit her in a corner in a nice room that smells of rice with milk and cinnamon and teach her things. She does okay in math. She knows multiplication. At first it was, like, 1 × 1, 1 × 2, and it was never past the two, everything equaled two. 5 × 7, 9 × 8, everything was 2. But now she gets it. She gets history. She likes simpler things, made up stories, poems, but she is awful with language. And she can’t spell to save her life. There is one letter in particular she just can’t write. .

  is the gallows upon which Magda will hang. I tell her, “Girl, you are sixteen and your looks like a dead frog.” And she laughs. At least she laughs. Her words might be all mumbly and downright stupid sometimes, but her laughter is snowdrops and there is nothing stupid about her laughter.

  Now, on the bus, Uncle Pesho calls me over. “Mariyke, you want to sit in my lap? Drive the machine?” That’s what we used to do when I was little. I’d sit in his lap and hold the wheel and drive. So I say, “Okay, why not. Because the way my thoughts were going, I’d rather change their course.”

  I sit in his lap and the bus goes and then he moves his hand up. He pinches my nipple and laughs and I say, “Pederas, let me out.” He’s laughing, laughing, and I stand up and slam my foot onto his knee and he veers the bus off the road. I pull the hand brake and then it’s all nuts and bolts thrashing underneath us, and smoke. The bus halts. I hit the button, out the door, and I’m two hills away.

  Then I cry a little. Shut up, I say, and slap my own face. Slapping your own face is very effective in case of tears. I saw a woman do it in this American movie. Grandmoms and I watch every movie on TV. So the tears are almost gone when a car comes toward me up the road. The car stops, window comes down. “Mary, is that you?”

  Mister opens the door and I jump in without a word.

  “Are you going to the orphans?” he says. He sounds just like Magda. The right words, but every word a touch off, crippled.

  “Yes,” I say, and Mister says, “Let me take you.”

  Grandmoms is secretly in love with Mister. And she hates Missis in the guts. We watched this one movie Zorba the Greek and Grandmoms said, “I hope Missis dies like that old whore so we can rob her house, vases and jewels and even her nightgown, still warm with her heat. I hope the peasants catch her with the hide buyer, naked on his furs, and, like in the movie, slice her throat side to side for the infidelity.” Then there will be no more Missis, and it will be all Mister. White skin and blue eyes. Soft hair. Mister looks just like the gentleman in the movie, the writer. Older of course, but more handsome, because of his age. Because of his white suits and smooth hats. Because of his eyes.

  I put my hand on his as he shifts gears. “Dear girl,” he goes, and adds something about how cold my hand is, but I’m not listening.

  “This is a nice car, Mister.” His hand is warm and I can feel his knuckles moving and his muscles.

  “How is your sister?” Mister asks me. He knows all about her. He’s been pouring money into the orphanage, dumping money with a shovel. Out of pure kindness, I think, though Grandmoms once told me it had to do with taxes and things along those lines. “That poor girl,” he says.

  “She’s not so poor, now, is she?” I say. I mean you bought them new cribs, new curtains. You bought them a microwave! But I don’t say this of course. I just keep my hand on his and I’m glad the hills are hills and the road snakes the way it snakes, so the stick would shift as much as it shifts. So his knuckles would move.

  “Do you know that she pisses her bed?” I say, just to say something. “She’s sixteen.”

  “You’re twins, right?”

  “No one can tell. I wonder if she even knows it. Her face is all like that and mine is all …” I look at my face in the mirror. Jesus! I hide to the side and search my pockets for a tissue.

  “Here,” Mister says, and passes me his kerchief.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I wipe off the mascara and he says, “It’s only a little bit.”

  My face is flaming and I almost say, Stop the car, please let me go. But he takes out a cigarette and lights it with the car lighter, then returns the lighter in its slot. Davidoff. And the lighter is so shiny, I tussle for air.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and Mister says, “It’s okay. Of course you’ll get emotional when you speak of your sister.”

  Then we arrive and he reaches over to open the door. He smells like pinecones.

  “The door sticks,” he says, and pushes it open.

  “Thanks.” While he ashes the cigarette out his window, I palm the lighter and hide it in my pocket. “Can I keep the kerchief?” I say, and he says, “Keep it. And say hi to your Granny.” And out of nowhere there is this big smile on his face.

