Angel Igov - A Short Tale of Shame

She let Sirma and Spartacus swim out and calmly began paddling along the beach, from time to time simply relaxing onto the water, it would look bad if all three of them rushed out to sea, while Elena’s dad had to sit there and wait for them, and he was clearly worried, actually his attempt to play the fatherly role was pretty laughable, it didn’t fit him, he seemed too nice to be their father, he was a musician, maybe in the business world he had learned to act older than he was, and surely it had strained his nerves, but he was interesting, not only because of his secret, which they had quickly figured out, despite the fact that he didn’t want to talk about it, yes, it would be pretty absurd to pick up three hitchhikers and tell them: My wife just died. Sirma had brought it up on the ferryboat while he was gone, Maya had also noticed that he was wearing his wedding ring on his left hand, only Spartacus hadn’t paid attention, as was to be expected. And now Sirma had once again put her, put them all in an awkward position with her decision to romp around the beach topless; while she was getting ready, Maya wondered what to wear, she usually went topless, too, she almost laughed out loud in the water, remembering how, the first time the two of them had come out of their tents topless, Spartacus, at the height of his testosterone-drenched teenage years, had helplessly gotten a hard-on and had tried to hide it by burying himself in the sand, but since he was so thin and bony, it was painfully obvious, it was cute, of course, he was already used to it, but now it wasn’t just the three of them, they were with Elena’s dad, after all, when there’s an outsider they should at least take that into consideration a little, or else maybe Sirma had gotten it in her head to hook up with him, despite the fact that he was Elena’s father, or precisely because of it; but her breasts were nicer than Sirma’s, Maya was quite sure of this — just as firm, but still significantly larger, weren’t they, no, they weren’t gigantic knockers, of course, and thank goodness for that, but they were larger.

She got out of the water a little dazed and lay down on her towel, she loved that feeling, coming out of the sea wet and letting the sun suck the moisture from your skin, drop by drop, leaving only the salt, the salty sun on her skin, but the exact nuances of that sensation had changed over the years, it had been one thing then, when she was little, she would sink onto the sand, spilling out over it, losing herself amid the countless grains, then that red shiver had appeared, the goose bumps, that warmth behind the eyelids that gradually washed over your whole body and hid between your thighs, even now it wasn’t bad at all, yes, the wind was blowing, licking her moist, salty skin, then from somewhere close by she heard the rhythmic bouncing of a ball, accompanied by a shout from time to time, Maya turned over onto her stomach and lifted her head, a little way down the beach there was a volleyball court and four young men were playing, their dark, sweaty bodies glistened in the sun as if smeared with honey, she stared at their flinching, carved muscles, why not, last year on the Black Sea there’d been that cutie with the blue eyes from Serdika, she again dropped her head onto the towel and closed her eyes, the salty sun behind her eyelids, she heard footsteps nearby and sensed someone’s shadow on her body. Toasting a bit, eh, said Spartacus, you didn’t swim much at all, we went all the way to the buoy, where’s Sirma she asked and Spartacus pointed at the sea over his shoulder, still in the water, she thinks she’s a fish. Move, you’re blocking my sun, she said. Spartacus toweled himself off thoroughly, but afterwards sat down right on the sand, scooped up a handful and watched the grains pouring out between his fingers. Elena’s father also showed up, walking slowly with his arms crossed over his chest, his round face had lost some of its anxiousness. They had to think up something to distract him, the three of them never got tired of being together, but he would surely get bored. With a reflex already honed from communicating with men old enough for the purpose, Maya tried to imagine Boril Krustev in the role of her father. Perhaps he’d do a better job than her real one. Her parents had gotten divorced when she was fifteen, inhabiting the twilight of the fake ninth-grade and periodically falling into funks , which had seemed unique in their scope and intensity before she realized that nothing more typical could possibly happen to her, and even for her, she thought to herself now, the collisions with the hypocrisy of that world, which from the depths of her childhood had looked so coveted and captivating, but which later seemed so nightmarish, even they had passed considerably more easily, because she hadn’t been alone, because she had had Sirma and Spartacus, then they had really begun turning into a single organism. For some unknown reason she remembered far fewer details from her second year of high school than from her first, that time got lost in some vague, rainy autumn evenings, waterlogged by the bland fluorescent lighting in the classrooms, which were completely identical and nobody could figure out why they had to move from one to the other every hour. Her classmates were already resigned to the fact that she and Spartacus were not a couple, even though they shared a desk. But, yes, it was a time when both she and Spartacus slightly envied Sirma for getting way ahead of them after her summer adventure, otherwise Spartacus didn’t seem to be suffering at all and clearly their springtime romance had simply been an experiment which had somehow transformed into the relationship between the three of them, making their current unity possible, there was a girl in their class