Maria Genova - Communism, Sex and Lies

Frank and I walked along the streets that were filled with free entrepreneurs. One sold sunflower seeds, the other had placed a set of scales on the pavement to get people to weigh themselves in exchange for money, a third had opened a repair shop in his garage. A large sign hung across his door: ‘We fix everything. Knock hard, because the doorbell doesn’t work.’

The best thing about free entrepreneurship was that everyone tried their hardest to look like a Western businessman. More and more English signs appeared in hotels, restaurants and shops. I laughed at their broken English: ‘Women are asked not to have any children in the bar.’ In a hotel, I saw another gem: ‘Toilet out of order, please use the floor below.’

Because of lack of money all shops sold ‘original copies’ of the well-known brands. Most salespeople didn’t even want to admit that they were counterfeit goods and all those people that bought Nike sneakers, Chanel perfumes and Ray-Ban sunglasses, it didn’t matter.

The memories of the past disappeared just as quickly as the largest part of the Berlin Wall.

Before we left Sofia, I wanted Frank to meet my cousin. I was curious how Julia as a city girl had settled in her husband’s small village. My aunt told me the military factory where her husband worked had switched from producing weapons to making consumer products and that their income was eaten away by the sky-high inflation. Now they could no longer survive just on his salary, they had to grow potatoes, vegetables and fruit in their vegetable patch around their house. They had also acquired a few chickens for the eggs.

Julia’s parents, who drove us to the village, were clearly still not happy that their only daughter had married a farmer. They had exchanged the rickety Trabant for a Fiat, but there was no progress to be seen in the village. The third hand Fiat sounded like it needed to be repaired, but at least they drove in style in a Western car.

On the bendy road to the village my uncle tried some time to overtake a tractor. That failed at each attempt because of his wife’s instructions. Long live emancipation! We finally ended up in a herd of sheep that was crossing the road and we had to stop. That brought back the calm in the car.

Fifteen minutes later we were once again behind the tractor’s smelly exhaust fumes. This time our driver made a decisive turn of the steering wheel. A car coming from the opposite direction signed with his lights. Driven by a primeval instinct, my uncle slammed the brakes. Frank had no idea what was happening, but every Bulgarian knew this was a warning for a police control. About 100 metres along the road a car with radar equipment was parked in the bushes. Once he was out of sight of the policeman my uncle also used his headlights to warn other road users for the impending danger. Together secretly against authority, this was the best remnant of communism. It was nearly the only form of solidarity that still existed in a society that was trying its best to become a copy of the West.

Julia looked like a real farmer with her blue overalls and freshly picked green beans in her hands. I hardly recognized her when I saw her for the first time in her vegetable patch. Her husband arrived in a rusty Russian Lada. They were happy it still drove, because they did not have any money for a new car. Julia told us excitedly about her new life. She sometimes found the village boring, but something great was about to happen: she was pregnant. Her husband was just as silent as when I had met him first. His lagging behind with regards to the latest fashion had only increased.

Frank thought it was interesting to walk around a real Bulgarian village, but I couldn’t wait to leave. The next two weeks we focused on our young love, which took place under the all-seeing eyes of my parents. We longed for a little bit of privacy, but we weren’t allowed any. After some tears and begging we were finally allowed to spend one week together with just the two of us. The next day we took the train to the Black Sea, afraid my parents would change their mind. ‘If you come back pregnant you can find somewhere else to live,’ my mother said when we left.

The next morning Frank brought me breakfast in bed, completely naked, but wearing a tie. I thought that was both funny and sexy at the same time. I couldn’t resist a romantic stuck inside the body of a playboy. After the breakfast, he turned the uninviting bathroom into a room full of candles and filled the bath with champagne. It was the first time that I had literally and figuratively got drunk from pleasure.

While I dried myself, Frank pressed my back against the wall. I shivered from excitement by the power he exuded. The hard ground under my feet turned into quick sand. His stubble grated against my cheeks with tender determination. The next moment his sensual tongue weakened all my muscles. He pushed his tongue teasing and tasting my mouth, as if he was suggesting that he could do the same to me elsewhere. My fingers moved in slow motion along his firm thighs towards his swollen penis. I felt dizzy with desire. He pressed his muscular thigh between my legs and that brought out such a sensual feeling in me that things seemed to speed up. My muscles were overwhelmed by an endless wave of contractions.

After we had experienced how much our bodies enjoyed being together, we couldn’t stay away from each other. Yet I still didn’t want to give up my virginity. Why would I risk my parents kicking me out of the house if we also fulfilled our needs this way?

If a fortune teller had predicted that I would fall in love with a foreigner and that I would follow him to a country that I hardly knew anything about, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. I was about to go to university, I had my pick of boyfriends and since the new government had started to return expropriated properties our family belonged to the nouveau riche. We suddenly owned a shop, a wine cellar, stately homes and a lot of land, which meant that after university I could live on the profits of the inherited possessions. This was also the reason all my friends said I was being foolish when I told them I was moving to the Netherlands.

It didn’t worry me, because after the romantic weekend at the Black Sea I no longer doubted that I had met my knight in shining armour. My heart had already travelled a long distance and I thought it was natural for my body to follow my heart. To my great surprise my parents didn’t object to my emigrating that much. My mother did warn me that I would be disappointed.

‘You don’t know the language, you have no friends and no work. You are kidding yourself that your love for this man will make everything all right, but it will be a question of survival. And what happens if you two fight? You don’t know what he’s like when he becomes angry.’

‘You’re right, I don’t know, but I’m not afraid of that. You once said yourself that a fight in a relationship is like the herbs in a dish: it makes it spicy and exciting. Besides you can always make up after a fight. Sometime not with words, but it always works out in bed.’

I saw my mother freeze. Even the tiniest of sexual hints made her restless. She gave up, probably out of fear of possible details how to solve a fight with seduction.

I don’t know how my parents felt when they finally let me go to the Netherlands. Perhaps they were relieved that they had got rid of their rebellious and unpredictable daughter or perhaps they hoped that after my three-month visa expired I would come to my senses and come home.

Frank loved his independence too much to just give it up and I didn’t have to try getting my own way. Using the motto of ‘We do things this way and that way in the Netherlands’ I was virtually gagged. Our fights were usually settled in bed and then discussed them. Both of us didn’t actually mind fighting because we knew what they led to. Making love to him for the first time made me think of my bungee jump from the hot air balloon: it was very liberating; the feeling of fear had gone. Our bodies moved in the fluid magical rhythm of ebb and flow. His kisses electrified my senses and the excitement spread in shockwaves through my body. My lips trembled, my hair whirled around my face at every boisterous movement and I flowed like an uncorked bottle of champagne.