  •

  Today I quiz her over old lessons. We sit in the corner and she is restless as always, rocking back and forth in her chair, eyes out the window. “Magda, when was Bulgaria founded?” “Six eighty-one,” she says. She smacks her lips, the swollen tongue rolls. Spit trickles. I tell her, “Two thousand and seven is when Bulgaria ends; Grandmoms said that. Once we join the EU, Bulgaria ends. Do you know what the EU is?” “EU, EU,” she repeats, and I say, “Stop saying it. It makes you sound inarticulate.” “EU.” She laughs. “Come here.” I wipe the spit off her chin and then I’m, like, Oh, crap, Magda, this is Mister’s kerchief. You ruine
d Mister’s kerchief.

  We do some dictation. She’s biting her tongue and writing, diligently, and around us children are running and playing so I tell them to turn that TV down. All these children are normal, though they are orphans. But Magda is here because there is no other place she could be. Not close to our village, anyway.

  Mother left both of us here. Back then the building was a mess and they didn’t have TVs and curtains. It was wolves on the streets, so Mother was scared we would get snatched and she brought us here to safety. Grandmoms says that and tears up and I always think, Grandmoms you have got to be shitting me. And now I watch Magda chew on her tongue and write tiny letters and I think to myself, What if that teacher had beaten me? We were the same then, two years old. Would Magda come to see me, teach me things? Nice room, cinnamon, soft pillows. Just today they were eating sandwiches with ham and cheese when I walked in. And when Mister made that big donation, Magda sat in his lap and he petted her hair and brushed her cheeks. In a parallel world, it might not be so bad.

  We are done writing and Magda looks up. She giggles and motions me closer and when she talks she spits on my face.

  “I got something alive in my belly,” she says.

  •

  I am told our father’s name is Hristo. I don’t blame him for running away at all. I should probably blame him, but I don’t—it’s nature, really—spread the seed and run, move on for more seed spreading. But a mother betraying her own? Blood betraying blood? Now, that’s low. So all my hate goes toward Mother and there just isn’t any left for anyone else. At least Pops never calls. He never says, How is my beautiful girl? To which I always respond, Chewing her own tongue. And the saddest thing is Mother doesn’t even understand what I’m saying. She’s never seen Magda—not after she left her, anyway. So if she calls she keeps me on the phone for a minute, I’ve timed it. “How’s life treating you?” she says exactly in those words. Life treating you … A stupider question was never asked. Life doesn’t treat you. People do.

  And then the phone is off to Grandmoms. Five minutes. Done. And after that, Grandmoms searches for an old article to wrap whatever my mother asked for.

  But it can’t be just any old article. Grandmoms never throws a newspaper away. And she reads old newspapers. Mostly the stuff Grandpa wrote. She reads them in the yard over and over again. Calls me sometimes and says, “Listen to this: The General Secretary spent ten minutes tying up red balloons for the Day of the Child. See how nicely your grandpa put it?” I guess Grandpa could put it nicely. But why does she have to keep those papers everywhere, always?

  When I first told Mister my father worked in England, Mister asked me what city and I said, “Why, of course London.” Like I was offended by him asking, like my Pops wouldn’t be working just anyplace. I told him my Pops was a construction supervisor and had supervised the building of that big Ferris wheel, the one on the Thames. Mister’s eyes nearly flew out. “Why, your Pops is really someone,” he said, and then I was, like, offended again: “You think?”

  Mister said I should write Pops a letter. I said, “That’s okay, Mister. Pops must have other children now, his own missis.” “And that doesn’t make you sad?” Mister said, and I said, “No, it’s all good.” But on the inside I was, like, You think?

  I think about my Pops sometimes. And I can’t get that stupid wheel out of my head, now that I lied about it. I see Pops by the wheel with his new kids and his new missis. It’s always dark and the wheel is always lit and spinning. The Thames smells like watermelon. My sister is with me, naturally, and we are hiding by a stand where they sell ham and cheese. Pops picks one kid up on his shoulder and lifts the other, like a demijohn of rakia, and carries them both to a basket on the wheel. His missis laughs, authentic, long-necked, pearl-eared. Dura-bura, Pops says in English, meaning, Now we’re going to have some good times. And then my sister turns to me and says, “God damn it, Maria, why does it have to be like this? This is your daydream. Make it better.” And when she says it, suddenly we are transported to the wheel, a hundred meters above the ground, and we walk across its metal frame, unscrewing one bulb after the other. There is no danger of falling. Gravity does not exist. Only the gravity between us. And the bulbs keep glowing even after we put them in our pockets and our pockets are full with one million stolen, glowing bulbs, burning fireflies so strong, they take us upon their wings. Then we fly, my sister and I, illuminated, hand in hand above the Thames. “Now, that’s a dream,” she says.