who was a bit of a metalhead and seemed to be giving Spartacus the eye, and Maya thought it was really funny that because of her the girl didn’t dare venture close to the object of her desire, she talked to Spartacus about it once, why don’t you go out with her, well, actually, I can’t really imagine it, he said, scratching his head, what exactly can’t you imagine, she giggled, but he explained to her in full seriousness that I can’t imagine changing places and going to sit by her. She was struck by this. So does that mean you’re never going to date anybody from our class? And she also asked him in complete seriousness, because the external world to a great extent still began and ended with their class, but he shrugged, they probably all want a serious relationship , while that doesn’t really interest me, I’d rather keep things as they are now with you and Sirma. She didn’t doubt that Spartacus truly took his decision as a sacrifice, although she had already understood one thing: guys are always afraid that girls want a serious relationship and that fear is a projection of their own desire for the same thing. Interesting, Maya wondered, staring at the sand pouring from Spartacus’s hand, if things hadn’t worked out this way, if their triangle didn’t exist, how many serious relationships would she have gone through between her fourteenth and twentieth years? And how many of them would she have naively thought would lead to a logical marriage, however, as early as fifteen she realized that a logical marriage could also lead to a logical divorce, her parents had been together since high school, they had gotten married young, they must be only slightly older than Krustev, and clearly their marriage had not survived beyond the withering of their youthful love, in that case it was surely preferable to get married later or not to get married at all, and can you imagine, Maya suddenly said to herself and inwardly burst out laughing, marrying Spartacus, but they had better first become politicians and take control of the government so as to allow marriages between three people and issue a decree in support of fornication. Around the time she started high school, when she became a fake , she started drawing certain conclusions and suspecting that her mother was having an affair, there were those hushed phone conversations, business trips and cold silences in the living room, and Maya instinctively took her father’s side, even though, thinking back on it logically, he surely was having an affair, too, at that time. By the end of the summer, her father and mother avoided sitting down at the table together and she was sure that if they had had the space at home and an extra room, her father would have moved out of the nuptial bed (but why her father, actually, why shouldn’t her mother be the one to move out?). And in the end the evening rolled around when she came home from school and caught sight of her brother watching cartoons on TV, she suddenly felt a rush of affection, he was still a kid, he had no idea what he was in for, she sat down by him and they watched cartoons together, where are Mom and Dad, she asked and he shrugged and said there’s a note in the kitchen saying they’re going out and will be back around eight-thirty, Maya was quite surprised, because the last thing she would’ve expected her parents to do at that point was to go out together, but, as it turns out, they wanted to sit down in neutral territory, at some nearby restaurant and, with the help of a nice dinner, admit that there was no point in being together anymore and that yes, the kids were already old enough, they would understand… Maya made sandwiches for herself and her brother and sent him off to play on the computer, while she sat down to read, she had started in on Tender Is the Night , now there’s another ruined marriage for you, but at least her mother wasn’t crazy or at least not that much, she jumped when she heard the click of the key in the lock and went to meet the awkward expressions pasted to her parents’ faces, her brother ran up and asked them where they had been, but they asked instead whether he and Maya had eaten, praised her for the sandwiches, went into the living room and began coughing nervously. Okay, they’re going to tell us now that they’re getting a divorce, Maya thought, and froze in absurd, anxious expectation, as if she were about to witness some extremely solemn, holy ritual, and indeed, they clearly had decided to do it, they started out with some general chitchat, beating around the bush and surely-you’ve-noticed, well yes, they had noticed, Maya thought to herself, they had even discussed it and her brother really was only a child, but he was old enough to understand. At a certain moment, everything hung in an abrupt pause. Then her father started in again, you are both old enough, I think you’ll understand, actually, her mother finished off in a tired voice, your father and I are thinking of getting a divorce. The lack of drama was shocking. In films, in books, people suffered, broke down, screamed and smashed china. But this wasn’t a film, nor a book, this was real life, colorless and dull, and the sacred ritual crumbled to the floor like dust, the earth did not tremble and the world did not blaze up in supernatural conflagration, their parents looked at them helplessly and Maya, too, could not find anything to say, while her brother shifted his gaze between the three of them, unfairly thrust by their silence into a position which he should never have had to be in at all, finally he got up and with a slightly quavering voice said well, I already knew you were gonna get divorced, it’s not news to me, for your information, so fine, if that’s what you want, go ahead and get divorced, so be it. So be it , he must have gotten that from some film about epic battles and wise sorcerers.