East of the West

by Miroslav Penkov

  “The dock,” John Martin says, and once more Elli mouths off his words as he speaks them, “is where the fish are situated. The dock is where I’ve been going for fifteen years and where I’ll be going for another fifteen if the good Lord wills it. That’s where Sarah took that ten-pounder, and if it was good enough for Sarah, by golly …”

  But I’m not listening anymore. The sun is climbing steadily toward mid-sky, and there is no shade for us to hide in, no good trees along the banks. Here and there across the lake I can see other boats, all larger than ours, with faster motors. I can see expensive rods bending, and waves splashing, and men pulling out fish as large as calves, or at least baby lambs.

  The first few times I took Elli to fish with John Martin—the first few times when we gutted the bass and cleaned them, when Elli peed behind a bush, once upon a time—those first few times were fun and I enjoyed them. I could lie in the boat and look at my daughter and feel empty inside, free of regret, of envy. It didn’t matter that I saw her only on the weekends. It didn’t matter that my wife lived with another man now, and even that man himself didn’t matter. So what if I didn’t own a car? So what if I lived at John Martin’s, drank his beer and ate his macaroni? At least I had Elli.

  But now our weekends have become repetitions of those first weekends of fun. Only, we’ve murdered the fun. Sure, Elli seems to enjoy them, but I no longer lie in the boat free of hatred. Oh, how I hate now. Nothing seems enough.

  “Don’t you just hate them, John Martin?” I ask him. “Don’t you just envy the shit out of these people in their fancy boats?”

  “No, sir, I sure don’t,” he tells me, and keeps steering.

  “Well, I hate them,” I say. “I feel this thing called yad when I watch them. So much yad, my chest gets constricted. Elli?” I say and gently nudge her on the back with my toe. “Do you feel yad when you watch them?”

  “Not really,” she says.

  “You should, honey. You ought to. Yad, John Martin,” I explain, “is what lines the insides of every Bulgarian soul. It’s yad that propels us, like a motor, onward. Yad is like envy, but it’s not simply that. It’s like spite, rage, anger, but more elegant, more complicated. It’s like pity for someone, regret for something you did or did not do, for a chance you missed, for an opportunity you squandered. All those feelings in one beautiful word. Yad. Can you say it?”

  But he doesn’t say it. “Let me give you,” he says instead, “one word of my own. Elli, Princess, cover your ears.”

  Then Elli turns around and looks at him. “Bullshit,” she says. “Is that the word, John Martin?”

  •

  We take six bass. Or rather, Elli catches two and the rest are John Martin’s. I drink my Champagne of Beers at the back, while John teaches my daughter flippin’ and pitchin’ and other neat angler tricks. It’s a bit creepy how he pets her head, how he calls her “Princess” over and over, but the lesson is worth it and I decide not to intervene.

  Finally, Elli says she can’t hold it much longer. And would I please quit asking her to go over the side: girls don’t go over sides like that. John Martin orders me to retrieve the cinder block we use for an anchor and I pull on the rope, but the anchor is stuck in the mud below us. With a sigh John takes the rope and pulls, as if he can do better, and his face turns tomato. “God damn it,” he says.

  “That’s right,” I say. “Every time.”

  We pull on the rope for a while, left, right, in circles. Elli has clenched her legs crossed and, eyes shut, she’s biting her lip. John Martin curses and I curse a little as expected.

  “Come on, now,” he says, and twines the rope around his hand. “Come on.”

  We pull for fifteen minutes, give or take.

  “I can’t hold it much longer!” Elli cries. So John Martin jumps out on one side of the boat and I jump on the other. The water is up to my chest, waist for him, and it gets up to our chins when we kneel and grope in the warm mud for the anchor. We puff, we work the mud, we kick on the block until it finally loosens. With a yelp John Martin lifts the block up and lays it enormous in the boat, a chunk of lake, and weeds, and slimy brown leaves.

  Then, after seven pulls of the cord, the motor is roaring and we fly, four miles an hour, toward the closest bank. Elli hops out of the boat and splashes to seek cover behind some mangy bush.

