Georgi Tenev - Party Headquarters

Now, when I’m running and again silent, when the whistling of air in my lungs resembles a sharp internal shout meant to further inspire me. Now I’d like to know: what exactly I was thinking about during that time, during all those mute months and years? I can’t have forgotten, that’s impossible. It would be terrible to think that I was waiting only for that: getting out, the elementary freedom of movement, and, of course — communication with girls’ bodies, which is the only thing that saves you from the need to be constantly moving, running, patrolling your post all night. Otherwise you’ll have to wallow in forgetfulness and nonchalance like all the others, to fatten up. The youths with whom only a year ago I had first stood at attention had changed, they were no longer boys, which meant they had filled out — with thickened necks, rounded out with flab — even when they were fairly muscular. Even when they were healthy village boys used to physical labor, boys for whom — unlike us urbanites — physical strength was a natural condition instead of scrawniness, weakness, the inexplicable infirmity of glasses perched on one’s nose. They all grew heavy, weighing down their own bodies, and began dragging their feet in exhaustion. Was it the pointlessness that was poisoning them — did they do it to spite the army, stubbornly withholding the gift of their fresh physique? There wasn’t much point for such a physique to exist here anyway, arrested in inactivity. Just as I felt I was being wasted, unneeded. I deserved other epaulettes, other clothing, I knew which ones.

It would’ve been naïve and embarrassing to say it aloud, but I hadn’t forgotten my childish-youthful goals, I still remembered the paragliders, the taste of my dreams of being a parachutist, we wanted to be paratroopers, and those wings, crossed on Gagarin’s emblems and epaulettes.

I remained proud. My contempt for the niggling dreams of my fellow soldiers was not a reason to claim, however, that dreams didn’t exist at all. The only thing was — I didn’t understand which ones, I failed to look into it. I didn’t ask anyone — like I said, I was pretty much silent. The rest of the time I spent working out and being the model soldier. You’ve never seen anything like it.

Of course, swallowing back tears and clenching my teeth behind whitened lips, I had to fight for every ounce of muscle mass. For every fiber I wove into the elastic bands that rolled and unrolled my joints. Could I really have been so naïve? What thoughts worried me, how I clenched the bar between my fingers to bruising, doing pull-ups: fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, I didn’t stop until my tendons froze up, with a pain in my ribs and chest, until my elbows stretched out with a creak as if falling apart. But how else could I guarantee my upward path? How exemplary a Pioneer, Comsomol member, soldier, private, corporal and so on did I have to be, I asked myself, in order to finally become the Third Bulgarian Cosmonaut? I didn’t know the secret pathways to this starry career, but I could at least take care of the physical preparation on my own. Even there in the rack for beating carpets in the courtyard or on the bar made of welded pipes between the whitewashed curbstones on the base’s parade grounds — in my sleep, even, I voluntarily tormented my limbs and stomach muscles with new and heavier weights. The feeling is so strong — the physical sensation, that is — that I want to stop the moment, that moment, that hanging with strained arms. As if balancing on the blade of the body, turned into a drill, as I lower myself down over her belly. And not only to stop these movements with the egotistical goal of remaining within them infinitely, but also to succeed in stopping the very movement beyond them, toward infinity. And to stop the memories. This hasn’t happened to me with any other girl, only with her —she erases all memories in her wake and they cease to exist to a certain extent. And I cease to exist to a certain extent. That’s it, perhaps that’s why I want to stop that moment in time, to stop time itself.

I was envious of the healthy, solid skeletons upon which the bodies of my fellow pawns in the army seemed to be built. Dressed so naturally in their skin, and the skin itself so naturally colored, impervious to the influences of the atmosphere. Their skin was somehow differently pigmented, since it didn’t get so bitterly and painfully ruined as mine did at the very first attempt to look the sun straight in the eye. So what cosmos for me in that case? you may ask. Never mind that the government itself had already given up on its space program.

Yes, you’re right. The thing is, however, that even after the army I continued — albeit in some kind of mourning — to search for the absolute. But why along such ridiculous paths? I don’t know, but I simply agreed and the two of us — the girl with the vodka — set off.

We set off through the apartment blocks. It’s close, she said, and went on talking. I was carrying the rather heavy bag with the tin can, bread, and beer. I was expecting it to break any minute, that’s why I was clutching it. So I would look even more ridiculous.

For at least a short while I didn’t feel hungry. But I didn’t even ask myself that question — why am I so hungry all the time?! My only thoughts were: maybe I should take off, go home, open up the can. And eat it with toasted bread, drink the beer, and sit down with the chocolate as desert in front of the television, if there’s anything good on. But we passed by the bus stop, I kept walking with her. I would have to walk home, I didn’t know how far it was back downtown. Hopefully this party would be worth it — although I had my doubts.

I’m talking about the time when 24-hour stores could be counted on one hand and nobody had even heard of a Chinese restaurant.

I’m talking about the time when I was twenty.

It was a narrow living room in a panel-block apartment, an apartment block in the midst of all the other apartment blocks. There were two guys about my age sitting there. One of them was probably the friend she’d mentioned to me and the other guy was his friend. There were no girls there and — I would suspect — there had never been any. On the low press-board table stood an empty wine bottle and a half-full bottle of liquor, one of those completely undrinkable kinds. The new bottle didn’t seem to pique as much interest as my arrival, but even that lasted only briefly. At least they acted like they didn’t care and left the questions for later. They poured vodka into their glasses and left her standing. They didn’t ask her about me, she’d brought me here and that was that, without “why” or “how.” Maybe the only girl in the group enjoyed special privileges. Then the question logically arose: why was she the one sent to buy alcohol at 11 p.m.? The answer: so as not to risk being recognized at the store, the very same store where earlier they had stolen the wine and liquor. That explained the strange choice of drinks, since these dusty bottles were always on the very back shelf in the corner, where no one ever passes by, so it’s a cinch to hide them under your shirt.

“Pour him a drink, why don’t you!” she shouted from time to time, pointing at me. “Don’t be a tight-ass, I bought the vodka. And I spit on him to boot, the poor guy.”

It was the sad, gloomy, and impoverished time of the Transition, without electricity.

It was a convenient time for the illusion that the Comsomol and all the memories that went along with it could be finished off once and for all. The past, which is eminently accusable, even though it can no longer repay you with anything.

When you see a million and a half neatly tucked in a briefcase on the table, those illusions capsize like canoes and the truth gapes in front of you. For all your moral causes, for all your unfulfilled dreams you haven’t gotten a single penny. No matter how righteous your cause, that guy , K-shev, for example, still managed to collect the dividend, despite his wrongness, despite the brazenness of his crime. Somehow he cashed in your very self.