  •

  Violation of policy number, paragraph number, point number … that’s what the principal of the orphanage is droning about. I’m sitting in her office, waiting for a good moment to snatch a pen from the desk. An orange Bic with a blue tooth-marked cap. Long story short, they’re kicking Magda out on the street.

  “She has no place to go,” I say, and the principal smiles at me, “Of course she does.”

  On the bus home I can’t think of anything else. What if the baby turns out like Magda? Swollen tongue, inarticulate mumbling. I know that’s not how she got to be the way she is, but what if somehow with her blood or milk that swollenness gets passed on to the baby? It won’t be fair. And how would Grandmoms take the news? A stroke? A heart attack? A baby needs food to keep it quiet, clothes, a crib. A baby needs something better than Magda, Grandmoms and me.

  Back in the village, I look for Mister. A spy of his caliber, with his connections in Sofia, will surely know what to do. But Mister isn’t home again, and Missis is bathing in the sun. “Hello, Mary,” she fakes.

  “Dear God, Missis, you have to help me.”

  I blurt this out before I know it. And I just don’t know what to do with my hands, my hair, my nails. Missis sits me on a large oak table inside and I can see my own face distorted in the table, with the sun slipping across the wood. I recognize that face and run my hands over its cheeks as if to smooth them. With light steps, Missis floats to the countertop. “Cocktail?” she says.

  To save us time, I tell her I’ve seen the hide buyer come in and out of her house and promise not to tell Mister if she would help me. She sobers up. Her lips pursed, she holds the shaker like it’s a neck to choke. She dumps the drink in two tall cups, then adds some extra olives to my drink. “You are a little nosy snake,” she says. “I like that in a girl.”

  We down the drinks.

  “Nothing a drink can’t solve,” says Missis as I fight to breathe the fire away. “So, Marche, what do you want?”

  I tell her all there is to tell.

  She ticks her tongue, runs a finger over the glass rim, and suddenly she is alive. Her drowsiness evaporated, cheeks rosy, sparkling eyes. “Tell me more. Who is the father? When and where? I want to know it all …”

  “The father doesn’t matter, and I don’t know about the rest.”

  Missis sticks her bottom lip out. “You are no fun. All day I listen to these walls and now, at last, some excitement. And you don’t know … you must find out …”

  “I’d rather talk to Mister.”

  “Now, wouldn’t you!” she says. She licks the glass. Then something strikes her. “You think the baby will be like her? You know … That will be very sad. We mustn’t let such sad things happen.”

  “How can we not?”

  For some time she plays with the pearls on her necklace and I can hear the click they make. “Get rid of it,” she says. “That ought to do the trick.”

  She goes back to the counter. “I did it once or twice,” she says. “It helped me very much.” She gulps down the drink she’s fixed and brings another to the table. “I know a great doctor. Very handsome. And you don’t have to go to Sofia to see him. Just go to town. But it’ll cost you a thousand green.”

  “We’ll never have a thousand green,” I say. But then a possibility reveals itself as clear as Magda’s laugh. “Unless we write to Pops.”

  Missis considers something for a moment. She claps her hands. “Of course. A letter to your Pops.” And goes to get good, fancy
paper so Pops would know we mean business. I take out the orange Bic.

  “We’ll write this in English in case your Pops has forgotten our language.”

  “And to the side in Bulgarian,” I say, “in case he is dumb enough to have never learned theirs.”

  The letter goes like so: Missis translates it. She tells me to copy the writing myself, as would be proper form.

  I can’t write English, though we studied it in school, but it’s not so hard to copy. At least on paper words are words. Pops, Magda is pregnant. They are kicking her out of the Home. We ask for your help. The abortion costs a lot of money. Send it in an envelope to Grandma. We wish you health. Maria and Magda.

  After I’m finished, Missis inspects the writing. “Mistake,” she says, and shows me where I’ve butchered one letter. “Again.”

  I copy it again and she says, “Mistake,” and brings more sheets and over and over again it’s mistake, mistake, mistake. Missis is drinking her fifth cocktail when she starts to cry. “Oh, my,” she says, and tries laughing instead.

  Then she is quiet, but I can tell she wants to speak.

  “Missis,” I go. She goes, “I knew this girl, very pretty. A neat student at the language school. She served cocktails to foreigners in the Balkan Tourist hotel for cash. Her father was a drunk who wasted all their money. One night, an old English bastard asked the girl to make him a Corpse Reviver. The girl had no idea what that was.”

  She shakes her glass. “It’s not that bad. It’s just a simple operation really. You never feel a thing.” And then, like that, as if she’s slapped her own face, Missis is once more collected. “Go on, now, finish the letter.”