  “Jesus Christ, that was close,” John Martin says, and searches the cooler for full cans. He begins to roll one against his cheeks to cool them. I look at his neck.

  “John,” I say, “there is a leech the size of a five-year-old Gypsy’s dick on your neck.”

  “God damn it, Michael, not again,” he says. Then he leans backward and stretches his neck to allow me easier access.

  V.

  “The news that Crazy Ali is coming to take her away reaches my great-grandmother as she is washing clothes in the river. Panic seizes all other girls, but great-grandmother never loses her calm. She wrings out a shirt and washes another.

  “ ‘I have no time to be frightened,’ she tells them. ‘Work waits for no one.’

  “A bright moon blooms in the sky. Ali Ibrahim and the hundred soldiers stop before the wooden gates. Ali dismounts, takes out his yataghan, and knocks three times with the ivory handle.

  “ ‘I have come for your daughter,’ he tells the man who opens the gate. He brings his sword to the man’s face, and on the tip of the blade hangs the black imperial feredje. ‘Go veil her face and bring her here. We have much road ahead and time is short.’

  “The man takes the kerchief and walks to the cattle shed where the most beautiful of all women is milking the cows. He hands her the black cloth, which flickers like a wounded pigeon in his trembling hand.

  “My great-grandmother narrows her eyes, takes the kerchief, and throws it in the dirt. She then finishes milking a cow and jumps on the only horse in the shed.

  “ ‘Az litse si ne zabulyam,’ she says: ‘I shall never veil my face.’ She whispers something to the horse and grabs him by the mane.

  “People say that right then a great storm rose from the west, and that when my great-grandmother vaulted over the yard walls, over Ali and his soldiers in a cloud of dust with her long hair flowing, her beauty was astounding.

  “For a long time Ali stands in disbelief. His face is calm except his right eyebrow, which twitches every now and then. He mounts his horse and puts the yataghan in the sheath.

  “ ‘Bring me the feredje,’ he says. And when the soldiers bring him the black kerchief from the cattle shed, he commands them, ‘Chop all heads if you have to, but when I come back I want to hear a hodja chanting in the name of Allah.’

  “Then at an even trot he makes after the cloud of dust that my great-grandmother has left behind.”

  We’re on the bed again. It’s raining, like never. Even on the way back from the lake, clouds were already lining the sky in thick chunks. We stopped at Dairy Queen and I bought Elli a milk shake. I bought one for John Martin. “You asshole,” he said. “You know I can’t have milk.” But he drank it in gluttonous gulps. We had to stop at gas stations twice before we reached home and once we were in the driveway, John Martin sprinted out to the bathroom with the truck’s engine still running. Involuntarily he granted me the honor of parking under the shed. After he was finished, forty minutes later, pale and sweaty, he went out in the rain to make sure I’d turned the headlights off and straightened the tires. Which I had forgotten to do.

  Now on the bed Elli throws a final glance at her cell phone. She’s already texted her mother and gotten her hugs and kisses.

  “Keep talking, taté,” she says at last. “What happens next? Does Ali Ibrahim catch her?”

  •

  “For two days my great-grandmother rides without any rest and for two days Ali Ibrahim follows in her steps. Like a hound he goes after her scent, shortening the distance that stands between them. As he gets closer, as the smell of lilies gets stronger, his heart beats faster, his throat gets drier, and hi
s palms sweat more and more on the handle of the yataghan. With every step the air feels thicker. To Ali Ibrahim it seems as if he were making his way through a rushing stream.

  “On the third day, my great-grandmother understands that she cannot outrun the janissary, so she decides to defeat him with her beauty. She sits on a rock in the middle of a river, and this is where he finds her, combing her hair with her fingers.

  “ ‘So you are Ali Ibrahim,’ she says without looking. ‘Crazy Ali—the one who sacrifices his own in the name of a fake god.’

  “Ali stands on the bank and his fingers rub the ivory handle of the sword.

  “ ‘Well, Ali,’ she says, ‘don’t stand there like that. Come help me braid my hair.’ He takes out the sword and lowers it so when he walks through the slow river, the blade scrapes the stones on the bottom. My great-grandmother is still combing her hair, not yet looking at Ali, whose face is as calm as before, although his right eyebrow has started twitching again. He stops in front of her and takes a tress of black hair in his hand. He is ready to cut it, but just then my great-grandmother looks up and her eyes rest upon his face.

