Bulgaria in the style of Borges
Once I came across a village.
It was in the evening, I was walking along a 1976 map and planned that in about three hours, when the sun was completely hidden, I would set up a tent in the forest, make myself some tea in a mug, lie down on my back and wait and see the stars begin to fall on me. The anticipation of such an overnight stay was started from memory by my sudden appearance in a village that arose on my way. It was not marked on the map. But she was and lived. Very small - fifty houses. Beautiful and well-maintained little houses under tiled roofs looked at me with empty eye sockets of dark windows. It seemed to me that no one lives here anymore, when suddenly, turning around the corner of the house, I saw several old people, illuminated by a crimson-red sunset. Pictures of the Argentinean village surfaced in my memory, several works of Borges flashed by lightning - how great was the similarity with what he described. Unreal resemblance. As if moving in space happened. A blinding crimson sunset, which painted everything around in a blood-red, clay color, old people sitting at the table like statues in worn canvas shirts, calm and confident in the next day, months and years to come. Because everything is frozen.
The conversation of the old people was instantly interrupted and with interesting bewilderment they looked at me with attentive and constantly watery eyes, who had come from somewhere in these places - an alien. The modest greeting elicited no reaction. There had obviously been no stranger here for the last ten or fifteen years. Only after half an hour of a sluggish transfer of phrases, and treating them to brandy, the local production returned everything to its place. I became a part of them. Part of this Borgesian place in the very center of Bulgaria, became part of the story that flows from the mouths of the old people, part of an uncontrollably strong and touching song, long and sad, which the old people started when the sun had already set. A strong feeling envelops. Before shivering, until a trickle of sweat down your back, you feel your presence on earth and at the same time insignificance within the visible space. Like a grain of sand in a dune.
It was getting dark. They lit kerosene lamps on the table. Nobody wanted to go to their empty houses, realizing that there they would fall into oppressive gloomy loneliness, filled only with memories, and here, when they all sit together at the table, passing each other the last pieces of their vital energy, they are strong. To the best of your ability. And there is no need to remember them, abandoned old people, about their moments of life, sometimes piercing to the pain in the heart. Here they live for today and grab these moments of life, breathe in seconds, minutes with full breasts. And they are waiting. The departure of one of the remaining. Like a roulette this remaining life on earth. In a deserted and beautiful village, filled with a viscous silence of tranquility. Being. Memories.
I appeared in this village suddenly, and was perceived as today's salvation from loneliness. A new listener, a foreigner who loves Bulgaria with all his heart and who knows how to listen to long stories of experienced old people. There will be no need to go to your lonely dwellings today. This evening and night will be filled with stories that will hide old people from the expectation of death and take them to the past. Lively and rich past. They knew everything about themselves and told their stories to each other every evening. And here I am - a new listener, the one to whom you can again tell everyone your life story. Sat and listened. Long monologues. Only in the morning, at dawn, they began to disperse, everyone apologized and referred to urgent household chores, realizing that this was a small lie, that there were no important matters, that there was not even a household, but one wanted to sleep. Everyone was pleased that they again plunged into youth by telling me their story. I was pleased that for one day, with my silent and sympathetic listening, I could give these old people more moments of time and life.
I also got up and we said goodbye - we parted. Probably forever and I will never see these faces again - kind and sad, who have lived almost a century of life, having seen the change of times and eras. Although nothing has changed in that village, probably since the days of Turkish slavery. The temporary vacuum of space, changing over time only with childbirth and death, and now slowly dying with the departure of each old man.
And how many such villages are there in Bulgaria. Lot. And each village has its own unique history and modernity. Good country Bulgaria. Come to Bulgaria, we will find such places and not only such. History is being written every moment of time…. .
Sadness of loneliness
