Georgi Gospodinov - The Physics of Sorrow

I remember that neighboring house very well. Back then, Blind Mariyka was alive and Lord knows why we were so terrified of her. During the day she would stay hidden inside her room, only in the evenings would she come out into the yard and wander amid the trees with her arms stretched out wide. Some said she saw better at night than during the day, since the darkness within her and the darkness outside got along. Just like with moles. Folks in these parts don’t mince words.

Otherwise, everything was the same. The street still bore its old name, that of a Soviet commander, the room was the same, with a table, a bed, and an old oil stove. Even the now-faded orchids on the wallpaper hadn’t changed.

A family of swallows had built a nest under the eaves of the house. They had three little ones. In the evening I would deliberately leave the light on outside. It lured flies and moths, which the swallows would catch. Soon I found myself wondering if what I was doing was right. I was helping one species kill another more easily. Yes, the swallows had babies that needed more food. Children are a bulletproof alibi. But most likely those flies and moths I was victimizing had children, too. Why should the little swallows be more precious than flies’ larvae? Are not the murder of a fly and the murder of an elephant both murders equally?

I had come back to that house in T. for a specific reason. I pull up the floorboard to the right of the window. That’s where the bed had been. As a child, I had hidden a secret stash box there. Afterward we had moved quickly and I hadn’t been able to take the box. I told myself that one day, I would come back for it. That box gave rise to all those later boxes and crates, they all stemmed from it and at the end of the day, without it my collection would never be complete.

The End of the Indians

Let’s have a moment of silence for the dead Indians and those of us from their tribe. I need to add them to that catalogue of disappeared things. Along with those extinct pagers, videotapes, and Tamagotchis. When we watched Winnetou , we all become Winnetou. After Osceola , the neighborhood was filled with Osceolas. It was the same thing all over again with Tecumseh, Tokei-ihto, Severino, and Chingachook, the Great Snake. I know that now these names mean nothing to those who were born later. Batman, Spider-Man, and the Ninja Turtles have managed to get the upper hand over the Indians and their whole mythology, dishonestly at that, never once going directly into battle against them. They finished up what the pale faces had begun two centuries ago.

The story I want to tell takes place after the showing of one of these old East German cowboy films. I remember that we always came out of the movie theater dazed, as if after a battle with the Whites. For at least an hour afterward, we always had one foot still in the film, half-Indians, half-third-graders. It was almost a physical sensation. And so, after one of these films, we went to a bakery near the movie theater to get our usual boza and tulumbichka . We needed quite some time to pull ourselves together after the battles, to climb down off our horses and reenter the dull Bulgarian world. We got in line at the bakery. Finally, it was time for the first of our gang, let’s call him our “chief,” to order, and he ordered his boza and tulumbichka with dignity. The woman at the counter, however, was chatting with someone and didn’t hear him. Our chief stood in front of the display case with a stony expression on his ten-year-old face. When the woman finally looked at him and somewhat rudely snapped, “Come on, squirt, tell me what ya want, I don’t have all day,” he spat out coldly: “Chingachook does not like to repeat himself.” No one had expected this. It definitely took guts to spout off such a line and the long pause, during which only the ceiling fan could be heard, underscored the magnificence of the moment. A second later, however, the woman and several of the regular customers burst out laughing as if on cue. That was really low (super-duper low, as we would have said back then), worse than if they’d smacked us around or thrown us out. Chingachook couldn’t take it and dashed outside. We also “spurred our horses.”

None of us made fun of Chingachook afterward; on the contrary, we admired his courage in a world that didn’t give a shit about you. Especially if you’re a kid in third grade.

The epilogue to this story is far more depressing. Strolling around the town of T. now, years later, I came across a carnival shooting gallery. I could have sworn that it was the same trailer from my childhood, faded and rusted out. Even the rifles were the same, the butts were just more worn than ever. This had once been the most magical place for us. Only here could we see all the foreign treasures that were otherwise locked away (I now know that they came from Yugoslavia). It was an Ali Baba’s cave with candy cigarettes, color postcards of Gojko Mitić, Claudia Cardinale, Brigitte Bardot, pocket calendars of naked women, decks of cards, pictures of a woman who would wink at you, depending on which angle you looked at her from, pens with a boat floating inside it, scented Chinese erasers, pistol-shaped cigarette lighters, cap guns, leather belts with huge metal buckles, Elvis Presley pins, Eiffel Tower key chains, old calendars with the whole Levski soccer team, glass canes full of colorful candy, sparklers, leather cowboy hats, plastic holsters, glass balls of every size and color, Bakelite ballerinas, porcelain Little Red Riding Hoods complete with a wolf. This whole porcelain-plastic kitsch emporium, which, I repeat, was once priceless to us, now looked run down and defeated. In every store, you could now see far greater treasures (and far greater kitsch). Right in front stood those brown, poorly molded Indians with their tomahawks, bows, spears, horses, and so on, which we would have given our right arms for back then. I went over to the trailer and suddenly recognized in the man behind the counter the once-proud Chingachook, aged and paunchy, calling out to a group of kids who were passing by unimpressed. The film was over.

I didn’t say anything to him, I stepped back into the shadows of the chestnuts across the way and stayed there, watching. A short while later, a boy of around fifteen, most likely his son, came up to the trailer; they exchanged a few words and Chingachook left. I waited a bit, then went over to the boy. I paid for ten shots, picked one of the two rifles, and started shooting at the walnuts. With the first shot it became clear that the rifle’s aim was off a few centimeters to the left. That old trick used in all shooting galleries, it downright warmed my heart.

“This rifle’s aim is off,” I said.

“Well uh, no, it shouldn’t be,” the boy blushed. “Try the other one.”

“No, no, I’ve already figured out how far this one is off,” I laughed. I broke a few walnuts, then took aim at the wolf that was hot on the rabbit’s trail, then at the prince, who bowed and kissed the princess.

“Pick a prize, sir,” the boy said, after I’d put the rifle back in its place.

I asked how much the Indians cost, I picked up a squatting brave shooting a bow and arrow, another on horseback, I caressed their edges, looking them over like a connoisseur. The boy stood there, staring in disbelief. I was surely the first one who had shown any interest in them. When I said that I wanted to buy all the Indians, he looked frightened. He didn’t know what his dad would say, he was really attached to them. But they are for sale, aren’t they, I asked more sharply. Yes, of course, they’re for sale, the boy replied, looking around helplessly for his father. How much? The price, of course, was laughable. Look, here’s what we’ll do, I said, I’ll pay for all of them, but only take half. I’ll leave the others for your dad. And tell him not to give them away so cheap. They’ve got added value from the past. I’m not sure he understood me.