  “Ali’s hand goes numb and he drops the sword. He takes a step back, stumbles on a stone, and falls on his back in the river. My great-grandmother starts laughing while Ali, lying in the stream, watches her.

  “ ‘You are not the first man who fell before me,’ she tells him, ‘and you will not be the last. But you are, by far, the most handsome one I’ve seen.’

  “Ali says nothing. He stares at her and licks his lips.

  “ ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asks lightly. ‘If I didn’t know you were Ali Ibrahim, I’d think you were frightened of something.’

  “Ali Ibrahim finally manages to rise and get a grip on his yataghan.

  “ ‘Stand up,’ he tells her. ‘I’m taking you to the sultan.’

  “My great-grandmother laughs again and tosses back her hair. She will never let him take her to Istanbul, but she knows it’s pointless to show resistance now. She’ll obey him until her moment comes.

  “ ‘All right, then,’ she says. ‘Take me. But I can’t appear before His Greatness like this. You must help me braid.’

  “When he touches the dark hair, a shiver runs through his body. He starts braiding slowly, with skill never forgotten.”

  •

  “They ride together side by side. Every time the horses step on a broader road, my great-grandmother starts singing. She lets her voice rise high in hopes that it will attract the attention of someone who can help her. For three days they don’t meet a soul, and for three days Ali Ibrahim doesn’t utter a word.

  “ ‘Is it possible,’ my great-grandmother wonders, ‘that my beauty has no power upon him?’ Every now and then she sprints a few feet forward so her raven braids sway, so Ali could watch her.

  “He stays unchanged on the outside. He rides tall on his horse, proud and fierce as always. But on the inside pyres burn him, tempests devastate him and he is weak—just the way a man should feel when he has fallen for the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “On the fourth night, they find a glade amid the thick pine woods and stop there to wait for sunrise. Ali gathers dry twigs and builds a fire. The twigs crackle in the darkness and my great-grandmother shivers.

  “Ali speaks at last. ‘Eat,’ he says, and hands her a piece of meat he has roasted on the flames.

  “ ‘I don’t eat meat,’ my great-grandmother tells him, even though she is starving. ‘I eat only white bread and honey. I drink fresh milk.’

  “They sit quiet for a long time, the blazing fire like a living wall between them. Ali watches her—lips, nose, eyes. She also watches. His dark gaze fills her with fear and coldness, and with something she has never felt before. And she hates him.

  “ ‘Tell me, Ali,’ she says, and holds a tress of her hair, ‘why should hands that can touch so gently bring so much death and pain?’

  “ ‘This is God’s way,’ he tells her. ‘Even the whitest shirt has a bit of gray in it. Even the darkest night conceals something shining in its gown.’

  “And then, when my great-grandmother is about to speak again, a shadow emerges from the dark. A woman in a black dress wearing a black apron and a black cloth on her hair walks toward them and sits by the fire. Two dark holes gape in her face. She has no lips and no nose. The apparition loosens her hair and combs it with a wooden comb. From underneath the fall of tresses, she seems to look at my great-grandmother and then at Ali.

  “ ‘Sunshine,’ she cries out, ‘why did you do it?’

  “Ali grabs a burning brand from the fire and tosses it at the apparition. The twig blazes through the air, falls in the grass and slowly sinks in darkness. The apparition is gone, and where she was sitting there now blossoms a tiny snowdrop.

  “ ‘They follow wherever I go,’ Ali tells my great-grandmother. ‘All those I have killed. They are chained to me.’

  “ ‘And the one we saw now? Whose shadow was she?’ ”

  VI.

  The rain is no longer so bad, but the wind has kicked up into a storm. I move Elli to the side and tuck her in. She stirs in her sleep but doesn’t wake. I kiss her smooth forehead. I listen to the gusts slam sheets of rain against the glass, and to the AC unit oscillating just outside my window. A car whizzes by in the dark and its tires howl as they push water away from the road.

  I wouldn’t mind if like in some cheap movie with a twist John Martin turns out to be a figment of my imagination. If the truck is all mine and I drive it alone, a maniac talking to himself, up and down the dirt roads of Texas; if somewhere along those roads, from grief and envy, I lose my mind. I wouldn’t mind some help from ghosts and shadows is all, I suppose. Like in the fairy tales I read to Elli.

  And I wouldn’t mind if we were on the road right now, just me and her, in John Martin’s truck. Heading to the ocean, or to Mexico, even. We’ll make it across the border somehow, down in El Paso. We’ll buy tickets to one of those enormous cruise ships and sail across the Atlantic.

  When we first moved to the U.S. our idea was to save up some money, buy our own place and later, when we received citizenship, bring our parents over to the better life—Diet Coke and fried okra, and five-minute commercial breaks on TV every ten minutes. They would be retired by then and would quietly take care of Elli when both Maya and I went to work. They would teach her proper Bulgarian, how to read and write. They would keep all the roots from withering. But it was too expensive to even maintain a phone and so we wrote letters. It took the letters two weeks to arrive from Bulgaria, and from the States—if the envelopes were too bulgy, if they looked like there could be dollars stuffed inside—the letters never arrived. So we wrote shorter notes. And those notes thinned in meaning. Yes, a letter from your sister is always something you hold dear, but they told us nothing of substance, these notes, only the big facts that can never paint a living picture. What do I care that the family vacationed on the sea? That the other day, while buying lettuce, my mother met an old friend who said hi? That my niece was born? I’m here now, so far away I can’t really know how warm the sea was, whether my mother bought the lettuce at a good price, whether it snowed on the day my niece took her first breath. I don’t know who held the umbrella over my sister when she carried the baby to the car. I know it wasn’t me, and sometimes that’s all I have to know.

  This is a natural occurrence, Maya’s cousin, the one who lived in the Bronx apartment below us, once said. Do yourself a favor, he said, and kill the things that pull you back. He hadn’t heard from his brothers in three years and look at him: he was a perfectly happy human being. Fewer stones to carry, so to speak. Onward and upward. Never look back. Nothing good, he told me, ever came from looking behind you. You either turned to a pillar of salt or lost your beloved into Hades. He, too, was a schoolteacher, the poor guy, and now a fine cabdriver in New York.

  I lie in bed and watch the wind whose howls are so strong now they turn to shapes, and I can�
��t hear Elli’s breathing over the beating of their wings. Then my thoughts get mixed up a little. I’m on the street in Sofia buying sunflower seeds from an old man with no teeth because I want to feed the pigeons, a thick, black mass on the square around us. But the old man won’t give me the seeds I’ve paid for. No, no, he tells me. You haven’t paid. He’s holding red balloons now and I snatch a bunch and he yells with a lisp Fffnimanie! Fffnimanie! Attention! And then I’m in a parade, with children marching and waving paper flags and a siren, a loud, ugly war siren cuts through the rain, because of Chernobyl, maybe, because they want us off the streets and it’s raining.

  “Taté,” I hear and someone’s shaking my shoulder. I see Elli, but it’s John Martin who has me in his grip.

  “Wake up, goddamn it,” he says, and Elli repeats it. “Tornado.”

  VII.

  “Sometimes when he was still young, Ali Ibrahim dreamed of his mother. He saw her sitting on a rock in the middle of the river, combing her long black hair. In the dream it is raining.

  “ ‘Come, my sunshine,’ she calls to him, ‘come help me braid.’

  “The river is low and he can walk to the rock in the middle, following a path of white stones. But the rain falls harder. The waters rise, the stream becomes turbulent and the path to his mother is closed for Ali. Soon the flow starts to drag dead bodies, and they all float with their backs facing the dark sky. His mother still sits on the rock and still she combs her hair. It’s raining blood now.

  “ ‘Come, my sunshine,’ she calls again, ‘come help me braid.’ But her face is no longer there: the rain has washed it away.

  “Every night that he dreamed this vision, Ali remembered less and less of his mother. Until one night there is no one on the rock, only the bodies floating in the stream, bodies whose faces he cannot see.”

  VIII.